Macho at UWI
The Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies has announced a programme to attract more men to university education. Good going so far…hang on, things are about to fall apart. The programme is called MACHO- Men at Cave Hill O…something.
Now if it is the obsession with appearing macho and not being unmasked as a spuff, a chichiman, a buller by such emasculating activities as reading, doing homework, raising your hand in class etc. that has turned so many young men off education during the secondary years, is a macho programme really going to undo the very rigid gender ideology that is at least in part responsible for the reported 80/20 female-to-male ratio at UWI? (The discussion on whether this ratio translates into female dominance at UWI and at the workplace will be saved for later.)
I think those brilliant minds at Cave Hill could have come up with a better philosophy for its programme or at least a better acronym. Perhaps the university could make clear the benefits of a university education, such as learning to think critically, rather than try to reward men with a boost to their masculinity.
After all, doesn’t this just buy into the concept of a fragile male ego which always needs to be stroked, a masculinity so deep in crisis that it needs always to be affirmed?
Filed under: Barbados, gender | 9 Comments
Tags: Caribbean masculinity, UWI
too tweet!
- these door-to-door proselytizers are just like rapists- won't take no for an answer. 9 hours ago
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maybe the belief is that by using the word it will make guys going to uwi cool. it could work or not
Well in the same speech, in reference to the 10,000 students currently enrolled at UWI, he did caution that they won’t all be able to find jobs and that UWI was preparing them for entrepreneurship.
Interesting but a bit too stereotypical.
what abeni? my post or the programme?
really? so even with CSME jobs are limited? Not that preparing for entrepreneurship isnt a good idea but I just find that comment interesting
the job market is rough, not impossible but rough for recent graduates.
No the programme is or at least the acronym. I don’t see why it has to be Macho.
Ego?
If it were women, the government would be pouring millions of dollars into ‘programs” to make women interested in higher education.
I thin much of the reason is because there are significant (in that it “means” something–not in terms of dimension) differences between men and women in the ways they think.
Maybe the education system in secondary school needs to address this.
Are there differences between boys and girls in the way they learn?
Would this situation be reversed if there were more male teachers at the secondary level? What if the sex of the teacher mattered for boys but not for girls?
This kind of thing destroys a society and so the university has a good idea. Now having said that, this is likely to flop.
Let’s not turn this into a male vs. female argument. My issue is NOT with encouraging more males to take advantage of “free” university education my issue is with the marketing of the programme.