Men in Women's Studies Classes III

The topic of men in Women's Studies classes continues to come up for 
discussion on WMST-L.  The following two-part round of discussion took place 
in November 1999.  It gradually expanded into a consideration of resistent 
students, both male and female (see Part 2).  For additional WMST-L files 
focusing on men, see the section 'Men' in the WMST-L File List  The section 
'Societal Issues in the Classroom' includes several files dealing with 
resistent students.

PAGE 1 OF 2
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I am currently doing a research project on the importance of Women's
studies courses and the importance of men in them.  I was wondering,
especially for all of the Women's studies professors, what your thoughts
are on why there are so few men currently taking classes in Women's
studies.

Andrea Peragine
aperagin  @  umich.edu
The University of Michigan
==========================================================================

>>I am currently doing a research project on the importance of Women's
studies courses and the importance of men in them.  I was wondering,
especially for all of the Women's studies professors, what your thoughts
are on why there are so few men currently taking classes in Women's
studies.<<

Hi Andrea, I teach over at Western Michigan in Kalamazoo.

I am a man teaching women's studies. I have men in my classes. More and
more. This semester I have 12 out of 90-100 some students, about 10%.
Last year, I had fewer, more like 5-6 out of 90-100 students.
Of course, I also teach a course called "Media and the Sexes," which I
often cynically think is a reason that may attract men....the word "sex."
But that's a cynical belief.
I do find the MEN very resistant to the ideology of the course, much more
so than the women.
The men's ignorance is also more apparent. One man made a comment on our
Internet discussion area that implied he either did not understand how
women menstruated or that at times the blood can "gush" as was described in
an article on the Vagina Dentata.
The men seem to have a reactionary stance against feminist thought quite
often. At the very least, there is eye rolling and disrespectful posture.
At the most, they post messages to our BBS that are a backlash to subjects
being covered in class.
I think in part that the men feel more justified in these stances since I
am a man, and so they want to forge a buddy relationship with me, thinking
that I may side with them just because we are men. Solidarity indeed.
They often become even more frustrated when I do not side with them. But I
try to forge a good relationship anyway. Most really like me and I am
slowly chipping away at their resistance.

An interesting thing occured yesterday. I had copied two articles from
issues of PLAYBOY. One about MacKinnon and the other about the origin of
the vibrator as a medical device written by Susie Bright.
So, I was casually mentioning that I was picking out copie of PLAYBOY to
give to a student doing a project on pornography. I said, "I flipped to the
news section, which I like to read, to see if there was anything
interesting."
And this sentence produced a HUGE laugh.
Immediately I jumped on it and said: "you would not be laughing if I was a
woman teaching this class and had said that."
I would never argue that I have never looked at the pictures. That's
absurd. In fact, I was purposefully looking at the pictures here in order
to select magazines with pictorials that work well with my student's
project.
The laughter didn't really bother me. I'll do almost anything to get my
students to laugh. I am all about education and entertainment, not
necessarily in that order. ;-)
But it is an interesting twist on the man teaching wms classes.

As a wms instructor, I tell my students that I am emininently qualified to
teach this course. I know the literature and criticism, the ideology. I am
committed to social change.
I just have never been the victim of sexism.
I would never argue that I have been the victim of reverse sexism. I think
that's a reactionary position that serves no purpose. Even if it is true. I
have been disliked by women. I would like to attribute that to personal
reasons not political/prejudicial ones.

peace
chris tower
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Chris, thank you for posting this.  My own experiences with teaching gender
issues to male students at a small university in Ohio have been almost
entirely negative.  Hearing reinforcement from male feminists is truly
invigorating and inspiring.  I'm so glad you're doing what you're doing.
I'd never considered before what it must be like to be teaching wms as a
man, to men.  Your insights about the dynamic working there are really
interesting.

