LJ_Reloaded
バクスター の
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2010
- Posts
- 21,217
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com...-shocking-anti-male-hatred-on-the-sfu-campus/
Shocking anti-male hatred and sexism on the Simon Fraser University campus: Robyn Urback
The student union at Simon Fraser University in B.C. has made the apparently contentious decision to finance the creation of a Men’s Centre on campus. Motivated, surely, by deep-seated patriarchal values, the union approved a budget of $30,000 to launch the project — the exact same amount conferred on the university’s Women’s Centre, which was established back in 1974. The idea for the Men’s Centre was proposed by fifth-year accounting student Keenan Midgley, who told SFU’s student newspaper that he believes men, too, are entitled to safe space on campus.
Unsurprisingly, however, not everyone at SFU is thrilled with the decision. The Women’s Centre, for one, coolly brushed off the idea of a stand-alone Men’s Centre on its website, simply stating that, “the men’s centre is everywhere else.” They did say they would welcome a men’s centre that focused on “challenging popular conceptions about masculinity, confronting homophobia, sexism, racism, classism, and ability issues.” In contrast, they would oppose a men’s centre that “focussed on maintaining the old boys club … that promotes the status quo, encourages sexual assault, or fosters an atmosphere of competition and violence.” Oh. OK, then. Good to know.
Several other students have taken a more direct approach, compiling their objections to the Men’s Centre in widely-circulated five-minute YouTube video. Deeming the project “not financially responsible,” students take turns expressing their grievances. One woman with seemingly impeccable foresight declares that, “The Men’s Centre will end up being a place to celebrate hegemonic masculinity.” She later attacks the credibility of the Centre’s proponents, scoffing that they have, “no experience being in a gender-studies class.”
Men, too, join in the criticism of the proposed Centre, one curiously warning that it may “become a highly masculinized space.” Another cautions that the project risks creating a “heteronormative space,” while yet another critical male dismisses the Men’s Centre as simply, “a room with a PS3 and a bunch of douchebags playing games.”
http://www.thefrisky.com/2012-06-11...raser-university-should-not-be-controversial/
Last month, the student society at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada, approved $30,000 to establish a men’s center. The center’s main supporter, a student named Keneen Midgely, said the volunteer-run men’s center would only be equitable, considering SFU already has had a women’s center since 1974. It would be a space, he pointed out, for men to support each other and deconstruct masculinity and gender roles just like SFU women can.
I couldn’t agree more. Yet somehow, establishment of the SFU men’s center is controversial. Instead of being seen in a positive light as a “safe space” for men, it is being seen as an unnecessary, even frivolous, expense to give men their own space in what is already a patriarchal culture.
Of course men have it easier than women, generally speaking. Western culture is largely patriarchal, heteronormative and sexist. There is no doubt about it that sexism faced by men does not compare to the sexism faced by women. Yet the part of feminism — which is fundamentally about breaking down prescribed gender roles and letting each individual choose for himself or herself how to “be” — that requires more attention, in my opinion, is changing gender roles for men. Feminism isn’t just about empowering women and girls to do everything men and boys can do; it is also about the reverse.
Keenan Midgely has said that the volunteer-run men’s center will offer “peer support” for mental health issues and dating/relationships. He cites numerous statistics about men’s mental health issues, like suicide rates, but one could argue that those sorts of services may already be available at a counseling center. Yet I think he makes a valid point that some men can feel so much of a stigma about needing help and needing to appear strong at all times that they wouldn’t be comfortable going into a counseling center in the first place. (Anecdotally, I’ve certainly seen in my life how men are much, much, much more resistant to seek counseling or professional help for mental health issues.) For what it’s worth, SFU counseling director Martin Mroz supports the idea.
http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/a-room-of-their-own-2/
Keenan Midgley played basketball, soccer, baseball and football. But it isn’t his athletic skill that has made him well-known on campus in Burnaby, B.C. It’s the budget he’s written as treasurer of the Simon Fraser Student Society. The fifth-year accounting student added funding that will carve out a special space on campus for guys. The men’s centre, assuming the budget passes a final vote, will get $30,000 next year. That’s the same amount that the women’s centre, started in 1974, will receive. The pending creation of the men-only space is the source of much discussion at Simon Fraser University. Since the news broke in April, many students have questioned whether the men deserve funding. Along with that, a debate has emerged over whether women—who make up 55 per cent of undergraduate students at SFU—still need their own women-only space.
