Gaffney - Locating Masculinity in The Theory PDF

Men and Masculinities
14(2) 190-209
ª The Author(s) 2011
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Gender Box: DOI: 10.1177/1097184X11407046
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Locating Masculinity
in the Introduction
to Women and Gender
Studies Course
Karen Gaffney1 and Andrew J. Manno2
Abstract
This essay reflects our collaboration on integrating the topic of masculinities into
the Introduction to Women and Gender Studies course that we helped design as
part of our Option in Women and Gender Studies at Raritan Valley Community
College in central New Jersey. This essay argues that the integration of masculinity
is essential to learning the social construction of gender and applying that lens. We
designed the course to position what we call the ‘‘gender box’’ front and center
(borrowing from the concepts Jackson Katz describes in his film Tough Guise).
We also created a Social Action Assignment to allow students to plan and carry out
a specific change in relation to gender. This essay charts our successes and obser-
vations in these areas, but it also explores challenges we continue to face, specifi-
cally the persistent lack of male students in the Intro course.
Keywords
masculinity, gender studies, pedagogy
1
English Department, Raritan Valley Community College, Somerville, NJ, USA
2
English Department, Raritan Valley Community College, Somerville, NJ, USA
Corresponding Author:
Karen Gaffney, English Department, Raritan Valley Community College, Somerville, NJ 08876, USA
Email: kgaffney@raritanval.edu
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Gaffney and Manno 191
Introduction
We knew we were onto something when students in Raritan Valley Community
College’s Introduction to Women and Gender Studies course began wishing their
boyfriends, brothers, and fathers would take a course like this. Initially, many of the
(almost exclusively female) students had to overcome their misconceptions about
feminism. They soon saw that it was a label to embrace rather than fear. More sig-
nificantly, though, the students found the study of the social construction of male
and female gender norms to be the essential tool that helped them make sense of
their gendered lives.
In this article, we are arguing that the integration of the topic of masculinities is
an essential component to the Introduction to Women and Gender Studies course
because it is vital to learning the social construction of gender and applying that lens.
We will demonstrate the need for this integration by describing the evolution of our
approach to the Intro course as well as our continuing challenges. This integration of
the study of masculinities into the Intro course is important and necessary for two
basic reasons: one, it deepens and sharpens the proper object of study in an Intro
course (the social construction of gender) and two, it is one of the institutional
changes in Women’s Studies (name change is another) that might contribute to
recruiting men into the courses and programs.
To begin with some background, we are both tenured faculty members in the
English Department at Raritan Valley Community College, located in Branchburg,
New Jersey, which serves both Somerset and Hunterdon Counties. Andy first devel-
oped an interest in masculinity studies during his doctoral work in English and cre-
ated the Masculinity in Literature course at Raritan Valley Community College in
1999. Karen came to Raritan Valley Community College in 2003 with a PhD in
English but also with some fairly traditional Women’s Studies training and teaching
experience. She also had an interest in whiteness studies and masculinity studies,
particularly the issue of unmarked and privileged categories.
Starting in 2004, Karen chaired and Andy served as a member of the newly
formed Women and Gender Studies Steering Committee. In 2005, this committee
created the Option in Women and Gender Studies within the Liberal Arts major. The
members of this committee are faculty from various disciplines; we have no faculty
lines specific to Women and Gender Studies. When our committee created the
Option, there were already enough relevant electives in place to sustain the Option.
These electives included Women in Literature, Masculinity in Literature, Psychol-
ogy of Women and Gender, Feminist Philosophy, Women and Minorities in the
Criminal Justice System, and Marriage and Family. However, we had no introduc-
tory course, so we created Introduction to Women and Gender Studies, which we
designated as a required course for the Option. Students would also have to take
three of the relevant electives in order to graduate with the Option. We already had
a few other Options in the Liberal Arts major, so this approach seemed like the most
practical way of organizing this program and serving our students. Because we are a

192 Men and Masculinities 14(2)
community college, all of our courses are freshman and sophomore level, with few
prerequisites. The Intro course is not a required course for any of the other courses,
and there are no prerequisites for the Intro course. In addition to serving as a require-
ment in our Option, it serves as a General Education course.
Overview of Our Approach to the Intro Course

Our approach was very collaborative and involved sitting in on each other’s entire
semester of the course. The evolution of our thinking can essentially be broken down
into three distinct phases, which we described at three consecutive conferences in
2007, 2008, and 2009. The first year, we presented a paper in the Masculinities Area
at the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association (PCA/ACA)
conference, which was titled ‘‘Men’s Studies is from Mars, Women’s Studies is from
Venus, But Not if We Can Help It: Bridging the Gap in the Intro Course.’’ We
explained that we initially thought that just including the topic of masculinities in
the Intro course would be sufficient, but we soon learned it was not because while
students could think in complex ways about the construction of female gender
norms, they tended to essentialize masculinity.
The next year, we presented a paper at the Mid-Atlantic Women’s Studies Asso-
ciation Conference titled ‘‘Making Masculinity Visible: Unpacking the Invisible
Knapsack in the Intro Course.’’ We had by then redesigned the course to position
what we call the ‘‘gender box’’ front and center (borrowing from the concepts
Jackson Katz (1999) describes in Tough Guise). This allowed us, fairly success-
fully, to integrate the topic of masculinities into the course at every level, and the
students clearly left the course with a more solid understanding not only of the
social construction of masculinity but also of gender. The following year, in
2009, we presented a third paper in this series at the same conference titled ‘‘You
Can Take it with You: Transforming Teaching and Encouraging Social Action in
the Intro Course.’’ We had determined that while some of the stronger students
seemed able to take this understanding of the social construction of masculinity
and gender with them outside of the class, students without the same critical think-
ing skills had a difficult time applying the gender box beyond the course. In order
to deal with the challenges we had identified, we created a social action assignment
to allow students to plan and carry out a specific change in relation to gender.
While we have been pleased with all of our progress in these areas, our current
challenge is the persistent lack of male students in the Intro course, which we mis-
takenly thought might change when we integrated the topic of masculinities into
the course and had male faculty teach the course.
Rationale
Before we start to explain the details of our approach, we want to explain our ratio-
nale for integrating the topic of masculinities in the first place. We feel that the study

