Masculinity is fast becoming a scholarly endeavor in schools
By Carol Barta
The Dallas Morning News
Fifty sophomore men at St. John's University in Collegeville, Minn., went drum-beating with myth-teller Michael Meade in the woods, where they sang and danced around the campfire and bonded.
At Hobart College in upstate New York, a course in "Men and Masculinity" explore topics of manhood, sexism, homophobia and violence, utilizing films such as "Philadelphia," Deliverance," "City Slickers" and "Born on the Fourth of July."
A University of Richmond visiting speakers program featured a men's studies scholar who doubles as a stand-up comedian for his routine: "Testosterone: Asset or Liability."
Courses in women's studies began 30 years ago, riding the wave of the women's movement. They're commonplace today.
The newer trend is men's studies. Through classes, workshops and speakers programs, students are examining what it means to be male in a changing society.
"We've come full circle," says history professor Rocco "Chip" Capraro, who suggests that courses such as the one he teaches at Hobard and William Smith colleges in Geneva, Ontario County, are "an outcome of changes in women's lives and their implications for men."
"Traditional studies have always been masculine," says Peter Travis, who teaches "The Masculine Mystique" at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. "What's new is that masculinity is being scrutinized."
Most scholars see men's studies as a healthy and supportive outgrowth of femminism. Some view it as a backlash against a women's movement gone too far. Still others believe that creating such an academic dicipline is as futile an effort as trying to change a jock strap into a bra.
Christina Hoff Sommers fears men's studies "will be dominated by scholars who are trying to carry out the feminist mission. So we'llhavetwo male-bashing centers - women's studies and men's studies."
Author of the conservative book "Who Stole Feminism: How Women Have Betrayed Women," Sommers thinks gender studies should be based in the sciences, not the humanities.
But most women's and men's studies, she says, "begin with the dubious assumption that male-female differences are inventions of society."
Enough social scientists disagree with her premise, however, to unleash the current spurt of scolarly activity.
Sam Femiano, a Northampton, Mass., pyschologist and a founder of the American Men's Studies Association, has tracked the growth of men's studies from about 40 courses in the early 1980s to 300 a decade later, to an estimated 500 today.
Leonard Duroche of the University of Minnesota, AMSA president, says it's hard to count the courses because they cross lines - including sociology, pyschology, literature, history, languages, religion, communications and women's studies.
Most courses are in the Midwest, the Northeast or California. Courses usually crop up where there are scholars who want to teach them. Paradoxically, teachers say, the subject interests more women than men.
But few such classes are found in Texas - which some attribute to the strong Southern tradition of the male as caretaker and the state's natural machismo.
Elsewhere, scholars link the growth of men's studies to societal changes that have created confusion about men's roles - particularly the breadwinner role. Some look back at the 1950s for explaination.
Robert Bly, in his 1990 book, "Iron John: A Book About Men," writes about the '50s model man.
"He got to work early, labored responsibly, supported his wife and children and admired discipline. The '50s man was supposed to like football, be aggressive, stick up for the United States, never cry, and always provide. … Unless he has an enemy, he isn't sure he is alive."
Capraro's class at Hobart reads from a 1950s home economics text about how a wife should treat Dad when he comes home from the office: She should turn down the appliances, make sure the kids are clean, offer him a cold drink and listen to his problems first.
The students chuckle.
The realm of study goes from home, to workplace, to society at large. Issues range from male stereotyping to date rape.
Michael S. Kimmel, a sociology professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, has written several men's studies books, including "Men's Lives," which is often used as a course text. In his most recent book, "Manhood In America: A Cultural History," he debates Robert Bly and the mytho-poetic movement.
"They do useful work with men trying to live more connected lives, but I do not think the way to do that is by running off to the woods to bond with other men, but to do th ekind of work we need to do in our homes in terms of nurturing and caring.
"Instead of Iron John, we need to be Ironing John," he says.
Fatherhood has become a hot topic because social scientists identify some of today's problems - gangs, drugs and juvenile violence - with the absense of a father figure. Duke University offered a three-week continuing education course called "Fathers and Sons" this spring.
St. John's each year invites a speaker on the topic of war, according to Gar Kellom, vice president for student affairs. Students want to know, he says" "Why are our generations formed by war? Why is it that war defines men?"
At Hobart, the movie "Bornon the Fourth of July" is used to examine how one individual tried to achieve manhood first as a gung-ho soldier in Vietnam and later as a disabled was protester.
Kellom believes male stdents "need to critically examine the roles they've been encultured to play in society - the John Wayne, Marlboro Man, Arnold Schwarzenegger roles. .. They don't have to be mucho macho. They can be sensitive, caring, supportive individuals doing servide."
Another topical area is gender communications. A speaker in the men's development program at Richmond this year discussed "Genderspeak: Decoding Male and Female Language Differences."
There is also a spiritual component to men's studies.
Stephen Boyd, who teaches "Men's Studies and Religion" at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, believes much of the energy around men's studies comes froma spiritual renewal in the country, typified by the Promise Keepers and the Million Man March.
The spiritual aspect emerged as Eugine August, an English professor at the University of Dayton, assembled the second edition of "The New Men's Studies," a bibliography of 1,049 books, published in 1995.
The number of books doubled in 10 years in such subjects as men's health, sports, the arts, humor, and war and peace.
At Ohio University, Jerry Sloan brings speakers into his "Nature of Men" class, including a Promise Keeper, a Million Man March participant and a recovering alcoholic.
Sloan, who teaches public relations, created his course after seeing a 1994 Time magazine cover story illustrated by a man in a suit and tie but with a pig's head. The headline was "Are Men Really That Bad?"
Besides images, his class discusses ethics, discipline, manners and etiquette, using such films as "Animal House" and "The Firm."
Sloan says his course attracts more women than men.
"I think women are interested in why men do guy things," he says.
Two-thirds of the students who show up for men's program speakers at Richmond are usually women from the coordinate West Hampton women's college, Downey says.
"It's not seen as very manly to talk about these things. Just as they (male students) start to develop some sense of identity, you're asking them to question that identity," he says.
Christine Williams, who teaches a sociology course in gender studies at the University of Texas at Austin, believes men are reluctant to be associated with gender studies because their interest might be interpreted as "insecurity" about their own masculinity. She thinks both genders should be studied concurrently.
