By NCFM
Click on the image for more information about NFCM-U.
NCFM NOTE:
Mr. Foxvog is one of our movement’s young activists. Over the next few years NCFM will be expanding our reach into college campuses to raise awareness of our issues which over time should make campuses more male friendly. Students like Mr. Foxvog are helping make this initiative a reality at his school, Goshen College in Indiana. Please join him and NCFM in our efforts to make the world a better place for all of us.
Harry Crouch, President
Sam Foxvog
Contributing Writer
sefoxvog@goshen.edu
Our Movement, Theory and Lobbying Voice
At this year’s Kick-Off, there’s no doubt one of the most powerful performances was Ammon Allen-Doucot’s poetry with Seth Yoder’s piano accompaniment. This was based on a poem, “Compulsive Masculinity,” that Ammon wrote and posted on his blog, “Stray Thoughts, Little Couplets, Hopes, Dreams.” The content of this poem was powerful and the delivery electrifying. This performance seemed well rehearsed and more importantly it was obvious that the performers put their full being and creative individuality into this form of live art.
There was one area, though, which in my personal opinion was a poor match for such talent. Ammon introduced this poem as one about why young men on campus should be feminists. This is what made me share my perspective here – young men and women should expand their perspective to include men’s gender liberation theory.
In our society, men are commonly taught to express only certain feelings and be wary of deep emotional bonding with other men. Socially conscious young men are taught by feminist teaching to be concerned about women and women’s experiences. However, what about these men’s own lives and issues?
We are at a time where males struggle more in areas such as suicide, mental health, education, unemployment and homelessness than their female peers. Whereas discussion of and activism to address women’s issues is encouraged, the same does not apply to men’s issues. Sometimes these causes have actually met resistance.
When the political scientist Warren Farrell gave a lecture at the University of Toronto about issues of boys struggling in school, the event was met by harassment by students who pulled fire alarms, made loud disruptive noise and screamed at event goers that they were “misogynist scum.”
How has the environment for learning become so rotten? While the understanding and corresponding responses to the study of women’s experiences is clearly important, is it not time for young men to listen to themselves and address the issues they deal with in society? Is it not time for others to listen as well…
You can read the rest of the article here:
http://record.goshen.edu/2014/09/30429-our-own-movement-theory-and-lobbying-voice
Commentary:
Sam’s article stirred the pot from out of which came the response On New Girl, Crocheting And Being A Feminist Man, by Contributing Writer Ammon Allen-Doucot
Doucot says, “According to Michael Kimmel, a Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies at Stony Brook University, where he is the Director of the Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities, ‘Men’s Rights guys don’t know if they want to be restored patriarchs or liberated men. The Men’s Rights movement became a movement of – and for – angry white men.’”
Please see, A Joke of a Men’s Studies Center…, to keep Kimmel in proper perspective. His advisory group is comprised primarily of radical feminist women. Maybe that’s Ok with young Mr. Allen-Doucot. Then again, maybe he doesn’t know. This old angry white guy thinks men should have a roll to play in determining what is good for other men, not just radical feminists, including but not limited to, the ones with penises.