of masculinities is not sufficiently explored in Intro courses, and that is a problem for
several reasons. During the second wave of the women’s movement, in the late
1960s and early 1970s, Women’s Studies programs began to emerge throughout the
country. The Intro to Women’s Studies courses that were instituted during this
period often focused on retrieving women’s lost history and analyzing the sources
of women’s oppression through women’s experience. Starting in the 1980s, this
approach was criticized as essentialist, and a new, more complex approach emerged
that considered women’s experiences as multiple and plural rather than as one single
experience. At this point, feminist scholars also began to address, among other
things, the social construction of gender, and this approach has become very com-
mon. However, even though the seemingly inclusive word ‘‘gender’’ is usually used
when describing such work, it tends to focus on the construction of female gender
norms rather than both female and male norms. Analysis of the construction of mas-
culinity does not seem to be happening on a widespread level in the discipline
of Women and Gender Studies and its courses. For example, the titles and prefaces
of textbooks for introductory courses often mention the word ‘‘gender,’’ which
invokes both female and male norms, but the selections in the textbooks generally
default to female norms and include very little about the social construction of mas-
culinity. For example, the 2009 edition of Feminist Frontiers states in the Preface
that this textbook can serve ‘‘as the major—or supplementary—text in courses on
women’s studies, gender studies, or the sociology of women or gender’’ (Taylor,
Whittier, and Rupp 2009, p. v). It also states, ‘‘Although the core focus remains
on women and gender, this edition continues to offer consistent coverage of men and
masculinity’’ (Taylor, Whittier, and Rupp 2009, p. vi). However, out of the fifty-four
readings, only four explicitly analyze the topic of masculinities. While it is important
that these essays are included, this ratio does not seem adequate for a text purport-
edly aimed at providing ‘‘consistent coverage of men and masculinity.’’
In the past, there were clear reasons for Women’s Studies to focus primarily on
women. After all, Women’s Studies grew out of a movement aimed at addressing the
oppression of women. However, even though this oppression still exists, an exclu-
sive focus on women is just not sufficient in our current cultural context. We need
to focus on the social construction of gender in its fullest extent, which includes anal-
ysis of how both female and male norms are constructed along a spectrum.
Analyzing both male and female gender norms along a spectrum is important
for several reasons. First, it helps us identify the cultural forces at work that exert
pressures on men and women to privilege and perform certain characteristics
associated with stereotypical notions of gender. Second, such an approach sheds
light on the systemic nature of patriarchy, and this awareness is necessary for a
progressive feminist vision of further dismantling patriarchal power. Third, while
this essay focuses on the pedagogical need to integrate the study of masculinities in
the Intro course, we feel we must also acknowledge a larger social imperative for
such study. Prior to this project, Andy wrote a paper for the 2004 Mid-Career
Fellowship Program, a partnership between Princeton University and several

New Jersey community colleges. Andy’s paper, titled, ‘‘Male Retention at the
Community College,’’ identified several alarming trends that reinforce the need
to examine male norms. He wrote that men at both two- and four-year institutions
‘‘are entering college at lower numbers than in the past, earning lower grades,
dropping out more frequently, transferring less successfully, and graduating at
lower rates’’ (Manno 2004, p. 1). This is evidence of an increasing male educa-
tional disengagement that has potentially serious social implications. On a societal
level, we need to analyze the construction of masculinity as a way to understand
this male disengagement. For these three reasons, we need to examine both male
and female gender norms.
In his introduction to The Gendered Society, Michael Kimmel explains that even
though it might appear that the majority of college classes have always done what we
are advocating, that is actually not the case at all. While they focus on men, they are
not focusing on studying masculinities. Kimmel clearly makes that distinction here:
Every course that isn’t in ‘‘women’s studies’’ is de facto a course in ‘‘men’s studies’’—
except we usually call it history, political science, literature, chemistry. But when we
study men, we study them as political leaders, military heroes, scientists, writers, artists.
Men, themselves, are invisible as men. Rarely, if ever do we see a course that examines
the lives of men as men. . . . On this score, the traditional curriculum suddenly draws a
big blank. Everywhere one turns there are courses about men, but virtually no informa-
tion on masculinity. . . . Integrating gender into our courses is a way to fulfill the promise
of women’s studies—by understanding men as gendered as well. (Kimmel 2000, pp. 5-6)
In other words, the majority of classes that focus on men normalizes them and takes
their status as men for granted, instead of examining masculinity as a social con-
struction that shaped those men’s lives. Similarly, Kimmel explains that even though
statistically ‘‘the problems of youth and violence is really a problem of young men
and violence,’’ that is not how the media depicts it at all. Instead, as he says ‘‘gender
disappear[s]’’ (Kimmel 2000, p. 9). He concludes, ‘‘I believe that until we make gen-
der visible for both women and for men we will not, as a culture, adequately know
how to address these issues’’ (Kimmel 2000, p. 10).
Our interest in integrating the study of masculinities into the Intro course follows
this way of thinking completely. We need to bring that analysis into the Intro course
so that we can understand both female and male gender norms. How can students
fully understand how female gender norms are constructed when they are not also
analyzing how male gender norms are constructed? Each of these norms does not
exist in a vacuum; instead, they are interdependent. Students must be able to see
these norms on a spectrum of gender in order to understand the power and signifi-
cance of these norms. Fully integrating an examination of the study of masculinities
into an Intro course, then, does not come at the expense of women, as some might
argue. If anything, we can better understand how our society constructs female
norms when we understand how they operate in conjunction with male norms.

