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October 12, 2001
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Panel to Explore Masculinity and Gender


NORTHAMPTON, Mass.--For the past several years, feminist studies has broadened its scope to consider masculinity an essential element in the analysis of gender relations.


In other words, "You can't look at females without looking at men, too," says Ann Ferguson, associate professor of Afro-American studies and women's studies. "You can't understand the condition of women in society without paying attention to how masculinity is produced and encouraged through everyday practices as well as through institutions and the media. There's a growing field that looks at gender as a relational construct. The field of feminist studies has more and more turned its focus away from women exclusively."


As part of that trend, the Women's Studies Program will hold a panel discussion on "Making Men: Masculinity, Media and Violence," featuring the perspectives of two authorities on the sociology of masculinity: Sut Jhally, a professor of communication at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and founder and executive director of the Northampton-based Media Education Foundation (MEF); and Michael Kimmel, professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and the author of several books that have received international recognition for their study of men and masculinity.


The panel--which is free, open to the public and wheelchair accessible--will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 22, in Wright Hall Auditorium.


As part of the panel, Jhally will present a talk, "Wrestling With Manhood in the 21st Century," in which he'll examine the tremendous popular appeal of media portrayals of professional wrestling for men and boys.


Jhally has gained recognition from a videotape he produced in 1990 titled "Dreamworlds: Desire/Sex/Power in Music Video," which presented his critique of representations of women in popular culture and commercial images. That video, which received national press after MTV threatened a lawsuit, sparked the creation ten years ago of MEF, a nonprofit organization devoted to producing educational materials that foster critical thinking about mass media. Jhally is regarded as one of the world's leading scholars of advertising, media and consumption.
Jhally's most recent video, "Tough Guise: Violence, Media and the Crisis in Masculinity," will be shown at 4 and 7 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 21, in Seelye 106. The video argues that violence in America is actually a crisis in the societal construction of masculinity, and offers suggestions of how American society can create an environment for producing "better men."


Kimmel will also present a talk, titled "Masculinity, Homophobia, and School Violence," that will explore school shootings as a meditation on violence in the construction of adolescent masculinity.


Kimmel's books include "Changing Men: New Directions in Research on Men and Masculinity," "Tide: Pro-Feminist Men in the United States," and "Manhood in America: A Cultural History." His most recent book is "The Gendered Society." His course "Sociology of Masculinity" examines men's lives from a pro-feminist perspective and has been the subject of articles in The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek and other publications as well as several television shows. Kimmel is the spokesperson for the National Organization for Men Against Sexism.


Ferguson points out that initially feminist studies focused on women exclusively, and that masculinity remained ignored. "It was almost as if feminists fed into the argument that male behavior was natural and ahistorical, and that men acted out of an overdose of testosterone," she says.


However, in the last two decades, an important body of work has built on feminist and race theories to critically describe and analyze the social production of masculinity. "I feel we're in a real transitional time," she says. "The field is looking at gendered ways of living in the world and asking, 'What about how men have been socialized?'"


Ferguson, who will moderate the "Making Men" panel, is the author of "Bad Boys: Public Schools in the Making of Black Masculinity" (University of Michigan Press 2000), which this year won the distinguished book of the year award from the Sex and Gender section of the American Sociological Association. The book investigates why African-American males are disproportionately the targets of school discipline and suspension.


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