“The proper study of Mankind is Man,” claims the poet, but academic opinions differ on just how to go about it. Male Studies or Men’s Studies?
The Men’s Studies movement grew out of (or along with) the National Organization for Men Against Sexism. NOMAS is “pro-feminist, gay affirmative, anti-racist, dedicated to enhancing men’s lives.”
Too touchy-feely for you, bubba? If you study men and boyz without constant references to gals or “Gender Studies,” that’s Male Studiies. Now on Facebook.
More:
“Male Studies vs. Men’s Studies,” Jennifer Epstein, InsideHigherEd.com
Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
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Tags: gender, higher education, male studies, masculinity, mens studies
NotionsCapital 
May 11, 2010 at 3:02 pm
[We suspend our editorial policy here and include a comment much longer than our original post. Here it is in its entirety. -ml]
The blogosphere has been alight since the Conference on Male Studies, with some support, but mostly with snide and myopic condemnation.
While no doubt men have dominated for ages in the studies of hard science and humanities, history and arts, which I think most sane people would agree we have all benefited from, the one thing males have not done, monolithically speaking, is study themselves.
Dwelling on real or imagined elements of dominant patriarchy does not alter some very disturbing realities.
Men are:
85% of the homeless
79% of all suicides
98% of all war dead
93% of workplace deaths
80% of job losses in the current Great Recession
40% of college graduates and dropping steadily
Add to this the rampant discrimination against men in family courts, selective service and conscription, media denigration and boys falling off the charts in schools. and you have a crisis. Well, it would be if this were any other singularly identified population.
And these are stats that have never gotten one shred of real study within the feminist driven gender studies zeitgeist.
I should say these stats are disturbing to some, but really not that many. In an seemingly ironic case of strange bed fellows, feminists and traditional males are now working together to dismiss all these problems under the postmodern guise of seeing men as powerful, entitled oppressors that don’t deserve anything but scorn, or the traditional mentality that men just need to man up and take all this with their mouths shut.
That’s right men, just shut up and keep shoveling the f-ing gravel. If someone decides that your problems are worth attention, they will let you know. But don’t hold your breath. And whatever you do, shovel-man, don’t stop and wonder for a moment why traditional men and feminists are on the same page about this.
Like it or not, there are actually men and women right now who can THINK about these things outside the influence of gender ideology and also without the stifling mandate of traditional male disposability.
And it looks like they aren’t going to be silenced with a few smug and derogatory sound bites from box thinkers and the terminally indifferent.
Paul Elam
Editor-in-Chief
Men’s News Daily