Noted here and there…
First off, let me sing the praises of the excellent new Carnival of the Feminists 7 up at Feministe.
Reflecting on yesterday’s 6-3 Supreme Court decision on assisted suicide, one can only conclude that the elevation of Samuel Alito will still leave Anthony Kennedy and other relatively progressive social voices in charge. The key question — can John Paul Stevens, the court’s oldest justice and a moderate liberal, hang on until a Democratic president can name his replacement? Much seems to hinge on that, more than on either of the previous two vacancies.
And then, there’s this stunner from Phylis Schlafly: Radical Feminists Reinterpret Title IX. It’s filled with the old-time religion that blames women and girls for the decline in male enrollment on college campuses. What’s noteworthy is that she builds her piece around the immensely entertaining (and for some of us, heartbreaking) Rose Bowl game of a fortnight ago:
This year’s spectacular Rose Bowl game attracted a phenomenal 35.6 million viewers because it featured what we want: rugged men playing football and attractive women cheering them on. Americans of every class, men and women, remained glued to their television sets and nearly 95,000 spectators watched from the stands.
The runaway success of this game proved again that stereotypical roles for men and women do not bother Americans one bit. Political correctness lost out as all-male teams battled and women cheered.
I’m assuming that the "attractive" women Schlafly refers to are the female cheerleaders and dance squad members for USC and the University of Texas. Of course, perhaps she means my lovely wife?
I’m a bit baffled as to how "political correctness" lost out at the Rose Bowl, however. USC, long ago shedding its conservative reputation, has one of the most progressive Gender Studies programs in America, as well as the best archive of lesbian history in the English speaking world. I know plenty of very left-wing gender-studies types affiliated with the university — and almost to a man and a woman, they are all football-crazed. (Last week I chatted with a sixty-something lesbian couple whom I know, affiliated with USC’s ONE Institute and of impeccable PC credentials; they were still gnashing their teeth in frustration at Coach Carroll’s play-calling.) So enough with the tired old idea that all authentic feminists don’t like football.
Schlafly gets odder:
It’s too bad that male sports are being eliminated on most college campuses. Except for Texas, USC, and a few other places, radical feminism rules in the athletic departments at the expense of popular male sports.
Gosh, as I said, ‘SC has the most progressive Gender Studies program on the West Coast. And some pretty awesome women’s teams in a variety of sports (water polo, track, and at least in the 1980s with Cheryl Miller, basketball.) They’ve managed to fully fund both men’s and women’s teams just fine.
More fine logic:
The Rose Bowl proved that public demand is for all-male sports, not female contests. Boys do not want to go to a college that eliminates the macho sports, and that is true even if the boy does not expect to compete himself.
The effects of the feminists’ attack on men’s sports are now coming home to roost. By the time this year’s college freshmen are seniors, the ratio will be 60 percent women to 40 percent men, and women are now crying that there are not enough college-educated men to marry.
China’s brutal one-child policy has artificially created millions of young men for whom no wives are available. Right here at home, the feminists have created millions of college-educated women for whom no college-educated men are available, and the trend is getting steadily worse.
The American people clearly want male football, baseball, track and wrestling, and colleges that cut these sports should be cut out of the federal budget.
Well, I don’t know what Schlafly means by "eliminate macho sports." The male teams that have been cut by many universities in recent years include swimming and tennis and crew — not traditionally seen as "macho" compared to football and basketball (which are cut far less often.)
Schlafly suggests that the American public would much rather see men play anything than women. But it’s absurd to imply that all intercollegiate men’s sports are more popular than all women’s sports! Yes, football is the sacred cow of American university athletics. But Phyllis, with all respect, I’m willing to bet I’ve been to a heck of a lot more intercollegiate track meets than you have. I’ve sat in a near-empty Drake Stadium at UCLA (one of the most famous venues in the sport), watching the Bruin men in many a dual meet. (Quick: name the defending NCAA champions in cross-country and track. No looking it up on line! Yeah, that’s what I thought.) I’ve been to water polo games and soccer matches and gotten the best seat in the house time and time again — most folks don’t care about the so-called minor sports, regardless of who’s playing! On the other hand, the famous University of Tennessee women’s basketball program regularly outdraws their male counterparts in terms of spectator attendance, and I’ve often seen more fans at UCLA softball games than at Bruin baseball matches.
If these are the best arguments against Title IX that the right can come up with, we’re in better shape than I thought.
Very interesting topic.
Like most people who make sweeping generalizations based on single events, schlafly makes a fool of herself.
I like the concept of title IX. I do not know enough about the specifics of the statute to comment much about its implimentation, except to say that “revenue” sports dont always bring in as much actual revenue as they claim.
I will also disagree with her if she is trying to say that by enjoying the Rose Bowl the public accepts and loves cheerleading.
I hate cheerleading. Too much sexualization. Too much about girls supporting boys instead of doing their own thing.
Hugo, to me Schlafly sounds as strident and prone to generalities and hyperbole as most feminists, so much of your missive sounds like ‘pot-calling-the-kettle black’ to me. However, you stated: “Well, I don’t know what Schlafly means by ‘eliminate macho sports.’ The male teams that have been cut by many universities in recent years include swimming and tennis and crew — not traditionally seen as “macho” compared to football and basketball (which are cut far less often.)” However, this isn’t true Hugo - the most common team cut from college campuses is men’s wrestling; this was highlighted in the Title IX lawsuit and subsequent hearings a few years ago. Further, the main problem highlighted by those hearing was the proportionality test for compliance. Currently funding must be equal regardless of actual interest in sports by women on campus as compared to men. Never mind that there are a lot more men interested in participating in sports than there are women, all the resources must be equal, at least when it advantages women; you won’t hear those arguments when it comes to funding things like men’s resource centers, men’s studies departments, etc.
I don’t have a problem with Title IX in theory, it’s the implementation that is problematic. I believe that Title IX was meant to apply to more than just athletics - it was intended to apply to all resources and facilities at colleges and universities that receive Federal funding. Therefore, I would like to see more rigorous and just enforcement of Title IX to include things such as men’s studies departments (if we can’t eliminate women’s studies), men’s resource centers, equal numbers of men-only dorms and other housing, more targeted affirmative action for men (if affirmative action can’t be eliminated), etc.
The problems are in the implementation and enforcement of Title IX, not the underlying philosophy.
