Do Men Need A Movement Of Their Own?

Last week I read this amusing story from the Chicago Tribune:

'Power' move by male students ruffles U. of C.

A group of University of Chicago students think it's time the campus focused more on its men.

A third-year student from Lake Bluff has formed Men in Power, a student organization that promises to help men get ahead professionally. But the group's emergence has been controversial, with some critics charging that its premise is misogynistic.

Others say it's about time men are championed, noting that recent job losses hit men harder and that women earn far more bachelor's and master's degrees than do men.

"It's an enormous disparity now," said Warren Farrell, author of "The Myth of Male Power" and former board member of the New York chapter of the National Organization for Women. He noted, among other things, an imbalance in government and private initiatives that advance the interests of women and girls.

And then this one at Open Salon:

Equal Rights for Men

There are many, many ways I can think of that women are not yet equal to men. We still only make a fraction of what men do on a per-dollar basis. (76 cents I believe?) We are not allowed into full combat in the military. We are judged on our ability to be mothers and housekeepers before our ability to do our jobs. All of that is real and I am the last person to say there aren't a million other reasons that women have not yet attained equal status with men.

However, I have a bone to pick with my female counterparts. Feminism is all about each woman having the right to choose her own path. We should be allowed to do whatever we want in this life and not be judged by society's arbitrary sex roles, right? Absolutely.

What about men? Do they enjoy this right?

While each article speaks to something very different, they both suggest that there is a lack of attention being paid to the evolution of the male role in society. To some this may seem atrocious - men run the patriarchy, right?! But articles like these bring up an important question I've asked myself before:

If women have the feminist movement as a means to reinvent themselves, what do men have in order to evolve and reevaluate their role in society in a collective fashion?

While there is such as thing as the "Men's movement" and the "Masculism" movement- I would hardly say it's mainstream. And I'm not sure that a full blown revolution is necessary, but I do think that if more men actively thought about how they also want to evolve their gender role they wouldn't be relying on the bizarre out-dated archetypes such as the "Men In Power" group that was created at University of Chicago.

In writing for Change.org, I've found that for many men, the feminist movement is one of the only supportive venues for a man to enter and shake off the bindings of the patriarchy that not only stifle women, but also men. Evolving modern gender roles requires an evaluation by everyone - not just women. If we want a more equal society we have to be taking on the fight from every side - and make sure that men feel like an ally to the feminist movement, not the enemy.