Article of the Month

One of the new initiatives that the Standing Committee on Men & Masculinities is launching is a monthly article discussion.  We are looking to engage you, our members and student affairs colleagues in great and continual dialogue on a variety of topics impacting the students on our campuses and around the world.

Our initial article is:

Kimmel, M. (1994). Masculinity as homophobia: Fear, shame, and silence in the construction of gender identity.  In H. Brod and M. Kaufman (Eds.), Theorizing Masculinities. (pp. 147-151). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage

http://faculty.ucc.edu/psysoc-stokes/Masculinity.pdf.

We would like to provide some guiding questions for this article in order to engage in some great digital dialogue.  Please post your comments or pose your own questions.

• How is masculinity defined on your campus?  Does your geographical location play a role in the definition of masculinity on your campus? If so, how?
• According to Kimmel, American men fear being feminine.  In what ways do you see men avoiding feminism on your campus? Are these issues addressed? If so, how?
• Do you think that faculty, staff, and administration on your campus unintentionally adhere to the idea that "manhood is equated with power"? How so? Could this affect the way that students think about masculinity?
• If masculinity equates power and feminism equates weakness, what are a couple of problems that could develop if this paradigm exists within a student organization?
• Are there resources, programming, or organizations on your campus that educate students about masculinity and feminism? If so, what are they? How do they educate students and why is it significant?
• If homophobia and sexism go hand in hand according to Kimmel, do you think this could explain some (if not most) sexual assault cases on your campus? If so, what is your campus' judicial affairs department, residence life department, or other departments doing to educate men and women about such an issue?
• If running away from the issue of masculinity is not the answer,  then in what ways can professionals in higher education engage college men and women in facing the issue of masculinity?  Have you successfully engaged students in this issue? What were your outcomes?

We hope that you will find lots of ways to engage in this material as well as with one another.