As for your personal anecdotes re. attendance at women’s sporting events, of course your mileage may vary, but other than women’s figure skating and tennis, men’s sports are far more popular with the public at large than women’s sports. However, because of Title IX, men’s wrestling, swimming, gymnastics, and other sports are at risk on college campuses.
At my university, sports fund themselves.
Mr. Bad, gender studies is the new replacement for “women’s studies” and attempts to look at gender in greater context including turning a focus on the the construction of male genders. Of course intro courses focus on feminism in part because they rely on feminist pedagogy as a model for classroom workings.
all the talk about people liking to watch male sports more than female sports always rings a bit hollow to me because, well, how often did people really have the choice? in the larger scheme of things, womens sports have only been available for moderate to wide-scale viewing for a very short period of time. it’s going to take longer than a few decades to erode some of the deeply entrenched societal beliefs about who should play sports and why.
same goes for critics of title IX funding and the “lack of interest” among women in college to play certain sports. it’s disingenous to say that women don’t “want” to play sports, when you’ve hardly given them the time to start considering the possibility that they can, and should. changing attitudes takes time, but it doesn’t mean that it’s not the right thing to do.
Hugo, you don’t know how to use the phrase PC. PC is what you call things you don’t like or understand, and un-PC is what you call things that your imaginary enemies must surely hate for all the wrong reasons.
DJW — Oh. :-)
it’s going to take longer than a few decades to erode some of the deeply entrenched societal beliefs about who should play sports and why.
This is exactly the problem with Title IX. It’s one more example of the government using force to brainwash people. The agenda which the above quote promotes is the state coming in and telling people what they should believe.
What if someone chooses to prefer men’s sports? Does that make them an enemy of society? Should they be subjected to more indoctrination? Should they be blacklisted?
The poster seems to be unable to understand the concept of a free market: that people have a right to make their own choices. And if people choose not to watch womyn’s sports, that is their right. If womyn’s sports lose out because people choose not to watch them, feminists have no right to go to the government and then use force — in this case money gathered involuntarilly by taxes — to rig the game in their favor.
This is what Phyllis Schafly was getting at in her editorial.
The government attaches strings to the money it provides to institutions and states *all the time*. Witness the drinking age, which is tied to federal highway funding. The government here isn’t putting a restraint on the free market by telling the NFL to start sponsoring women’s football. It’s demanding that colleges and universities provide equal funding. And for crying out loud, the word is women.
Sorry for the thread drift, Hugo.
shoot, i am always forgetting to genuflect before the Free Market before i speak.
of course people have the right to make their own choices. my point is that they didn’t have the choice to watch (or play) certain women’s sports for the longest time. and now that choice is being provided to them, and we need to give it a little time and see how things develop.
Men’s Studies? Gee, at my university that’s called “The English, Physcis, Biology, and History Departments”.
And the dorms are generally proportional to the number of female vs males on campus. (Except for here at UND, which offers way more to men).
Free market means that women don’t want to play sports? BAHAHAHAHAHA! When the hell has the free market ever exsisted? *hehe snort snigger*
Antigone wrote: “Men’s Studies? Gee, at my university that’s called “The English, Physcis, Biology, and History Departments”.
Heh - That’s a good one AG. Sometimes those old gems from the ’60s are just as funny now as the first time I heard them 40 years ago. But that’s so yesterday - can’t you feminists come up with anything new? Come on, it’s been almost a half century now since you first laid that bullshit us.
Like there’s “men’s” math, physics, biology - hahahahaha. What universe do you live in? In the one I live in, men and women are certainly equal when it comes to the laws of physics abd biology. For instance, apparently in the universe you live in women have to deal with more gravity than men, which undoubtedly is because gravity - being a manifestation of the Patriarchal Conspiracy (TM) to hold women down that “male” physics most certainly is - is a much greater force on women than men.
Uh huh.
Bwaaaaahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!
However, because those universal truths re. physics, math, medicine, science in general, etc., that exist in the universe that I live in were first discovered and described by (- gasp! -) Dead White Males (TM) like Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, et al., well, they just must be wrong. At least according to the religious fanatics of The Sisterhood of Feminism.
Yeah, right. Gotcha.
As for english and history, since those have mostly been co-opted as vehicles for women’s/queer studies, I have no interest and thus no knowledge whatsoever about they’re all about. They lost me when they abandoned Shakespeare for Ensler.
The government attaches strings to the money it provides to institutions and states *all the time*. Witness the drinking age, which is tied to federal highway funding.
This is true, and it is wrong, wrong, wrong! A direct violation of the 9th Amendment. It’s simply a way for the federal government to coerce the states into passing laws which their own voters reject by using tax money — extorted from the states’ taxpayers — as a gun to the head. The fact that feminists support this kind of extortion only shows how once again the feminist agenda is about using force instead of persuasion. And violating the Bill of Rights. So there!
my point is that they didn’t have the choice to watch (or play) certain women’s sports for the longest time.
This is simple nonsense. There was absolutely nothing to stop women and women’s colleges from organizing their own football leagues, for example.
Let me note that at one of the universities I am associated with the administration is lockstep behind the PATRIOT ACT. Why? The reason, stated by the university president (a liberal woman!) is that if the university does not get in line, the federal government will pull the $10,000,000 or so dollars it “gives” the university every year.
When the feds started registering Middle Eastern students a few years back, the administration marched along with this disgraceful program because if they dared object, they were afraid the feds would pull the plug on the cash flow. So posted flyers all over the university telling Middle Eastern students to show up at the federal building, or else. Now I know what it must have been like to have seen Japanese-Americans interned in World War Two.
How does feminism reconcile itself with this jackbooted thuggery?
The government attaches strings to the money it provides to institutions and states *all the time*. Witness the drinking age, which is tied to federal highway funding.
This is true, and it is wrong, wrong, wrong! A direct violation of the 9th and 10th Amendments. It’s simply a way for the federal government to coerce the states into passing laws which their own voters reject by using tax money — extorted from the states’ taxpayers — as a gun to the head. The fact that feminists support this kind of extortion only shows how once again the feminist agenda is about using force instead of persuasion. And violating the Bill of Rights. So there!
my point is that they didn’t have the choice to watch (or play) certain women’s sports for the longest time.
This is simple nonsense. There was absolutely nothing to stop women and women’s colleges from organizing their own football leagues, for example.
Let me note that at one of the universities I am associated with the administration is lockstep behind the PATRIOT ACT. Why? The reason, stated by the university president (a liberal woman!) is that if the university does not get in line, the federal government will pull the $10,000,000 or so dollars it “gives” the university every year.
