Male Studies
According to an article in Inside Higher Education, in April, 2010, the Foundation for Male Studies was started at Wagner College in Long Island, NY. The organizers say they want to consider males without also dealing with females. That is how they distinguish their field from Men's Studies, which is often grouped with Women's Studies into a Gender Studies Department where both kinds of issues get attention.
The organizers of the conference where the Foundation began see men and boys as an underrepresented minority, and don't believe there is any utility in trying to combine their studies with any consideration of the female per se. But that doesn't mean they will not address the output of Women's Studies programs. Spokesman Lionel Tiger believes feminism includes "a well-meaning, highly successful, very colorful denigration of maleness as a force, as a phenomenon." he and others anticipate that Male Studies must include a critique of feminism.
There will be a society, a journal, and periodic meetings of this new group. Tiger says that today's men feel discriminated against, particularly in institutions of higher learning. Male Studies is intended to redress the balance. Robert Heasley, president of the American Men's Studies Association, refused to speak at the conference where the group was founded. He believes that there is not a need for this group and that it will be polarizing. He said,"Their argument is that they're inventing something that I think already exists."
What do you think?
A. I agree that feminism denigrates men and boys.
B. There is some truth to the put-down of men and boys by feminism, but there is no need for this group.
C. This group is a right-oriented attack on women; we should oppose it.
B I think the history is clear that women, probably out of necessity, had to paint all men as dangerous enemies back in the day. It's not true now but that flavor can flare up at any time.
Hi Mossyatoms,
I totally agree. The whole lit canon was men when I was in college, and white men at that. I love the fact that Junot Diaz was assigned in a lit course today. I like to cruise the shelves and see what's being read today, and both gender and ethnic diversity seem to be coming into their own but I think there is still some way to go before it's really balanced for women. Two readings out of ten for the females is better but not perfect!
cheers,
Laura
In my experience, the majority of survey courses in the humanities were really "Male Studies" classes anyway. I find it thoroughly amusing that there is a foundation to address inequity in the wrong direction. Men and boys are certainly not an "underrepresented minority" in higher education.
We have gender studies and I am not sure about the Men's Studies part of it, but from afar, it seems quite deeply into homosexuality and AIDS/ARC/HIV outreach. I believe our women's studies is much more general than that. But i doubt whether Male Studies would be a good impartial observer field.
I wouldn't tell a bunch of men what to study about themselves and I give them no right to tell me what to study in Women's Studies and Gender Studies. Separate but equal might have a bad history, but in this case it works.
Hi Helen,
I would like to look at the curriculum that men's studies (the more orthodox form, I guess) uses to see whether or not this new Male Studies fills a gap, but it sure sounds more political than substantive to me.
Readers, if you know more, let us in on it!
cheers,
Laura Hoopes
B. I agree that sometimes the rhetoric is inevitable in the men vs. women debates. But there is no need for a group that ignores women entirely when there are already Male Studies available. I understand the founder's discontent as I've heard those arguments made before by men of my acquaintance. I just think that that viewpoint is already being represented.
C. I am not opposed to the ideas of the right per se, but here they've really gone too far. Feminism is about being for women, not about 'denigrating' men.