We realize this is a controversial approach, especially when it comes to the issue of

naming the Intro course, and we will be discussing the debate over the name later in
this article, but for now we would like to focus on the evolution of our thinking about
the course itself.
Phase One of Our Approach to the Intro Course

When we first offered Introduction to Women and Gender Studies, which Karen
taught in the fall of 2006, we worked on integrating the topic of masculinities
throughout the course, not just setting aside a few specific class periods for it. Ulti-
mately, we realized that even this thorough integration was not enough. However,
before we explain what we found lacking, we want to share a few of the strategies
we employed. We used the textbook Reconstructing Gender (at that time it was the
2006 edition), which effectively integrates multiple readings on masculinities in
all of its topic-based units (the body, education, health, etc.). The only thing miss-
ing from this book, though, is historical background. We therefore spent a few
weeks early in the semester providing students with a historical framework that
informed our analysis of the readings in the textbook. For example, at the same
time as we read Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s 1848 ‘‘Declaration of Sentiments’’ and
Estelle Freedman’s (2002) recent historical overview of nineteenth- and twentieth-
century feminism in No Turning Back, we also read Anthony Rotundo’s (1993) his-
torical overview of the phases of American masculinity from American Manhood.
Rotundo identifies an eighteenth-century ‘‘communal manhood,’’ a nineteenth-
century ‘‘self made manhood,’’ and a late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century
‘‘passionate manhood.’’
While Rotundo’s analysis of this evolution is fascinating to analyze on its own, as
is Freedman’s analysis of the evolution of the nineteenth-century women’s rights
movement, putting the two side by side opens up so many new possibilities. It allows
for a deeper understanding of the notion of ‘‘separate spheres.’’ It also allows us to
see that male and female gender norms operate on a spectrum, and at certain histor-
ical moments, both norms tend to move away from each other toward opposite ends
of the spectrum, while at other historical moments, these norms move closer to each
other and blur the lines that define them. Similarly, our pairing of excerpts from
Betty Friedan’s (2001) The Feminine Mystique and Susan Faludi’s (1999) Stiffed
highlights a parallel notion of ‘‘separate spheres’’ for the post–World War II
period. In a more traditional introductory course, students would have still likely
read Friedan’s work, but it would have been without the understanding of mascu-
linity and the kinds of social forces at work determining the expectations of a male
gender norm. By reading both texts, students were able to see both men and women
as gendered subjects, realizing not only that women in the 1950s and early 1960s
were clearly experiencing a ‘‘problem with no name,’’ as Friedan calls it, but also
that men were experiencing a parallel unnamed problem that Faludi later calls the
‘‘betrayal of American manhood.’’

While these pairings were successful in that they highlighted the socially
constructed and historically dependent nature of both female and male gender
norms, setting up this framework at the beginning of the course and then reading dur-
ing the semester about multiple perspectives on masculinity were still not sufficient.
The fact that students did not fully understand the social construction of masculinity
became apparent during an activity we designed toward the end of the semester. The
activity was a game that rewarded deception. Our goal was for students to connect
the rewarding of deception to the deception so often involved in performing tradi-
tional masculinity, as seen in the male stereotypes of the gambler, the con man, and
even the businessman. While the students quickly understood that deception was the
trick to the game, they did not make the connection to masculinity. In retrospect, it
appears that students did not connect deception to masculinity (and therefore did not
really understand how masculinity operates) because we did not provide a consistent
framework about the social construction of masculinity. Ultimately, we realized that
we were so focused on moving away from essentialism and instead privileging mul-
tiple perspectives about gender that we failed to focus on the fact that our culture
tends to perceive masculinity in rather monolithic ways.
One success of the women’s movement is that women can perform a variety of
very different gender norms and generally still be seen as women. However, men
generally have a smaller window of acceptable norms to work within. Intro courses
need to explore this difference at the same time as they examine the corresponding
multiplicity of norms. Our readings tended to focus on breaking down stereotypes
for both women and men, but students need to understand what those stereotypes are
before they can understand ways people resist them. Furthermore, students were able
to understand the socially constructed nature of female gender norms more easily
than that of male gender norms. Students came to the course with some experience
understanding how our culture shapes expectations for girls and women in ways that
they did not come to the course with a corresponding understanding of the way our
culture shapes expectations for boys and men. Students’ lack of experience analyz-
ing masculinity reinforces all the more why it is so important for an Intro course to
provide this framework.
So, one of the things that we discovered in the teaching of the Intro course is that
while the students seemed initially ready to apply the lens of gender in relation to
female norms, they had much more trouble doing so in relation to male norms, as
seen in the difficulty that the students had with the activity. We thought a lot about
this problem, trying to identify ways to address it. The solution, we discovered, came
via the approach Andy took to the Masculinity in Literature course that he taught
during the following semester (and that Karen sat in on). We found that there was
no magical remedy to the problem and that we even used some of the same texts.
The key difference was that Andy focused solely on establishing the lens that helped
students examine male norms.
When Andy last taught the course, he used Kimmel and Messner’s (2003) Men’s
Lives as the text that provided a frame for students to understand concepts about the

