My name is Kyle Carpenter Ashley and I'm the Acting Director of the Center for Gender

and Student Engagement on campus.

And I have the privilege of welcoming Dr. Kimmel to campus today.

He's been on campus all day running around and I'm sure he's exhausted already and running

in between the rain and everything.

So, we have to thank him for that and I thank you all

for being here as well despite the weather.

So, I think now is a really prime and pivotal time for a conversation to be had on our campus

about gender and specifically about men and masculinities.

I think many of us on campus are familiar with some of the conversations that we've been having

over the past year, particularly around 40 years of co-education.

It's been particularly poignant and along

with those conversations there have been some other occurrences and things

that have been happening like the creation of the GRID program

which is the Gender Research Institute at Dartmouth

with the Women and Gender Studies Program.

The name change of the Center for Gender and Student Engagement which was formerly the Center

for Women in Gender and then, of course, the Day of Reflection, which happened this fall

where we all stopped and reflected on some of the issues that we've been facing on our campus,

particularly around gender and sexual assault.

So, I think our campus is primed for this conversation.

We're ready and as we said this afternoon in some of our conversations,

I think we're at a turning point.

I think we're at a place where our campus is really ready to make some changes

and so I think we welcome Dr. Kimmel at a really, at a really crucial time

to have this sort of conversation.

And I think we also want to start by acknowledging that everybody who comes

into the room here has a different experience with this kind of conversation.

And not everybody is in the same place and so one of the things that Dr. Kimmel was talking

about earlier this afternoon, which I think is quite poignant,

is that sometimes we stumble upon this work.

We stumble upon these types of conversations.

You know he labeled it as accidental activists and he shared a little bit of his story

and how he got started with this work as being an accident.

He didn't really mean to start doing this work.

He was doing 17th century French tax policy and--

>> But you've already read that folks, I'm sure.

So, you don't need me to talk about it.

>> Very interesting stuff, but he stumbled upon doing gender work, gender equity work

and found his true passion there.

And so, I think I bring that up to say that there are likely many of us

in the audience today who may be stumbling into this conversation and I think again,

it's a great opportunity to have Dr. Kimmel with us.

So, Dr. Kimmel is among one of the world's leading researchers

and scholars on men and masculinity.

He is the author and editor of more than 20 volumes on the subject and his books include,

"The Politics of Manhood", "The Gender of Desire", "The History of Men", "Guyland",

"Misframing Men" and his most recent publication, "The Guys Guide to Feminism",

which we've been highlighting with the Seed Program and including in many

of our conversations over the course of the summer illustrates how understanding

and supporting feminism can help men to live richer, fuller and happier lives.

And in addition, I just learned this fact about Dr. Kimmel, is that he's also included

on Marlo Thomas who is the creator of "Free to Be You and Me"; some of you may be familiar

with that initiatives several decades ago.

She created a list just this past March of the top 19 guys who get it

and Dr. Kimmel was included on that list in good company along with--

>> Only five of them were alive.

[laughter]

>> And I should note also right next to Ryan Gossling.

So, really in really good company next to, yea that's right, that's right.

So, before we get started I just want to put out there that some of the subjects that we're going

to be talking about today are sensitive.

We're going to be talking about masculinity.

We're going to be talking about power and potentially talking about violence.

And so I know that that is sensitive and potentially triggering for folks.

I know that we have support in the audience.

We've got some SAPAs, which are sexual assault peer advisors.

I know we have some MAZ in the audience and so if there's anything that comes

up for folks we can connect you to the right resources.

And then lastly I just want to say if throughout this conversation you would like to learn more

about having conversations around gender on campus you can contact me.

I work in the Center for Gender Engagement which is over in the Choates.

It's kind of over there on campus and not many people come to visit us, but it's a great space.

And if you want to learn more please get a hold of me.

So, without further ado please help me in welcoming Dr. Michael Kimmel.

[ Applause ]

>> Thank you very much Kyle.

Only five of the people that Marlo mentioned in her column are still alive.

Most of them-- and so actually-- and it's important I suspect to say some of the names

of some of the ones who she mentioned as you know the guys who--

you know men who supported gender equality or supported feminism included Thomas Paine,

for example, who sat on July 4, 1776 and read the Declaration of Independence and said,

"If I were a woman I would not be included in this", right.

