Male Studies Vs. Men’s Studies

After more than 40 years of male-bashing by feminists from Betty Friedan to Gloria Allred, is there anything left to say on the subject?

For some scholars, the answer is absolutely “yes.”

That’s why they recently announced the formation of the Foundation for Male Studies, according to InsideHigherEducation’s Jennifer Epstein. The new group does not want to be lumped into the “gender studies” category as just another Women’s Studies offering.

Rather, it is aimed at “exploring the triumphs and struggles of the XY-chromosomed of the human race” without feeling compelled to describe them as “an offshoot of feminist theory.”

Rutgers University Anthropology professor Lionel Tiger, who blames feminism for the “highly successful, very colorful denigration of maleness as a force,” explains that the new field of study “takes its cues from the notion that male and female organisms really are different” and “the enormous relation between . . . a person’s biology and their behavior” is being ignored by most contemporary scholarship.

Christina Hoff Sommers, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, echoes Tiger’s concerns, saying that the widespread anti-male attitudes in this country mean that “masculinity itself is becoming politically incorrect.” Sommers is the author of The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism is Harming Our Young Men.

Scholar Paul Nathanson noted that this new field of study will investigate and critique the influence of “ideological feminism.” Nathanson is a religious studies researcher at McGill University and co-author of a book series on “misandry,” the hatred of men and boys.

But not all scholars agree about the adverse influence that feminism has had over the male species.

In fact, Robert Heasley believes that the new group is covering the same ground as men’s studies, which “came out of feminist analysis of gender,” by “inventing something that I think already exists.” Heasley heads up the American Men’s Studies Association.

Meanwhile, Lionel Tiger believes that feminist thinking has so heavily influenced schools and colleges that “the academic lives of males are systematically discriminated against.” He added that if the gender gaps in higher education “damaged a group other than males, there would be an outcry. . .but because men and boys are perceived to be a powerful group, few academics and policy makers see much of a problem.”

On the other hand, Robert Heasley views the new group’s theories as unfounded and only partially true, referring to it as “kind of a Glenn Beck approach.”

Deborah Lambert writes the Squeaky Chalk column for Accuracy in Academia.