Ilana Nash
American Culture Studies
Bowling Green State University
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Chris Tower writes:
>I think in part that the men feel more justified in these stances since I
am a man, and so they want to forge a buddy relationship with me, thinking
that I may side with them just because we are men. Solidarity indeed.
They often become even more frustrated when I do not side with them. But I
try to forge a good relationship anyway. Most really like me and I am
slowly chipping away at their resistance.<

I imagine that this variation on the theme is different enough that Joan
will accept the conversation as not being repetitive.

I have occasionally had this experience, although more common is the effort
on the part of some men to discredit me by gay baiting (sometimes quite
openly).  I typically don't gender pronouns, and work to be as blank a
screen as possible, so that they can project whatever fantasies and biases
they may have about men who use a feminist perspective in their work.  

Some time ago, when the question of my sexual orientation seemed to be a
significant issue for the students - so as to somehow
understand/dismiss/pigeonhole my arguments - one of my TAs did a little
survey of the class.  I was surprised that the survey came back divided
perfectly into thirds -- one third thought I was gay, one third thought I
was straight, and one third thought I was bi.  (This flattered me because
it seemed to suggest that I was a fully opaque screen.)  When I found out
about it, I was able to report the results, to tell them that "two thirds
of you are wrong," and leave it at that.  

I'm one of several scholars who are working in this area and have written
about it in Tom Digby, ed. : MEN DO FEMINISM (Routledge, 1997).   It's a
diverse collection, and quite interesting.

Michael Kimmel
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i've noticed that many times when "difficulties" arise with male
students in ws classes, the problem is with the pedagogy, not the
students...

debbie <louis  @  umbc.edu>
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from Ilana Nash:
>>Chris, thank you for posting this.  My own experiences with
teaching gender issues to male students at a small university in
Ohio have been almost entirely negative.  Hearing reinforcement
from male feminists is truly invigorating and inspiring.  I'm so
glad you're doing what you're doing. I'd never considered before
what it must be like to be teaching wms as a man, to men.  Your
insights about the dynamic working there are really interesting.<<

Men resist the things that threaten the established world order
that they have come to expect, the patriarchal social order, in
which they are kings. I could make an argument that this is a
form of latent castration anxiety.

Some of these men claim to agree with equality, but they really
don't seem to have a clue as to how this equality actually works.
Because they seem to like the idea of equality but they are very
threatened by empowered women or any "feminist" rhetoric that
empowers women at the expense of their own established social
power.

The men in my class are very reactionary. The reactions take
various forms. Several men are smart enough to realize that they
cannot, should not, lash out in our virtual, Internet discussions
(called "confer") with sexist dogma so they project their
"feministophobia" onto other issues. 

I had one male student write a diatribe of why native americans
are "ignorant savages" and "lazy, useless, suckers of government
aid" and then was appalled and offended when people called him
ignorant, and when I wrote a similar diatribe about the reasons I
"hate" (total hyperbole) white, middle class boys from the
suburbs.
Another male student wrote a similar rant about blacks keeping
each other in poverty as an obvious reactionary position to all
the feminist thought in the course.
Yet another, wrote in about an orgy in which he took part this
summer and was villified by the women in the course who thought
he was pathetic for bragging about his sexual conquests.
All of these men at the very least claim they are being
controversial to spark discussion (LOL!) whereas others actually
admit that they are TRYING to intentionally piss off the rest of
us.

Last year, it was much worse. I had a male with whom I could make
no contact. He was a self-professed Satan worshipper, though I
don't think he really knew the first thing about Satanism, really. He
posted violent, sadistic, insulting, offensive, vulgar
messages to the confer. He hid behind first amendment stands and
spoke out against censorship, He was just pushing my buttons. I
decided not to give him a forum in the unversity for his
grievances by bringing him before the academic standards
committee and just ignored him. He really just wanted attention.
Many of my students felt assaulted and I suggested that they
bring him up on charges. Others were worried that he would snap
and shoot us all, as he continually claimed he was capable of
murder and identified with the slasher villians in some of the
films we watched. He was challenging but I am really glad he's
gone from my class.

