next »

[canuckois]

Not from the CHE, but this came across my inbox and I thought I'd share it here.

From the article:

"Specifically, [the Men's Rights Movement Group] advocates for the establishment of a Male Studies Dept. at ASU, and against new standards for prosecution of campus sexual assault cases, which the group feels unfairly favor the accuser. Morris said his group doesn't consider any specific campus women's groups its enemies — 'however, since much of feminism is built on top of falsities and half truths in order to manipulate, women, men and society, and promoting the adoption of an aristocratic vengeful victim mindset against males, natural man, or masculinity, testosterone (you name it), the Men's Rights Movement Group at times will be targeting the feminist political power base and rhetoric in effort for reformation for the benefit of all.'"

I'm sure there are forumites who work at ASU -- is anyone able to tell us what the response has been to this "movement"?

[concordancia]

Well, men who want to oppress women are being told they can't do that, so I guess they are oppressed. And if they are oppressed, the can't be the oppressors, so feminists are liars!

I do think that it would do our society a service to consider gender studies from all angles, including masculinity, but this sounds like someone who just wants to put women back in their place. I wonder what their definition of "natural man" is.

[lost_angeleno]

The whole topic causes me psychological trauma.  And scrotum sag.

[gsawpenny]

See, everyone is oppressed...or is that depressed?

[aandsdean]

What the hell is an "aristocratic vengeful victim mindset"?  Is it like the Princess Anastasia rising from the grave to assassinate Lenin?

[yemaya]

"Men" of this mindset are inevitably of low intelligence, minimal education and often not very successful in their work or social lives.  It's much easier for them to find a scapegoat then to recognize that they're just a bunch of angry, entitled losers whose lot in life are exclusively the result of their own mediocrity.  The story of Indle King, who murdered his Russian mail-order bride, when she decided that she was misled about what she was signing up for and was done with his cr@p comes to mind.

[tuxedo_cat]

I do think that it would do our society a service to consider gender studies from all angles  including masculinity,, but this sounds like someone who just wants to put women back in their place. I wonder what their definition of "natural man" is.

Hey guess what: feminist scholars and teachers have been doing this for a long time (this is not a critique of you, concordancia).  Ever wonder why a lot of Women's Studies Departments are now called "Gender Studies" or "Women's and Gender Studies"?  Not to mention "Gender and Sexualities Studies."

This is a very interesting story -- if any of you have links to updates, please post.  I will certainly include a bit about it in my next "Intro to Women's and Gender Studies" syllabus.

[canuckois]

I do think that it would do our society a service to consider gender studies from all angles  including masculinity,, but this sounds like someone who just wants to put women back in their place. I wonder what their definition of "natural man" is.

Hey guess what: feminist scholars and teachers have been doing this for a long time (this is not a critique of you, concordancia).  Ever wonder why a lot of Women's Studies Departments are now called "Gender Studies" or "Women's and Gender Studies"?  Not to mention "Gender and Sexualities Studies."

This is a very interesting story -- if any of you have links to updates, please post.  I will certainly include a bit about it in my next "Intro to Women's and Gender Studies" syllabus.

I plan to use this as an example in my own course on gender, tuxedo_cat.

And yes, as is pointed out in the article, faculty at ASU deliberately changed the name of their unit to Women and Gender Studies in an effort to promote inclusion. 

[zharkov]

Will there be drumming?

Seriously, this sounds like a story from the early 90s, perhaps a feature in the editorial section of a Sunday newspaper. 

Stealing a line from (the fictitious) Larry Summers in Social Network, What more important things are you guys not doing that you have time for this?

[polly_mer]

<shouldn't post>

<no time to get embroiled>

Argh, all right, I'm in.

A Gender Studies department would be neutral.  A Women and Gender Studies Department reminds of me of the guy (dean, department chair, can't remember) who was going to get more women in engineering by planting flowers outside the engineering building.