When the feds started registering Middle Eastern students a few years back, the administration marched along with this disgraceful program because if they dared object, they were afraid the feds would pull the plug on the cash flow. So posted flyers all over the university telling Middle Eastern students to show up at the federal building, or else. Now I know what it must have been like to have seen Japanese-Americans interned in World War Two.
How does feminism reconcile itself with this jackbooted thuggery?
So, the reason men go to college is to play sports? Gosh, I thought it was to get an education!
Hopefully that closed the runaway italics …
Sorry to hijack things even more, but — Mr. Bad, are you actually familiar with the feminist critiques of physics et al. you’re so quick to dismiss? I can’t speak to Physics, but sexism is still an issue in the composition of Mathematics departments (who gets hired, who gets tenure, who is assigned which roles within the department, etc.). At least one anthology was published on this last year, Gender Differences in Mathematics.
Anyway, my understand is that Wrestling was often cut in favour of money to officially support female teams (of course women could form their own unofficial teams prior to Title IX; they just couldn’t get any money from the university for it, the way men did) because Wrestling was nowhere near as popular as other sports — a handful of guys want to wrestle, no-one comes to the meets, the record over the past decade isn’t so great, and meanwhile a whole lot of girls are interested in basketball, so it seems fair for the school to go with a women’s basketball team over wrestling. Perhaps my impression was wrong?
Or maybe the guys could form their own unofficial teams for sports which have been cut, and once they do well enough against other schools and get enough of a fan base, the school can reinstate them and cut some other sport that isn’t doing well. Since that seems to have been an approach used for women’s teams, turnabout would be fair play…
Blech, my mind is dysfunctional this morning. Apologies for the double post.
Title IX, like affirmative action programs more generally, is not about ‘brainwashing’ or even trying to change attitudes. These programs only have an effect on adults, long after biases have been inculcated. If the idea were to eliminate racist and sexist memes, rather than racist and sexist practices, affirmative action programs would involve things like elementary and junior high school curricula. To my knowledge, Title IX does not require all sixth graders to watch Bend It Like Beckham.
Rather, the purpose of affirmative action programs is to combat institutional discrimination against groups of people who have suffered historical discrimination. For example, before Title IX, very few universities even offered women the option to participate in intramural sports, much less gave female athletes the expensive facilities and staffing they lavish on male football and basketball players. Title IX addresses this longstanding and systematic discrimination directly, by requiring schools to give women and men roughly equal opportunities to participate in sports.
While the generation of empirical data will make it hard for individuals to maintain sexist views in a post-Title IX world — in this case, I suppose the view would be that women are less interested/less capable athletes than men — the law certainly doesn’t punish anyone for holding or expressing these views. Phyllis Schlafly (sp) is free to think women don’t want to be athletes, she just can’t turn her views into an institutional policy of any federally-supported university she happens to be on the board of trustees of.
As someone who attended an academically oriented women’s college, I always find it odd when discussions of Title IX wind up becoming discussions of whether women’s sports are popular among spectators. Yes, I understand that some colleges rely heavily on sports to generate spectator revenue. But surely the PRIMARY purpose of sports programs at the college level should be to serve the sports’ participants, not to entertain crowds of people. Phyllis Schlafly misses the mark when she relies on football’s overwhelming popularity to support her critique of Title IX and women’s sports. Traditionally, the educational ideal is “a sound mind in a sound body,” not “a sound mind in a sound body that can entertain the masses in the most popular sports.”
Happy, that’s an excellent point. Though I go to many a college football game, my happiest memories of my own unathletic college years were of going to countless swim meets and softball contests, watching classmates play not for television exposure or professional contracts, but for love of the game and of their university.
Curses, I was trying to avoid the thread drift here, but you’re wrong, alexander. The government attaches strings to the money it provides to institutions and states *all the time*. Witness the drinking age, which is tied to federal highway funding.
This is true, and it is wrong, wrong, wrong! A direct violation of the 9th Amendment. It’s simply a way for the federal government to coerce the states into passing laws which their own voters reject by using tax money — extorted from the states’ taxpayers — as a gun to the head.
Are you even remotely familar with the case law? There are cases in which the terms of federal funding have been found to be coercive. See New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144 and Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898. There’s an awful lot of nuance that you’re missing here.
Back to the topic at hand, I feel compelled to point out that people aren’t demanding baseball. In fact, it’s been cut from the Olympics. There’s also relatively little demand for collegiate wrestling as a spectator sport. The money (if you’re a highly successful, Div 1 school) is in football and basketball. There are very few university athletic programs that pay for themselves. In fact, they’re more likely to be a financial drain on colleges than anything else.
Also, although it’s neither here nor there, I think it’s extremely dubious for universities to function as the minor leagues for men’s basketball and football. The point of college is supposed to be education, not a good signing bonus when you enter the NBA after your sophomore year. I know I’m definitely in the minority, but I’d go so far as to call for the elimination of the current collegiate athletic system as we know it.
hopefully, that ends my italics snafu.
Noumena wrote: “I can’t speak to Physics, but sexism is still an issue in the composition of Mathematics departments (who gets hired, who gets tenure, who is assigned which roles within the department, etc.). At least one anthology was published on this last year, Gender Differences in Mathematics.”
Except that you’re missing the point (deliberately?): It shouldn’t matter what sex, race, religion, etc., the instructor is re. math and science because despite the rhetoric of career sexists and racists in the diversity industry, there is no specific perspective vis-a-vis sex, racial, religious, etc., for the topics. The laws of nature are faultlessly and ruthlessly neutral when it comes to identity politics; they simple are what they are, nothing more. For example, gravity exerts the same pull on female mass as it does male mass; 2+2=4 just as much for African Americans as it does for Korean Americans; etc. To argue otherwise is patently ridiculous. Now, there might (arguably) be a place for different interpretations for a subject like history, but not for math and science, which is why the push to discriminate (via affirmative action) in favor of minorities and women and against non-Jewish white males is not only unfounded and absurd, it is actually harmful to the academy and society at large. The best minds should be leading and teaching, not the most politically correct by virtue of their sex, skin color, religious affiliation, etc.
Further, I don’t for one second buy the theory that discrimination is responsible for the variability in representation of women in math and science; all the data I’ve personally looked at point to individual choice. It’s the same mechanism that causes men to be underrepresented in, e.g., nursing.
