Tag Archives: christopher kilmartin

Female USAFA Cadets Majority of Masculinity Class

The Colorado Springs Gazette, local to the US Air Force Academy, highlighted USAFA’s addition of an academic elective entitled “Men and Masculinity” (previously noted here).

Visiting Professor Christopher Kilmartin, of the University of Mary Washington, is teaching a course on masculinity at the U.S. Air Force Academy this semester, as part of a new program to discourage sexual assaults…

“My job as an educator is to name the pressure” that exists for males to conform to unhealthy masculine stereotypes, Kilmartin continued.

The article notes the elective is filled with cadets, “most of whom are female.”  Females make up less than 20% of the cadet wing.

No word on when USAFA will offer a course of “Women and Femininity” — or if most of the students would be male.

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Military Reviews Moral Solutions to Causes of Sexual Assault

Two Air Force JAGs, Major Ken Artz and 1Lt Peter Smyczek wrote a fascinating article that supported General Mark Welsh’s assertion that the accepted culture is part of the sexual assault problem in the military.  Entitled “Sexual Assaults in the Military: Porn is Part of the Problem,” their piece began with a simple statement [emphasis added]:

If our military is to lower its rate of sex crimes, it must limit its members’ consumption of pornography and educate them about its risks.

The JAGs point out that the Air Force must address the underlying behaviors that lead to sexual assault — not merely attack the Read more