topic of masculinities that they could apply to literary texts. While this approach
exposed students to a wide variety of masculinities (straight, gay, white, black,
Latino, Asian, elderly, and transgendered), it ultimately did not help them under-
stand key historical issues central to the construction of masculinity. So when he
taught the course this semester, he made some important changes.
Andy paired novels such as Golding’s (1954) Lord of the Flies, Palahniuk’s Fight
Club, and Bennet’s (1995) King of a Small World (a novel about poker) with
research in the field of masculinity studies such as Kimmel’s (2005) The History
of Men, Rotundo’s American Manhood, Putney’s (2001) Muscular Christianity,
Faludi’s Stiffed, and Pollack’s (1998) Real Boys. While students read about the
struggle between groups of boys stranded on a tropical island, they also read about
Rotundo’s historical accounts of boy culture in the nineteenth century, Putney’s
description of the ‘‘boy problem’’ that was widely discussed during the Progressive
era, and Pollack’s notion of the ‘‘boy code’’ of valued masculine characteristics that
constrain the male range of action and emotion. This helped students see how the male
norms are a site of tension in the novel and cause the primary conflicts in the story.
While students read about the disenfranchised narrator in Fight Club, they also
read about Faludi’s notion of ‘‘the promise broken’’ and the historical progression
from a masculine culture of utility to one of ornament. The fight club, then, acts as
an antidote to the narrator’s frustration with his effeminized, consumer-driven life.
As a result of using ideas from Kimmel’s The History of Men as a frame, further,
students saw the fight club as a modern-day stand-in to the cowboy’s taming of the
frontier.
As with the Intro course, Andy integrated an activity that rewarded deception
with the hope that students would link it to masculinity. Even though students had
trouble making this connection in the Intro course, they immediately made the con-
nection in the Masculinity in Lit course. We are convinced that this success was
due at least in part to the familiarity and consistency of the lens. Rather than trying
to cover every different variety of masculinity, the course provided a core of ideas
that could be applied to a wide variety of representations of masculinity. Such key
ideas include the ‘‘tough guise’’ performance that displays risk-taking, competi-
tiveness, assertiveness, stoicism, and independence, while masking vulnerability,
sensitivity, and emotion; in other words, this performance is a deception, whether
conscious or not.
Ultimately, it seems that part of the integration of analysis of female and male
gender norms into an Intro course must involve not only their historical context and
therefore socially constructed nature but also the divergent ways in which our cur-
rent culture perceives these norms. Students need to be able to explore, in an explicit
way, why and how our culture still perceives male gender norms in fairly monolithic
ways. In addition, what are the effects of these monolithic attitudes? The solution,
we believe, is not to exclude analysis of multiple perspectives of masculinity, but
if our culture essentializes masculinity, then we need to understand how that oper-
ates and make sure that analysis is a consistent lens throughout the course.

Phase Two of Our Approach to the Intro Course

As we rethought the Intro course and worked to apply what Andy was doing in the
Masculinity in Literature course, we identified the value of Jackson Katz’s docu-
mentary film Tough Guise, which Andy used on the first day of the Masculinity
in Literature course. We decided to begin the Intro class with it as well because it
establishes how masculinity is constructed. Throughout the Masculinity in Literature
course, Andy (and the students) connected the material to the lens that Katz pro-
vided. We realized that this would work really well for the Intro course, so when
Karen taught the Intro course in the fall of 2007, we used an excerpt on the first day
where he establishes the idea of a box to represent the way gender is constructed. The
contents of the box are the messages we get about the ways in which we are supposed
to perform a gender norm. Then, there are forces outside the box that keep us inside the
box. Katz focuses on the dominant messages that males get regarding what it means to
be a man, being ‘‘tough,’’ ‘‘independent,’’ ‘‘strong,’’ and ‘‘respected,’’ so he places
those words inside the box. Then, accusations such as ‘‘fag,’’ ‘‘sissy,’’ ‘‘wimp,’’ and
‘‘weak’’ are outside the box as threats to keep boys in the box. Katz maps this dynamic
out very clearly in the film but also describes how this very dynamic is kept invisible;
the fact that it is just a guise, a ‘‘tough guise,’’ must remain invisible for it to function.
Katz uses The Wizard of Oz as a way to describe the difference between the outer guise
that is projected, the ‘‘great and powerful’’ wizard, and the man behind the curtain.
After we watched an excerpt from Tough Guise, in the Intro course, we watched
Pink’s video of her 2006 song ‘‘Stupid Girls.’’ Even though Pink is not as explicit as
Katz when it comes to what dominant messages go inside the box and what kinds of
words and messages go outside the box, students were readily able to apply the same
logic to Pink’s song. We felt they would not have been able to do this so easily if it
were not for Katz’s lens for examining stereotypical gender norms. Doing this exer-
cise on the very first day of class helped set the stage for an entire semester where we
focused on ‘‘the box’’ and the messages that we receive about gender.
Clearly, ‘‘the box’’ concept can be considered an overly simplistic way of think-
ing about gender, but we find it very helpful, particularly in the context of an
introductory-level course. Furthermore, while it may seem like the box provides a
limited paradigm where individuals are mere blank slates to be acted upon by social
forces, we find the box metaphor can be expanded to include a much more complex
view of the social construction of gender. On one hand, outside social forces do cer-
tainly have a significant impact on defining the box, where its lines are drawn, and
how those lines are policed; on the other hand, however, one can also imagine the
individual inside that box having the power to redefine the box and its borders and
even to step outside. We find that the box concept allows for an understanding of the
interactive nature of how both social forces and individuals construct gender.
In retrospect, after teaching the Intro course twice, it became clear that the first
version had all the pieces but that what was missing was an overarching way of
thinking that helps students see the complexities of how gender operates. When

