Crossing into Manhood: A Men’s Studies Curriculum By Christopher ...

It changed its name again in 1990 to become the National Organization for Men Against Sexism (NOMAS). NOMAS continues to be the largest national profeminist men’s organization (Clatterbaugh, p. 42).

During the 1990s men’s studies as an academic discipline emerged with the formation of The Men’s Studies Association (MSA) that was associated with NOMAS and the American Men’s Studies Association (AMSA). Both groups take a scholarly approach to men’s issues and masculinity and publish curricular materials for men’s studies courses. In 1993, an interdisciplinary quarterly journal named masculinities appeared with a mission to be “an interdisciplinary quarterly, dedicated to publishing high quality scholarship in the broadly defined field of gender studies, with a particular focus on men and masculinity” (Clatterbaugh, p. 44). A second publication, The Journal of Men’s Studies, which “publish(es) scholarly material in the field of men’s studies, recognizing the varied influences of class, culture, race, and sexual orientation on defining men’s experiences” (Clatterbaugh, p. 44) appeared.

The profeminist men’s perspective rejects the moral and biological conservative perspective, arguing that masculinity is a cultural construct and not biologically determined. Furthermore, the profeminist perspective criticizes the traditional family as an institution highly valued by the moral conservatives because it continues to oppress women by locking them into prescribed housewife and caregiver roles and because it harms men’s abilities to be caring, loving partners to women (Clatterbaugh, p. 66).

The earliest documented group that prefigures the men’s rights position is the United States Divorce Reform, founded in Sacramento, California, by Ruben Kidd and George Partis in 1960 (Williamson, 1997, The Father’s Rights Movement and the Development of a “Generalist” Outlook, paragraph 1). An early attempt to form a national men’s movement, it soon had chapters in several states. The mission of the organization was to create a law in California establishing family arbitration centers, thereby removing divorce from the adversarial legal system (Williamson, 1997, The Father’s Rights Movement and the Development of a “Generalist” Outlook, paragraph 10). The men’s rights perspective emerged in the late 1970s with the merger of the father’s rights movement and the men’s rights political movement.