• Rich Barlow

    Senior Writer

    Photo: Headshot of Rich Barlow, an older white man with dark grey hair and wearing a grey shirt and grey-blue blazer, smiles and poses in front of a dark grey backdrop.

    Rich Barlow is a senior writer at BU Today and Bostonia magazine. Perhaps the only native of Trenton, N.J., who will volunteer his birthplace without police interrogation, he graduated from Dartmouth College, spent 20 years as a small-town newspaper reporter, and is a former Boston Globe religion columnist, book reviewer, and occasional op-ed contributor. Profile

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There are 16 comments on One Class, One Day: Are You Man Enough? (And What Does That Mean?)

  1. “A lot of people associate it as women’s studies, and so a lot of guys don’t feel like that’s either a thing for them or a thing that they’re interested in.”

    Or we want to take classes that lead to actual jobs and training and not waste thousands of dollars and time discussing theoretical social constructs.

  2. Perhaps spending “thousands of dollars and time discussing theoretical social constructs” is a wonderful way to prepare people for “actual jobs”.

  3. Steve: Universities exist to expose students to a wide range of ideas and concepts, not just to train up tomorrow’s workers. Classes like Professor Gottfried’s encourage critical thought about the power structures that exist in society, as well as the ways in which we define ourselves and one another. Becoming aware of the ways in which society shapes itself isn’t “merely” a theoretical exercise: look at our political climate today and tell me gender roles and our understanding of masculinity and femininity aren’t relevant questions in the shaping of public policy and the evolution of the workforce, never mind social justice issues. Maybe you’re looking for a one-to-one relationship between the dollars you spend on your education and the acquisition of job-related knowledge because you know where you want to go next, but as a good friend of mine told me years ago, one of the purposes of an education is to give you something to think about while you’re earning your living (“rendering unto Caesar” was his term). If you see no difference between attending university and vocational training, you’re selling yourself short – and quite possibly wasting those dollars after all.

  4. Just another BU Parent: You’re right, it will prepare them exceptionally well to be a barista at Starbucks or your local café.

    Paul: You bring up good points, but with the amount of crippling debt students are taking on it is becoming more critical that students remain cognizant of what will set them apart (fun fact: it’s not these types of classes). Secondly, you might want to tell your friend to research the biblical quote of “rendering unto Caesar” as its true meaning during its historical context is “Christians are obliged to disobey Caesar when Caesar’s dictates violate God’s law.”

    1. I’m familiar with the Biblical passage, Steve, and so was my friend. He was much older than me, and used the reference humorously to reflect the fact that most of us have to work to survive in a material world. Just as one cannot live on “bread alone,” the realms of the mind and spirit are likewise insufficient to sustain life. Thus, working is “rendering unto Caesar” – i.e., meeting the material needs of life – but in his view and mine, that necessity needn’t impair the life of the mind or the spirit. In fact, it is frequently the liveliness of our intellect and spirit that sustains us in the face of life’s challenges. To that end, one of the goals of a liberal arts education is to prepare the mind to embrace the breadth of possibilities in the world and synthesize knowledge and experience in ways that can be applied profitably to life – and I don’t mean that just in terms of money.
      For example, my background is in the arts, yet I work in the sciences, something I certainly didn’t anticipate when I completed my B.A. 27 years ago, or my M.F.A. a few years after that. While there is plenty to be said for vocational training, not everyone knows they want to pursue a clearly-defined career path when they enter university.
      Whether they do or not, however, possessing a university degree is almost certainly going to increase lifetime earnings, and its absence has become a liability in many areas of our economy. A college or university degree doesn’t just indicate what you know, but that you are a curious, motivated, capable individual who brings a capacity for learning and growth to a workplace. No matter how well-prepared they are by school, internships, etc., nobody walks out of school and into a job with nothing left to learn. So while I understand your argument about the urgent need to turn your educational investment into earnings, I think you’re dismissing too quickly the value of classes that aren’t strictly about knowledge of the “how-to” variety. The ability to think “outside the box” is a workplace skill, and classes like the one you’re disparaging are in part about identifying some of the many boxes we live in and so often fail to see. Education is as much about cultivating healthy habits of mind as it is about imparting knowledge. Indeed, without the former, it’s harder to make good use of the latter. And who knows? Maybe that process of critical questioning will prepare your mind to one day look at a workflow at a job, ask “Why are we doing this?” and save your company a lot of money by introducing a better process.
      Just sayin’.

  5. I’ve taken courses at BU on gender roles . My impression is that females are far more comfortable with the idea that their presentation of themselves is influenced by role. Males tend to believe that their identity is “self determined”. Men are less skilled at managing presentation of self. Also,they are less savvy regarding how they are “taken”. In other words there is greater disjunction between intended social signals and the impressions they produce.