The women’s centre is a 450-sq.-ft. space in a building near the centre of campus with couches, a kitchen and a library. It provides a place for students to discuss women’s issues, offers referrals to services like counselling and serves as a war room for campaigns, such as advocating for child care on campus. Marjorie Griffin Cohen, a professor in the department of gender, sexuality, and women’s studies (GSWS), says the centre was important to the women’s movement in the 1970s when women were a minority of the student body and even more rare as professors. Today it’s important, she says, for its work fighting violence against women.
Midgley says men could benefit from a similar “safe space.” He says his gender deals with more suicides, alcoholism and drug abuse, and suffers negative stereotypes just like women do. “As a student society, we’re supposed to represent all undergraduates. I don’t think we’re currently doing that.”
Although the women’s centre’s coordinator declined to be interviewed, skepticism of the concept is evident in the centre’s FAQs. “Where is the men’s centre?” says a line atop that section of its website. “The simple answer is that the men’s centre is everywhere else,” it reads, before a paragraph that explains the justification for the women’s centre. Canadian society is “a man’s world,” female voices are oppressed in classes, and women feel threatened by drunken males at night, it reads. The website lists support for the idea of a “male allies project” that would “bring self-identified men together to talk about masculinity and its harmful effects.” Masculinity, it says, “denigrates women by making them into sexual objects, is homophobic, encourages violence, and discourages emotional expression.”
http://thetyee.ca/News/2012/05/03/SFU-Mens-Centre/
Thirty years after Simon Fraser University's Women's Centre opened its doors, the campus is now considering a proposal for its first ever Men's Centre.
Last Wednesday the Simon Fraser Student Society (SFSS) Board of Directors approved a budget of $30,000 for the project. The project was initiated by Keenan Midgley who, as treasurer, also writes the budget. "We were in a financial position to expand our services and I think this could be really useful on campus," he said.
But the creation of a Men's Centre at SFU stirs unease among feminist scholars and other women's advocates on campus, who say it's not clear the new institution will promote equality among men and women, that the process for creating it has been fast-tracked and without collaboration, and its backers don't acknowledge the reasons why women in particular need a safe space.
An SFU women's studies undergraduate student has added new voices to the controversy by creating a video featuring some of her classmates' thoughts on the proposal (watch it towards the bottom of this article). "I didn't feel like we were being heard so I put it into a video just so that the board could hear how people were feeling about the project," explained video-maker Natasha Clearly-Dulai.
SFSS president Jeff McCann said the purpose of the Men's Centre is not specifically about gender equality, but rather to build a support structure and community for men who've come to SFU from out of town and are having a difficult time finding ways to get involved on campus.
Shocking anti-male hatred and sexism on the Simon Fraser University campus: Robyn Urback
The student union at Simon Fraser University in B.C. has made the apparently contentious decision to finance the creation of a Men’s Centre on campus. Motivated, surely, by deep-seated patriarchal values, the union approved a budget of $30,000 to launch the project — the exact same amount conferred on the university’s Women’s Centre, which was established back in 1974. The idea for the Men’s Centre was proposed by fifth-year accounting student Keenan Midgley, who told SFU’s student newspaper that he believes men, too, are entitled to safe space on campus.
Unsurprisingly, however, not everyone at SFU is thrilled with the decision. The Women’s Centre, for one, coolly brushed off the idea of a stand-alone Men’s Centre on its website, simply stating that, “the men’s centre is everywhere else.” They did say they would welcome a men’s centre that focused on “challenging popular conceptions about masculinity, confronting homophobia, sexism, racism, classism, and ability issues.” In contrast, they would oppose a men’s centre that “focussed on maintaining the old boys club … that promotes the status quo, encourages sexual assault, or fosters an atmosphere of competition and violence.” Oh. OK, then. Good to know.
Several other students have taken a more direct approach, compiling their objections to the Men’s Centre in widely-circulated five-minute YouTube video. Deeming the project “not financially responsible,” students take turns expressing their grievances. One woman with seemingly impeccable foresight declares that, “The Men’s Centre will end up being a place to celebrate hegemonic masculinity.” She later attacks the credibility of the Centre’s proponents, scoffing that they have, “no experience being in a gender-studies class.”
Men, too, join in the criticism of the proposed Centre, one curiously warning that it may “become a highly masculinized space.” Another cautions that the project risks creating a “heteronormative space,” while yet another critical male dismisses the Men’s Centre as simply, “a room with a PS3 and a bunch of douchebags playing games.”
http://www.thefrisky.com/2012-06-11...raser-university-should-not-be-controversial/
Last month, the student society at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada, approved $30,000 to establish a men’s center. The center’s main supporter, a student named Keneen Midgely, said the volunteer-run men’s center would only be equitable, considering SFU already has had a women’s center since 1974. It would be a space, he pointed out, for men to support each other and deconstruct masculinity and gender roles just like SFU women can.