Unless of course you’re going to argue that nursing schools actively discriminate against men.
“Anyway, my understand is that Wrestling was often cut in favour of money to officially support female teams (of course women could form their own unofficial teams prior to Title IX; they just couldn’t get any money from the university for it, the way men did) because Wrestling was nowhere near as popular as other sports — a handful of guys want to wrestle, no-one comes to the meets, the record over the past decade isn’t so great, and meanwhile a whole lot of girls are interested in basketball, so it seems fair for the school to go with a women’s basketball team over wrestling. Perhaps my impression was wrong?”
I think that you’re probably correct, however, one has to ask what value the various teams bring to the academy. I would probably agree that re. wrestling and women’s basketball, all things being equal, it’s probably a wash as to which brings more value to the institution, and likely quite variable and dependent on individual school. However, as I said before, it is my understanding that Title IX addresses a lot more than just athletics, so IMO if they’re going to vigorously enforce it in the context of women’s sports, then they need to also vigorously enforce it for men’s resources, such as men’s centers, men’s studies (if we can’t eliminate women’s studies, which IMO is preferable), men’s health programs, etc.
“Title IX, like affirmative action programs more generally, is not about ‘brainwashing’ or even trying to change attitudes… Rather, the purpose of affirmative action programs is to combat institutional discrimination against groups of people who have suffered historical discrimination.”
Except that the concept of “strict scrutiny” (resulting from a case decided by the SCOTUS) forbids discrimination on the basis of ‘righting past wrongs,’ so if schools are not complying with the narrow and targeted application of affimative action required by the Supreme Court - and instead using to ‘make up for past wrongs’ - then they are in violation of the law and should be prosecuted.
I trust that the resident attorneys will correct me if I’m wrong, but I beleve that you describe above, i.e., using AA to ‘make up for past wrongs,’ is blatantly illegal. However, either way, your argument goes directly against the diversity lobby, who argue that diversity is about changing attitudes, minds, etc., via the kinds of discussions that occur between people who are different.
It’s just too bad that the self-proclaimed diversity ‘experts’ are emabarassingly simple-minded, shallow racists and sexists who literally only consider people skin-deep. You won’t hear those folks arguing for diversity on the basis political and philosophical perspective, etc. To them it’s all about race and sex, which to men is quite telling and shocking in its blatant racism and sexism.
The Happy Feminist wrote: “But surely the PRIMARY purpose of sports programs at the college level should be to serve the sports’ participants, not to entertain crowds of people.”
That’s precisely the argument offered by the advocates for men’s wrestling vis-a-vis eliminating the proportionality test; what they wanted was to change to a compliance test where allocation for resources reflected the interest of the students to participate. On the other hand, the proportionality test requires that resources be allocated for men’s and women’s activities based on raw enrollment data, not actual interest in the various activities, and since women have been the majority on most campuses now for well over a decade, the feminists of course advocated in favor of the proportionality test because it gave women the advantage, especially because the numbers show that most of the time fewer women want to participate in targeted activities than men do. So what we have is more money for women, all of it going to fewer female athletes, therefore, more money per athlete. If you’re a woman - especially a feminist - what’s not to love about that?
Hugo wrote: “Though I go to many a college football game, my happiest memories of my own unathletic college years were of going to countless swim meets and softball contests, watching classmates play not for television exposure or professional contracts, but for love of the game and of their university.”
Hugo, if you truly feel this way, then you should be someone who is against the proportionality test and in favor of allocation of resources based on the interest level of the athletes.
That is, if you truly believe what you wrote and aren’t just trying to play to your audience.
Maybe I’m going to a way different school, Mr. Bad, but in my classes, women are rarely, if ever, mentioned.
My 20th century philosophy class, for instance, did not mention a single female (or minority for that matter) in the entire textbook. Not one: not even a wife, an influence, or an editor.
My Brit Lit class? We had ONE day where we discussed Margery Kempt, when each of the male authors got at least a week each.
These are representative of my classes, and I’m in a “soft” major: communications. It is rare that we learn about female ANYTHING. And it’s not they don’t exsist, or aren’t important: it’s that are not included.
You know, it is an old joke. I guess that’s why it’s sad instead of funny.
Hugo, I’m skipping all the comments to your post. I just wanted to say, “What ELSE do you expect from Phyllis Schafly???”
Phyllis and Roger Schafly are two of the biggest pains on the ‘net. I’ve had more than one run-in with Roger on Usenet. He’s definitely his mother’s son.
Antigone said: “Maybe I’m going to a way different school, Mr. Bad, but in my classes, women are rarely, if ever, mentioned.
My 20th century philosophy class, for instance, did not mention a single female (or minority for that matter) in the entire textbook. Not one: not even a wife, an influence, or an editor.”
Antigone, you’re changing the subject. We were - or at least I was - talking about math and science, not humanities, where I already stated that there’s an argument for including diversity vis-a-vis race, sex, etc. - but most importantly, intellectual, political, and philosophical perspective.
However, I don’t believe that what you note, i.e., that philosophy classes are dominated by males, is due to current discrimination. I believe that the simple fact is that most great philosophers have been men, so of course you’re going to study mostly men. It’s similar to the condition for males in women’s studies - you won’t talk about many male leaders and thinkers in those courses because there simply haven’t been many. Now, you might want to argue about why it’s the case that there haven’t been many (any?) outstanding female philosophers, but such arguments are better left for a women’s studies, political science, or history class, not philosophy, where the topic should be the philosophy itself rather than gender politics.
“Further, I don’t for one second buy the theory that discrimination is responsible for the variability in representation of women in math and science; all the data I’ve personally looked at point to individual choice. ”
By this logic (or should I say unfounded opinion), if men want funding for sports, they should logically “choose” to play either football or basketball. Any man who “freely chooses” wrestling must face the facts of his choice and should take his lumps as a man. It would be foolish for men or male spectators to complain about lack of funding for wrestling teams, as the wrestlers have freely chosen to participate in an underfunded sport.
Q Grrl wrote: “By this logic (or should I say unfounded opinion), if men want funding for sports, they should logically “choose” to play either football or basketball. Any man who “freely chooses” wrestling must face the facts of his choice and should take his lumps as a man. It would be foolish for men or male spectators to complain about lack of funding for wrestling teams, as the wrestlers have freely chosen to participate in an underfunded sport.”
Hey Q Grrl - way to set logic and reason back a couple of centuries. You obviously didn’t ‘get it.’