we continued to stick with many of the same readings in the second course, they
worked much better because the students were able to link them together using a
consistent lens. It is not enough, therefore, to include readings about male
gender norms, but we also need to give students the tools to understand those
norms and link them to female gender norms. Once they have these tools, then
integrating the study of masculinities allows them to understand how gender
impacts males, how gender impacts females, and the dynamic between the two.
For example, when students understood the ‘‘box’’ concept and we read Faludi
and Friedan, they could see that the ‘‘box’’ of expectations for men after World
War II included establishing a family to protect, an enemy to fight, a frontier to
conquer, and a job with respect. One student even called this a ‘‘masculine
mystique.’’ The students also identified a parallel box of expectations for
women, Friedan’s ‘‘feminine mystique,’’ which focused on the norm of the
passive housewife. The students could see that the same social forces (the Cold
War, the economy, etc.) constructed gender, but that the norms for men and
women were constructed in opposition to each other. Without the ‘‘box’’
concept, students would not have been able to see all of these layers.
A lens like the box concept is not something that can just be introduced on the
first day of class where the students are left to apply it on their own throughout
the semester. Instead, the lens needs to be reinforced every week, especially at the
beginning of the semester, so the students understand how the lens serves as a way
to view all of the course material. Eventually in this course, the students got to the
point where they regularly referred back to the idea of the box (without prompting)
as a way to understand course material. We believe that this version of the Intro
course positions sustained examination of masculinity front and center, and we have
found that students gain a better understanding not only of the social forces that
affect boys and men but also of how those forces impact girls and women. This
approach does not diminish the way gender norms impact females, but rather this
approach reinforces why such analysis is crucial in the Intro course.
We ultimately hope that students will develop the tools to interrogate the box.
We were able to see this happening throughout the semester, when not a class went
by when a student did not make a reference to ‘‘the box.’’ We got into complex
discussions about the relationship between ‘‘the box’’ and that particular week’s
reading. Students disagreed with each other regarding aspects of the box to keep
and what to abandon. They also debated with each other regarding the potential
danger of the box.
At the end of semester, students made the following comments in their final
response paper that asked them to reflect on the semester:
I never really thought about the ‘boxes’ even though I knew they existed but I realize
now they are used in so many different ways. Pretty much our whole lives deal with the
‘boxes’.

The issue I noticed recurring in most of my response papers is the fact that boxes can
conflict. . . . This conflict became clearer as we transitioned from second to third wave
feminism, as women said they felt trapped by the expectations of feminism, even
though these expectations are in direct conflict with the traditional expectations for
women, with the boxes which feminism was trying to escape. This conflict even per-
sisted through ‘the crisis in masculinity’ segment of the course. As I wrote my response
paper for that week, the harm done to boys is done both by assuming they are untam-
able animals and by giving them a sense of entitlement.
After sitting down and reviewing my response papers I came to the conclusion the
foundation to all the problems is the whole idea of the gender role ‘boxes.’ When this
whole idea of the boxes was first introduced in class I didn’t think much of it and I just
wondered how these words could really affect our society. But whether we want to
believe it or not, it does. It affects society in such a way that every week when we dis-
cussed and were introduced to other social problems/themes, such as violence, homo-
sexuality, sexuality and family life, we realized we kept going back to where we
started, yes the whole idea of the boxes.
Phase Three of Our Approach to the Intro Course

While we were very excited about our creation of ‘‘the box’’ concept in the course,
the more we taught—and thought about—the Intro course, the more we wanted a key
student outcome to be an internalization of the gender box concept that students took
with them outside of the classroom and applied to their own lives. While in many
ways the intro course can be seen as a concepts-focused course, in this particular
way, we have also come to see it as a skills course where students not only learn con-
cepts but also learn to apply those concepts. When Andy taught the course, in fall
2008, we worked with that goal in mind. We had already, a few years ago, created
two major assignments that encouraged students to internalize the gender lens, and
while the assignments were working well, they again were not sufficient.
The first of these two assignments was a response paper for each week’s readings.
Students had a choice of ‘‘responding to the reading’’ or ‘‘responding through the
lens of gender’’ and by the end of the semester submitted at least three papers from
each category. When students responded to the reading, they did the kind of textual
analysis that they are generally already pretty familiar with: they identified a concept
or passage from the week’s reading and created a brief argument about that concept
or passage. When students responded through the lens of gender, however, they
more explicitly applied course concepts from the week’s readings by identifying
an experience they had or something they observed that they could analyze through
the gender box lens. Students wrote about family, relationships, work, and school,
as well as how gender operated in different cultural contexts. The second course
assignment we used, which encouraged students to see the world around them
through the lens of gender is called the Making Connections Project. For this

assignment, students prepared a presentation and essay that explained connections

between a course concept and an example from the media that the students iden-
tified. Students analyzed poems, ads, television shows, movies, and songs through
the lens of gender using this assignment.
These two assignments have been working well, but we wanted to create an even
more focused and sustained assignment that not only had students think about the
world around them through the gender box lens but also identify a way they can take
action to make a positive impact. We felt that this change was a good way to get all
students to incorporate the lens into their thinking and take it with them after the
course had ended. While it seemed to us that the most successful students in the Intro
course in the past had naturally taken the lens with them and applied it, we were not
as convinced that all students were able to do this. Since we naturally do this kind of
thinking ourselves, we had taken for granted that students could do it as well.
However, the Intro course is a 100-level class that does not require any prerequisites,
so only some of the students would have the critical thinking skills necessary for
such work. This prompted us to create an assignment where the students explicitly
think about taking the lens with them and formally share this thinking with the class.
That became the final project, one that every student in the course completed.
The final paper, the Social Action Assignment (included here, at the end of this
essay), asked students to identify one simple, concrete change to implement. Students
were urged to pick something ‘‘manageable, realistic, and something [they] genuinely
want[ed] to do.’’ The assignment had students plan for the change and submit that plan
by the end of the semester. Then, the students made the change within a few months of
the end of the semester. As part of their work, they needed to:
explain the course concept that is the motivation for the change,
identify the change that the student would implement,
analyze the connection between the course concept and the proposed change,
and
explain the research conducted in order to implement the change and how that
research influenced their understanding of the course concept.
In addition, an important part of the assignment instructions was to provide very

explicit examples of the kinds of changes that students might pursue. This goes back
to the idea that we need to teach students to apply the gender box lens. Therefore, we
listed models that students could use as a starting place. For, example, we suggested
some of the following templates:
‘‘I will write to ______ company and explain why I find their advertising offen-
sive on the basis of gender’’
‘‘I will write to my senator/congressperson/other appropriate elected official and
ask him/her to support ____ bill/legislation because _____’’

