Welcome To "Girlington": Helen Smith On How College Is Becoming A Hostile Working Environment For Men

Submitted by Mastodon on Sun, 2014-02-02 23:49

Article here. Excerpt:

'Recently I sat down with psychologist Dr. Smith across a Skype connection (one set up by her tech-savvy husband, Glenn Reynolds, who also writes a popular blog) for a delightful conversation about her new book Men On Strike. The first half of the interview certainly generated a strong reaction (just look at the comments section), but I think the second half found below is even more provocative.

Listen to the whole thing here.
...
... but I think that actually what’s happening is that not only is the [college] commodity much less desirable to men but I think that the environment itself is actively hostile towards men. So I think you’ve got two things going on there: you’ve got a commodity college which isn’t to men as important as it used to be, and there are other things that men are finding to do; and at the same time I think that the discrimination against men in these diversity-field, women-dominated schools is also acting as a kind of barrier to men. A lot of men don’t want to put up with it and a lot of people think, “Of course that’s not really happening,” but people have no idea what men face in our colleges today. For example, they can go into a college today and be charged with any type of sexual harassment or sexual abuse and there doesn’t have to be really proof shown that they’ve done something.'

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Comments

One of the questions rarely asked by feminists is what motivates men. In truth, all humans--men and women--are motivated by a desire for their own good. In most cases, people don't work just for the joy or working--they work to put food on the table or have a roof over their head. It's the end result they're after. It's common sense to recognize that people do things for a reason--if you want someone else to do something, you have provide them a motive for doing so. That's what "motivational speakers" do--they help remind you of your motives for doing something.

But here's the rub: if society doesn't provide men a motive for doing something, men have no reason to do it. Only slave masters try to get people to work with no reward. And if society isn't going to reward men for what they do, they are treating men as if they were slaves--sometimes, very close to literally treating men that way, as when the gendarmes round up "dead-beat dads" and put them in jail.

To keep it simple, at one time men benefited from playing a traditional role. Today, men don't. So they seek alternatives. It's a rational thing to do. If society doesn't find a way to motivate men to play traditional roles, men won't play those roles. What's worse, society now often punishes men for taking on these roles. A man who marries and works to support his children will likely lose his kids and his money in a divorce because he was the "primary breadwinner" and not the "primary caretaker." That's punishing a man for acting responsibly. When society starts punishing men for doing the "right thing," men have no reason to do the "right thing." But most politicos are too busy courting women's votes to see what is happening. They don't want to be accused of waging a "war on women," so they cater to women. Screw the men. So men "go their own way."

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Submitted by el cid on Mon, 2014-02-03 16:04