If Title IX didn’t use the proportionality test for enforcement, the scenario you describe above would be exactly what I advocate, i.e., the more men that choose to participate in a sport, e.g., wrestling, the more funds would be allocated to that sport. Unfortunately right now, participation in sports has nothing to do with it, thus, money is given to girls even if they don’t participate in sports.
Now, you might want to argue about why it’s the case that there haven’t been many (any?) outstanding female philosophers, but such arguments are better left for a women’s studies, political science, or history class, not philosophy, where the topic should be the philosophy itself rather than gender politics.
Really? Philosophers shouldn’t interrogate our (I’m a grad student, a philosopher of math) tradition and try to figure out why so few women are included in the Western canon? One critique that’s been highly developed over the past thirty years is that the methodological norms of mainstream philosophy (and physics, and mathematics, &c.) are tied to a particularly ‘masculine’ POV. I don’t buy this myself, but it’s intellectually dishonest to dismiss this as ‘gender politics’ rather than a deep philosophical criticism.
Another point. You focus on my use of the term ‘historical’, reading it as ‘in the past’. I intended it to be read as ‘when fully located in our culture’ (appropriately inflected). Present tense. Denying either active or passive discrimination in the academy is playing the same ostrich game Larry Summers did last year. Things have improved, definitely, but a newly-minted physics Ph.D who happens to be a man is, generally speaking, going to have a significantly easier time building his career than a woman of equal ability. This has been well-documented, though I don’t have references readily available, and lumping everything into ‘personal preference’ is itself a form of male privilege (as you might know had you bothered to seriously engage any feminist critiques of the academy).
Noumena, the absence of documented women philosophers throughout western history is quite easy to explain. After all, what happened to Hypatia?
Charles Murray, in the September 2005 “Commentary” magazine, has an article “The Inequality Taboo.” He points out that all major philosophical and mathematical systems have been invented by men.
Now, I would be interested in learning what major philosophical and mathematical systems have been invented by women.
Or if there is a “woman’s physics” then please tell me what it is.
[I am using quote marks for the following instead of italics since the italics function seems to be haywire.]
“”Phyllis Schlafly (sp) is free to think women don’t want to be athletes, she just can’t turn her views into an institutional policy of any federally-supported university she happens to be on the board of trustees of.”"
Another example of feminist repression. If one can not turn one’s views into policies without retribution, then this is another example of feminists opposing freedom and supporting repression.
“”Rather, the purpose of affirmative action programs is to combat institutional discrimination against groups of people who have suffered historical discrimination.”"
So then we should have an affirmative action military draft? Again, I assume this is the number one demand of feminists? And feminists are marching down to military recruiting offices and volunteering for duty in Afghanistan to fight “patriarchical” groups like the Taliban?
Someone asked what happened to Hypatia (the 5th century female mathemetician). Here’s an answer:
“A few years later, according to one report, Hypatia was brutally murdered by the Nitrian monks who were a fanatical sect of Christians who were supporters of Cyril. According to another account (by Socrates Scholasticus) she was killed by an Alexandrian mob under the leadership of the reader Peter. What certainly seems indisputable is that she was murdered by Christians who felt threatened by her scholarship, learning, and depth of scientific knowledge.”
In other words, she got equal treatment to men such as Socrates, Giodano Bruno and Timothy Leary.
No, Mr. Bad, you were implying that women shouldn’t complain about low numbers of women in science/math etc. because women choose not to participate. Yet you don’t bother to define choice or how one might be socially coerced into not making certain choices. I’m saying that by your line of reasoning, men don’t have a leg to stand on when complaining about funding if they chose a sport that receives less than others. Because it’s all contingent on personal choice, right? I mean, you aren’t trying to say that men are influenced by outside social forces (like Title IX), but that women aren’t when it comes to attendance in math or science fields. Sounds like a right old fashioned double standard that you’re preaching.
Alexander, if you read any feminist blogs, boards, or books, you would realize that feminists are fighting to get women into combat roles; yes this would include the draft. If one cannot fight for one’s country, one cannot believe that one is a full citizen. To not be “allowed” to fight, makes one an object, not a citizen, which other citizens must protect. That’s not equality, son.
Q Grrl, I believe in equal opportunity WRT the draft - don’t draft anyone.
Amen, Cait, amen. Give me that old time peace church religion!
“But surely the PRIMARY purpose of sports programs at the college level should be to serve the sports’ participants, not to entertain crowds of people.”
Outstanding point HappyF! You hit the nail on the head.
I agree with the concept of Title IX. But, I swam at my college so I am a little sensitive to the cuts that have happened to a lot of men’s swimming programs. Personally, I would like to see a system that eliminates football from the discussion and just looks at equality in the other sports. Title IX may even do that, I just do not know enough about it.
Will, eliminating football from the discussion is like eliminating Microsoft from a discussion about the future of desktop software — not an impossible task, but a bit of a mental leap. You’re right — college sports don’t exist to entertain or make money (and contrary to popular belief, many D1 football programs LOSE money too). They exist to provide opportunities for growth to their own students. And those opportunities need to be commensurate with the gender ratio of the student body.
Hugo:
I agree that many lose money. (I think I mentioned that above…)
But they do generate money. The key is not spending too much.
Hear, hear, Caitronia. I have strong pacifist tendencies, but not overwhelming ones, so I would like to see a military where any and all positions are open to volunteers of any gender or sexual orientation, but no draft.
Alexander, I think you made the same misinterpretational mistake Mr Bad did. Please see my last comment or two.
On the issue of ‘repression’, do you consider anti-discrimination laws in general repressive? Do you consider Title IX repressive independent of the fact that it’s conditional upon the school receiving certain government funds? Phyllis Schlafly and other anti-feminists could certainly open a school that did not give women’s sports any funding; and, so long as they received no government support, they would not be in violation of Title IX, as I understand it. Thus, as a ‘carrot’ rather than a ’stick’, I do not consider it repressive.
Note, I said that it was 20th Century philosophy. You’re going to tell me that women didn’t contribute to philosophy in the last century?
It’s not that there ARE NOT women who did important things in history, literature and philosophy. It’s that they are not included in the classes. Which is why we have women’s studies: women HAVE done and CONTINUE to do important things and it’s important to know this. Since the “regular” departments won’t include us, we had to make our own.
