PORTRAIT OF THE

UNDERGRAD AS A YOUNG MAN

» The modern college man is failing classes, drinking heavily, and mistreating women. What can we do to change him?

By Max Hill — The Peak (Simon Fraser University)

hink of the average college man:
what does he look like?

Is he the boozy, womanizing frat
boy of films like Old School and Animal
House? Is he the brazen college football
star, whose ego is as artificially inflated
as his GPA? Is he the nerdy shut-in,
browsing 4chan and trolling feminist
blogs instead of studying for his final
exam? Or is he the snobby, pretentious
Ivy League rich kid, silver spoon firmly
implanted in his mouth?

If these seem like
overgeneralizations and stereotypes,
imagine how we feel. Young men
in Canada and the United States,
navigating the minefield between
adolescence and adulthood, are in a
steep and steady decline. Where their
female counterparts are excelling in
academics, starting clubs, and joining
the workforce, men are getting lower
grades, drinking more dangerously, and
ignoring their studies.

They’re also reacting aggressively
and often violently to the shifting
demographics in colleges and
universities across the continent.
Business school students chant rape
slogans at frosh events; sexual assaults
are shared online and victims are
blamed for attire and attitude; most
recently, Carleton boys wearing “Fuck
Safe Space” T-shirts have gained
international attention and subsequent
scorn.

Campaigns to quell the tide of

shifting their focus towards men. Their
argument is, in a society that opposes
rather than condones rape, we need to
focus on the perpetrators, not just the
victims.

These campaigns—as well as our
cultural conversation around college
men, and indeed all men—are on
the right track. But they don't go far
enough. Telling men not to commit
rape in college is a temporary bandage
on a centuries-old wound that’s been
festering since antiquity. Too many
cultural critics have claimed that our
sense of masculinity is in crisis, or that
this is the end of men—and, in a way, it
ought to be. But the problem here isn't
just men. It’s our cultural and social
conception of what men should be.

Long before any boy in North
America even thinks about applying to
post-secondary, he’s spent years of his

He's been called a pussy, a faggot,
and a queer. He’s either been taunted in
locker rooms and hallways, or done the

: taunting himself: He’s been threatened

: with social isolation and humiliation

: if he doesn't live up to expectations of

: our society: namely, that he man up,

: not show any outward emotion, treat

: women like prizes, show little interest in
: schoolwork, and express himself chiefly
: through violence and aggression.

As we age, the line we draw in the

sand separating men from women

: becomes thicker and more pronounced.
: In that stressful and pivotal proving

: ground between boy and man is

: university: a series of culturally codified
: negotiations between scholastic

: achievement and party boy thrill-

: seeking.

This is a sales pitch. Our idea of

college, borrowed from comedy flicks

: and breathless word-of-mouth, is

: culturally created. We've created an

: image of college as one big four-year-

: long party, and this fantasy persists for
: many, despite the consequences.

It’s more complex than that: in

college, we learn to negotiate social

: situations in a way we've never had to

: before, and issues such as consent and

: the politics of gender are introduced

: and explored, often for the first time.

: Our society does a woefully inadequate

: job of preparing men to deal with

: these issues in a respectful way—boys

: are conditioned to react violently and

: carelessly to what they don’t understand,
: and what challenges their means of self-
: identification.

sexual violence on campuses have begun :
: our culture in neutral. We so rarely think
: of men as gendered the way we think

: of women, or those who exist outside

: the binary: so much of our society is

: built on our concept of masculinity,

: and the way it naturally intersects with

: values such as confidence, power, and

: accomplishment. We describe the

: concept of man as not-woman, just as

: women are defined as not-men. Young

: boys are conditioned to be terrified

: of seeming girlish or feminine, and

: punished when they violate this social

: code.

Masculinity is our societal default;

Masculinity is a performance, like

anything else. It’s made up of a complex
: language of codes and signifiers, all of

: which are taught to boys from a young

: age. We don't cry because men don't

: cry. We drink because men drink. We

: are violent and aggressive and careless

: because that’s just the way boys are.

life being told what to do and how to act. :
: There's nothing intrinsic or natural

: about the way we think of manliness—
: it’s a performance that’s been carried

These are myths, plain and simple.