With the exception of that one young man, I usually manage to win
over all of my students, even the men. I think I have the
advantage there as I have spoken with other instructors who have
less success with the men (obviously part of their latent
castration anxiety).... ;-)

I am a young man myself, and so I can still do the whole
"what's'up dude" thing and the male students feel more disposed
to my message, especially if I throw them a few bones here and
there and back them up when they say something that is at least
mildly reasonable. Of course, right away I take it and try to use
it to make another point. Sometimes it works; sometimes it
doesn't.

If I lay the groundwork right, I win their respect early. Then,
when I disagree with some of their crazy, sexist ideas, it gives
them pause. Like in a discussion of rape, I had one male student
call a rape victim "weak" because while being raped by her
boyfriend's best friend with people nearby in range if she called
out for help, she didn't call  out. I did not side with him at
all and I think he is re-assessing.


just some thoughts

peace
cbt

Women's Studies
Western Michigan University
Kalamazoo, MI
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Greetings:

At a professional women's network meeting, one woman said that she had
taken a few women's studies classes.  She then remarked that she felt
sorry for the men who had taken them.  When I asked her to elaborate,
she gave the usual "they were so hard on them" responses.  As I probed
more, I learned that the teachers and students were not really being
"hard" on them; they were just telling the truth.

The conversation sparked some questions for WMST-L; namely, how do you
deal with women students who think Women's Studies is hard on men?
Frankly, I don't think this woman had learned much about how our
patriarchal system operates.  When I asked her, "Do you think men will
learn much if we make them comfortable?", she looked blank.  When I
said making the powers-that-be feel comfortable could reinforce the status
quo, she didn't quite know what to say.

I have met quite a few women who claim to have taken a few WS classes
but know almost nothing about patriarchy or the different types of
feminism.  So this conversation sparked another question:  When do
you start teaching students about patriarchy?  It's awfully disturbing
to find these women referring to 60's and 70's feminists as "bra burners".

This issue brings up the thorny issue of "standards" in WS Classes.
Isn't is reasonable to expect someone who has taken three classes to
have an intelligent conversation about the different feminisms?

Best,
Kathleen Trigiani
ktrig246  @  airmail.net

*********************************************
"Out of the Cave:  Exploring Gray's Anatomy"
http://web2.airmail.net/ktrig246/out_of_cave/
You Don't Have to Settle For Mars&Venus!
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At SUNY Brockport, all of our students are required to take at least one
Perspective on Women course prior to graduation.  As a result we get a lot of
people, men and women, in our courses who are taking it because they have to.
I warn them up front that if I have done my job right they will not view the
world the same way at the end of the semester as they do at the beginning.  I
do not let anyone feel comfortable, men or women.  It is in working through
the discomfort that people grow.  In my sex and culture class, the students
have been reading amongst other things Johnson's The Gender Knot -- this book
has made them all feel uncomfortable the entire semester.  However, last night
they realized that they had moved beyond a base level of understanding without
even knowing it.  Two of my students talked about jointly confronting one of
their psychology professors who in lecturing about gender, talkled about how
women were to blame for the problems that men were having in the world today
and that men needed to reclaim their masculinity.  The students told me that
he sounded a little too much like Robert Bly for their own comfort.  After
having watched an 88 minute interview with him, they were not up to hearing
anyone else who sounded like him at all.  They offered a feminist critique of
his explanation.  I should say that it was not these two students who told me
about what they did, but two other women in that same class.  They told me for
two reasons: [a] they too disagreed with what he had said and [b] that it was
two of the men from our class that had stood up against another man and
disagreed.  They were so proud of these two men for "breaking rank" as they
put it.  These two men talked about how uncomfortable it was to do that, but
how uncomfortable it also was to listen to something that they knew was wrong
and not say something.  What we teach should not be comfortable, nor should it
be easy, however, in creating this environment for growth we should also
strive to make people feel supported during their discomfort.

