Heads up, knuckle-draggers
a reply to the editors
of Men’s Health

Editor’s note: Part of the ongoing collaboration between authors Sut Jhally and Jackson Katz is writing opinion pieces for the popular media. Some recent examples have been “Manhood on the Mat” in the Boston Globe and “Put the Blame Where It Belongs: On Men,” in the Los Angeles Times. The previously unpublished piece that follows was written in response to an offering in Men’s Health magazine.

Definitions that connect masculinity with machismo, hard drinking, and risk-taking are bad for men, as revealed by levels of alcoholism, drug addiction, and drunk driving that are much higher among men than among women.

In a grotesque example of Orwellian doublespeak, the September 2000 issue of Men’s Health featured an article that named UMass – a campus where women had recently been terrorized by what appeared to be a serial rapist – as one of the nation’s worst colleges for men!

     While the article – “The 10 Best and Worst Colleges for Men” – was nothing more than a collection of selective anecdotal musings, some people, especially in the mainstream media, seem to have taken it seriously. This is unfortunate, as the list and the rationale behind it reveal nothing about the state of campus life for men, but much about the insecurities and anxieties of its frightened authors. Unable to accept that the world has changed in the last 30 years (for both women and men, and for the better) they seem to be yearning for a romanticized and mythical past in which “men were men” and women accepted their subordinate status.

     The rationale of the Men’s Health polemic may be simply stated: Women’s studies, feminism, multiculturalism, enforcement of Title IX, strong sexual harassment policies – BAD. Football, fraternities, “the classics,” weak sexual harassment policies – GOOD.

     Or to put it another way: Strong women move aside, make way for the babes and bimbos who have remained free from the evil influence of “the feminists.” (Watch out when “the” appears before any group description – “the” blacks, “the” Jews, etc.; you know crude stereotyping is about to occur. Men’s Health does not disappoint.) Drawing from the lies and myths of the conservative backlash, Men’s Health paints a picture of campus life that flattens the complex world of the modern university into an insulting caricature.

     As men who have spent a lot of time on college campuses over the past generation, working with men and women on issues of gender, health, and violence, we offer the following 10 reasons why the advice being doled out by the knuckle-draggers at Men’s Health is not only dangerous for women, but equally unhealthy for men themselves.

1. Feminism is not the enemy. Cultural changes catalyzed by the modern multicultural women’s movement have helped improve the lives of a generation of men. Far from trapping men, feminism has helped to free us from unhealthy, confining roles and has allowed us to explore a wider range of experiences and emotions than were available to our fathers and grandfathers.
   
   
2. Women’s studies is not the enemy. By turning a critical eye on the gendered aspects of social, economic, and political life, women’s studies also brought the studies of various masculinities into sharper focus and has given men greater and richer tools for understanding our complex and diverse racial, ethnic, class, and sexual experiences. College courses on “men’s issues” (which the Men’s Health authors reference approvingly) are indebted intellectually, institutionally, and spiritually to the women’s studies movement.
   
   
3. The men’s health movement is a direct outgrowth of the feminist-led women’s health movement. The idea that gendered aspects of men’s lives contribute both to men’s potential health problems as well as to strategies for prevention and treatment is a concept pioneered by “the feminists” whom the authors deride as “anti-male.”
   
   
4. Safer campuses are good for men, too. Men who love women – our mothers, sisters, wives, girlfriends, friends, and others – should by definition care about their safety, well-being and opportunities in life, and welcome policies that are designed to give them greater physical and emotional support and protection. Such men should support initiatives on college campuses – like women’s centers – that promote gender equity, justice, and fairness.
   
   
5. A lot of women arrive at college as sexual assault/abuse survivors. In fact, a lot of men don’t realize how many of our female peers are survivors of violence, both within their families and in dating relationships. A female-friendly college campus, with well-funded women’s resource centers and academically strong women’s studies departments, is often the first safe and welcoming place these women have encountered. Anything that allows women to come to terms with their experiences is good, both for them and for the men in their lives.
   
   
6. Women who feel safe are a lot more fun to be around than women who feel themselves under constant threat. While Men’s Health ridicules campus-based efforts to encourage better communication among sexually intimate partners – to insure both parties are fully consenting – we are very sure that such efforts have led to more positive sexual encounters for both women and men.
   
   
7. Gender relations are not a zero-sum game. The idea that one sex can improve its quality of life only at the expense of the other reflects a simplistic and out-dated, battle-between-the-sexes mentality that ignores the interdependent reality of men’s and women’s lives.
   
   
8. Traditional definitions of masculinity that connect it with machismo, hard drinking, and risk-taking behaviors are bad for men, as revealed by levels of alcoholism, drug addiction and drunk driving that are much higher among men than among women. The contradiction between the Men’s Health stereotype of maleness on the one hand, and our real needs as interdependent, vulnerable human beings on the other, feeds into the destructive patterns that overwhelm the lives of tens of millions of American men.
   
   
9. Homophobia is bad for all men. In the world as defined by Men’s Health magazine, males are not only hard-drinking, hard-playing and hard-living. They are also exclusively heterosexual. The authors offer not one word about gay men or bisexuals. This exclusion is inherently unhealthy for all men who are not straight. It is also bad for straight men, who are policed by homophobic attitudes into narrow, restrictive and unhealthy definitions of masculinity.
   
   
10. Men’s Health lies about the level of men’s violence against women. One of the most consistent findings of social scientists is that one in five college women has been the victim of rape or attempted rape. The Men’s Health authors label this a feminist “myth,” preferring a Department of Education study that confines itself to rapes reported to the authorities. (According to the F.B.I., 80 to 90 per cent of sexual assaults are not officially reported). If Men’s Health mistrusts the scientific record simply because it is conducted by women – talk about identity politics – then we suggest its editors look at the findings of two ad men. James Patterson and Peter Kim, in their 1994 book The Day America Told the Truth, report that 20 percent of the women in their study said they had been raped on a date. Duplicity by Men’s Health on this issue encourages men to live in denial about the extent of men’s violence. That is bad for everyone – women and men.

     Our advice to those men at Men’s Health who were responsible for this regrettable article: Grow up, get a life and look around you at the incredibly strong and independent women that the modern multicultural women’s movement has made possible. And, if you are too insecure to celebrate that, then get into therapy – quickly! You are a danger to women and an embarrassment to your fellow men. (Note: shortly after the “10 Best and Worst Colleges for Men” article was published, the Men’s Health editor was fired).

– Sut Jhally and Jackson Katz

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