: on for centuries. The cast and the stage
: might be different, but the script has
: barely changed.

Few contexts carry as many

assumptions and challenges for our
: current definition of manhood as :
: college. We think of it as the place where :
: boys become men, as though it isn’t a

: process that spans one’s entire lifetime.
: Countless friends and acquaintances,

: counting down the last days of high

: school, have shared with me their lofty
: dreams for higher education: to go to

: parties, have sex, and generally raise

: hell.

Partly, this fantasy of college

being the place where boys become

: men persists because it’s historically a

: boys’ club. The first North American

: college to allow female students did

: so in 1833—centuries after the first

: institutions opened their doors—and it

: was another hundred years or so before

: colleges stopped categorizing women as
: “incidental students.” Up to the 1970s,

: boys in Canadian colleges outnumbered
: women two to one.

Central to the male university

fantasy is the fraternity: historically

: all-white, all-male organizations which

: borrowed heavily from the guidelines of
: freemasonry and other secret societies.

: You can’t tell the story of the university

: without the fraternity—a glance at the

: Fortune 500 in the US shows just how

: far the frat boy tag will take you.

Frats are generally the go-to

stereotype when we think of the college
: man; he goes on panty raids, engages in
: nasty hazing rituals, and drinks enough
: to tranquilize a horse.

Sadly, there’s plenty of truth to the

stereotype. The Atlantic reported earlier
: this year that over 60 people had died in :
: the past decade asa result of fraternity-  :
: related pranks and activities. Many more :
: have suffered serious injuries, engaged

: in or been victim to sexual assault or

: harassment, consumed dangerous

: amounts of alcohol or other stimulants,
: and ignored their studies.

The last issue is particularly

prominent for first-years: multiple

: separate researchers have indicated a

: strong link between participation ina

: fraternity and a decline in both GPA and
: overall cognitive function.

Frank Harris of San Diego State

University notes that membership in

: a fraternity is often seen as a measure

: of one’s popularity and dominance in

: the university setting—the only men

: more popular than frat boys are student
: athletes, whose statistical connections

: to physical assault mirror their fraternity
: brethren. Both subtypes tend to be

: associated with violence, power, and

: emotional immaturity—exactly the

: same archetypes boys are taught from

: childhood on.

The drinking doesn’t help, either.

: The world of alcohol has long been

: male-dominated: beer and spirit

: commercials uniformly target the frat

: boy and his grown-up counterpart,

: promising bikini-clad women and the

: excesses of unhampered virility. Every
: year, more than 1,800 college students

: die from alcohol-related accidents—

: most of those involved are men, who

: drink more than women on average.

: Students most at risk for drinking

: problems, according to recent research
: at the University of Washington, are

: “incoming freshmen, student athletes

: and those involved in the Greek system
: [fraternities].”

Where men who fit the narrow

definition of manhood in college tend to
: be rewarded, those who don't are often

: ostracized and humiliated. The pointed
: backlash against men who espouse

: feminist or egalitarian ideals betrays just
: how afraid men are of losing the power

: they've inherited. “Fuck Safe Space”

: T-shirts can be roughly translated as: I

: feel threatened.

The saddest part is that this

reaction is hardly a surprise. These

: men have been told their whole lives

: that masculinity is the ultimate ideal

: to live up to; that their dominance and
: influence in society is earned, rather

: than a product of historical power

: dynamic; that they should react to

: any challenge of that dominance with
: aggression and violence.

Yet we're still shocked when men

: push back in violent and hateful ways

against an increasingly progressive

: society. We, all of us, are the ones who

: teach them to behave this way. It’s a

: poisonous and circuitous system, and

: one that’s best fixed by going straight to
: the source. To change men, we need to

: change our definition of what men can

: be; we need to throw out the rulebook

: and start fresh.

The truth is that universities, in

the grand scheme of things, have only

: very recently become safe spaces for

: anyone who isn’t white, male, cisgender,
: heterosexual, and wealthy. Many would
: argue, convincingly, that they still aren’t
: truly safe spaces. The number of sexual

: assaults on campuses in North America
: is staggering: in Canada, roughly 29

: per cent of female college students