Beer, babes and boobs.

This is important stuff for men to consider when choosing a college, according to Men's Health, a national magazine for men.

This month's "special report," the "Best and Worst Campuses for Men," sounds innocent enough at first, until you read the magazine's criteria for rating what they call "antimale" schools that "demonize" men:

Schools with strong womens studies departments. Schools that comply with federal laws requiring equal funding for womens and mens sports teams. Schools with defined sexual harassment and date rape policies that require men to get verbal consent from sex partners.

But wait! There's more!

Two smiling, female models in tight jeans accompany the "male-friendly" college list.

On the "antimale" page, the same models frown and look angry. One is suddenly wearing glasses. And their hair, once flowing, is pulled back into severe ponytails. Their fitted jeans have been replaced with sweatpants.

One even holds the book, "The Stronger Sex."

The premise of the story is that "male bashing" is "part of the air up in the Ivory Tower," and that college men need to protect themselves from schools with "hostile environments."

"On our male-friendly list," Laurence Roy Stains writes, "the traditional male point of view is appreciated socially and academically."

But Stains' rationale is silly at best, and at worst is as dangerously misleading and erroneous as it is misogynistic, his critics said.

"The level of vitriol embedded in this article suggests to me that these guys have an agenda," said Jackson Katz, a speaker at colleges across the country and the creator of an award-winning video, "Tough Guise: Violence, Media, and the Crisis in Masculinity."

"Its obvious that theyre weak men who are threatened by strong women," he continued.

Horrifying for who? Among the list of antimale horrors stated by Men's Health are Brown University's "sexual harassment policy [which] discourages unwelcome 'flirtations.'"

At Columbia University, Stains writes: "men find themselves on the defensive beginning at freshman orientation, which has included an improv session about date rape."

The University of Michigan's short list of crimes includes the fact that, "the campus womens center has a heavy schedule of outside speakers."

The "vibe" at Oberlin College in Ohio requires "mandatory mental vasectomies," presumably because the school has "an elaborate sexual-offense policy," according to Stains.

Meanwhile, the magazine's kudos-to-college list implies that the co-eds at the male-friendly schools are cuter than the ones at the schools that males should avoid.

Of California State University at Long Beach, Stains writes, "The undergraduate male/female ratio is 42-to-58, which, by our count, means almost 17,000 tanned coeds."

"We've never met an ugly girl from Texas A&M," Stains writes.

Of Washington and Lee University in Virginia, Stains quotes a junior there, who enthuses, "Theres a testosterone atmosphere here that permeates the whole environment."

Myths and Reality

Mens Health also overstates the danger of being falsely accused of rape.

The magazine ran a sidebar describing the "horror stories" experienced by three men who were suspended or had trouble getting their diplomas because of rape accusations by female students.

"For any campus where a man's reputation is unfairly tarnished [by a false accusation]," Katz said, "you can go to that same campus and find dozens of women who were raped and didn't report it."

Perhaps the worst thing about the Men's Health story is that it dismisses the statistic that says that one-in-four women have been the victims of rape or attempted rape as "feminist myth."

"It's amazingly irresponsible of Men's Health to say that the "one-in-four statistic is 'a long-discredited feminist canard,'" said Jennifer Pozner, a director at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), a New York-based media watchdog group.

Pozner said that in a 1993 report, FAIR addressed what they concluded were flawed attacks on Kent State University psychologist Mary P. Koss's 1987 study from which the one-in-four statistic Men's Health refers to came from.

Pozner also points out that in 1999, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published very similar findings that corresponded to the "one-in-four" statistic published ten years earlier.

"The Centers for Disease Control found that one-in-five college women reported having been forced to have sex, not including attempts," she said.

"More than a decade [after Koss's study], they came up with the same finding," Pozner said. "To say that [the 1987 study] has been 'long-discredited' is crap."

When asked about the article, Men's Health features editor Ron Geraci said, "We're not doing any more interviews about that story. Were moving on to the November issue now." Geraci refused to discuss the article or the editorial direction of Men's Health, even generally. Nor would he provide contact information for either the story's writer or editor (Geraci said he did not edit the piece).

Instead, he referred me to public relations spokesperson Karen Mazzotta. When asked if the magazine had gotten a new editor-in-chief since "Best and Worst Campuses for Men" ran, Mazzotta said: "For starters, yes," but she wouldn't elaborate.

However, a receptionist for Rodale, Inc., the magazine's publisher, said that Greg Gutfeld, editor-in-chief of the September issue, has since been replaced by David Zinezenko, who presumably is trying to control the damage he inherited by Gutfeld's publication of this controversial story.

"This has been a tricky one for us," Mazzotta conceeded.

