1. Social Dimensions of Achieving
Gender Equity in Higher
Education: Men and
Masculinities as Linchpin Issues
in Realizing EFA Goals
Jason A. Laker, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair, Department of Counselor Education
Lurie College of Education
San José State University, California, USA
jlaker.sjsu@gmail.com
Higher Education and the Global Agenda: Alternative Pathways to the Future
IAU 14th General Conference
27-30 November 2012
Inter American University of Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico
EFA Goal 5 Eliminating gender disparities in primary and
secondary education by 2005, and achieving gender
equality in education by 2015, with a focus on ensuring
girls’ full and equal access to and achievement in basic
education of good quality
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2. What have we learned from research,
applications and reforms for
girls/women?
 Gender Matters
 It is a fundamental organizing principle in
societies globally.
 Gendered Strategies work
 UNESCO's 2009 Global Education digest
 Female students in PSE rose 6x from 1970-2007; Men
4x
 PSE graduates-women outnumber men in 75 of 98
nations.
 Since PSE gender parity in 2003, women’s
par ticipation has been surpassing males
 Men continue to outnumber women in engineering,
manufacturing, and construction in all countries for
which figures were available.
 We’re not done...
 We can and must continue momentum
in promoting girls/women’s safety,
access, success, employment,
leadership, etc.
 Avoid zero-sum, binar y thinking
 We’re all co-conspirators in each
other’s problems and solutions (moms
and dads raise boys and girls!) 2

3.  Gender Equity is achievable.
 Positive Cross-Gender Relations
are achievable.
 If there were a simple solution, it
would have been done already.
 We talk often about gender equity,
but rarely about gender, including
understanding males as gendered
beings.
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5. “…gender is an act which has been rehearsed,
much as a script survives the particular actors
who make use of it, but which requires
individual actors in order to be actualized and
reproduced as reality once again." (Butler,
1990, p. 272).
“…the important fact of men’s lives is not
that they are biological males, but that they
become men. Our sex may be male, but
our identity as men is developed through a
complex process of interaction with the
culture in which we both learn the gender
scripts appropriate to our culture and
attempt to modify those scripts to make
them more palatable.” -Kimmel, 1998
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6.  Discrepancy-strain
 Failing to live up to ideal of
masculinity
 Dysfunction strain
 Achieving manhood’s
requirements hurts/costs the
man
 Trauma-strain
 Masculine role socialization is
inherently traumatic.
Pleck, J. H. The gender role strain paradigm: An update. A new
psychology of men.
In Levant, Ronald F. (Ed); Pollack, William S. (Ed), (1995). A new
psychology of men, (pp. 11-32). New York, NY, US: Basic Books, xiv,
402 pp.
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7. “Men are not exploited or
oppressed by sexism, but there
are ways in which they suffer as
a result of it. This suffering
should not be ignored. While it
in no way diminishes the
seriousness of male abuse and
oppression of women, or
negates male responsibility for
exploitative actions, the pain
men experience can serve as a
catalyst calling attention to the
need for change.”
-hooks (1984)
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8.  Restrictive
Emotionality
 Socialized Control,
Power, and
Competition
 Restrictive Sexual
and Af fectionate
Behavior –
 Obsession with
Achievement, Work
and Success
Adapted from: O'Neil, J., Helms, B., Gable, R., David, L., Wrightman, L.
(1986). Gender role conflict scale: College men's fear of femininity. Sex
Roles, 14, 335-350. 8

9. Restrictive
Emotionality-
A man who has
learned to restrict
his emotions will
need to understand
that emotional
expressiveness is
not a par t of some
feminine stereotype
but par t of being a
full human being.
Adapted from: O'Neil, J., Helms, B., Gable, R., David, L., Wrightman, L.
(1986). Gender role conflict scale: College men's fear of femininity. Sex
Roles, 14, 335-350.
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10. Socialized Control, Power,
and Competition-
A man who validates his
masculinity through power
and control makes himself
vulnerable in many ways.
The tragedy of the
controlling man is that he
for feits interpersonal and
emotional flexibility which
are essential for open
communication, conflict
management, and
intimacy: all of which help
sustain and revitalize
interpersonal
relationships.
Adapted from: O'Neil, J., Helms, B., Gable, R., David, L., Wrightman, L.
(1986). Gender role conflict scale: College men's fear of femininity. Sex
Roles, 14, 335-350.
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11. Restrictive Sexual and
Af fectionate Behavior–
For men, sex is of ten
seen as a means of
measuring
per formance,
achievement, and one's
masculinity. Men who
demonstrate restrictive
interpersonal af fection
view sex as an
objective-impersonal
process and have a
dif ficult time
expressing af fection in
ways other than sex.
Adapted from: O'Neil, J., Helms, B., Gable, R., David, L., Wrightman, L.
(1986). Gender role conflict scale: College men's fear of femininity. Sex
Roles, 14, 335-350.
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12. Obsession with
Achievement, Work and
Success-
Preoccupation with work,
accomplishments, and
eminence can cause
conflicts between career
and domestic
responsibilities. Men
who define their self-
wor th primarily as career
success experience
intense pressure to
succeed.
Adapted from: O'Neil, J., Helms, B., Gable, R., David, L., Wrightman, L.
(1986). Gender role conflict scale: College men's fear of femininity. Sex
Roles, 14, 335-350.
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13. by Nancy R. Smith (reprinted from "The Sojourner", a newsletter of
The Women's Center, Duke Divinity School)
For every woman who is tired of acting weak when she
knows she is strong, there is a man who is tired of
appearing strong when he feels vulnerable;
For every woman who is tired of acting dumb, there is a man
who is burdened with the constant expectation of
"knowing everything;"
For every woman who is tired of being called "an emotional
female,“ there is a man who is denied the right to weep
and to be gentle;
For every woman who is called unfeminine when she
competes,
there is a man for whom competition is the only way to
prove his masculinity;
For every woman who is tired of being a sex object, there is a
man who is tired of being a success object;
For every woman who feels "tied down" by her children,
there is a man who is denied the full pleasures of shared
parenthood;
For every woman who is denied meaningful employment or
equal pay, there is a man who must bear full financial
responsibility for another human being;
For every woman who was not taught the intricacies of an
automobile, there is a man who was not taught the
satisfactions of cooking;
For every woman who takes a step toward her own liberation,
there is a man who finds the way to freedom has been
made a little easier.
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