Hey, cheer up, Mr. Bad. As wrestling becomes more popular with high school girls, wrestling teams will come back (via Title IX) to the college level. ;-)
Too bad old Helmet Hair Phyllis didn’t propose the obvious solution from her screed: import Chinese college-educated bachelors to marry those overeducated American women. However, not in HER family, she’d have the same response as some WASP woman on the TV show Book of Daniel to an Asian classmate dating her high-school-age daughter: “I am NOT going to have Asian grandbabies around MY family Christmas tree”.
As always, I remind readers about Phyllis’s own family, no doubt defective in her eyes: she has a gay son, outed or came out voluntarily, living with her and being the chief financial officer (accountant) of Phyllis’ political organization Eagle Forum. Now, THERE’S some sick family dynamics - kid staying with a parent who denigrates his right to exist.
I also like to remind readers that Phyllis is a lawyer, at one point a student of defense and a pundit on defense matters (wrote a famous anti-communist book), with ambitions to become Sec’y of Defense, and only went for the anti-feminist gig once it became clear that the Republican party didn’t have any use for a female defense expert and did have a use for an anti-feminist to campaign against the ERA. Now she has tried to expand into education policy and has a radio show on that topic, but that’s a LOOOONG way from her original ambition for Cabinet-level service.
She lives very well, in the poshest suburb in town, and advocates a return to the home, possibly with part-time jobs, but advises young women to conserve their time for their children and hire maids for the housework.
Q Grrl said: “I mean, you aren’t trying to say that men are influenced by outside social forces (like Title IX), but that women aren’t when it comes to attendance in math or science fields. Sounds like a right old fashioned double standard that you’re preaching.”
No double standard, just a sense of current reality Q Grrrl. Title IX demonstrably and specifically discriminates against men, however, there is no discrimination against women in math and science any more. Hasn’t been that way since before I was a kid in the 1960s and ’70s. Such alleged discrimination is a myth, left over from the Second Wave.
As for Sommers, what he said (what he actually said, not what the hysterics like Hopkins et al. thought he said) was correct, and there are past and current studies demonstrating the differences between male and female brains; the evidence is valid and sound. However, as alexander correctly noted, the feminists are quick to show their totalitarian side and repress speech they disagree with, no matter whether it might be true or not. Couple that with Sommers’ cowardice and we have his disgraceful capitulation to the Talibabes at Harvard.
Wait, Mr. Bad, let me get this right. Title IX discriminates against men who have already received the bulk of the college/universities monies for sports by redistributing that money to women’s teams? Hmm. I’m sure you can come up with a handy dandy non-sexist motivation for the men being allocated the greater funds in the first place, right? I mean, you do realize that everything is a process, even social change. Blatent discrimination against women in the sciences might not be apparent today, but that doesn’t mean the influence isn’t still felt. Title IX is asking that men redress institutional sexism. It’s not like you guys were complaining when you had the greater share of the pie. Uh, which you still do, at least as far as sports funding goes. So, I really don’t see how men are suffering. Sure, some sports geared towards men are suffering, but one could argue that this is the fault of men for being so exclusive from the get go.
Mr. Bad: How did feminists “repress” Sommers’ free speech? I wasn’t aware that mature criticism of another’s words amounted to repression. I mean, unlike denying women the right to vote until the 1920’s; denying admission into college or medical school to women; denying women the opportunity to participate in sports (at any level). You would have to rewrite history to ignore all that. Why is it that you call out “Foul!” when you as a man have benefited from hundreds of years of male-only opportunity? I mean, you didn’t get complacent in your comfort zone did you?
“Title IX discriminates against men who have already received the bulk of the college/universities monies for sports by redistributing that money to women’s teams?”
You’re treating “MEN” as a monolith. I think we’ll all agree that football and men’s basketball receive most of the money from the schools, with, I think, women’s basketball in third. (These sports bring in a lot of money, too, remember.)
I think Mr. Bad is talking about the lesser-known sports that are facing the knife: archery, wrestling, et cetera. When women’s sports were facing even tougher financial times than they are now, certain people said, “Tough.” Now that women’s sports are getting a little help, though, even less money is going to men’s archery and bowling and badminton and so forth. And, unfortunately, we now have a completely different group of people seeing that and saying, “Tough.”
Title IX isn’t an altogether bad idea; we just need to ensure that NO college athlete’s sport is getting squeezed out to make room for someone else.
bmmg39
Men’s Rights = Women’s Rights = Human Rights
http://www.safe4all.org
NancyP
“it became clear that the Republican party didn’t have any use for a female defense expert” —-
Schalfly founded StopEra in 1972, eight years before she actively sought (at least according to one biography) to become SecDef. Additionally, candidate and then President Reagan leaned heavily on a more “qualified” security/foreign policy advisor - Jeanne Kirkpatrick.
I’m sure there is enough material to criticize Schalfly and her motivations without resorting to broad and thinly supported claims that the Republican party made her do the “anti-feminist gig.”
You’re right, Col. Steve. All one needs do is search through Google Groups to see the “medical opinions” with which she and her son verbally bludgeon people on support groups. At least they leave the fibromyalgia group alone.
bmmg, while your sentiments are nice, they’re rather naive. How are more athletes (male and female vs. just male) going to be supported off the same percentage of the budget? You might argue that there won’t be any more athletes (eg, assume the size of the student body is fixed, we just see the female:male ratio increase, and assuming equal interest in sports, the total number of athletes will be stable), but then there’s no reason for the controversy in the first place. Either there’s increased demand for the same resources (the athletics budget) or this whole controversy is tilting at windmills.
Mr Bad, how is Title IX inherently discriminatory? Perhaps I’m misremembering, but doesn’t it require funding be split 50/50 between male and female athletes, etc.? This only seems discriminatory on an assumption of the form that males are entitled (for whatever reason) to significantly more of these funds than females.
Next, your reporting that there has been no discrimination in math or science does not mesh with numerous studies of academia by sociologists conducted over the past thirty years. Certainly there’s been little blatant, illegal discrimination (refusing to hire a job candidate simply because she’s female), but subtler forms of discrimination (eg, a CV with a female name at the top is considered, on average, only somewhat impressive, while the same CV with a male name is, on average, rated extremely impressive) have been well-documented. Could you please elaborate on your assertion, and provide some references?
