Over the last two years, men’s rights and men’s issues groups have been cropping up all over Canadian university campuses.
The often-controversial groups are each unique in their approaches to addressing the social problems men face. However, men’s issues or men’s rights organizations share the debate surrounding whether or not their existence is truly needed in a patriarchal, male-dominated society.
Peter Balogh, a masculinities instructor at Carleton, said he thinks the term “men’s issues” is vague and stressed it’s important to think critically when these types of groups emerge.
“I’m not opposing the possibility for men to have groups, but I want to know what purpose they’re going to serve and how they’re going to work towards justice for all,” Balogh said. “Men dividing groups based on gender then reproduces gender divisions where [there] do not need to be. In many feminist and social justice groups that are women-oriented or women-centred, they welcome men to join in many ways, just not to take over the darn things.”
Debbie Owusu-Akyeeah, programming coordinator at Carleton’s Womyn’s Centre, said she would not necessarily oppose having a men’s issues group on campus, but the label raises red flags.
“Men’s issues groups traditionally have always sparked concern because they’re usually a space understood for talking about misogyny and use free speech to be hateful towards women,” Owusu-Akyeeah said. “My question is that if they’re coming up with a men’s issues group, is it going to be a very white, heterosexual, middle class, ‘we’re mad because feminists are taking up space’ conversation, or is it actually going to be intersectional to the point where they’re including the voices and experiences and diversity of what men’s issues are dealing with?”
Men’s issues at Ryerson University
Similar concerns were raised by the Ryerson Students’ Union (RSU) this past January in their decision not to ratify the Ryerson Men’s Issues Awareness Society (MIAS). MIAS was also denied official recognition in 2015.
When a club is ratified, they receive funding from its school’s student union.
MIAS is currently run by Kevin Arriola, a fourth-year politics and governance student at Ryerson. Arriola said he thought it was “kind of despicable” that the group had been denied official club recognition.
Arriola said MIAS is tackling topics such as men’s mental health, gender identity, the pressures of masculinity, and issues relating to the LGBTQ community this year. He added that MIAS members, almost half of whom are female, determine which issues will be discussed and addressed.
Arriola said this year, MIAS has held two events so far.
“One had to do with men’s mental health, and . . . [the] main focus was around childhood trauma and how that affected men’s mental health, including suicide . . . [and] the second event was more about gender identity and masculinity as well as issues relating to the LGBTQ community,” Arriola said.
He said the group’s next event will take an intersectional approach to men in the court system.
Balogh said aiming to tackle specific issues is an important aspect of any activist group.
“If they have to meet first to find out what their issue is, then they don’t have an issue,” Balogh said.
Mackenzie Dynes, a first-year business management student at Ryerson, said he thinks because women can form feminist and women’s issues groups on campus, men should have the option to do the same.
Dynes said he thinks the RSU should have had more of an open mind because “everyone has their issues. Girls have their own sides to problems and so do guys.”
According to The Eyeopener, Ryerson’s independent student newspaper, the RSU’s decision was based off the fear MIAS could become a haven for misogyny and violence against women, and their official presence on campus could make female students and female sexual assault victims feel unsafe.
Arriola said he thinks the denial of MIAS by the student union was an unfair, biased decision which was based on the negative actions of other men’s rights or issues groups in the past.
“This was a politicized decision . . . They didn’t follow their own procedures and policies when they made the decision, that they just arbitrarily rejected us in some weird kangaroo court type situation,” Arriola said. “There’s still a lot of androphobia and misandry that exists and people are sexist . . . They don’t like men—they’re threatened by the idea that men can have issues and can have a space to talk about their issues.”
Arriola said he understands where the argument that female students and sexual assault victims could feel unsafe with MIAS on campus comes from.
“I’ve been sexually assaulted myself, so I know where it’s coming from. I know what it’s like to be a victim of something like that, and I get where people are coming from because it’s very emotional and people get very riled up when it comes to something as terrible as rape,” Arriola said.
Arriola said it’s important to note that both men and women can be sexually assaulted, and MIAS is a diverse group which accepts students from all genders, backgrounds, races, sexual orientations, and cultures.
Arriola said he is confused as to why the automatic question for MIAS is often if they will keep misogynistic views from forming within their group.
“You wouldn’t ask a group of Muslim students who were trying to start a Muslim society how they’re going to stop radical Islamists from joining their organization,” Arriola said.
He added MIAS is not anti-feminist.
“We’re not anti-feminist, but we’re not feminist either and the reason for that is because we want different people . . . [doesn’t] matter how they identify themselves, including feminists,” Arriola said. “We have feminists in our group.”
Justin Trottier, executive director for the Canadian Association for Equality (CAFE), shared Arriola’s skepticism of the RSU’s decision.
“The idea that they should be objected to before they’ve done anything wrong whatsoever . . . I think that’s pretty ludicrous,” Trottier said.
The Canadian Association for Equality
Trottier said CAFE is not a men’s rights group, but rather an educational charity registered with the government to do educational work as well as social services such as men’s health programs.
According to CAFE’s website, there are 16 campus groups across Canada that are officially affiliated with CAFE, including chapters at the University of Toronto, Ryerson University, and the University of Guelph.
