Note to Media: Please, Please, Please Don't Link AHDs to the UChicago Bozos
Posted on 30. May, 2009 by Brian Reid in General
So some kid at the University of Chicago thought it would be funny to launch a new student organization dedicated to the advancement of men. It’s the sort of nutty thing that happens on college campuses all the time, during that wonderful hair-on-fire time of life where intellectual capacity tends to far exceeds your empathy, experience and understanding of the social fabric. As a student newspaper editor, I published way too many similar pieces from similarly smart people with nary a clue as to how the world actually works.
So my issue isn’t with the naive kid at Chicago, who — left to his own devices — would probably end up with small group of guys who drink beer a couple of times a month and bitch and complain. Eventually, they’d wake up to reality, and that would be that. No, my issue is with the media frenzy around him. That this would be treated as an issue worthy of newsprint or the broadcast spectrum actually makes me root for the downfall of the mainstream media.
I’d be more than happy to ignore this, except that GMA Weekend — in a feat of extraordinary journalistic gymnastics — ended up tieing this student group to the at-home dad trend, then giving the stage to chief spokesperson for the up-is-down, black-is-white idea that men’s voices are somehow being silenced in America, Warren Farrell.
Let me be clear: the bozo in Chicago ought not be speaking to the idea of at-home fatherhood. Warren Farrell ought not speaking for at-home fatherhood.
So reporters and producers: do you want to talk about how fatherhood is changing, and place that in the context of larger societal shifts? Drop me a note, and I’ll get Jeremy Adam Smith in the studio with you in under 90 minutes.
Kelly M. Bray
30. May, 2009
Why don’t you post a direct link to the original story?
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-u-of-c-mens-groupmay19,0,4707353.story?page=1
Using an opinion piece at Femnisting instead of the original article is lazy. The original article makes some good points as to why they are forming their group. Filtering it through Femnisting lets the intellectual lightweights there ham it up usual. The pampered, over privledged, whiny young women there are the last people I would look to in forming an opinion how the world works.
Rebel Dad
31. May, 2009
Kelly -
Appreciate the comment.
The Trib article is part of the problem. It treats this group as if it serves some sort of important, legitimate purpose. It doesn’t, if what I’ve read is true. It’s college satire gone bizarrely awry. I don’t know enough about Steve Saltarelli to know if *he* is pampered and overprivledged, but it’s fair to say that whatever obstacles may stand in his way in life, his gender must be among the smallest.
If this were some kind of larger statement on the balkanization of college students (like the movie “PCU”), I could understand it. But the media is treating this as a serious social statement. Maybe you feel like white guys like Steve Saltarelli have an uphill battle in life simply because they’re white guys. I don’t.
We’ll have to agree to disagree on Feministing.
— Brian