Whose Rights? The Men's Rights Movement and Implications for Counselors
Conference Strand
Social Change, Leadership, and Advocacy
Abstract
The men’s rights movement (MRM) is a social and political movement to dismantle feminism. Emerging from men’s activist movements of the 1970s, the contemporary MRM utilizes the language of social justice and equality to argue for political and legal actions impacting client well-being and access. This presentation explores the history and ideology of the MRM and the implications for counselors.
Evidence
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Format
Individual Presentations
Biographical Sketch
Quentin Hunter, MEd, LPCA (KY), NCC, is a doctoral candidate in counselor education and supervision at the University of Louisville. He provides counseling services at a University of Louisville-sponsored community clinic in West Louisville and at a Louisville-area school. Quentin also teaches courses in tests and measurement and learning theories, and his research interests include research methods, multicultural counseling, school counseling, and counselor identity.
Katelyn Gosnell Richey, MEd, LPCA (KY) is school counselor in a rural Indiana school and a doctoral candidate in counselor education and supervision at the University of Louisville. Katelyn's counseling experiences include community and school-based counseling services in Kentucky and Indiana. Her research interests include antiracist school counseling, multicultural counseling, and qualitative research methods
Shaun Sowell, MEd, is certified in school counseling in the states of Kentucky and Alaska. She currently serves as a senior academic counselor at the University of Louisville where she is also pursuing a PhD in counselor education and supervision. She has experience counseling in elementary and high school levels, and her research interests include school counselor preparation, forgiveness and reconciliation, and the effects of poverty in school counseling.
Start Date
2-10-2018 10:15 AM
End Date
2-10-2018 11:30 AM
Recommended Citation
Hunter, Quentin; Richey, Katelyn Gosnell; and Sowell, Shaun, "Whose Rights? The Men's Rights Movement and Implications for Counselors" (2018). National Cross-Cultural Counseling and Education Conference for Research, Action, and Change. 8.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/ccec/2018/2018/8
Whose Rights? The Men's Rights Movement and Implications for Counselors
The men’s rights movement (MRM) is a social and political movement to dismantle feminism. Emerging from men’s activist movements of the 1970s, the contemporary MRM utilizes the language of social justice and equality to argue for political and legal actions impacting client well-being and access. This presentation explores the history and ideology of the MRM and the implications for counselors.
Description
This presentation is intended to problematize the current language used within the men’s rights movement to portray the movement as a grassroots or anti-establishment initiative and to justify antifeminist agendas. This session provides not only an introduction to the scholarship around the men’s rights movement but also offers examples and analysis of the men’s rights movement’s social and mass media presence. Next, the presentation highlights ways in which the men’s rights movement coopts the rhetoric of social justice and equality to increase legitimacy in the public consciousness. The result of this legitimization is the increase in antifeminist and antiequality political and legal actions. Counselors in the current political climate will encounter individuals on both sides of the men’s rights movement and must be able to advocate appropriately without compromising the ethical standards of the profession. Counselors should be able to critically evaluate the men’s rights movement rhetoric and have strategies to challenge this rhetoric and educate clients and students on the issue.
This presentation meets the following objectives:
Participants will be able to summarize the extant scholarship on the men’s rights movement, including the origins of the movement and current trends.
Participants will be able to identify men’s rights movement themes in current social and mass media.
Participants will be able to distinguish the ways the men’s rights movement uses the vocabulary of feminism and social justice to legitimize the positions of the movement.
Participants will brainstorm on ethical implications for working with individuals who are members of the movement and those who feel victimized by the movement.
Participants will obtain three strategies that may be used as individual or group interventions for clients or students related to developing a critical understanding of the men’s rights movement.