Being in the Middle East, where gender norms are more outwardly evident than the U.S., has us thinking more about gender and gender inequalities. In addition to my [Alex’s] opinions on gender norms here in Qatar, we have been thinking a lot about Bowdoin and what could be improved on our campus. We came to this conclusion: Bowdoin needs a Men’s Resource Center. Yes. A Men’s Resource Center.
Before you start burning copies of the Orient and telling us about our privilege—“everything is your resource” one friend told us already—give us a chance to explain ourselves. A comfy house somewhere on or near College Street with a kitchen, living rooms and an awesome staff would be ideal, but we don’t need that to accomplish our goal, which is to more effectively engage Bowdoin men in discussions regarding gender and sexuality.
The Bowdoin of today is a very different place than the Bowdoin of the 1970s, when women first enrolled at the College. The challenges we face are novel, and addressing them requires different institutional approaches.
We are growing up in the age of Tinder, Snapchat and Facebook. There are more women attending American universities than men. Pop culture and ads extol the values of drinking, crazy sex and not thinking about the next morning. We aren’t here to sound like an NBC news reel—we admit to loving Snapchat, drinking, and occasionally not thinking about consequences, but we are here to point out that we today face pressures our parents’ generation did not.
The Women’s Resource Center organizes amazing programming regarding sexuality and gender, but right off the bat the name alienates around half of the population of the College. Providing programming and support for only half of the population allows us to confront only half of the problem.
If we as aim to fully address issues of sexual violence, gender norms, and gender-based discrimination on campus, we must do a better job of engaging the entire student body.
That’s why organizations such as BMASV are so important in our community: they bring sexual violence education to the population that sadly needs to hear it the most. It’s also why Emma Watson’s speech at the United Nations advocating for the HeForShe campaign. HeForShe is a campaign that aims to involve men in the women’s rights movement.
If men better understood the forces that shaped their conception of masculinity and how masculinity affects their relationships, our society would be a better place. Men deserve the chance to define their masculinity outside of the constraints of patriarchy.
Having an annual luncheon and panel with a number of male faculty and staff is not nearly enough to begin tackling this issue. Talking about these questions with friends is good and talking about them with a female professional is better, but it is necessary that young men who are defining their masculinity can speak to a professional who is a man—to say otherwise is simply ridiculous. In these discussions we seek a friend, a mentor, or a role model—in other words, someone who has personally dealt with the issues we now face.
Bowdoin has a plethora of extremely intelligent women who are well versed in feminist theory and counsel their peers on issues of gender at a moment’s notice.
However, if a man has a problem regarding gender, say social pressure to have sex or a body image issue, he will be unable to easily find another man from whom he can receive counseling. For men, these conversations are especially difficult because common conceptions about masculinity bar us from questioning our identity or addressing our emotions in a meaningful way.
For many straight men, these challenges are especially evident when it comes to expressing feelings openly or around women.
For non-straight men, the challenge of defining one’s sexuality is inherently entwined with perceptions of masculinity.
We are calling for the establishment of a Men’s Resource Center, so that all men on this campus have the support they need to address issues of masculinity, and a forum in which they can openly advocate for solutions to the gender-based challenges that face our campus and society.