his past summer, Men’s Health Magazine published an article by Laurence Roy Stains naming Dartmouth one of ten "obviously anti-male" schools in a listing of Best and Worst Campuses for Men. This intriguing claim deserves some examination. To rate a school, Stains judges "the ideology of its faculty, its speech codes and rules of sexual conduct, the behavior and treatment of its fraternities, and its response to federal Title IX legislation banning discrimination in the funding of sports." At the ten schools rated "most male friendly," he says there is "less overt hostility, and the traditional male point of view is appreciated socially and academically."
Stains’ individual school critiques further demonstrate his idea of what is important to males. About one male-friendly school, Stains says, "We’ve never met an ugly girl [here]." About another: "Good news: a notoriously P.C. dean of student life resigned earlier this year." And "Biochemistry, chemistry, and physics are the premier departments… Athletic facilities are top-notch."
He determines that anything pro-female or nontraditional is antithetical to maleness, as at one anti-male school "last winter the women’s center was a sponsor of the ‘Vagina Events,’ daily performances of The Vagina Monologues, plus women-empowering lectures and workshops." At another "obviously anti-male" school, Stains explains, "the Drag Ball is one of the most popular social events on campus."
In the framework of Stains’ definition of "male," his reporting, supposedly aimed at a "male" demographic, is flawed. If male is equivalent to scientifically minded, then qualitative data are nonsense: Real men want numbers, not words! Breast-to-waist ratio? Mean price of roofies? Come on, Stains: these are the things males need to know!
Stains could easily have quantified his data and determined an indisputable index of male-friendliness through statistical analysis. How often is steak served in the cafeterias? What is the range of students’ cars’ engine powers? Percentage of action movies playing at local cinemas? Average skirt length? Blonde to brunette ratio? Total mass of weights at the gym available for sublimation of unexpressed emotion? Where are the hard facts?
Indeed, where is anything to make this article realistic, credible, unbiased, and based on something other than generalizations?
When Stains does include facts, there are inconsistencies in his reporting. Indiana University is rated male-friendly, and he mentions that the school is ranked fourth in this year’s Yahoo! Internet Life list of most wired universities. On the same list, Dartmouth is number five, a fact that escapes mention. Similarly, Princeton is rated male-friendly partly because it "is said to be the only Ivy to offer more economics classes than women’s studies courses." This is merely conjecture; check the ORC to see that Dartmouth does too. That Stains places lazily checked facts specifically so they support his choices is irresponsible journalism.
However, I am not arguing that Dartmouth should be rated male-friendly by Stains’ criteria, because the rating criteria themselves are irresponsible. The inconsistencies point to misjudgments in his ideology. The more serious transgression is using stereotypical traditional male qualities to rate schools for people who are much more complex and varied than Stains allows them.
It seems that Stains has made a distinction between "males" and "men." In his definition of "male," Stains subscribes to a stereotypical set of masculine characteristics: emphasis on hard science, anti-political correctness, strong athleticism, and heterosexuality. He disregards a large group of men who don’t fit this model. How does Stains categorize men who major in subjects other than the hard sciences? Or who were present at the Drag Ball he mentioned?
Furthermore, Stains puts forth that a school that has "pro-woman" programs is "anti-male." Is it true one can only support one group through the exclusion of another? As a further note, the article is dealing with the oppression of "males," but it is written from the standpoint of power. Introducing his list of male-friendly schools, Stains writes, "Are these schools without their quacks and quirks? No. But at least the quacks aren’t in charge." This rhetoric indicates Stains’ position of maleness as power, which is an interesting contradiction. In light of these points, it is worth examining the questions: who exactly is Stains championing? Are they really victims?
