Learning How to be a Man

BY MADELEINE LAPLANTE-DUBE

Miami University journalism student

A panel Wednesday at Miami University will address what it means to be a man today.

It's the second year the Miami Masculinities Community will present "The Men of Miami" panel, which will be from 7 to 8 p.m. at 322 McGuffy Hall.

“[Its intent is] to open up a space where men can speak about issues related to masculinity in our community and in our campus,” says Glenn Muschert, the panel’s moderator and a professor of sociology at Miami. “People have concerns about: what does it mean to be a man? How can I grow up to be a healthy man? How to I express masculinity in a positive way?”

While set plans for the panel have yet to be finalized, the general intent remains the same: To keep the conversation going.

“It is that, OK here’s a time and a place and a space on campus where people can look at issues of masculinity and speak about it and be open to these conversations,” says Muschert.

Last year, the turn out for the event was above-capacity, with what Muschert estimates to be about 200 to-300 people packed into a top-floor lecture room in McGuffy Hall. They came to hear four male students share personal stories about boyhood and how they learned to become a man.

The panel discussion was accompanied by various other events, including performances by Phallacies on everything from how to give manly hugs to checking early on for testicular cancer, as well as a video discussion presenting domestic violence as a man’s issue.

While discussions about masculinity have come in and out of the spotlight on Miami’s campus for the past few years, most have failed to stick around longer than a graduation cycle.

But “masculinity is important and understudied and we do need to understand it,” says Muschert.

The Men of Miami Panel was first put on in February of 2016 in an attempt to question what it means to be a man at Miami. The Miami Masculinities Committee (MMC), an extension of the Miami University Women’s Center, first began as a thought experiment in the summer of 2011 when faculty members began to pick up on the rates of male students they were seeing for student conduct-related reasons in contrast to counseling and health education, according to the Women’s Center website.

MMC’s connection with The Women’s Center emphasizes the true spirit of the panel event.

“It’s a very collaborative kind of thing,” says Muschert. “It’s easy, I think, for [gender issues] to get mischaracterized in soundbites, the same way that women’s advocacy groups are characterized: like, ‘That’s a bunch of angry women that get together and complain about men.’ Well no that’s not what they’re doing. And so we’re not doing that either. We’re just trying to be a positive aspect of our community.”

The panel will feature a diverse group of male-identified students who, through the discussion of personal stories, will discuss their many definitions of – and the plurality of – manhood.

The panel will be open to questions following the discussion.