4a
Opinion
Friday, September 8, 2000
For comments, contact Ben Embry or Emily Hughey at 864-4924 or e-mail opinion@kansan.com
Perspective
Masculinity not a disease to be cured
Two recent incidents of a most unfortunate nature — the alleged assault by two football players on a member of the women's soccer team and a rape on campus just before the start of the semester - should serve to concentrate the University's collective mind on the issue of how we, as young men and women, can live peaceably and, yes, even lovingly together here at KU.
"More Than a Few Good Men: A Lecture on American Manhood and Violence Against Women" given at the Lied Center last week by speaker Jackson Katz, offered a valuable opportunity to reflect on masculinity from a higher plane — one usually reserved for the deconstruction of gender as it pertains to the female sex.
Much of what Katz said was right on and only shocking in that it had to be said at all. ___
"Every issue that affects women affects men, too," was the basic articulation of reality in a world where men are born to mothers, love their wives and raise their daughters.
The trouble, Katz said, is that men too often fail to see the obvious and do not perceive violence against women as something they should worry about. The cause of such blindness? To Katz and a
Andrew
Marino
columnist
opinion@kansan.com
nost of intellectual and ideological brethren, the problem is masculinity itself, or at least our traditional notion of it. Media images of muscled freaks carrying guns, out-of-control sports stars and "gangsta" rappers objectifying women all contribute to a social construct of hypermasculinity that chews up and spits out males unable to share their feelings and control themselves around women.
It is at this point that Katz and so many others go wrong. The assumption that masculinity is learned leads them to conclude that it can be harmlessly unlearned or at least relearned so as to make masculinity less, well, manly.
Entering the debate is a new book by scholar Christina Hoff Sommers titled The War Against Boys. In it, Sommers details how Katz and other gender-politics activists often mistake normal, healthy masculinity for a disease that must be cured through education. She quotes Katz at a July 1998 conference in Kansas City as saying, "I know very few healthy men."
In the teacher's guide to a video curriculum Katz co-produced for schools, the idea that masculinity has been "socially constructed" is explained. "What a culture embraces as 'masculine' can be better understood as an ideal or standard — a projection, a pose or a guise that boys and men often adopt to shield their vulnerability and adapt to the local values and expectations of their immediate and more abstract social environments," the guide says. It goes on to direct the teacher to reject the idea that men are simply more violent by nature as "anti-intellectual." But what if its true?
Sommers cites evidence in the form of cross-cultural studies that tell us what we already know; that "boys are universally more bellicose." The culture or society in which they mature does not change that fact. Sommers' primary concern is that the "equity specialists" designing much of the curriculum see boys, "these insulting, hitting, chasing, competitive creatures" and think of them as protocriminals. She points to one school that attempted to reformate the game of "tag" so that nobody could actually get tagged out, let feelings be bruised and buried and the strongest rise to the top.
If this sounds political, it is. Katz's video program is thinly disguised political propaganda. In a section titled "Backlash." Ronald Reagan is evoked as a figurehead of backward thinking that opposes the social progress of women and feminization of men. No mention is given to our current perpetrator-in-chief, who, we have reason to believe, assaults women and has been callous to the women closest to him.
Traditional masculinity contributes much to the lives we live together. Risk-taking, bravery, physical power, protection, leadership — all would suffer. There can be no doubt these attributes must be checked and channeled within a strong, disciplined moral environment so that they are deployed selflessly and for noble purposes. Efforts to wring the manliness out of men and young boys, however, will not succeed without diluting those virtues.
Marino is a Prairie Village junior in political science.
Chan Lowe/ TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES
Heard on the Hill
If you could be a teen heartthrob, who would you be and why?
"I think as much as Sid Vicious was not a teen heartthrob, he should have been and I would be him." Ryan Folker Kansas City freshman
"I would be Tyson Beckford or Ginuwine. Then I could have all the ladies." Paul Mobiley Kansas City, Kan., sophomore
"Jenna Jamison. I always wanted to be a movie star who could motivate the audience."
Jenni Schmitz Lawrence junior
"I already am a teen heartthrob." Clyde Kim Korean senior
College students revert into teens when dating
Perspective
A after three years here. I've decided college is simply junior high with beer. I've attended off-campus parties, greek
parties and even on-campus parties (yes, they do exist), and the interactions between males and females regress to a seventh-grade level at every party. Not to say this just happens at parties; I've seen the same conversations take place at bars and even on campus between classes. And, by the way, some of the names have been changed.
When I was in junior high, boys and girls would use any opportunity to touch the object of their affection. We played many games of touch foot
can that evolved into full-contact tackle football at the addition of a player of the opposite sex. Now, roughhousing (as my mom called it) is a regular occurrence; however, tickling and wrestling have usurped tackle football as the flirting game of choice.
