JOSEPH GELFER

Today, Inside Higher Ed ran a short news item called Scholarships for White Males Only:

A Texas State University student has founded a new group dedicated to raising money for scholarships for white males. The Former Majority Association for Equality says on its website that its goal is to “financially assist young Americans seeking higher education who lack opportunities in similar organizations that are based upon race or gender. In a country that proclaims equality for all, we provide monetary aid to those that have found the scholarship application process difficult because they do not fit into certain categories or any ethnic group.” The group says that it will award five $500 scholarships on July 4. Colby Bohannan, the founder of the group, told The Austin American-Statesman that he noticed many scholarships for female or minority students, but none reserved for white men. “I felt excluded,” he said. “If everyone else can find scholarships, why are we left out?”

Like the previously discussed Male Studies, this is another example of how something that has a kernel of truth can become quickly derailed into some rather unsavoury directions unless it is correctly framed.

Yes, it is true that academic scholarships do (quite rightly) speak to “minorities” such as those who are not white, male, straight or able-bodied.

Yes, it is true that there are people out there in need of assistance who do not fit these “minority” identities.

But don’t start a scholarship for white males, get the framing right: start a scholarship for disadvantaged people.

It is class (regardless of further identity) that is usually the common denominator of need and disadvantage, and this includes A LOT of white males.

Which brings us back to the necessity of the People’s Movement.

This morning I received an email from the fledgling Foundation for Male Studies asking me for money, starting with the statement, “As the holidays approach, there has never been a better time for good spirit and for supporting a good cause – especially one that affects our entire population. The Foundation for Male Studies needs your help in putting an end to a serious, harmful trend in our society.”

You may remember, earlier this year I wrote about the problematic nature of these guys as they reject the idea of socially-constructed gender, asserting instead that the only thing worthy of study is sex as a biological entity. But they are setting themselves up for failure. In this morning’s email they note how males are doing worse than before relative to females in the following areas:

• college attendance
• incarceration
• suicide
• school achievement
• school exclusion
• employment
• health research
• physical harm and death in the military
• custody of children after divorce
• learning difficulties
• behavioral problems.

I agree that all these issues are a concern, but the Foundation has two fundamental problems.

First, to suggest that men are doing worse as a result of women doing better is at best mistaken, and at worst dishonest: it is not a zero-sum game.

Second, if you discount socially-constructed gender, you are left with a rather unfortunate conclusion as to why all these problems are occurring: there is something biologically wrong with males. Given its serious use of the word “misandry,” the Foundation probably believes these problems are caused by a nation-wide feminist conspiracy against men, but until government and business is overrun by radical separatist feminists freshly disembarked from a 1970s time machine, I think we can safely tuck this theory under our tin foil hats (of course, such a feminist conspiracy would itself be socially constructed, but because the Foundation refuses to acknowledge the value of such things, it will never get a grip on it…).

The socially-constructed nature of masculinity is the only likely explanation for why these problems occur, and the Foundation rejects this as a serious avenue of enquiry.

The email finishes with “Please send us your gift in any amount. Whether $5,000.00 or $5.00, your gift will be wisely invested in meeting enormous and crucial objectives.” It is signed off by the founder of the Foundation, Edward M. Stephens, MD:

If you want to donate between $5 and $5000 to yet another old white male MD, that’s your choice; but until the Foundation wises up to the very partial explanation of biological determinism, it is a waste of your good money. You’re better off donating between $5 and $5000 to a young(er) white male PhD instead: if you pledge to me I will follow the lead of the Foundation: “We are a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, so if you donate before December 31, your gift is fully tax-deductible for your 2010 tax returns as allowed by law”

Some years back, when discussing how the study of men and masculinities was divided up, Jeff Hearn and Keith Pringle put critical studies of masculinities in opposition to men’s studies, which they perceived engaged in “much more ambiguous and sometimes even anti-feminist activities … which can become defined in a much less critical way as ‘by men, on men, for men’”. I have always resisted this binary, because while my political allegiances have rested with critical studies of masculinities, men’s studies has been more accommodating to the study of masculinities and religion, and also I simply know plenty of people engaged in what they describe as “men’s studies” who are very clear in their political/feminist stance.

However, a new subset of this broad area of enquiry is far less ambiguous: Males Studies, describing itself as “a new academic discipline” has its inaugural symposium on April 7. A lengthy article by Miles Groth on Men’s News Daily outlines how he sees the discipline shaping up. It really is the most bizarre article, in which Groth states that gender studies (both women’s and men’s) is a made-up area of enquiry, and that only a biologically-determined category (“male”) can genuinely be studied. We read other gems such as:

Gender reconciliation is not an issue of male studies. It would be as silly an idea as expecting zoology to bring about peace between panthers and gazelles. Gender difference is one of the inventions of women’s studies to provide it with one of its basic themes. Another of its inventions is the notion of gender equality (on the presumption of there being gender inequality).

Groth scoffs at those who study this fantasy-subject, stating of them, “not everyone with a PhD and a university post is a scholar. In fact, sadly, today most academics are not scholars,” suggesting that via his discipline of male studies we are getting the real academic deal. Let there be no mistake: if researchers of male studies walk into any vaguely orthodox gathering of academics and start arguing this case they will be laughed out of the room. And this is not because there is some liberal conspiracy in the academy seeking to oppress the study of males (as the followers of male studies might suggest), but because holding this position is like being a member of the Flat Earth Society: by all means, hold the position, but don’t expect to be taken seriously (by anyone, at least, other than men’s rights activists, which is ironic, as Groth states of gender studies that “as interests of social activists and reformers, it may have a kind of life. But it cannot be a discipline”).

But let’s not get too comfortable either in the critical studies of masculinities camp. In the latest issue of Journal if Men’s Studies we read Michael Murphy’s “An Open Letter to the Organizers, Presenters and Attendees of the First National Conference for Campus Based Men’s Gender Equality and Anti-Violence Groups” where he and his colleagues found at this event a certain reluctance to hear the concerns regarding violence against gay and trans-folk.

Where’s a decent fellow to go amid all this compromising of values in the study of men and masculinities? Over to Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality, of course