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It looks like the US will soon have its first male studies program at the university level, to complement the many women and gender studies programs that already exist. This is the summary on malestudies.org:

Leading scholars concerned about today’s men and boys will convene at Wagner College on Staten Island on April 7, 2010, to plan for a new academic discipline at the university level: Male Studies. The event, sponsored by The On Step Institute, will be hosted by Professor Miles Groth, PhD, Editor, The international Journal of Men’s Health and Thymos: Journal of Boyhood Studies. it will lay out the groundwork for the First International Conference on Male Studies scheduled for October 2010.

I would love to go to the event on April 7, but since I’m going to the US this summer, I don’t really have time to make another trip. The October Conference sounds mighty interesting though.

One of the key findings of the men’s movement is that defining feature of the male gender role is disposability. Throughout history, men have been expected to sacrifice their lives in wars, accidents and dangerous jobs. The influence men have had on society has invariably been coupled to this willingness to take on dangerous, heavy and dirty tasks that nobody really wants to perform. Helping men realize that being disposable is no longer necessary in modern and postmodern societies is a big step forward, and enables men to let go of the learned helpnessless that characterizes many men when they sacrifice their own life without knowing why. In some ways, there is a direct parallell here to the women’s movement helping women realize that they do not need to be housewives; instead they can work and earn their own living, just like men.

So far so good. But what happens if liberated men continue to choose jobs that are dangerous, and liberated women choose to stay at home with the kids (part-time or full-time)? Does this mean that we’ve gotten nowhere in our struggle to help liberate the sexes?

The distinction that needs to be made here is that truly realizing what options you have, and what choices you actually make, are two completely different things. If I know that I as a man do not have more of a responsibility to be a police officer than a women has, then I have been liberated from my gender role, regardless of whether I choose to actually be a police officer or not. Similarly, a woman has been liberated from her traditional gender role if she knows that she has every option to prioritize her career-even if she then proceeds to focus most of her time on having a family.

In my opinion, the reason that we even focus on the actual choices of the sexes to determine whether we have reached some sort of gender equality, is due to the fact that mainstream feminism has repeatedly taught us that we aren’t equal until women work as much as men do outside the home. This narrow focus on making the sexes identical, has very little to do with gender liberation. Gender equality need not mean gender sameness, regardless of what we have been led to believe.

There is a lot of work still to be done for the men’s movement. Men are still committing suicide far too often, most of the homeless are men, boys are performing badly in school, men are removed from their children after divorces, etc etc. But as we are working to change the conditions for men, let us not make the mistake of telling men how to behave, or what kind of lifestyle is “approved”. Feminism has already walked down that path once, and it simply doesn’t work.

If you haven’t seen this piece of news yet then I highly recommend you to check it out. Mirko Fischer, a business man based in Luxembourg, is suing British Airways after they demanded that he move from his seat next to his pregnant wife, out of fear that he may molest the boy sitting next to him. The airline has a long-standing policy of not allowing men to sit next to children that are flying alone.

This is a summary of what actually took place:

Shortly after all passengers had sat down, having stowed their bags in the overhead lockers, a male steward asked Mr Fischer to change his seat.

Mr Fischer refused, explaining that his wife was pregnant, at which point the steward raised his voice, causing several passengers to turn round in alarm. He warned that the aircraft could not take off unless Mr Fischer obeyed.

Mr Fischer eventually moved seats but felt so humiliated by his treatment that he is taking the airline to court on the grounds of sex discrimination.

It’s kind of amazing that men have accepted this kind of sexism for years and years. As Mr Fischer points out, there is no real basis for having this policy in place:

‘This policy is branding all men as perverts for no reason. The policy and the treatment of male passengers is absolutely outrageous.

‘A plane is a public place  -  cabin crew regularly walk down the aisles and passengers are sat so close to each other. The risk of any abuse is virtually zero.

‘Furthermore statistically children are far more likely to be abused by a member of their family. Does that mean that BA are going to ban children sitting next to their own parents?’

In many ways, men are the last group in society that you are allowed to discriminate against. In light of this fact, Mr Fischer is a real hero for those of us who want gender equality to include men.

The nature vs nurture debate is a seemingly endless source of controversy and discussion. Opinions range from biological determinism to the rejection of any meaningful impact by innate factors. This general discussion about what causes human behavior also has a more specific component; namely, how do we raise our children? Are boys boisterous creatures who need a mixture of running wild and strict discipline to become decent men? Or are girls and boys virtually the same, and it is simply our deeply ingrained habitual patterns that program them to take on the same old gender roles as always?

My take on these questions is that we don’t even need to know the answers to be able to raise a child, as long as we are open to whatever is emerging within the child. A young boy may behave like a typical boy, or he may behave nothing like a typical boy. The important task for us as adults is to accept the child, regardless of whether he or she fits into our preconceived notions of how they should behave. If a boy enjoys playing with a doll, do we have the guts to allow him to do so, or do we clearly demonstrate that this behavior is unwanted?

The important thing is that our openness needs to go both ways. Regardless of whether a young boy prefers playing with cars or dolls, the challenge for us is to support him in whatever is the organic development path for him. The same goes for girls of course. Staying open to the fact that each child is an individual, and not automatically a mirror image of what we expect a boy or girl to be, can be a real challenge.

All this said, research indicates that innate gender differences do exist, and that they do affect the behavior of young children. This has been shown several times in the past, and a fresh research report adds even more credibility to this body of knowledge. However, this knowledge about innate gender differences doesn’t really affect the principle I outline above. Treating each child as an individual is the best way to secure that the child gets the kind of socialization process that he or she needs. The end result will likely be that most boys play with cars, since there are genetic and hormonal drivers for this. However, some boys will prefer dolls most of the time, and some boys will want to play with dolls a smaller proportion of time. If we cannot accommodate the needs of these boys (or the girls that prefer playing with trucks), then what kind of people are we?

The ultimate answer to the nature vs nurture debate is as always that both matter. And the way to allow nature and nurture to combine in the most beneficial way for the child is to see the unique needs of each child.

Historically speaking, gender roles weren’t determined by people’s wants; they were determined by people’s needs.