A recent story in the Chicago Tribune reports on the formation of a new men's group at the University of Chicago, 'Men in Power'. The group, headed by student Steve Saltarelli plans to:
host pre-professional groups in law, medicine and business, foster ties with alumni, bring in speakers to discuss masculinity and mentor local middle school students as part of its "Little Men in Power" program.
I applaud Saltarelli for starting the group and hope more groups like MiP are formed across the country - if ever there was a time men needed a group for support, it's now.
As the Tribine article points out, "in April, the national unemployment rate for men was 10 percent compared with 7.6 percent for women." This is largest gap in the ratio for male/female unemployment in the United States. Ever.
Also: "Since 1981, women have collected 135 for every 100 bachelor's degrees awarded to men." And in spite of this, before MiP, the University of Chicago had 9 women's groups and 0 men's groups.
Does this mean women have become more powerful than men and men are now a repressed minority? Does this mean our country has been taken over by reverse-sexists as some might suggest? No.
Of course there's still pay disparity between women and men. Of course more men are represented in congress. Of course men commit more violent acts on women than the reverse. But, on the other hand, more than 10x the number of men are in prison (see http://www.washingtonpost.com/... and http://drugwarfacts.org/... ). Fewer men are educated. Fewer men have jobs. More men are veterans. Far more men are homeless. Besides, there are far too few diaries about men, so not to dismiss other fair points, but we're going to talk about men here.
You can't ignore race as part of these statistics. White men have more opportunity for employment, education, and legal representation. Men in minority groups are facing the brunt of these trends(http://www.bsos.umd.edu/socy/vanneman/socy441/trends/unemrace.html ). However, unemployment, lack of education and imprisonment effect all groups of men disproportionally more than women.
On top of these issues, men have yet to fully define their role in a 21st century American society. While there have been at least three "waves" of feminism to help women redefine their societal role (if such a thing exists) and future desires for equality, men haven't had such a great track record of figuring out what we're supposed to be doing with ourselves and in our families. Sometimes this leads to anger at the changing society around us (see Newt's comments on Sonia Sotomayor) and sometimes it leads to violence (see William Gibson's amazing work, Warrior Dreams: Violence and Manhood in Post-Vietnam America.
Sure, some men are rich, powerful, free, employed, and in control of their lives. But others aren't so lucky. As Warren Farrell, "author of "The Myth of Male Power" and former board member of the New York chapter of the National Organization for Women" points out in the Tribune article:
"just because some men are doing well is hardly a reason not to applaud efforts to boost the careers of other men."
Some efforts have been made to empower men and help them redefine their role in our society in recent decades (see: Million Man March, Joseph Campbell), but the efforts are often mocked and nothing has really helped buck these trends.
Although Saltarelli's group may have started as a pre-professional group at a privledged school, it's still a great step, because it is A STEP. Men's groups in churchs are great, but hardly sufficient. Let's start the discussion, guys. How can we help ourselves? How can we help our white, black, latino, asian, etc. brothers stop our decline into an uneducated, underemployed, incarcerated gender?
Hint: Watching Charlie Sheen is not the answer.