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Male Minority Group
- 18-6-08
- Categorized in: EducationNews Commentaries
Will Fitzhugh, The Concord Review
Columnist EducationNews.org
It is seldom acknowledged that the largest Minority Group (MG) in the United States is Males. There are several other important Minority Groups (MGs) of course, such as the Iraqi MG, the German MG, the Vietnamese MG, the Irish MG, the Brazilian MG, the West Indian MG, the Hmong MG, the Danish MG, the Jewish MG, the Apache MG, the Kenyan MG, the Italian MG, the Mexican MG, the Haiti MG, the Arapahoe MG, the Hopi MG, the Somali MG, the Cuban MG, the Hindu MG, and the Korean MG, to name just a few.
There are many important sub-groups within the Male MG, of course, including the Costa Rican American Male Group, the Apache American Male Group, the Comanche American Male Group, the Chilean American Male Group, the Havasupai Male Group, the Pakistani American Male Group, the Tibetan American Male Group, the Scottish American Male Group, and so on, including the males from the groups in the first paragraph, and from scores and scores more American Male MGs.
The Male MG exhibits a number of serious consequences of its marginalization and oppression. Members of the Male MG are disproportionately given drugs for ADD in schools, they are incarcerated as adults at much greater rates than the majority group, they are more likely to be abusers of alcohol and other dangerous drugs, and they are much more likely to drop out of school, and of those who do go on to higher education, fewer complete it.
The United States has a long history of accommodating MGs, from the Quaker MG's policies of toleration toward the Pennsylvania Deutsch and the local Siberian-American population, to Washington's letter to the Connecticut synagogue, and so on, right up to the present day. Apparently there are several hundred foreign languages spoken in the New York Public Schools now, and many of these foreign-language speakers are, after all, Male.
Women are the Majority Group in the United States of course, and they also make up the majority of the teachers in our schools and of the students in our colleges and universities. While they participate in at least half of the divorces in this country, it is not clear that there is much awareness on their part of the plight of the Male MG. One hears frequently: "You Go, Girl!" But hardly ever does one hear, "You Go, Guy!" And this is just one small symptom of the Majority attitudes toward the Male MG that contribute to its difficulties in our society.
What is interesting is that Diversity and Tolerance, which the country has been working on since the Founding, have only recently been discovered, it seems, by our educators in the schools. Diversity and Tolerance have been introduced into the curricula as though the United States and its citizens have not understood their importance since 1620 or so. One can only wonder, however, how many classes on Diversity and Tolerance in our schools now take into account the struggles and pains of the largest minority group we have.
Published June 18, 2008
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Not only are women the majority in education but they have a political monopoly from within the educational system. For example, I went to the University of Delaware which was 61% female, women earned 65% of the degrees, but still had an Office for the Status of Women on Campus. Nothing for men, who by any measure of success were not doing as well as female students. More men were mugged on campus every year, only women received free self defense classes.
I had professors argue for the biological, social, and moral superiority of women. Far from eliciting objections from the students (much like one might object to Nazism), the professor's comments were met with giggles from the girls and silence from the boys. I had a communications professor who stated "It's amazing that heterosexual relationships work because men are so socially inept compared to women." Once again, giggles and silence. Oh, and if, as a male, I were to be so unfortunate as to be sexually assaulted or raped, I was informed on my first day at college that I could get help at the University Women's Center.
If the genders were reversed in this situation, the plight of women would not be dismissed the same way it is with men.
So my own life experience suggests that there is a bounty of discrimination and sexism directed at young boys and men, but that it isn't taken seriously. Far from men being allowed to acknowledge and fight against the discrimination against them, somehow, society has brainwashed them to do nothing, to just sit there and "take it like a man" (read: oppressive rhetoric). And when men do try to stand up for themselves, they are met with incredible amounts of hostility from groups like the AAUW. I guess any actions that might be to the benefit of men and boys are inherently a threat to organizations that sustain themselves by force feeding victimology (opportunistically, as their victim status gets them money and legitimizes their work) to women. If women are no longer the great victimized group, the AAUW and others lose their legitimacy.
The sources of discrimination against men go beyond education. To list a few: the media, healthcare, the institution of marriage, prosecution under the law (esp. with sex crimes), and insurance (and education, but I