********************************************************
Honesty is more than just not being dishonest.  It is an
active choice to be responsible for the choices we make
before we act upon them so that we can stand up for them
and not be tempted to be dishonest.
********************************************************
Sharon Jacobson, Ed. D.
SUNY Brockport
Women's Studies Program
Brockport, NY 14420
sjacobso  @  brockport.edu
(716) 395-5697  (office)
(716) 395-2620 (fax)
(716) 638-6174 (home)
*************************************************************
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Kathleen Trigiani wrote:

>
> At a professional women's network meeting, one woman said that she had
> taken a few women's studies classes.  She then remarked that she felt
> sorry for the men who had taken them.  When I asked her to elaborate,
> she gave the usual "they were so hard on them" responses.  As I probed
> more, I learned that the teachers and students were not really being
> "hard" on them; they were just telling the truth.

I think it all depends on which men we're talking about. We've gotta stop
talking about men as a universal category. Patriarchy is all about male
hierarchy, ie., hierarchies among men with women scattered throughout as
trophies, scapegoats, tokens, doormats and very occasionally as comrades and
equals. So, just as I worry about "being too hard" on other women in our
various positions in the yucky hierarchy, I am also concerned about "being
too hard" on men who are NOT from the privileged elite--ie., men who are
themselves disadvantaged by patriarchal hierarchies, though they may not see
it that way. I don't think telling the truth is "being too hard"--it should
ultimately be liberating for all concerned!--but I think we can refine our
truths by listening and understanding the causes of the discomfort sometimes
created in WS classes (ie., the different investments people can have in the
status quo).

> When I asked her, "Do you think men will
> learn much if we make them comfortable?", she looked blank.  When I
> said making the powers-that-be feel comfortable could reinforce the status
> quo, she didn't quite know what to say.

Here I agree with you--changing the status quo has to mean stretching
people's comfort zones. That goes for WS instructors, too. I think it's
important to stretch the comfort zone of men who are potential allies of
feminists and feminists who want to form coalitions, because if both sides
don't stretch and grow, these coalitions won't happen. As far as the
powers-that-be, yes, I think it's helpful to make them uncomfortable. Maybe
building a coalition of folks who favor change is the best way to make those
powers-that-be uncomfortable.
>
> I have met quite a few women who claim to have taken a few WS classes
> but know almost nothing about patriarchy or the different types of
> feminism.  So this conversation sparked another question:  When do
> you start teaching students about patriarchy?  It's awfully disturbing
> to find these women referring to 60's and 70's feminists as "bra burners".

> This issue brings up the thorny issue of "standards" in WS Classes.
> Isn't is reasonable to expect someone who has taken three classes to
> have an intelligent conversation about the different feminisms?

I guess this question hinges on the difference between teaching and
organizing. In organizing, you have to meet people where they are. In
teaching, you're somewhat legitimized by an institution, so you have the
authority to give a bad grade to someone who starts from a bad place and
doesn't go very far. But I think it's hard to establish standards for WS
classes when students start from such different places and progress in such
unique directions and at such different rates. Maybe this student you talked
to is still processing what was said in her WS classes.

Just my 2 cents....

Leah U.
leahu  @  earthlink.net

==========================================================================

Women's Studies classes are fertile ground for meeting people where they are
and accompanying them on the path, if not actually getting them to where one
envisions them being...  (although I think the journey never really
ends... )

Women's Studies students represent a wide range of prior experiences within
school and outside of it, yet despite that diversity, it is still reasonable
to set standards that are attainable and use both sound theory and real life
experiences to promote the critical thinking that our interdisciplinary area
of study requires.

