OPINION:
Princeton University, apparently concerned that some men are behaving too dang manly and insisting one of their roles is to be a “breadwinner” for their family, is now pressing male students to participate in a bi-weekly discussion group on “healthy masculinity,” led by a licensed psychologist, no less.
Group organizers want men to cry more, it seems.
Of course, they don’t put it that way. They simply say today’s men are perpetrating “traditional gender norms” that aren’t in line with modern society — gender roles that include becoming the “breadwinner” and providing for one’s family, for example — and that those of the male persuasion simply need to become more “tremendously vulnerable,” as Campus Reform noted.
Could we pleeeaase stop making men into little girls.
Speaking from a female point of view — it’s annoying to see men act like women. It’s even more annoying to hear some dimwit in the back of the room pipe up, “Oh yeah? Well, could you define what a man’s supposed to act like then?”
OK, so on that vein, dear dimwit — and you know who you are — here’s a start: Not like women.
And definitely not like a helpless “tremendously vulnerable” little girl.
Still confused? Gender identification has become tricky business, true. So here’s a quick test to help separate the X from the Y — the pink from the blue — the manly from the womanly. Read, then answer.
The course, headed by psychologist Jean Semelfort, is called “The Men’s Allied Voices for a Respectful & Inclusive Community (MAVRIC) Project. And as Princeton English professor Carl Adair writes on the MAVRIC Project blog: “We as men can unpack our own internalized ideas about what it means to be a man. We can’t dismantle the institutional privilege that men enjoy if we’re not willing to ask hard questions of ourselves about the privilege we’ve been granted in our own lives. We’re asking ourselves to be tremendously vulnerable — which runs against the grain of everything men are taught,” Campus Reform wrote.
Did you read it? Now here comes the quiz part: If you read that and didn’t groan, you’re already well on your way to becoming a “tremendously vulnerable” little girl.
Do not pass go; collect your purse and tissue box and go home. Or, to the local coffee shop for some “honest and transparent conversation around masculinity” with fellow man friends, as Semelfort explained away the course, to Campus Reform.
But groaners, be glad. At least that shows hope for the male gender still exists.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.
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