Johnnella Butler

Where Have All the Young Men Gone: Creating Classrooms and Cultures that Foster Diversity
Johnnella Butler, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, Spelman College

The clarion call has sounded. The Chronicle of Higher Education (Wilson 2007), describes the “New Gender Divide” that the Boys Project heralds. The die is cast, and debates and discussions about the so-called gender divide sound at times like a charge of “reverse discrimination.”   

The article characterizes the debate and reveals the motivating issue:  perceived loss of male power.  Many interviewed speak of women “dominating” classes and campus space. Cast in a “boys versus girls” context, some fear a “lopsided future.”  Others admit that “colleges do give some men extra consideration,” falling short of affirmative action.  The AAUW sees “concern over the rising proportion of college women a backlash that masks a ‘discomfort with women’s achievement.’”  Others point out that men still make more money than women and take the top jobs.  Yet, while women as an aggregate still make about 76 cents to the dollar that white men make, black men only make about 72 cents.  Most only caution, as a huge afterthought if at all, that studies confirm that race and class contribute more to the divide than gender.  Intersectionality has not informed our analyses and we ignore the assimilation model reinforcing white male race and class privilege and male socio-cultural dominance throughout.

While we should not ignore the complaints of young white men feeling left out at college when they are in the minority vis-à-vis white women, or condone the heckling they encounter from their female peers as reported in the Chronicle article, a larger question persists: how are the identities of young men being shaped by our culture to influence their failures to complete high school or enter college?  What messages are sent and by whom/what? 

If we heed Lani Guinier’s observation that minorities are the canary in the mine, to answer those questions we should look carefully at young black and Hispanic men’s experiences-- those who are “missing” and those who are present and accounted for.  A good starting point is Johnnetta B. Cole’s and Beverly Guy-Sheftall’s Gender Talk:  The Struggle for Women’s Equality in African American Communities (2003).  Through interviews, research, and personal reflection, they demonstrate that gender equality is rife with the politics of racial identity and assimilation, commodification, and power--who has it, who doesn’t, and how to get it--in whatever form you can, whether in the inner city or the metaphorical Harvard.  Black male identities are shaped in particular ways by the values of the hip-hop and virtual worlds, intertwined with the role models of white male patriarchy.

I continue to encounter--as I did in the 70s and 80s--variations on the theme of young black men who are confused as to whether they are, as they have told me, Amherst men, UW Huskies, or black men.  Or, now that I am at Spelman, Morehouse men feel that at some level their manhood must be defined in opposition to their conceptualizations of Spelman womanhood as well as models of male dominance. For these young men who are not missing, the number games and the power plays shape how they see their own potential in the world. They are present physically, but for their spirits to grow, they must wind their way through the white boy/girl divide as well as the cultural imperatives of male dominance and posturing.

We know the statistics. As we try to increase male enrollment, let’s factor in socio-economic realities, racism, sexism, and heterosexism, and the major cultural shifts that have devalued education, pejoratively feminized it in many circles, and emphasized the technological fast-track to the exclusion of developing the intellect.  Let’s create classroom spaces and pedagogies that openly recognize, explore, and explain racial and gender power dynamics, and a general education curriculum that explores our political and socio-cultural history and power imbalances. The gender divide signals just another pressing reason to spend tax dollars on education, and return to the goal of universal education, transformed to accommodate and assist students to grow through diversity--studied and lived.

Reference

Wilson, R. 2007. The new gender divide: Data show that more women than men now enroll in college, but is there really a 'boy crisis'? The Chronicle of Higher Education 53 (21): A36.

Cole, J and B. Guy-Sheftall. 2003. Gender talk:  The struggle for women’s equality in African American communities New York: One World/Ballantine.

If your campus wants to raise questions about how to increase engaged education using diversity as a key vehicle for expanding intellectual and practical choices, consider bringing Campus Women Lead’s workshop “Women’s Leadership for Inclusive Excellence” to your campus.  Johnnella Butler is a member of the Campus Women Lead Project on Inclusive Excellence that created the workshop.  For more information, contact Kathryn Peltier Campbell at campbell@aacu.org.