The program, at Stony Brook University, explores what it means to be male in today’s world. In 2015, Michael Kimmel, a leading scholar on masculinity and the director of the Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities, helped start the nation’s first master’s degree program in Masculinities Studies. If you are doing a larger study of gender issues, please see the links at the bottom of this post for related lesson plans, including one on the #MeToo movement, and one, contributed by a teacher, on pronoun use in schools. We hope you will tailor it to fit your needs, but we also hope you’ll tell us how and why you did that, in the comments. Note to teachers: This is a sensitive topic, and some of the readings, discussion questions or activities may not be suitable for your students. We end with suggestions for several projects students might take on to expand and reimagine what “being a man” might mean in their own lives and in our society at large. Black, and others, raise, and suggest ways to deconstruct definitions of masculinity as they manifest in our society and our lives. In this unit, we explore some of the questions Mr. It’s no longer enough to “be a man” - we no longer even know what that means.
No commensurate movement has emerged to help them navigate toward a full expression of their gender. To be a girl today is to be the beneficiary of decades of conversation about the complexities of womanhood, its many forms and expressions.īoys, though, have been left behind. They’ve absorbed the message: They’re outperforming boys in school at every level. Girls today are told that they can do anything, be anyone. The past 50 years have redefined what it means to be female in America. In a 2018 Times opinion essay “ The Boys Are Not All Right,” the comedian and author Michael Ian Black writes: What do they imagine is expected of them? Whom do they look up to, and how are they navigating the transition from being boys to becoming men? “Roger and I were living together, and my mother was coming to see us, and I was showing her around the place and said – ‘this is Roger’s and my bedroom, and here your bedroom.’Īnd she said – ‘Yes I know darling, but this is YOUR bedroom, isn’t it, which you’re turning in a guest bedroom?’ And I said no, my bedroom is Roger’s bedroom.Īnd she just looked at me and I said – ‘Do you want a cup of tea or a scotch? And she said – I think I’ll have the scotch please.What do boys in America think about being boys today? When Percy finally came out to his mother, years later, it was after he already moved in with his partner, Roger. He just thought it was fun, but it was an eye opener that there were other people who felt just like we did.” I remember that he decided that we should go to a gay club. I was speaking to him, and then we both admitted to each other that we both liked guys. “I had a very close friend at school with me, and for some reason he was sent to a boarding school – his parents must have found out that he was gay so they sent him away. Percy, on the other hand, never thought to tell anyone he was gay when he was a child – and only came out – to some people – when he was 16. My mother came down the stairs and asked – ‘is it true?’ And I was in shock and I started crying… But she sat me down and said ‘you have nothing to worry about, nothing to be scared of.'” I came out to my parents by sending a message. “My parents were really nice, they told me they loved me no matter what, whether I was gay or straight. “I was confused, I didn’t know what it was at first, I didn’t know there was such a thing as liking a boy. After A while I knew that I was gay and I accepted it.Ĭoming out to his parents was not an easy moment for Louis. “My friends in school support me”, Louis tells of his coming out experience. Louis is a 13-year-old boy, still in school, who came out to his parents at such an early age – and even has a boyfriend.
Percy, who is now 78-years-old, has been living with his partner Roger, a 90-year-old retired History professor, for 51 years.