  6. It’s interesting that the people most bent out of shape at the thought of this class are men. Kind of goes to fulfill the theories of the class described in the article, no? The thought that taking a class such as this would have no impact on one’s employability is narrow-minded. A well-rounded and informed view on gender and social constructs can take a person a long way in interviews and work-place relationships. If you don’t want to take the class, don’t take the class. Just don’t bemoan those who chose to do so.

  7. The most infuriating part against the “self-determined,” nature of masculinity is that it simply ignores biology and mental differences between men and women. Not everything is a social construct, we evolved traits and habits such as loyalty, need to be a caretaker, and a need to be strong (you could argue that strength is more of a flexible definition), because we needed them to survive. Men are more disagreeable than women psychologically so of course they’re going to actually question someone who tells them that their biological predispositions are social constructs. The differences between sexes are in part a result of millions of years of evolution and much more complex than the ‘patriarchy’ feminists adhere to. Masculinity is not simply a social construct and its post-modernist theories like that that are plaguing the minds of already-confused liberal arts students.

  8. Had my daughter elected to waste my hard-earned money on such an absurd and contrived concept of “study” while at BU, I would have found my inner masculinity, despite being unapologetically female and feminine, ( I’m not in the least confused about what that means) and protested in my best attempt at alpha-male roar. And then I would have refused to pay the tuition…because that’s the only sensible thing to do. Won’t someone please stop the nonsense?

  9. I am happy that BU is promoting a course like this, and I think the comment section here only demonstrates the dire need for critical studies of masculinity in America. The more people try to argue that men are biologically inclined to dominate, abuse, and question other people, the more it becomes obvious that there is nothing natural about patriarchy. Humans are the only “animals” that use culture – ideas, science, religion, art – to justify their beliefs. You don’t see chimpanzees coming up with scientific tests and studies trying to prove why males do or should dominate females because male dominance is natural for them. But it is not for us humans.

    I’m curious to know if the class looks at how racial and class differences among American men impacts masculinity, or many masculinities. Those who are liberal and educated often talk about intersectionality when it comes to women and feminism, but what about intersectionality, men, and masculinity?

  10. It’s hard to take seriously the notion that masculinity “is not at all biological, that it’s a social construct.” This is the sort of in-your-face rejection of overt material realities that people seem to throw around. It makes BU look terrible. No discussion of differences in brain development, ongoing differences in hormone concentrations, not to mention major differences in body size and layout? Every day we walk through overt and visible biological differences among our male and female companions at BU that are consciously manifested in visible behavior, clothing, and social interactions. Despite clear intentional attempts to deconstruct the social constructs of gender throughout my thirty years of adulthood, there has been no effect. Culture, ethnicity and society do little more than frame the expression of masculinity and femininity.

  11. What these people in the comments fail to recognize that is ,while yes, certain traits of femininity and masculinity are natural , the thing is within both males and females there is a wide variety of traits and expressions of that.

    What society does is promote certain traits over others as its ideal. That is the construct. It’s important for everyone for the ideas we hold about femininity and masculinity to be more fluid than they currently are, because that’s just acknowledging the reality of the situation.

  12. I am a professor of Gender Studies and as many have pointed out, it is so obvious that the comments here affirm the need for the courses and the further research of Gender Studies. What so many think is evidence that gender is biological is actually socialization. One commenter actually pointed to dress as if babies are born choosing what they will wear instead of being shaped into femininity long before a female child can choose anything. Before she is born, her parents have a gender reveal party, baby shower, decorate a nursery, choose a “girl name”, choose clothing, toys, and lots of feminine things that will shape her young worldview…including baby media. Socialization is so strong that it is what makes a social construct feel and behave in a “natural way and what makes it virtually impossible to deconstruct. It is why many of you are fighting against the very idea that gender isn’t natural. What you cannot see is that sex is natural, but gender is not. Gender is learned so that it matches what we think your sex should do. Gender varies from society to society, however, which is how we know it is not natural. There are societies where women hunt and a long time ago, there were many of those societies. There was a time when men cared for children because in religious societies, religious education was the only education and it was a man’s job to educate. It wasn’t until the Civil War that we started to see women educate children more and more. That is why you know something is a construct…a construct changes as society’s needs change. Something that is natural does not do that. Men can nurture, but when they were not allowed near their children or in the delivery room then felt no connection. Now men connect with their children in remarkable ways since they help deliver their children and have skin to skin contact. They now have some of the most remarkable bonds with their sons and daughters ever seen in history since those lies about the mother being the nurturer have been put to rest. Mothers have been co-providers since capitalism has been broken for decades and have shown husbands that cannot provide for their households alone that they are hardworkers, brilliant, and capable at equal levels. What more do you want? This is why these classes are needed…the denial that is here in black in white…not by ignorant people..but well-respected, educated, community and business leaders that are simply set in their ways. It is truly sad. My hope lies in the defiant youth who don’t trust you but trust their own instincts and what they see for themselves because they didn’t grow up with your sexism and old ways. I am sorry that you cannot see, but you will someday. You will have to.

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