Yep, that's pretty inclusive by not mentioning men by implying gender includes everyone while mentioning women explicitly.  Can't at all see why anyone would be mad there. </sarcasm>

While the guys in the article are being young and foolish, I object to the characterization

"Men" of this mindset are inevitably of low intelligence, minimal education and often not very successful in their work or social lives.  It's much easier for them to find a scapegoat then to recognize that they're just a bunch of angry, entitled losers whose lot in life are exclusively the result of their own mediocrity.

Some good points can be made against the feminists-as-a-pejorative term and have been made by people of all genders who have above average intelligence.

However, just as those feminists-as-a-pejorative term tend to be the ones who get the most media time (look at the crazies), the pro-men-as-a-pejorative term also have a sampling bias toward the most-likely-to-get-a-lot-of-traffic (look at those crazies).

[canuckois]

A Gender Studies department would be neutral.  A Women and Gender Studies Department reminds of me of the guy (dean, department chair, can't remember) who was going to get more women in engineering by planting flowers outside the engineering building.

Yep, that's pretty inclusive by not mentioning men by implying gender includes everyone while mentioning women explicitly.  Can't at all see why anyone would be mad there. </sarcasm>

"Women Studies" and "Gender Studies" are two different, well-established fields of inquiry.  A Women and Gender Studies department is the academic equivalent of a Chemical and Mechanical Engineering department.  There's obviously some overlap between them, but also the recognition that they sometimes ask different questions and employ different methodologies.

Now, if you want to argue that Women Studies is inherently non-inclusive, then you'd better be prepared to argue the same for African-American Studies or Native American Studies.  Maybe we should just have, you know, "People Studies."  </sarcasm>

[spinnaker]

I don't know about oppression but look at what Joe Biden says; here's an example of inequality: http://www.justice.gov/olc/2010/vawa-opinion-04272010.pdf

Why is violence against women the worst kind of abuse? And does that statement apply to violence against women, committed by female romantic partner or stalker?

This is interesting too: http://www.justice.gov/olc/2010/vawa-opinion-04272010.pdf

[oldfullprof]

Me, me, me
What we gonna do without me
I'm gonna have to do without me
As an identitee, tee, tee

Seriously, I don't think we've gone far enough with identity studies.  There's no reason we can't create whole departments about our specific identities, and their additive oppressions.  As a diabetic, for example, I should be able to complain about sugarism, and normal blood sugar "privilige."  Or as a left hander, I should be able to complain about handism and dexter-privilege.  We could create departments of identity studies where we begin to address these issues!

[yemaya]

<shouldn't post>

<no time to get embroiled>

Argh, all right, I'm in.

A Gender Studies department would be neutral.  A Women and Gender Studies Department reminds of me of the guy (dean, department chair, can't remember) who was going to get more women in engineering by planting flowers outside the engineering building.

Yep, that's pretty inclusive by not mentioning men by implying gender includes everyone while mentioning women explicitly.  Can't at all see why anyone would be mad there. </sarcasm>

While the guys in the article are being young and foolish, I object to the characterization

"Men" of this mindset are inevitably of low intelligence, minimal education and often not very successful in their work or social lives.  It's much easier for them to find a scapegoat then to recognize that they're just a bunch of angry, entitled losers whose lot in life are exclusively the result of their own mediocrity.

Some good points can be made against the feminists-as-a-pejorative term and have been made by people of all genders who have above average intelligence.

However, just as those feminists-as-a-pejorative term tend to be the ones who get the most media time (look at the crazies), the pro-men-as-a-pejorative term also have a sampling bias toward the most-likely-to-get-a-lot-of-traffic (look at those crazies).

I'm not using men-as-a-pejorative term generally.  I'm not a fan of male-bashing...I think it undermines gender equality, which is a pretty basic premise of feminism.  I just have a strong distaste for a particular (small) subset who behave like whiny, entitled crybabies.

[spinnaker]

Oops, I meant to post this with the other one: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2010/09/23/Biden-honors-Violence-Against-Women-Act/UPI-24651285244251/