I think some of this of this conversation has to do with the identity of
Women's Studies and how this "interdisciplinary discipline" works to
cultivate the emergence and development of a feminist perspective.  Often
times I hear students speak of feminism as they interpret it from historic
representations in the media (especially "younger" students); they often see
it as a series of protests about certain topics labelled "women's issues"
without recognizing, exploring or experiencing the philosophy, ideology, and
perspective that fueled the "Women's Liberation Movement."  So, I do not
view Women's Studies as a place for either/or when it comes to teaching and
organizing; I think our teaching should result in the nurturance of a
feminist (and by this I do not mean only a gender awareness, but a
perspective that includes an intersectional critique of race, class, gender,
sexual orientation, etc.)  perspective that stirs up the desire within our
students and the know-how to create meaningful change, and leads them to
organize around issues that are important in their lives as well as the
lives of others.

Sometimes in our attempts at coalition and/or community building and
providing safe spaces, especially within the classroom, we are tempted to
shy away from the creation of an "uncomfort zone."  However, productive,
change-creating dialogue requires just that kind of talking and confronting
of issues like privilege, marginalization, passive oppression.  I know it is
not always an easy task, but I strongly -- once again -- suggest Peggy
McIntosh's "Unpacking the Knapsack of White Privilege" as a starting point.

This essay might be useful in keeping male students from unnecessarily going
on the defensive about the whole course if, for example, a white female
instructor or student can respond to McIntosh's writing and share her
responses.  It also reminds everyone (though I know that some people need no
reminder at all) that "privilege" and oppression co-exist around other
categories of identity as well.  Sometimes students then feel less
threatened in the process of broadening their perspectives while at the same
time the dialogue about gender-based oppression is not minimized.

That's all for now,
Lisa Burke
lburke2  @  njcu.edu
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sjacobso wrote:
>
> At SUNY Brockport, all of our students are required to take at least one
> Perspective on Women course prior to graduation.  As a result we get a lot of
> people, men and women, in our courses who are taking it because they have to.
> I warn them up front that if I have done my job right they will not view the
> world the same way at the end of the semester as they do at the beginning.
--

Just one small, but large, thing:
It's not if you've done YOUR job right, it's if they've done THEIR jobs
"right:"  that is, if they've allowed themselves to be open to hearing
what is being shared, expressed, said, etc.  You can present and present
and present -- in a variety of formats and methods, even in extremely
feminist ways; you can work very hard to include information that is
disquieting and discomforting,
but if they're not open to it, they may well view the world just the
same.

Let me encourage us not to think we can "force the horse to drink."
Setting a stage where the horse is very thirsty, showing the horse
water, running our fingers through it, none of these things guarantee
that the horse will drink.  Maybe, maybe not.


Gill Wright Miller
Associate Professor of Women's Studies
Associate Professor of Dance
Denison University
Granville, OH  43023
millerg  @  denison.edu
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As I was reading Gil's response to my post from this morning, I was reminded
of a wonderful poem from Adrienne Rich and that, as space allows, I include in
all of my syllabi -- I first saw it a few years ago in Arnie Kahn's intro
syllabi if I am not mistaken -- anyway, here it is

Prospective Immigrants Please Note

Either you will
go through the door
or you will not go through.

If you go through
there is always the risk
of remembering your name

Things look back at you doubly
and you must look back
and let them happen.

If you do not go through,
it is possible to live worthily

to maintain your attitudes
to hold your position
and die bravely

but much will blind you,
much will evade you,
at what cost who knows?

The door itself
makes no promises,
it is only a door.

Adrienne Rich

Periodically, throughout the term we revisit the poem and students reflect on
where they are in their relationship with the door.

********************************************************
Honesty is more than just not being dishonest.  It is an
active choice to be responsible for the choices we make
before we act upon them so that we can stand up for them
and not be tempted to be dishonest.
********************************************************
Sharon Jacobson, Ed. D.
SUNY Brockport
Women's Studies Program
Brockport, NY 14420
sjacobso  @  brockport.edu
(716) 395-5697  (office)
(716) 395-2620 (fax)
(716) 638-6174 (home)
*************************************************************
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