Eric
Ohisen
guest columnist
opinion@kansan.com
It's a simple concept. Sitting around, drinking beer and "watching a movie" (the best excuse to sit alone in a dark room), one of the pair works up the courage to touch the other. Rather than use the extremely blatant yawn/arm-over-the-shoulder routine or the casual hand on the thigh, this person nudges his or her partner and, if he or she responds in kind, the game is on. One-upmush府 forces each person to outickle, out-
In junior high, using the telephone was tormenting with long, awkward pauses any young victim who attempted to contact someone of the opposite sex. Now, in my opinion, the Geneva Convention should have banned the telephone as a vehicle for torture. I consider myself fairly articulate, and most of my conversations with young ladies who have unfortunately earned my admiration go something like this:
nudge or outsqueeze until one partner grabs the other and wrestles him or her to the floor. Presto! Instant physical contact.
"Oh, Hi. Uh, this is Eric."
"Hello."
"Who?"
"Um, yeah. How are you?"
WHO:
"Eric, you know, from class?"
"Not too bad. So, would you like to go out this weekend?"
"All right. (long pause) Well, um, I guess I'll see in class tomorrow?"
"OK, Bye."
"OK."
In junior high, we made note-passing an art form. In college, it is a rare night when one of my buddies does not ask me to inquire of some female her opinion of my friend, or some female inquires of my friend's opinion of her.
I could write a book about the college regression phenomenon, but I need to call this girl who is friends with another girl I really like. Maybe I'll ask her to come over this weekend.
"Yeah."
Ohlisen is a Utica, Neb., senior in political science and journalism.
Editorial
Add/Drop requires patience
Students should give enrollment employees a break during Add/Drop.
Every year it happens, and every year the same people deal with it. It is the grumbling that comes from the mouths of students waiting in line to undergo the Add/Drop process at the enrollment center in Strong Hall and the University of Kansas employees who have to deal with it.
Many students have come to terms with the outdated enrollment and Add/Drop processes that are a part of life at the University. Still, many students have bad attitudes, and the Add/Drop employees who deal with the chaos in the enrollment center should be commended.
Long lines to get into the enrollment center often wrap around the first floor of Strong Hall, sometimes causing a wait of up to an hour. Instead of becoming disgruntled, students should think about the people who sit behind the computers for eight hours a day changing class schedules. Some students get the impression that it is the fault of the people working in the Enrollment Center that the line is so long or that they do not get their requested classes at first. Students tend to take out their aggression and frustration on the people working in the Enrollment Center when they are there only to help.
Other major universities have solved enrollment problems by implementing online or telephone enrollment systems. In online or telephone enrollment, students do not have to stand around in a poorly air-conditioned building for up to an hour waiting to get their class schedules.
Unfortunately, at the University, we do not yet have another option, so students should make the best of the situation. The griping and complaining does not cause the line to move any faster but rather adds to the irritation of the others in line.
It is not the Enrollment Center employees' fault that the University does not have a more convenient system so students should exercise patience in the long lines at Strong Hall next time around.
Brett Norman for the editorial board
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Free for all Callers have 20 seconds to speak about any topic they wish.
The Kansan reserves the right to edit submissions, and not all of them will be published. Slanderous statements will not be printed. To read more, go to www.kansan.com.
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I don't understand why there is even an argument over the housing ordinance. This is a college town, it hurts students, end of discussion.
What's wrong with walking around naked in front of people's doors?
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It would be really nice if I could walk past Hashinger and not hear ... the same song on acoustic guitar like everyday for four hours straight.
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I don't understand the Radical Christian ad in the Kansan. It says that they want to deepen their faith in Christ and that they believe in evolution, though they are two completely contradictory views.
I'm slightly pissed because I'm getting second-hand smoke through the vents of Jayhawker Tower B. This is a message to the neighbors who live upstairs: Stop smoking so much because us nonsmokers are getting second-hand smoke through the vents.
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Instead of wasting money on our lame football program, we should just build a giant John Lennon statue.
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Cherry watermelon Kool-Aid is the bomb.
Wescoe Beach is nice ... but where are all the bikini babes?
People sitting on Wescoe Beach should eat with their mouths closed.
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The entire city of Lawrence should boycott Jack Flanigans.
Yeah, have you noticed that you can't swing a dead cat in this school without hitting a pretty girl?
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Hey, I was just thinking how funny it is that I can get online and download the entire human genetic code, but I can't get online and enroll in genetics.
I like Free for All, even if some of the stuff people call in is silly and nonsense. It's sort of a student pulse.
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I guess water shortages don't apply to the sororities who I saw watering their lawn that was already green.
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