Arguments have been made that gender equality should, in its most fundamental state, really be an equal treatment of people and situations across the sexes. Extending from that, in the same way that men progress or suffer, so should women in an identical fashion. In applying the statement to societal and governmental services, there arises a serious problem with this logic. While gender equality on every front is the elemental proposal for this opinion, one must acknowledge the reason for separating humanity into two categories and ascribing various roles and institutions to each.
Due to the recent backlash, from a select group of students, over the need for a Men’s Centre to accompany the already-established Women’s Centre at Simon Fraser University, the statement above comes to the forefront of this debate.
Before making such judgements over the inclusion of the SFU Men’s Centre into the campus landscape, it is imperative that the appropriate research and gender-related considerations (in all of its facets) be made before allocating a significant sum of funding to such an endeavour. For instance, consider the reasons for why there needs to be a gender disparity among humanity in the first place; in other words, what does it mean to be a young woman in any day and age? With that question comes a topic-wide diversity of answers ranging from literal physiology of a woman to the confusion of societal roles in a world where women walk in stride with men in any field.
Undoubtedly, with women’s health comes the issue of the vast difference between the male and female anatomy; it is fact that the woman’s, for lack of better term, “internal plumbing” is high maintenance compared to the male counterpart. This is especially true when physiological issues concerning women are more prominent in their early twenties; contraception, unplanned pregnancies, STDs, abortions, and abnormalities of any kind concerning sexual health are questions that materialize regularly for females aged 18 to 25. On top of that, regular check-ups are required at least once a year for women over the age of 18 whether you have any issues to speak of or not. If anything does arise for the woman in question, the procedure for tackling or treating this problem is lengthy and requires the attention of several medical professionals at any given time. For example, STD detection is rare in affected women as they rarely show symptoms that alert them to any danger to their health hence the requirement for women over the age of 18 to have annual check-ups of this nature. Conversely, with men’s health, any concerns prominent for the age group mentioned (as prostate exams don’t usually start happening at this age) is not only easy to detect but easy to treat as well (come on, most STD detection for men starts with a sense of pain associated voiding their bladders!).
Looking at the social scene and the overall difference in demeanour between the genders, it’s a widely-known truth that women, on average, tend to talk a lot more than men (whether they admit to it or not is another story); the requirement of a “Girls’ Night” every month or so can attest to this debatable statement (considering how much trouble I could find myself in with my “sisters from other misters” by posing such an idea without a shred of evidence). Assuming that the just said declaration is accurate, the use of the Women’s Centre would be automatically justified funding-wise because women are more likely to utilize the service due to this vocalization tendency particularly when discussing and seeking assistance for any irking distress. Men, on the other hand, are not prone to talk about such personal problems due to the stigma associated with being able to talk openly especially when “feelings” are involved. For one, the common notion of an emotionally-accessible man is that this person is weak, is “gay” (in a derogatory vernacular), or, in the very least, “less of a man”; the humiliation that would follow such an open declaration would be enough of a deterrent to any male student who wishes to utilize the services offered by the Men’s Centre. To push this point over the edge, forget about asking for help over personal problems; let’s address the rare occurrence of men actually “seeking assistance” when unsure of where they’re going (even if the assistance doesn’t actually require human interaction) … I think I’ve made my case.
Let’s assume now that all of the issues discussed above when denying the need for the Men’s Centre have been nullified irrevocably in terms of the differences between men and women; what about the proposed uses of a Men’s Centre? For one, Simon Fraser University boasts a 65:35 female to male ratio of undergraduate students currently in attendance. Like any community in any Canadian metropolis, the services available to an area would cater to the main demographic within that 20 kilometre radius; why should this university suffer backlash for doing the same? Yes, a sizable chunk of the student population is of the male persuasion; does that mean that they require a specialized service, like the Men’s Centre, to be considered a part of the community? If that is true, then every social, racial, or interest group should have its own specialized centre to cater to its needs. Mind you, there are a couple of “centres” that do cater to specific groups within the SFU student body (including the Native Centre as a meeting place for indigenous people); the difference between these examples of society groups and the Men’s Centre is the use of these resources. There is no clear mandate as to the services that the Men’s Centre would provide that wouldn’t be available elsewhere; in other words, a specialized just-for-men area would not be required for university men who suffer from alcoholism (which does also impact women) whereas a specialized clinic/centre would be needed to aid a women going through an unplanned pregnancy. While there are issues that plague male university students, there aren’t enough gender-specific instances that would warrant a “safe space” for men to congregate devoid of a woman’s presence.
While the Men’s Centre speaks to equality in theory, the reality of this endeavour is that men will not utilize the resources in the manner that women do with their respective centre. Where the question of funding a large project, like the Men’s Centre, is concerned, one has to not only think about the ethical issues associated but also the fact that money is going to spent in places where the resulting services would not be utilized. In the case of the Women’s Centre (or any other specialized centre for that matter), one could extend the argument such that these resources should be eradicated if they are not being used extensively. Before jumping to gender equality to debate on this issue, the question that needs to be addressed is whether this topic is really a sex-based issue of biased opportunity or the expenditure of SFU’s capital for a resource that may not be used to its full capacity; as such, the answer to not funding the Men’s Centre would stem from the latter of the two reasons presented.
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