I couldn’t agree more. Yet somehow, establishment of the SFU men’s center is controversial. Instead of being seen in a positive light as a “safe space” for men, it is being seen as an unnecessary, even frivolous, expense to give men their own space in what is already a patriarchal culture.
Of course men have it easier than women, generally speaking. Western culture is largely patriarchal, heteronormative and sexist. There is no doubt about it that sexism faced by men does not compare to the sexism faced by women. Yet the part of feminism — which is fundamentally about breaking down prescribed gender roles and letting each individual choose for himself or herself how to “be” — that requires more attention, in my opinion, is changing gender roles for men. Feminism isn’t just about empowering women and girls to do everything men and boys can do; it is also about the reverse.
Keenan Midgely has said that the volunteer-run men’s center will offer “peer support” for mental health issues and dating/relationships. He cites numerous statistics about men’s mental health issues, like suicide rates, but one could argue that those sorts of services may already be available at a counseling center. Yet I think he makes a valid point that some men can feel so much of a stigma about needing help and needing to appear strong at all times that they wouldn’t be comfortable going into a counseling center in the first place. (Anecdotally, I’ve certainly seen in my life how men are much, much, much more resistant to seek counseling or professional help for mental health issues.) For what it’s worth, SFU counseling director Martin Mroz supports the idea.
http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/a-room-of-their-own-2/
Keenan Midgley played basketball, soccer, baseball and football. But it isn’t his athletic skill that has made him well-known on campus in Burnaby, B.C. It’s the budget he’s written as treasurer of the Simon Fraser Student Society. The fifth-year accounting student added funding that will carve out a special space on campus for guys. The men’s centre, assuming the budget passes a final vote, will get $30,000 next year. That’s the same amount that the women’s centre, started in 1974, will receive. The pending creation of the men-only space is the source of much discussion at Simon Fraser University. Since the news broke in April, many students have questioned whether the men deserve funding. Along with that, a debate has emerged over whether women—who make up 55 per cent of undergraduate students at SFU—still need their own women-only space.
The women’s centre is a 450-sq.-ft. space in a building near the centre of campus with couches, a kitchen and a library. It provides a place for students to discuss women’s issues, offers referrals to services like counselling and serves as a war room for campaigns, such as advocating for child care on campus. Marjorie Griffin Cohen, a professor in the department of gender, sexuality, and women’s studies (GSWS), says the centre was important to the women’s movement in the 1970s when women were a minority of the student body and even more rare as professors. Today it’s important, she says, for its work fighting violence against women.
Midgley says men could benefit from a similar “safe space.” He says his gender deals with more suicides, alcoholism and drug abuse, and suffers negative stereotypes just like women do. “As a student society, we’re supposed to represent all undergraduates. I don’t think we’re currently doing that.”
Although the women’s centre’s coordinator declined to be interviewed, skepticism of the concept is evident in the centre’s FAQs. “Where is the men’s centre?” says a line atop that section of its website. “The simple answer is that the men’s centre is everywhere else,” it reads, before a paragraph that explains the justification for the women’s centre. Canadian society is “a man’s world,” female voices are oppressed in classes, and women feel threatened by drunken males at night, it reads. The website lists support for the idea of a “male allies project” that would “bring self-identified men together to talk about masculinity and its harmful effects.” Masculinity, it says, “denigrates women by making them into sexual objects, is homophobic, encourages violence, and discourages emotional expression.”
http://thetyee.ca/News/2012/05/03/SFU-Mens-Centre/
Thirty years after Simon Fraser University's Women's Centre opened its doors, the campus is now considering a proposal for its first ever Men's Centre.
Last Wednesday the Simon Fraser Student Society (SFSS) Board of Directors approved a budget of $30,000 for the project. The project was initiated by Keenan Midgley who, as treasurer, also writes the budget. "We were in a financial position to expand our services and I think this could be really useful on campus," he said.
But the creation of a Men's Centre at SFU stirs unease among feminist scholars and other women's advocates on campus, who say it's not clear the new institution will promote equality among men and women, that the process for creating it has been fast-tracked and without collaboration, and its backers don't acknowledge the reasons why women in particular need a safe space.
An SFU women's studies undergraduate student has added new voices to the controversy by creating a video featuring some of her classmates' thoughts on the proposal (watch it towards the bottom of this article). "I didn't feel like we were being heard so I put it into a video just so that the board could hear how people were feeling about the project," explained video-maker Natasha Clearly-Dulai.
SFSS president Jeff McCann said the purpose of the Men's Centre is not specifically about gender equality, but rather to build a support structure and community for men who've come to SFU from out of town and are having a difficult time finding ways to get involved on campus.