And so that-- and so he actually wrote a letter about you know why that was the wrong thing

or Frederick Douglass, arguably the greatest orator in American history who was the one

at Seneca Falls; some of you might not know this.

At Seneca Falls on the first day every single plank

of the women's platform passed except one, and that one was suffrage.

The next morning Douglass stands up and says, "Without the vote you have nothing."

And it was his speech that actually got the congress to pass the suffrage plank

of the first you know, first suffrage convention in Seneca Falls in 1848.

The next day, bear this in mind guys who support gender equality,

the next day the Syracuse newspaper called Frederick Douglass and Aunt Nancy Man.

And Aunt Nancy Man was the 19th century equivalent of a woos, right.

So, you stand up for women's rights, they question your masculinity, right.

What, I mean and think of the illogic here for a moment.

What kind of real man would actually care enough about women to not hold them in contempt?

So, there are costs I suspect.

Alright, so here's what I'm going to say.

I am really thrilled to be here at Dartmouth.

I have come-- I've been, I've spoken here, this is I think about the fifth

or sixth time I've come to Dartmouth and I'm going to tell you a little bit

about what I've learned in some ways from you all over those times that I have been here.

I did this book that came out in 2008 called "Guyland", in which I went around the country

and interviewed about 400 young people, mostly men, mostly white, mostly straight,

to try to get a sense of what was going on in this age cohort

and I'll tell you a little bit about that in a minute.

But I want you to know that I carefully disguised all of the names

and all of the colleges and identifiers except with one small exception, you.

And-- but all throughout the book you know you could never tell,

but some of the interviews were actually done here at Dartmouth.

I also, the part, that's all disguised.

The very beginning of the book though I did talk about, about six guys who had been

in the same paternity here at Dartmouth and all graduated and moved to an apartment

in Boston together and they-- and they-- you know they kind of every night they went

to the Dartmouth bar and they basically reproduced college life

for the next three years after graduation.

And so I watched them kind of-- and this is the word that I ended up using in the book,

drift into adulthood after college.

There was no sort of single marker the day you get your degree, you know there was no right

of passage particularly for them.

They kind of drifted into it over those years that they were living in Boston.

So, and that's the only place in the book where I actually mention the name

of the college is honest because there-- you know I mentioned the name of the bar in Boston

and so you probably all know it or you soon will.

So, but let-- but what I want to do basically is and I've advertised this talk about being a man

at Dartmouth, and so what I want to do is I'm going to sort of insert Dartmouth

into the conversation that I try to establish in "Guyland" by taking you backstage a little bit

to say what I think it has produced, the moment that we are at on most college campuses

in the country and particularly, as Kyle mentions, some of the issues

that are think are particularly important

and particularly salient right here, right now at Dartmouth.

You are at the moment you know engaged in a conversation

that for many you know is very discomforting and for others they're saying it's about time.

So it's both jarring and also long awaited and so I want to talk a little bit about that

and I'll get to that toward the end when I try to suggest some of the ways

that we can continue to think about this.

But mostly I am-- you were kind enough not to mention this,

but I am actually a sociology professor.

And so my job as those of you who have ever endured a class in sociology know

that what we do is we always are setting context for everything.

So, what I'm going to try to do is I'm going to try to set the context

for the larger conversation we're having about gender on college campuses.

And there's a particular irony that I'm going to describe to you that will come

through in the conversation, which is on the one hand there is no more gender equal institution

in the United States today than the American college campus.

And yet, the American college campus is also marked by dramatic gender inequality.

And that is one of the-- and that irony or that paradox is something I want to explore.

You may call it daytime and nighttime, but that idea that the most,

the most gender equal institution we have is also dramatically gender unequal.

Now, that's going to be the big sort of-- that's the big plan.

So, what I want to do is I want to sort of want to take you inside why I started thinking

about this book, what I found and why I call it "Guyland."

And really this is a book because we-- I started because I think we're having two conversations

in the United States today about young people.

If you ask parents of say 10 year olds here's what you'll here.

Oh my God, they're growing up so fast.

Why they're doing stuff at 10 or 11 that we weren't doing until we were 15 or 16,

because everybody knows 10 is the new 20.

Now, talk to parents of 30 year olds and you will hear, will they ever grow up?

They move back home after college.

They can't commit to a relationship.