Tyler Bradway is a student at West Chester University, where I graduated from last year. As a fellow activist, he was very inspirational. I saw him speak last fall at a rally for local Democratic candidates, and he was phenomenal.
Apparently, there are flyers all over the place for a new organization on campus called "Man Up!" Basically, to address men's issues, similar to the Women's Center, whose flyers and programs have been ubiquitous for years and years. For a long time, I had a resentment against the Women's Center because when I published that I was a rape victim in the school newspaper as part of the "Take Back the Night" rally they had that year, the response was a phone call from the faculty advisor telling me "we don't have programs for men, best of luck."
Anyway, I subscribe to "The Quad", the school newspaper because I like to keep up to date with what's going on. And I read this beautiful article by Tyler Bradway the other day. I like it because it raises a whole ton of questions, rather than pretend to spout off all kinds of solutions.
New organization title is hypocritical at best
By Tyler Bradway
Published: Monday, February 21, 2005
"Man up, bitch... it doesn?t hurt," he laughs, as he jabs a fist into my shoulder. This is the only context in which I have heard the phrase "man up"... until now.
As reported in last week?s issue of The Quad, a new student group entitled "Man Up!" (don?t forget that exclamation point!) has been deemed an official student organization. Its welldistributed flyer states that the mission of "Man Up!" includes challenging, among other things, "the stereotypical perceptions of males in our society." Preceded only by the administrator-led Men?s Issues Task Force, now underrepresented men finally have an official student group to address "our" issues as men. Spectacular.
I have a few issues that I would respectfully request "Man Up!" to address: their name, their lack of inclusiveness, and their definitions of "man" and "men?s issues."
The name "Man Up!" does not work against negative images of masculinity because men proliferate that phrase in the first place. It is not the same thing for men to "take back" the language of dominant culture, because we ARE the dominant group in this patriarchal society. When the editors of Bitch magazine chose that word for their name, they were taking that word away from men. When Randall Kennedy wrote the book "Nigger," he was taking that word away from white people. If "Man Up!" is trying to reclaim this phrase, who are they trying to reclaim it from? Themselves?
More:
http://www.wcuquad.com/news/872013.html?mkey=1290908For some history, here is a link to an article in the previous week's Quad about the formation of the new organization, "Man Up!":
http://www.wcuquad.com/news/865325.html?mkey=1290908
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