His 18-year-old daughters were in the audience, but they're not who George W. Bush was speaking to when he accepted the Republican presidential nomination in Philadelphia last night.

Sure, Bush asked his twins, Jenna and Barbara, to email him often when they go to college this fall.

And, as balloons and confetti swirled around him at the end of the show, he waved to the crowd while Ricky Martin's hip Latin beats pumped.

But when it came down to it, Bush largely ignored the issues that count most to girls and young women in his speech at the Comcast First Union Center during the close of the convention.

So now the question is: Will he also ignore them when he gets into office?

To the cheers of delegates from across the country, Bush vowed to "seize this moment of American promise. We will use these good times for great goals." He bagged on the Clinton Administration, continuously chanting, "They had their chance. They have not led. We will."

Who he really cares about
From fixing social security to ensuring that prescription drugs are available to every senior citizen who needs them, his goals seemed targeted solely at those ages 50 and older.

In a speech peppered with references to World War II, the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War, Bush promised that if he gets to move into the White House, he would boost the amount of money directed to the military, reduce the number of nuclear weapons in America's arsenal, cut taxes and allow parents of public school students the option to use federal money to place their children in private schools.

"We will confront the hard issues," he said, "threats to our national security, threats to our health and retirement security, before the challenges of our time become crises for our children."

Where the girls weren't
At times, Bush focused on issues important to young adults, but steered clear of any initiatives that would improve the lives of young voters -- especially women.

Bush ignored Jenna and Barbara's friends and future classmates for obvious reasons -- baby boomers and seniors vote in droves, while citizens ages 18-24 traditional account for the lowest election turnout. Plus, how many of those who belong to the so-called Generations X and Y watch these conventions anyway?

When he finally did speak directly about issues that affect young women's lives -- pregnancy and drug use -- he promoted telling them what to do, instead of giving them tools to make sound decisions.

Bush said he would vote for a ban on so-called partial-birth abortions, and told the audience that he supported forcing pregnant teens to get their parents' permission before having an abortion.

"I know good people disagree on this issue, but surely we can agree on ways to value life by promoting adoption and parental notification, and when Congress sends me a bill against partial-birth abortion, I will sign it into law," he said.

What he failed to mention as that earlier this year the Supreme Court struck down a Nebraska law banning late-term abortions, the official medical term, on grounds that it put an "undue burden" on a woman's decision to end her pregnancy.

The money card
But those who listened carefully may have caught at least one pitch Bush targeted at his daughter's age group. He said he favored allowing young workers the opportunity to invest a portion of their payroll taxes in the stock market instead of relying on the government to manage their retirement savings under the current Social Security plan.

However, for young women that may not be good news. It has been noted that this strategy disfavors female workers who make less than men and as a result, have less to invest.

When Bush spoke of pumping money into the nation's schools, he also focused on what this would mean for parents, not students.

"Our schools must support the ideals of parents, elevating character and abstinence from afterthoughts to urgent goals," he said. "When a school district receives federal funds to teach poor children, we expect them to learn. And if they don't, parents should get the money to make a different choice."

Before the speech, the audience saw a movie that featured Bush family members telling the nation what a good president George W. would be. After he made his promises, a shower of balloons and confetti sealed the audience's excitement as well.

But only time will tell if many young women will get excited about a candidate who leaves her out off his acceptance speech. Nobody likes to be stood up, especially by a presidential candidate.

Lucy Maher is ChickClick's news editor.


Sidebar:

George P. Wows the Crowd

You wouldn't normally expect to see a member of People magazine's "most eligible bachelors" list grace the stage of the Republican National ConventionNunless of course, you're familiar with George W. Bush's 24-year-old Latino nephew: George Prescott Bush.

As the band played a cover of Stevie Wonder's "Higher Ground," George P., the son of Florida governor Jeb Bush, described his uncle's politics as "fearlessly inclusive." Bush, a graduate of Houston's Rice University, flawlessly mixed Spanish and English into his speech pledging his support of his uncle.

"My parents always told me that if you believe in a cause, how could you not get involved?" Bush said, explaining why he joined the campaign.

Focusing on one issue -- education -- Bush told stories about his experience teaching 9th grade in a rough high school outside of Miami for a year.

"I learned more from them than they learned from me," Bush said, describing his students as low-income kids often considered "lost causes."

"My experience with them is why I truly believe that the best thing for every kid is to have my uncle in the White House," he said to thundering applause.

Referred to as the "JFK Jr. of this convention" by commentators, Bush ended his speech with Spanish everyone could understand, even if they couldn't translate his words: "Viva Bush! Viva Los Estados Unidos!"

"What works is what works for the good of the people," he said, "not for the good of political careers."

-Virginia Pelley, ChickClick editing staff