However, Arriola stressed each organization doesn’t “take orders” from CAFE—they are all independent groups.
While the CAFE website’s mandate says the organization is “committed to achieving equality for all Canadians,” the organization listed major areas of concern focus on men’s issues, such as men’s health, family law and father’s rights, men and violence, cultural misandry, academic misandry, and more.
CAFE recently released a controversial ad which states: “HALF of domestic violence victims are male. NO domestic violence shelters are dedicated to us.” It cited the results of the 2014 General Social Survey which asked spouses to report any time they had been physically harmed in any way by their partner.
“The controversy is in the minds of people who don’t look at the sources we provided,” Trottier said.
However, Balogh said because the survey asked those in spousal relationships to report whether or not their spouse had ever been physically violent towards them, both parties in any couple that has engaged in a physical altercation may answer yes—even if one party’s violence was in self-defence.
Balogh said as a result, the data may be misrepresented.
“If an aggressor pushes someone and then they get pushed back, then they’re reporting that there was violence done to them too. That’s why it’s coming out equally,” Balogh said. “Such generalized statistics are used to construct and present an image of the world in which it is claimed that there exists a kind of ‘gender equality,’ if you will, in terms of violence.”
According to Trottier, CAFE’s goal with their domestic violence ad is for there to be men’s shelters as well as women’s shelters so male victims of domestic violence can also have a safe space.
Trottier said even though a man can go to a homeless shelter to escape domestic abuse, “he won’t get trauma counselling and he won’t get other services that he needs the way a woman would if she were to go to a domestic violence shelter.”
Are men’s centres necessary?
According to Balogh, a key distinction to be made is that while there are individual men all over the world who are oppressed and marginalized in many ways, the male gender overall is dominant and overpowering.
“I can understand Ryerson turning [MIAS] down because all of the university space is men’s space. Men can meet anywhere and speak in safety about any issues. Women cannot,” Balogh said.
Owusu-Akyeeah said she would be skeptical of the creation of a men’s centre at Carleton because any problems men might be facing could be addressed by the services which are already available to all students on campus.
“The one that comes to mind is the health and counselling services, because men’s centres tend to focus on dealing with men’s mental health issues—which is important—but we do have a service which can address those kinds of problems already in place,” she said.
According to Owusu-Akyeeah, the Womyn’s Centre is a necessary service because of three key issues that women deal with: patriarchy, sexism, and misogyny.
“Those three factors are the reason why this centre exists. Those three factors—if you want to look at it equally—don’t affect men on the same scale,” Owusu-Akyeeah said.
Balogh said he agrees with Owusu-Akyeeah about why women’s centres are necessary.
“Why are there certain spaces for women and safe spaces for women? Because there need to be spaces for women, because women and men do not face the same obstacles and barriers in public space at all. We know the difference between night and day in public space for women. Men don’t walk around at night worrying. A few men may, but in general men do not walk around at night worrying. Women that have to walk at night do worry in general,” Balogh said.
Balogh added that he thinks men’s issues groups should not be receiving funding.
“They should not be receiving funding because they are not oppressed. Men, in general, are not an oppressed group. They can be working with all the groups that already exist if they really believe in justice and equality. Go and help people. Imagine all the wonderful things that they could do if they just went out and helped somebody,” Balogh said.
Myles Pelley, the administrative coordinator at the Carleton Gender and Sexuality Resource Centre (GSRC), said Carleton’s service centres offer a broad range of support services.
“At the GSRC, we tackle things related to queer issues and housing equity, and we help put people in touch with community organizations. We do referrals and we provide as much support as we can,” Pelley said. “We provide support to folks when they’re looking at coming out, or approaching family, or approaching situations with living and all of that kind of stuff, and it makes it a little bit easier.”
The GSRC also offers peer support, provides free safe sex supplies, hosts events, workshops, and advocates for students both on and off campus.
Pelley said there are other services available to men at Carleton and around Ottawa—so if someone has a specific need, they can come to the GSRC office and ask for a referral.
He added he doesn’t think a safe space for men is necessary at Carleton because the different kinds of oppression men face are being addressed by service centres that already exist at Carleton.
“We have all of the services on campus . . . You can go and you can get them—you just need to actually go and get them,” Pelley said.
Pelley added he thinks comprehensive workshops on men’s issues—such as how to deal with toxic masculinity and instead adopt a healthy masculinity—would be a better way to address men’s issues than a dedicated group or centre.
Brody Ryder, a first-year engineering student at Carleton, said even if some kind of men’s service centre were to exist on campus, he doubts many men would make use of it.
“To be completely honest, most men—especially the men that I know—their way of thinking is that whole ‘macho men’ mentality, and like ‘I’m not gonna go for help because I’m a guy and I don’t need help,’ ” Ryder said.
For men’s issues groups in general, Owusu-Akyeeah said it is important for marginalized voices to be included in the conversation. She said she thinks intersectionality should be a priority for these groups in order to gain a well-rounded understanding of all the problems those who identify as male deal with.
“When it comes to men’s rights groups and that presence, it’s usually white feminists engaging with white men, and I feel like folks never point out that that dynamic is happening,” Owusu-Akyeeah said.
