Time to start a men’s movement?

In 2008, a group of male students at Pitzer College in California launched a drive to create an official masculinist student group. They faced huge public censure from the women on campus. On the group’s official website, masculinists.org, Dashiell Driscoll even describes how “[a] fellow Pitzer student, and member of the Feminsit [sic] Coalition, told me repeatedly that she wanted to punch me in the face.” Funding and recognition for their student group was repeatedly denied until a local radio host decided to personally fund the group. After months of struggling for recognition, the Masculinist Coalition was created by a 13 to nine vote of Pitzer’s student senate.

Perhaps it is time to declare that the women’s movement is a fait accompli. Men have been outnumbered by women at the University of Manitoba since 1988, with current enrollment statistics showing that women outnumber men by approximately 21 per cent. Fields such as medicine that have traditionally been male-dominated are now female-dominated. This is not unique to the U of M, and indeed is happening even at the most elite of Ivy League schools. Why then is there no movement amongst the men at the U of M to rectify this disparity?
Section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms reads: “(1) Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability. (2) Subsection (1) does not preclude any law, program or activity that has as its object the amelioration of conditions of disadvantaged individuals or groups including those that are disadvantaged because of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.”

Thus, there are justified grounds for creating a recognized and supported men’s association on campus, since men are disadvantaged. Such disadvantages men face include: generally lower grades, lower enrollment, lower completion rates, and fewer scholarship opportunities than women.

This idea raises a corollary: under the definition of equality under the charter, why is the U of M Womyn’s Centre funded by our UMSU fees? While it clearly fits the definition of a group that exists with the goals of “amelioration of conditions of disadvantaged individuals or groups” because of sex, it fails to meet a very important condition of this statement — women are no longer the disadvantaged group at the University of Manitoba. According to the demographics, men are, and yet, there is no elected men’s representative in UMSU.

Perhaps it’s time for UMSU to look at the reasons that some of its student groups exist, and what powers and funding are afforded to them. Surely a change is on the horizon.

Troy Unrau is a fourth-year geophysics student and co-president of the Society of Earth Sciences and Environment Students.