Nearly every college and university has a department of Women’s Studies these days. But does any have a department of Men’s Studies?
p.s., thanks for not responding, “It’s all men’s studies.”
These folks might also be helpful.
A Leader in Publishing Activist Men’s Studies Scholarship
The Men’s Studies Press (MSP) is a small independent publisher dedicated to the dissemination of the work of men’s studies scholars.
This thread really belongs in GD.
We tend not find Men’s Studies programs for the following two reasons:
“Men” are not considered “disadvantaged” by the PC crowd and liberal elites.
“Men” are not considered “victims” by the PC crowd and liberal elites.
The insinuation I’m making, of course, is that most colleges administrators and professors are members of the liberal elite / PC crowd. No big surprise here. Members of groups not considered to be “disadvantaged” or “victims” are not deemed worthy of special attention, thus we do not have Men’s Study programs.
Notice I didn’t use the term “minority,” since doing so would be redundant. (As we all know, “minority” is defined as being a “disadvantaged person,” and has nothing to do with percentages. After all, women make up a majority of the U.S. population, as well as a majority of college students.)
There are certainly faculty positions for scholars of men’s studies and I know that the American Psychological Association has/had symposia set aside for the discipline.
If it proves to be more than an academic fad, we’ll probably see departments of men’s studies. Generally, though universities and colleges are cutting back on faculty positions that don’t draw a lot of students.
Why? Doesn’t that presuppose that there is not a factual answer to the question? Your oh-so-brave non-PC opinions aside, there might just be one.
My WAG is that most Women’s Studies departments and programs arose at a time when women were beginning to take on non-traditional roles in American society in large numbers. (Just as Black Studies programs arose at a time when black Americans were beginning to assert their civil rights in large numbers.) To simultaneously create a Men’s Studies discipline at the time would probably have seemed rather reactionary.
In any case, many Women’s Studies programs are misnamed. They really are Gender Studies (and more and more universities and colleges are renaming them to reflect that). They often concentrate on studies of whether gender markers are innate or culturally defined, how malleable they are, historical and cross-cultural studies of gender and gender roles, and other such questions; and the programs are largely interdisciplinary, encompassing the social sciences, biology, history, and economics, among other departments. So, to that extent, they are men’s studies as well as women’s studies.
As far as the “liberal/PC elite,” such a rote, devoid-of-serious-thought answer hardly dignifies answering, but one notes that Women’s Studies majors are available at such hotbeds of liberalism as Harvard, where I believe our current President was awarded an MBA; the University of Alabama; Yale (do I really have to say anything here?); the University of Dayton, a Catholic college . . . I could go on and on, but the point is made, I hope.
A factual answer, not a Great Debate, is what I’m after.
Flaming does not belong in GQ either.
Yeah, I agree with Manservant Hecubus. Although you can go ahead and flame Alabama and Dayton, if you feel it’s necessary.
“Women’s Studies” is a traditional euphemism for “Feminist Studies”, which in turn is the study of the politics of gender (aka “Gender Studies”) as something that can vary according to politics and whatnot.
As such, the study of “men”, what it means to be a “man” and what it means that it does mean that, and other things it might mean in different times and places and so forth, is among the topic areas of interest within “Women’s Studies”.
None of which means that a department less constituted towards women’s interests and activities might not also wish to study these things, perhaps calling itself “Men’s Studies” or something altogether different. (On some campuses, you may see programs or departments of “Gender Studies”, in fact).
1998 BA Women’s Studies (AS) SUNY @ Old Westbury
I disagree. Some of the posts above are pushing it (should I name names?), but the OP is a perfectly fine GQ. We’re looking for a factal answer to the question of whether such a program exists at any college. We are not looking for the debatable answer of why there should or should not be such programs.
bibliophage
moderator GQ
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The question can’t be dismissed out of hand. I remember reading in the Wall Street Journal that a few colleges have programs in white studies (or some such thing), which tend to concentrate on impoverished white people.
Hobart and William Smith Colleges, not far from my old stomping grounds in Upstate New York, offers an undergraduate minor (but not major) in Men’s Studies.