Also, I would echo the call for you to elaborate on how Sommers was repressed, as opposed to being thoroughly but never dishonestly criticized (for example, for ignoring longstanding critiques of those studies you both gesture at). You also claim that was Sommers said was ‘correct’, but quite a lot of what he said in that speech were policy positions — it doesn’t seem to me that, for example, not to pursue further investigation to determine how much of women’s ‘underrepresentation’ in the sciences is due to systematic discrimination could be either construed as either ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’ policy, at least the way your usage seemed to suggest.
Righto, Col. Steve. My goof re chronology. The stuff about her son, and her posh address in Ladue MO (suburb of St. Louis), is well known in St. Louis, and her syndicated radio program broadcasts locally as well.
Oh, and there is a worthy Schlafly in St. Louis. The microbrewers! Good seasonal beers and specialty beers (I favor the stouts and porters), and a good restaurant on site at the brewery.
Schafly is a professional anti-feminist. If she convinces all the other women to stay home and be timid, it’s less competition for her.
Also, I would echo the call for you to elaborate on how Sommers was repressed, as opposed to being thoroughly but never dishonestly criticized
“Thoroughly criticized” ? Is that what you call it when you try to get the guy dismissed from his job for his positions? That whole thing turned into a witch hunt after he made those statements. The Harvard faculty passed a motion expressing “lack of confidence in the leadership”, an unprecedented act in Harvard’s 400 year history over his comments. It was the very definition of “dishonestly criticized.”
Nothing Summers said was a threat to the advancement of a single competent woman in any of the sciences. The statistical fact that more men tend to score in the top-five percent of math-aptitude tests makes no predictions whatsoever about the abilities of any particular man or woman. Far from being outrageous or sexist, Summers’s comments were completely respectable and altogether mainstream. But women’s activists like Nancy Hopkins used and twisted those statements to support her own personal agenda. Mainstream media lapped it up.
Truthfulness and honest criticism took a real beating in this case.. Sommer’s statements, while thoroughly criticised for being non-PC, were never honestly debated on their own merits. They were simply shouted down.
La Lubu: Hey, cheer up, Mr. Bad. As wrestling becomes more popular with high school girls, wrestling teams will come back (via Title IX) to the college level. ;-)
Does this involve mud? I’ve been to a few of those.. Lotsa fun!
Uzzah, you can’t possibly have read the remarks in question if you think all he did was mention that men are in the top 5% of scores in math.
The very definition of “dishonest” is to make a speech you say is intended to “provoke” your audience, and then pretend to be all victimized by the PC police when, in fact, they are provoked.
The very definition of “dishonest” is to make a speech you say is intended to “provoke” your audience, and then pretend to be all victimized by the PC police when, in fact, they are provoked.
He was speaking at an academic seminar on “Diversifying the Science & Engineering Workforce.” Provoking, in Sommer’s own words, was an attempt to make people think differently about the solution to this issue (which he felt was important), not make Nancy Hawkins get the vapours. Unfortunately he didn’t tell the Hopkins type folk in the audience what they wanted to hear. He posed more questions than answers, which is, what I think he intended.
The thing is, he addressed all the usual PC reasons agreeing that they were factors, but went further, posing questions that deserved debate. Instead, PC types focused on a few mininterpretations of his comments, and the “daddy truck” story. They ignored the rest at their convenience. *That* is dishonest.
Feminists shouted Sommers down. The questions he posed went unanswered and swept under the rug, and feminists went further, trying to get his job and silence him completely. Might as well have been a lynch mob or a book burning party. But of course, he wouldn’t be the first academic in history to be crucified for speaking heresy (whether true or not).
Questions are harmless if you aren’t afraid of the answers.
First of all, it’s Summers, not Sommers. Christina Hoff Sommers is an anti-feminist psychologist. Lawrence Summers is an economist and president of Harvard. Sommers has said some dumb things, too, but Summers gave the speech we’re talking about.
And he didn’t pose any questions. He said there were three likely causes for women being ‘underrepresented’ in the sciences — women are more interested in raising children than doing the hard work of science, men are biologically predisposed to be better at math and science-related tasks, and there used to be some discrimination against women. Then he went on to assert, without evidence, that the first and third were nowhere near as important as the second, and the second was where we needed to do a lot of research, rather than coming up with ways to encourage diversity in the sciences. (He was speaking at a low-key conference on encouraging diversity.)
The response was that Summers completely ignored all the research that’s already been done on these areas, including feminist critiques of the first and second going back decades, and a lot of work done by sociologists on the third. This suggests he wasn’t engaging in scholarly debate, just throwing bombs, a completely inappropriate activity for President of Harvard. This is why a majority of the Harvard faculty voted no-confidence.
From an interview with Dr. Hopkins (who’s not a ‘women’s activist’, but a MIT biologist).
“this is about flying in face of all the evidence (of which there’s massive evidence) and just giving your own personal opinion in spite of that evidence, when your opinion is actually very damaging, and you’re a leader the education world.”
Of course, it’s been some time since I read through Summers’ speech. If there’s something crucial I’ve missed, could you point it out?
First of all, it’s Summers, not Sommers. Christina Hoff Sommers is an anti-feminist psychologist. Lawrence Summers is an economist and president of Harvard. Sommers has said some dumb things, too, but Summers gave the speech we’re talking about.
Yeah, I caught that after I posted. Sorry if this was confusing..
First off, here’s the speech and the apology.
Remarks at NBER Conference on Diversifying the Science & Engineering Workforce
Summer’s Apology Statement
The response was that Summers completely ignored all the research that’s already been done on these areas, including feminist critiques of the first and second going back decades, and a lot of work done by sociologists on the third. This suggests he wasn’t engaging in scholarly debate, just throwing bombs, a completely inappropriate activity for President of Harvard. This is why a majority of the Harvard faculty voted no-confidence.
Discounting the merits of certain studies or disagreeing about their meaning or importance, or disagreeing with feminist critiques means you are just “throwing bombs?” The man was entitled to his opinions like everyone else, no matter how controversial. I would think that having your own opinions is (or should be) an appropriate activity for everyone, including the President of Harvard.
And he didn’t pose any questions. He said there were three likely causes for women being ‘underrepresented’ in the sciences –.
Poor wording on my part I guess. By questions posed, I meant that he formed and presented his own hypothesis based on his personal interpretation of the data from what he considered relative studies. My interpretation of his speech? He didn’t necessarily totally embrace these views as gospel so much as he was throwing them out for discussion. His entire speech was designed to encourage debate on the subject. Indeed, before he raised these points he apparently said several times, “I’m going to provoke you” — which Hopkins might have noticed had she been able to hear over her own ideological agenda. His closing remarks summed it up nicely:
Let me just conclude by saying that I’ve given you my best guesses after a fair amount of reading the literature and a lot of talking to people. They may be all wrong. I will have served my purpose if I have provoked thought on this question and provoked the marshalling of evidence to contradict what I have said. But I think we all need to be thinking very hard about how to do better on these issues and that they are too important to sentimentalize rather than to think about in as rigorous and careful ways as we can.
