On March 2, 2009, the University of Chicago’s student newspaper, The Chicago Maroon, published an editorial about gender equality. Within weeks of its publication, the article and its author were misunderstood across the nation.
The unfortunate manner in which this story was depicted in the news is a paradigmatic illustration of the needless divide between feminists and men.
The article, “Men in Power,” argued that if women’s advocacy and feminist groups could receive university funding, then there should be equitable resources for men.
Steve Saltarelli, a third-year student majoring in Law, Letters and Society at the University of Chicago, penned the article with conspicuously satirical innuendo. Opening with statements about the declining power of men in college societies at large, Saltarelli’s article suggests starting an advocacy group focused on the “plights” of men in our culture.
“Upcoming events will include an open mic night on issues concerning body image, a tutorial on barbecuing and our much-anticipated workshop ‘Protecting What’s Yours: Drafting a Prenuptial Agreement’,” Saltarelli wrote. “Given the lack of similar groups on campus, [Men in Power] will have to establish a broad base, merging social issues and activities with a pre-professional slant.”
The brief article is packed with cutting caricatures of the student advocacy groups that currently receive university funding on campuses across the nation. And Saltarelli’s intentions in writing the article are made crystal clear by his closing statement:
“Accordingly, I encourage all those interested to attend events and get their slice of the big RSO [student services funded by student tuition] pie,” Saltarelli wrote.
Evidently, Saltarelli was trying to suggest in his article that the overflow of advocacy organizations funded by student tuition dollars was a waste of money. But the outcomes of his parody were much bigger than Saltarelli had ever expected.
Within days of publication, “Men in Power” met with an outpouring of response on The Chicago Maroon’s Web site and Saltarelli’s e-mail inbox. The comment section on the college newspaper’s Web site takes the form of a typical back-and-forth between average male and female college students whenever a gender-related issue comes up. The women scream misogyny while the men pat each other on the back. Both groups commit name-calling, and little intellectual discourse occurs, because all the statements are filled with hate and intolerance.
In the weeks following the publication of his article, Saltarelli received an overflow of e-mails from U. Chicago’s male students interested in joining the fictitious group.
With all of this new attention, Saltarelli quickly changed his mission and eventually decided to start the organization he had used only months before as a parody device.
On May 5th, U. Chicago’s student government accepted Men in Power as an official student organization, the first advocacy organization for men (excluding fraternities).
But during the transformation from joke to reality, the mission statement of “Men in Power” changed markedly.
Saltarelli and his outreach director Elizabeth Scoggin (yes, a woman) reported to U. of Chicago’s SG that the first event their organization planned was a roundtable discussion on masculine stereotypes. Also, they would begin a tutorial program with local middle school students in need of role models.
By late May the story was covered in The Chicago Tribune. And shortly after the Tribune article hit stands, feminist Web clearinghouse Feministing.com had posted about Saltarelli and his campus group.
But none of the stated aims of the Men in Power student organization were cited in either of these news sources. Both media outlets focused on the satirical article and both The Tribune and Feministing missed the point. Instead, the media outlets quietly spun stories to fit their conceptions of what it means to be a feminist and what it means to be a man. Stereotypes have taught us that these groups are mutually exclusive. But real evidence of what Steve Saltarelli and colleagues (both male and female) are saying and doing at U. Chicago shows that it is indisputable that their mission fits well into the larger movement for gender equality.
In fact, Men in Power is a hearty example of grassroots feminism.
Saltarelli agreed to begin Men in Power in order to “discuss issues of masculinity in society.” And he is reported in the Chicago Tribune article as saying that “If we have good men in our society, everyone benefits.”
So before feminists get in a tizzy over an organization with an offensive name without questioning what the group actually does, and before misogynistic men begin their victory dances claiming to have finally put women back in their places, maybe we should begin our investigation of stories like this from a more conscious and less combative perspective.
For some reason, we allow terminology to define our enemies. Because feminism has the root of “feminine” in it, we delude ourselves to think the movement is inherently anti-man. Similarly, we assume any association of men must be anti-feminist. If we look for common goals, social groups that historically have been pitted against each other by the media — like feminists and males — might discover it is possible their aims are fundamentally the same. If we could get past the jargon and onto a discussion of real issues, maybe we could get better traction on the road to equality. After all, this stagnant, hateful impasse on the road hasn’t been working very well for either “side.”
Lingwall is a plan II honors junior