Let’s see. At University of California Santa Cruz, we have quite a few courses that focus on either both genders or on men. There is no men’s studies department, most likely because there isn’t enough demand for it. Students always have the option to “design your own major”, and I think you could probably create a men’s study degree for yourself pretty easily. We have a particular proffessor who’s specialty is men’s studies and I am sure he would be glad to sponser anyone wishing to persue men’s studies. I would even venture that it has been done before. Beyond that, most all majors have the option of field study, which you could do in a men’s issues place, and a senior thesis/project in which you could persue a men’s theme.
Because this is GQ I will provide you with as best a list as I could of what classes I could find in the catalogue that would benefit someone interested in men’s studies.
History
Engendering China: Reading seminar on the history of Chinese gender, focusing on the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) to the present. Topics include marriage and family, sexuality, work, the gendered language of politics, and major reform movements.
History of Gender Research Seminar: Introduction to theories and methods employed in gendered historical research. Readings are drawn from a range of chronological, national, and thematic fields and explore the intersection of gender analysis with questions of the body and sexuality; modernity; colonialism/postcolonialism; class, race, and ethnicity; and constructed space.
Community Studies
Theory and Practice- Race, Gender, Work, and Family:
Explores relations between work and family, with attention to gender and racial differences. Examines occupational segregation, family needs of parents and partners, and social support from friends, “families we choose” or kin. Investigates how “communities” are formed, based on work, culture or familial needs, and collective attempts to change conditions affecting work and family.
Theory and Practice of Sexual Politic:: Examines sexuality and gender as political forces, in dominant social orders and oppositional movements. Focus on U.S. locates sexual politics in global race/class relations. Emphasize grassroots organizing on: sexual violence, abortion, arts censorship, sex work/public sex, HIV/AIDS, LGBT/queer civil rights.
Men and Feminisms: Introduction to a variety of feminist analyses of manhood, emphasizing study of the sexual politics of racism, capitalism, and colonialism. Critically examines the implications of differently situated men engaging multiple forms of feminism. Focuses on the contemporary U.S.; also addresses other past and present national and transnational contexts
Psychology
Language, Communication, and Gender: Explores how gender is negotiated and defined through verbal and nonverbal forms of communication. Topics include sexism in language, images of gender in the media, the socialization of gender through language, gender bias in schools, gender-related variations in communication, and dominance and equality in relationships.
Psychology of Sexual Aggression:
An overview of psychological theory and research related to sexual aggression, focusing on both perpetration and victimization. Includes a discussion of the social construction of masculinity and femininity, media representations of sexual violence, and alternative (non-aggressive) visions of sexuality.
**Social Psychology of Sex and Gender:**Considers ways people’s gender-stereotyped expectations bias their perceptions and self-fulfilling prophecies. Also examines power and status inequalities between women and men and institutional forms of discrimination
American Studies
**Gender and U.S. Society:**An introduction to the gendered analysis of U.S. society and culture from theoretical and historical perspectives. Particular attention is given to the ways in which gender intersects with racial, ethnic, and class differences, focusing on the themes of work, politics, and sexuality.
**Capital/Sexuality/Conquest:**A study of the relationships between global capitalism, sexuality, and the legacies of imperial conquest in the Americas. Our discussions will pivot around three texts: Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams, Karl Marx’s Capital, and Leslie Maromn Silko’s Almanac of the Dead.
Antropology
**Women in Cross-Cultural Perspective:**Examines the diversity of women’s as well as men’s roles, experiences, and self conceptions in a number of societies to explore how women and men shape, and are shaped by, particular forms of social life.
Women’s Studies
**Gender and Postcoloniality:**Post-colonial feminist studies. Explores how discourses of gender and sexuality shaped the policies and ideologies of the historical processes of colonialism, the civilizing mission, and anticolonial nationalism. Considers orientalism as a gendered discourse as well as colonial understandings of gender and sexuality in decolonialization. Explores Western media representations, literature, the law, and the place of gender in the current debate between cultural relativism and universalism. Provides an understanding of some key terms in postcolonial studies and an in-depth examination of the place of gender in these processes
I am sure there are plenty more relevent classes that I missed. Beyond that, there are a lot of classes adressing queer studies with a focus on gender identity, an ever-changing array of seminars, classes on specific males (Jim Henson, Marx, Freud) and women’s studies classes that talk about women in the context of men.
Hope this helps you!