I think this is better than the Hopkins plan which was, we already know what the problem is, no further study is necessary. Just do what we tell you and hire more women.
From an interview with Dr. Hopkins (who’s not a ‘women’s activist’, but a MIT biologist).”this is about flying in face of all the evidence (of which there’s massive evidence) and just giving your own personal opinion in spite of that evidence, when your opinion is actually very damaging, and you’re a leader the education world.”
She was both. Hopkins was quite active at MIT on women’s issues. She made a career out of being offended which overshadowed her own academic achievements. Summers was just another opportunity for her to get more PR exposure. There is no dispute that there aren’t many women making a profession in the hard sciences. Maybe this is because of prejudice, and maybe it’s something else. If Dr. Hopkins can’t handle an academic discussion about the possible “something elses” without getting the vapours, I wonder how she got past dissecting frogs.
The man was entitled to his opinions like everyone else
And “everyone else” is entitled to express their opinions of his opinions. I cannot fathom the argument that the first person to express a controversial opinion is the only one entitled to free speech, and anyone who disagrees or expresses disapproval is attempting oppression and not exercising their own free speech at all.
If Summers can’t handle an academic discussion that includes a reply to his comments other than “Larry, you are as wise as Socrates!”, then I wonder what he is doing leading a university.
It’s interesting that ppl like Michelle Malkin, Coulter or Schafly don’t realize that they are very much a beneficiary of feminism. They just enjoy tightening the ropes around the necks of other women and their daughters. Talk about biting the hand that feeds…
Indeed they do recognize it, Catty. They just don’t want to admit it (kinda gets in the way of that whole I Did It All By Myself preening) or to allow other women the same opportunities. You can’t be the only girl in the room if you hold the door open for others…
And “everyone else” is entitled to express their opinions of his opinions. I cannot fathom the argument that the first person to express a controversial opinion is the only one entitled to free speech, and anyone who disagrees or expresses disapproval is attempting oppression and not exercising their own free speech at all.
I agree, except for the fact that this is not what happened. Hopkins and her allies didn’t just disagree. They coerced Summers into silence and tried to get him fired. That’s considerably more than “exercising their own free speech”.
Might be ok in the world of law and law enforcement, but it’s pretty pathetic in an academic setting…
Schafly is a professional anti-feminist. If she convinces all the other women to stay home and be timid, it’s less competition for her.
Now, if she’d work to convince families that someone needs to be home while children are in the home and needs to be bold in all their endeavors for the family, then I might be able to agree with her a bit more…. IF she’d lay off with her bogus medical opinions.
Discounting the merits of certain studies or disagreeing about their meaning or importance, or disagreeing with feminist critiques means you are just “throwing bombs?”
You mean, dismissing them in such a prima facie fashion you don’t even mention their existence? Or, in the case of certain studies on discrimination, acting as though they don’t already exist, and calling for them to be done? Yes, rhetorically speaking, that’s throwing bombs to incite controversy, not engaging in intellectually responsible debate.
Re. Summers, Uzzah’s made most of the relevant arguments and points I would make, so I won’t repeat them - good show Uzzah!
The only thing that I would like to add is that Summers was not engaged in a “debate,” he was invited to give a talk; that’s different than a debate, as of all people you feminists should know. I’ve been to many talks by controversial speakers such as Catherine McKinnon, Gloria Steinem, bell hooks, et al., and I’ve yet to see a single one engage in “debate.” In all those cases, not once did the speaker present, invite, or even entertain opposing theories, research, and/or viewpoints different from those they were advocating, so why are you imposing double-standards on Summers here? Those speakers were given respect and not subjected to the kind of witch hunt that Summers was. In fact, the only time I recall witnessing anything similar to the Summers debacle was when Ward Connerly and David Horowitz spoke on our campus, and the lefties practically rioted and stormed the stage in both cases. The only reason there weren’t all-out riots was because campus security intervened. So much for the oft-cited ‘tolerance’ and ‘respect for diversity’ that progressives loudly claim but seemingly rarely practice. And as Uzzah pointed out, the treatment Summers recieved was little better; his was a ‘kinder, gentler’ lynching.
I would love to see an honest debate of feminist issues, theories, principles, etc., but alas, it seems that feminists do not have the stomach for such things. If I’m wrong and any of you can come up with credible examples of legitimate debates between feminists and non-feminists, I appreciate some references. However, from what I can tell, when the opposition - e.g., people like Schlafly and C.H. Sommers - speaks, they’re attacked similarly to what we’ve witnessed here at Hugo’s humble blog.
“I would love to see an honest debate of feminist issues, theories, principles, etc., but alas, it seems that feminists do not have the stomach for such things. If I’m wrong and any of you can come up with credible examples of legitimate debates between feminists and non-feminists, I appreciate some references. ”
Irony or hypocrisy? You choose. There is nothing “honest” about what you wrote above, so I’m hard pressed to understand what you mean by “honest debate of feminist issues.” I would, however, suggest that you head to your local public library and do some reading first before you cast aspersions.
p.s. I love when men claim physical frailty as a common denominator for women’s inability to “debate.” Let’s see, the common ones are hysteria, fainting at the sight of blood, the inability to stomach arguments. Strange how men’s accusations all tend to center around women’s abdomens and reproductive processes. Project much, guys? A little uterine envy going around?
Q Grrl said: “Irony or hypocrisy? You choose.
Ok, I say that you’re exhibiting both in your remarks.
You continue: There is nothing “honest” about what you wrote above, so I’m hard pressed to understand what you mean by “honest debate of feminist issues.” I would, however, suggest that you head to your local public library and do some reading first before you cast aspersions.”
What part of the post that you cite is dishonest Q Grrl? Please be specific.
I have read plenty, and none of what I read in the feminist literature has been what reasonable people would consider “debate.” I think that you’re being defensive because I’ve struck a nerve. Good.
Oh, I see - you’re miffed about my use of a colloquialism, ergo “p.s. I love when men claim physical frailty as a common denominator for women’s inability to “debate.” