‘Men’s Studies’ Indoctrination, Not Scholarship

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It didn’t have to be this way, but once the academic left takes control this is what happens. Not that this is anything new (e.g., see my 1994 post Masculinity Under Siege, and from 1999 Mary, Mary (Daly), Quite Contrary).

11 Comments for “‘Men’s Studies’ Indoctrination, Not Scholarship”

  1. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    Do you suppose Bawer will ever come back to the United States? He fled in to Norway in 1998 after “Stealing Jesus aroused the wrath of conservative Christians, and he has lived as an ex-pat for almost two decades now.

    As to the state of “Men’s Studies” at Stoney Brook, I don’t know and I don’t care. Just another homocon tempest in a teapot, as far as I can see.

  2. posted by David Bauer on

    Bruce Bawer may have win some conservatives, with a subsequent book on how Muslims are werewolves or something. I think he found a husband and got REALLY I to S&M.

    A few years back The Book Of Daniel got cancelled. It had promise as a TV series. But, it had a mainline Episcopal priest having regular philosophical discussions with Jesus . and a gay son…and a daughter dating a black man

    When it got cancelled, I didn’t see too many people crying censorship and oppression, as I saw when the Tim Allen series was cancelled.

    Their is an interesting book called, Manhood In America (Kimmel). Definitely worth a read.

    • posted by Tom Scharbach on

      I think he found a husband …

      From Bawer’s website bio:

      In 1998 I relocated with my partner from New York to Amsterdam in the Netherlands; in 1999 we moved on to Oslo, Norway, where we registered officially as partners on May 7 of that year. … Same-sex marriage became legal in Norway on January 1, 2009, and shortly thereafter my partner and I “upgraded” to full marriage.

      The last sentence is an interesting choice of words — “upgraded” in scare quotes, suggesting that domestic partnership and civil marriage are six of one, half dozen of the other in Bawer’s mind.

      Maybe that’s true in Norway, in terms of the legal protections/obligations attendant to civil marriage but not to domestic partnerships, but it most certainly isn’t true the United States.

  3. posted by Jorge on

    Bruce Bawer writes that at taxpayer-funded Stony Brook…

    Whoo-hoo! My grad school alma mater. I enjoyed that moment.
    …

    I happen to think the people in charge of men’s studies research should be feminists, psychiatrists, and doctors, but in reverse order.

    “men should take part in such violence prevention, but because of their “dominance and privilege and…structural gender inequalities,” they should play only “a supporting role…under women’s leadership” rather than seeking to be “leaders or equal partners.””

    I don’t think that’s an option in conservative Muslim neighborhoods.

    Male violence against women is caused by inequality. But it does not follow that that is the only cause of male violence against women. The patriarchal perspective that uses decisive, hierarchical, and individual rather than deliberative, supportive, and community leadership can create good results within cultures of male domination. Pointing out the detrimental effects of VAW on the economy, children, and family stability can motivate patriarchs far more than more temporary concerns like marital satisfaction and physical health.

    I read somewhere that the thing that drives women’s rights the most around the world isn’t re-education of men, it’s when women socialize–when non-profits fund book clubs, market days, women-owned businesses. That’s probably one of the reasons why Romeo and Juliet’s Lord Capulet (hardly a paragon of altruism) hesitated at marrying off his daughter at age 13–his wife knew all the “ladies of esteem” in Verona, and probably shared more than a few thoughts from comparison-shopping. Women learn from each other, and men learn from their wives.

    But that kind of social change doesn’t challenge male-domination. Thus the obsession in an age when women in the US have more rights than ever before to continue dismantling male domination in order to reach a feminist utopia. I don’t blame women for trying.

    But they need to understand that they run a tremendous risk: they may find that the natural selection for the greater predominance of anti-social mindsets among men than women is inescapable. If this turns out to be the case, there will be a point where it is more effective to work with what people actually care about instead of trying to change it.

    • posted by DB 3 on

      Frankly, most religious-conservative neighborhoods dislike feminism and fundamentalists tend to pretty horrible when it comes to domestic abuse and basic treatment of women.

  4. posted by David Bauler on

    So, did Bruce Bawer go undercover as a “hip student” or did he troll around campus looking for broke straight boys to go undercover.

  5. posted by JohnInCA on

    A “men’s studies” branch that didn’t approach it from a feminist context would be indistinguishable from most other sociological studies.

    Because a lot of research and study in sociology/psychology uses the “male default, female exception” model.

    So yeah. If you want to know what sociology thinks of men without a feminist context, just pick up any general sociology text and stop reading each chapter when it starts talking about how women are different from everything you’ve just read.

    • posted by Jorge on

      Let’s see…

      Anomie and Karl Marx. It’s been a while.

      For some reason the chapter on successful union-busting got burned out.

  6. posted by Kosh III on

    “I don’t know and I don’t care. Just another homocon tempest in a teapot, as far as I can see.”

    Yeah, who the frak cares?

  7. posted by david bauler on

    Who cares? why, its The latest alt-right magic act: define the politics of adult, elected officials by what happens on a college campus.

  8. posted by Rex on

    Kinda makes you wonder how many men they have dissected to study at this “study center”.

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