Today’s open discussion comes to you courtesy of a conversation on my Louis CK post regarding whether or not Women’s Studies programs in universities are inherently anti-male. As a graduate of the UCLA Women’s Studies program, I never once felt that my studies were anti-male, but I wanted to provide a space for debate on this subject.
What do you think? Does the study of women’s history, literature and theory come part-and-parcel with anti-man sentiment? Have any of you participated in a Women’s Studies program and came away feeling it was anti-male?
Does studying authors like “MacKinnon, Dworkin, and some of the more colorful Steinem” as Mike L. points out, naturally make a whole program anti-man?
Are there ways in which the women’s movement, Women’s Studies programs being a part of that, have helped men? Has the changing role of women in today’s society made men more free?
Please note: This is an open thread, you may discuss anything you want without topical moderation. However, we ask that you please refrain from insulting any commenter or calling names.
About Joanna Schroeder
There is no man or woman alive who who hasn’t had the right to life, freedom, property and vote in the US. No one alive has ever been denied any right in the US. Anything more than the right to life, freedom property and vote is a privilege, not a right.
Women’s Studies are inherently anti-man, and they aren’t. Women are inherent;y anti-man and they aren’t. Anyone who thinks there isn’t now and will always be antagonism between women and men in society isn’t really paying attention. I say ‘so what’. Men’s Rights groups are the same way. Men and women are sorting out thousands of years of history in the context of a potential future in which we all face unprecedented problems. The gender roles of the past are, of necessity, being re-evaluated. It’s a complex question with no simple answer.
Should we, as men, expect some women to stop being misandrist? Should women expect misogyny to disappear? I’m not so sure either outcome is possible. All that we can really expect is for the dialogue to continue as society changes. Just how those changes occur is the fuel which drives the debate. Women’s Studies programs are an inevitable part of that debate. It hasn’t really been so long – in the overall scheme of things – that women were banned from academic life. They still have a bone to pick.
“Women’s Studies programs are an inevitable part of that debate. It hasn’t really been so long – in the overall scheme of things – that women were banned from academic life. They still have a bone to pick.”
I’ll agree with you when the government says that they’ll draft only women and place only women in front line positions because men have had to do the bulk of the sacrificing up to now.
The thing is John your pointing out of the draft and Dingo’s pointing out of women and academia are both correct. There is a lot of f’d up stuff on both sides here.
You’ve been indoctrinated into thinking women were oppressed in the past. Men died at rates of 1,000 to 1 for all jobs in the past and 1,000,000 to 1 for all wars in the past. Save childbirth, there’s no area of life where men didn’t suffer disproportionally. As far as education goes, you’re comparing the elite to the serfs. In the general population a girl was a likely to read the newspaper to her father a 100 years ago. Men must be the worst oppressors ever. Here’s you choice, if you weren’t one of the elite, from 200 years ago back to the dawn of time. Work till you die in a dangerous job to support your family. Be supported and stay home. Somehow I picture men as altruistic and honorable, definitely not oppressors.
I haven’t taken a women’s studies class, but our grad studies class has looked at women’s issues. For example in our leadership class we examined the difference in leadership styles between men and women and looked at why women fail to reach the top leadership positions. It was basically attributed to gender discrimination (mostly indirect). We spoke about sexual harassment in gender neutral terms in ethics class. The law is nit gender neutral with a reasonable man and reasonable woman standard that allows women to get away with behaviors that men would not be able to get away with. This was not brought up in class by my instructor (a female lawyer).
The ethics class about 18 months ago eventually would lead me to become MRA. U actively brought up men’s issues such as the gender gap in higher education. No one thought it was a problem and if it was it was the fault of men for not choosing college. 6 months later women were looking into solutions. 12 months later, a teacher was shocked into silence when she asked us whether women were underrepresented in higher education and got a unanimous no from the class. There is a problem when an instructor knows that 57% of all undergrads are women and asks a class which is 70% female if women are underrepresented in higher ed. If I hadn’t pushed the issue for a year, would she have gotten a no? She didn’t expect one.
The instructor in my identity class even stated that white male is the standard. There is at a very minimum a subtle anti-male bias in higher education. 42% of male nurses reported discrimination from nursing faculty or staff, but not from patients. 90% of all nursing students reported hearing anti-male statements from faculty in the classroom. Granted these weren’t women’s studies classes, but as I said, our program does pay special attention to “women’s issues”. This makes me quite skeptical of the idea that women’s studies is not at least at some level anti-male.
I once was considering being a nurse and I went to see the head of my program to ask some questions and find out what the course work consisted of. Oh My God she was so incredibly rude and sexist toward me that it was almost shocking. I was very naive.
I haven’t read all the comments, so I apologize if this is old ground.
While I haven’t taken any womens studies courses, its hard for me to imagine that one wouldn’t end up being inherently anti-man. Getting half the story in any situation will always give you a skewed viewpoint – a women’s studies program is going to be designed to only examine the female side of the gender story,.
A female abuse victim is much more likely to write about her experiences than a female abuser, and the story of an abused man wouldnt be, I’d imagine, within the realm of womens studies. How traditional gender roles have historically restricted women seems like a topic for a womens studies program, how they’ve restricted men would not. How women are disadvantaged in todays society is a womens issue, how men are disadvantaged is not.
So the impression I have is that Womens Studies will, inevitably, only give the perspective that women are oppressed and victimized, and that men are oppressors and villians.
Am I misguided in my expectations?
Women’s studies is basically a course in the feminist ideology, it is an indoctrination into the theory of feminism, through the eyes & of anti-male feminist, at least that is my perception of it & I actually found most men I came in contact with back then & now, for the most part see it that way.