The decline of men

As the Women's and Gender Studies program prepares to launch auditions for the Vagina Monologues, the champion of social justice that we call Gonzaga University should ask itself where the counterpoint to this movement is. Where are the auditions for the Phallic Soliloquoies? Where is our Men's and Gender Studies program?

It is easy to pass these questions off as irrelevant. After all, prior to 1970 weren't history courses studying the history of men? Were philosophy classes anything but a survey of male thought? Did we read anything other than male literature in English classes? And even today, has there ever been a female president of the United States, or of Gonzaga?

As the argument goes, the obvious answers to these questions are reason enough to justify the purity of a Women's and Gender Studies program and its feminist bent toward affirmative action. But compelling evidence has been mounting which suggests this thinking, that seeks so valiantly to level the playing field and create gender equality, does much the opposite, and has consequences extending far beyond the bounds of academia.

Call it the death of patriarchal society, bro-pression, or he-cession, scholars of numerous disciplines have embraced the idea that men have lost their traditional place in society and are searching for an identity. In his book, "The Decline of Men: How the American Male is Tuning Out, Giving Up, and Flipping Off His Future," author Guy Garcia cites study after study of bro-blematic statistics, some highlights of which are:

l In 2006 women outnumbered men on American college campuses by over 2 million, with the trend increasing.

l Testosterone levels dropped by 1.2 percent per year between 1987-2004, and 17 percent overall.

l Between 10 and 40 percent of children grow up in a fatherless environment worldwide.

l In the U.S. single mother families grew from 12 percent in 1970 to 26 percent in 2003.

l Women's earnings have steadily increased by 10-15 percent yearly since the early ‘90s, while men's have stayed roughly the same.

What's more, Tom Mortenson of the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education said in an NPR interview that, "[America has] the highest incarceration rates in the world. We have declining male labor force participation rates. We've got declining male voting rates in the United States. We have declining male engagement in raising the children that they father." Evidence suggesting the decline of men is all too apparent.

The question becomes, what does this have to do with us? How does the loss of male identity at Gonzaga measure up to the greater cultural scene? Are Gonzaga men falling into the image of the 21st century coward suggested by the above statistics?

If we profess the lofty Jesuit ideals of "men and women for others," and "cura personalis" (care for the whole person), we ought to account for our men and be sure they have adequate means to avoid the pitfalls that besiege them so often in our culture.

Before any research can be done, however, awareness of the problem must be raised. At Gonzaga the problem is neglected and the lack of consciousness among our students is apparent. If we are to understand the issue properly we must balance the traditional deconstruction of gender roles with essentialist views of gender roles. Men and women can and should live equally, but to attempt a complete annihilation of what it means to be male or female seems to me what has led to the decline of men.The jury is still out on the balance between nature and nurture and our Women's and Gender Studies department should embrace more nuanced and balanced views between these two determinates.

Rather than seek gender equality that levels the needs of males and females into one sweeping remedy, we should seek, in our Jesuit tradition, to attain gender freedom that allows individuals to cultivate their uniquely human potentials.