Some of the projects the students designed included reaching out to young men
about the topic of masculinities. For example, one student planned to talk to both her
little sister and her fiancé’s younger brother about traditional gender roles and their
depiction in the media. Another student planned to write a letter to her local Board of
Education requesting they implement gender studies classes or programs in the high
school for both male and female students. She wrote in her proposal, ‘‘I feel like
learning about things like the gender box, privilege, and patriarchy would help
young people make better decisions for themselves because they would be more
knowledgeable.’’ A few students addressed sexuality specifically. One student
planned to write a letter to the American Academy of Pediatrics urging them to stop
the practice of genital operations on intersex babies. Another student wrote to an
elected official in support of same-sex marriage.
Most of the students, though, focused specifically on reaching out to girls or
women or to companies that sell to girls or women. Several students wrote to various
magazines and television shows requesting they represent a wider variety of body
types. Some addressed safety concerns about cosmetics. Others focused on labor-
related issues like the wage gap and sexism in the workplace. While the topic of mas-
culinities was included in some of the students’ projects, it was not included in most
of them, perhaps because all of the students in the class were female. If there were
male students in the class, would they have been more likely to focus on masculi-
nity? Or, if there were male students in the course, would the female students have
been more likely to focus on masculinity? It is hard to say, but we wll hopefully be
able to determine that in the fall of 2010, when Karen teaches the Intro course again.
We definitely noticed several valuable developments emerge from this assignment.
Even though the students were not focusing explicitly on the topic of masculinities, we
could still see that their analysis was informed by the broad spectrum of gender that we
analyzed. As expected, the stronger students in the class were able to make those con-
nections and demonstrate a fairly sophisticated understanding of the issues at stake.
For example, the student who was concerned about the health consequences of cos-
metics wrote, ‘‘While it may be debated whether or not make-up is ‘empowering’
or ‘oppressive,’ one thing that can be agreed upon is that many brands and types of
make-up are hazardous to women’s health.’’ This student clearly understood key ideas
from our readings in the unit on body image and was able not only to place her project
within the context of the debate about cosmetics use but she also applied the gender
box lens outside of the class via the letter calling for more government intervention.
Despite the strength of this student, she likely would not have taken this extra step
in her critical thinking and application of the lens if it were not for this assignment.
This final assignment worked even better for weaker students, those whose crit-
ical thinking skills were not as well developed. One particular student had taken a
developmental English course the previous semester and was still struggling with
her critical thinking skills, but this assignment allowed her to make important con-
nections. She planned to talk to her middle school sister about the dangers of con-
forming to traditional gender norms and wrote: ‘‘To fix the problems she faces I’m

going to go back to Johnson’s article on patriarchy and how there’s the idea that we
must take an active role in changing the system.’’ While not as sophisticated an
approach as the first student’s, this student clearly made a connection between
the concept of patriarchy and something in her life and had resolved to use that
information to try to help her sister. We feel it is doubtful the student would
have made this connection without the process of the final paper assignment.
We have worked, then, to have as much of a tangible impact on students as possi-
ble. While we were certainly quite satisfied with the outcome of the assignment,
we have made a few modifications that are reflected in the version at the end of
this essay. The main change we made was timing; we altered the assignment to
allow for students to complete the project and report back the results before the
end of the semester (rather than just report on their plan).
Current Challenge
We are generally satisfied with this third version of the course in terms of our approach
and our assignments. However, this brings us to our continuing challenge that we have
not adequately addressed. As we have discussed, our goal for the course is for students to
be able to take the gender lens with them, and so to have the biggest impact, we need as
many students as possible having access to that experience. Furthermore, in order for
systemic social change to occur, both female and male students need to have this expe-
rience. However, that is where we face a real challenge. We had initially thought that the
more we integrated the topic of masculinities into the course and focused on the gender
box concept, the more male students would take the course. That has not been the case at
all; in fact the exact opposite has occurred. The average male enrollment in the course
has been one to two students out of a class of thirty-something students. Clearly we were
naı̈ve in our assumption that male students would be drawn to a class that examines the
study of masculinities.
Harry Brod’s essay ‘‘Studying Masculinities as Superordinate Studies’’ provides
several insightful reasons for the high female to male student ratio in classes that
analyze masculinities. He writes:
Men, as do whites, have a vested interest in not asking questions about the
source of their privileges. Any form of oppression maintains itself in power in
part by masking how it operates, making its structure as invisible as possible. To
shed light on masculinity is therefore at least potentially to threaten patriarchy. Men
who are willing to question masculinity to the extent of devoting a semester to exam-
ining it therefore pose a threat to their own and other men’s power. (Brod 2002,
pp. 162-163)
In addition to the idea that those who occupy a privileged position would not be
inclined to interrogate that privilege, Brod also suggests that pervasive heterosexism
in our culture also makes it difficult for male students to take such a course, as he

says, ‘‘lest I be taken for one of ‘them’’’ (Brod 2002, p. 163). For the male students
who do take his courses, Brod explains that:
For at least some men, moving away from being personally blamed for sexism facilitates
moving toward taking personal responsibility for it. It is difficult, if not impossible, to
take effective steps toward positive personal and political change if one imagines oneself
thereby taking steps in opposition to oneself. But if I see that my target is not myself but
rather social forces and what they have done to me, I find such steps become not only
possible but desirable. (Brod 2002, p. 168)
This focus on social forces is an important part of the gender box metaphor that we
have developed. Furthermore, Brod also does a great job of reinforcing why it is a
problem to analyze only one gender at a time, that instead, we need to recognize ‘‘the
core of the reality of gender, that gender is a socially constructed category formed
precisely in and through the interplay of genders’’ (Brod 2002, p. 165). We feel like
we are doing this kind of work in the classroom, yet we continue to face the challenge
of figuring out how to encourage male students to enroll in the first place.
Toward the end of Andy’s Intro course, in the fall of 2008, we decided to survey the
class and find out the students’ perspectives about the lack of male enrollment and what
could be done about it. The survey asked, ‘‘Why do you think more men don’t take
classes like Introduction to Women and Gender Studies? What do you think we could
do to attract more male students?’’ These questions were open ended and not multiple
choice, and no background information was given to the students in advance about the
survey except to say that we were interested in their opinion about these questions. Out
of twenty-four surveys, the most common answer about what could be done to increase
male student enrollment focused on changing the name of the course, and twenty-two
students (of the twenty-four) made that recommendation. Again, this response was
unprompted; there had never even been a discussion about the name of the course or
Option before then. These twenty-two responses that advocated a name change gener-
ally broke down in three ways. First, the name makes it seem like it is only for women
and would scare men away. Second, without men in the name, it seems like it wouldn’t
relate to them. Third, gender is what the course is really about anyway.
The issue of the name of the Intro course and the names of relevant programs and
departments is obviously a heated national issue that is often the topic of discussion
at conferences and on the women’s studies list serv. Rather than spend too much time
rehashing the pros and cons of a name change, we would like to separate the threads of
this debate in a different way. Within the political and intellectual debate, on one side
some scholars argue that erasing women from the title is an act of silencing and margin-
alization, that it does not pay tribute to the history of women’s studies. On the other side
of the political and intellectual debate, scholars argue that there has been a shift into gen-
der studies as the discipline, with a focus on gender as a social construct and a focus on
sexuality, and the name needs to reflect this shift. While people generally see these two
perspectives as being on opposite sides of the debate, we would like to suggest they both

operate within an abstract, theoretical, and academic dialog. Such conversations are
valuable and necessary, conversations that programs need to have. However, there is
a huge disconnect between that scholarly abstract debate and the hands-on, practical,
and tangible student experience in course registration and enrollment and in the
classroom.
If a course name keeps a student out of the course, the student will never be
exposed to the scholarly debate in the first place. If our goal is to make as big an
impact as possible, then we need to get students in the classroom to be exposed to
the complexities of these issues. We think that the abstract, scholarly debate about
the name needs to be balanced against the practical student experience. Our interest
in a name change does not mean that we are going to press for this at our institution
any time soon since we are likely in the minority on this issue, but we at least want to
make sure that when institutions are thinking about these issues, they are also think-
ing about the practical student experience. If we are thinking so much about teaching
students the lens and encouraging them to internalize it, then they cannot do any of
that if they would not even sign up for the course.
We think it is very important for female and male students alike to feel comfor-
table enough to register for the course. There is no doubt that female students ben-
efit from the Intro course; we see that, and we hear about it. When female students
walk in the door, many have thought explicitly about what it means to be female
and some of the issues and topics in the course are not foreign to them. Even if they
have not given these issues significant consideration, as females, they generally
have some kind of understanding, even if it is superficial, about the concept of
being marked as female. We try to give them a lens to process that. However, male
students are less likely to have thought explicitly about gender in the way female
students have because they are operating within a dominant, unmarked category of
privilege. The Intro course opens up a whole new paradigm for them that mascu-
linity is a social construct. The male students, at various points in their lives, have
likely been dissatisfied with the pressure to conform to an unemotional, violent,
social construction of masculinity, but they have not likely thought that that was
something they could question. However, this course teaches them (and all stu-
dents) that masculinity is not natural or automatic; they have just been taught to
normalize and naturalize it instead of resist it.
Conclusion
Teaching and collaborating on the Introduction to Women and Gender Studies course
has been very rewarding for us. We see working to improve the course as an ongoing
process where we are trying to have as much of an impact as possible on students by
providing them with tools they can use long after the course ends. We hope that we have
illustrated the value of integrating the study of masculinities into the Intro course. We
see creating a ‘‘location’’ for the topic of masculinities in this course to be fundamental
and think it can help students navigate the rough terrain of gender more effectively.

Appendix A
Social Action Assignment/Final Paper
Mon., Nov. 1, 2010 Submit a 1-paragraph proposal for your final paper, and
within a week, I’ll give you feedback regarding narrowing
it down (if needed) and some suggestions to help guide
your work. Then you’ll need to conduct your research
and carry out your action by the end of November.
Mon., Dec. 6 and Wed. Dec. 8 Informal, brief presentations to the class
Mon., Dec. 13 Final paper due today in class
Purpose:
My main goal in Introduction to Women and Gender Studies has been to pro-
vide you with a set of tools—in the form of the course concepts we’ve cov-
ered this semester—that you can use to critically examine how gender is
socially constructed in the world around us. Both the ‘‘lens of gender’’
Response Papers and the Making Connections Project have been ways of work-
ing towards this key course goal. For your final paper, you’ll take this approach
a step further by putting a course concept into action outside of the class.
Think about a course concept (or two related course concepts) that we’ve
covered this semester through readings or discussions and identify one sim-
ple, concrete action that you will implement this semester as a result of your
understanding of the concept(s).
I want to emphasize the idea that the action need not be a major change, and
that you should pick something manageable, realistic, and something you
genuinely want to do. Please don’t pick something just because you think
that’s what I will want to hear. Be true to yourself in this process. Your ulti-
mate goal with the action is to do something outside of the classroom that
reflects a course concept that you think is important.
Here are some specific examples of kinds of actions that you might pursue.
These are only possibilities. There are many more kinds of actions that you
can make:
I will write to __ company and explain why I find their advertising offensive on
the basis of gender.
I will talk to my younger brother/sister about ___ (something age appropriate
related to gender) and help them navigate gender roles.
I will volunteer for __ in order to help ___ (in the context of gender).

I will spend more time at family gatherings finding out how my older relatives
navigated gender issues during particularly important historical moments.
I will stop buying __ product because I realize ___.
I will help my friend/family member address their problem of __ because I now
realize how their problem relates to the gender box.
I will start a petition about _____ because I realized ____.
I will write to my Senator/Congressperson/other appropriate elected official and
ask him/her to support __ bill/legislation/etc. because ____.
You will need to go outside of the course in order to do some kind of research
that will help you implement the action. That research can include doing an
interview, doing scholarly research, investigating an advocacy group, etc. If
you’re interested in doing some volunteer work, I have a list of agencies that
could be appropriate, including contact information, which I’ll post on the
class website. There are many possible kinds of research that you can do,
depending upon the action that you’ll be implementing. Your proposal will
need to clarify the type of research you plan to do in order to figure out how
to implement this action.
Your proposal (due Nov. 1) will need to include a brief description of:
a. the action you want to implement and why
b. the type of research you plan to do in order to figure out how to implement that
action
Once you get feedback from me, you’ll need to conduct your research, nar-
row down your planned action (as needed), and then implement that action
by the end of November.
Then, on either Dec. 6 or 8, you’ll take a few minutes to informally share
with the class a brief overview of your research, the action you made, and
a reflection about the action.
Then, your final essay (due Dec. 13) will need to include the following (you
decide the order):
a. an explanation of the course concept(s) that prompted your action

b. an explanation of the action itself
c. an analysis of the connection between the course concept(s) and your action
d. material from your action itself (the letter you wrote, material from an advo-
cacy group you volunteered for, a list of issues you discussed with a sibling or
friend, etc.)
e. reflection about how the action went (If you wrote a letter, did you hear anything
back? If you had a conversation with a sibling or friend, how did he or she

respond? What do you think was effective about your action? What might you
have done differently? Did anything surprise you?)
f. reference to at least 2 sources from the course (either in a quote or a para-
phrase; include a copy with your paper and highlight what you quoted or
paraphrased)
g. reference to at least 2 sources outside of class (either in a quote or a paraphrase;
include a copy with your paper and highlight what you quoted or paraphrased)
h. a Works Cited page that includes those 4 sources (doesn’t count towards the
page requirement)
Your final essay should be 5-6 pages, double-spaced, using MLA style. The
types of sources outside the class you decide to use are up to you. However,
they should be trustworthy and make sense to your reader. You should
introduce your sources so your reader understands where your information
is coming from. Sources can include: books, websites, articles from the
library’s online databases, an interview you conduct, etc. Your reader has
not read any of your sources (whether they were from the class or not), so
you need to make sure you’re explaining them and linking them to your
points in a way your reader can understand. Let me know if you have any
questions or concerns.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of
this article.
References
Bennet, Rick. 1995. King of a Small World. New York: Arcade Publishing.
Brod, Harry. 2002. ‘‘Studying Masculinities as Superordinate Studies,’’ in Masculinity
Studies and Feminist Theory: New Directions, edited by Judith Kegan Gardiner,
161-175. New York: Columbia University Press.
Disch, Estelle, ed. 2006. Reconstructing Gender: A Multicultural Anthology, 5th ed. New
York: McGraw-Hill.
Faludi, Susan. 1999. Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man. New York: William Morrow
and Company.
Freedman, Estelle. 2002. No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of
Women. New York: Random House.
Friedan, Betty. 2001. The Feminine Mystique. New York: Norton.

Golding, William. 1954. Lord of the Flies. New York: Perigree.

Katz, Jackson. 1999. Tough Guise. DVD Media Education Foundation, Northampton,
Massachusetts.
Kimmel, Michael S. 2000. The Gendered Society. New York: Oxford University Press.
———. 2005. The History of Men: Essays on the History of American and British Masculi-
nities. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
——— and Michael A. Messner (2003). Men’s Lives, 6th ed. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
Manno, Andrew J. 2004. ‘‘Male Retention at the Community College.’’ http://www.raritanval.
edu/uploadedFiles/faculty/engl/full-time/Manno/Male_Retention_at_the_Community_
College_.doc
Pink. 2006. ‘‘Stupid Girls.’’ Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v¼BR4yQFZK9YM
Pollack, William. 1998. Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood. New
York: Henry Holt and Company.
Putney, Clifford. 2001. Muscular Christianity: Manhood and Sports in Protestant America,
1880-1920. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Rotundo, E. Anthony. 1993. American Manhood: Transformations in Masculinity from the
Revolution to the Modern Era. New York: Basic Books.
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady. 1848. ‘‘The Declaration of Sentiments.’’ http://www.fordham.edu/
halsall/mod/senecafalls.html
Taylor, Verta, Nancy Whittier, and Leila J. Rupp, eds. 2009. Feminist Frontiers, 8th ed. New
York: Mc-Graw-Hill.
Bios
Karen Gaffney, PhD is Associate Professor of English at Raritan Valley Community College
in New Jersey. She teaches classes on composition, gender, race, and popular culture. She is
currently working on a book project about how American popular culture, the media, and
politics pit races against each other through a divide and conquer mentality.
Andrew J. Manno, PhD, is Professor of English at Raritan Valley Community College in

New Jersey. He teaches classes on composition, literature, and gender. He is currently
working on a book project on masculinity in poker that explores the popularity of the game.

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Men and Masculinities

Karen Gaffney1 and Andrew J. Manno2

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Overview of Our Approach to the Intro Course

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We realize this is a controversial approach, especially when it comes to the issue of

Phase One of Our Approach to the Intro Course

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Phase Two of Our Approach to the Intro Course

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Phase Three of Our Approach to the Intro Course

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assignment, students prepared a presentation and essay that explained connections

In addition, an important part of the assignment instructions was to provide very

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a. an explanation of the course concept(s) that prompted your action

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Declaration of Conflicting Interests

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Golding, William. 1954. Lord of the Flies. New York: Perigree.

Andrew J. Manno, PhD, is Professor of English at Raritan Valley Community College in

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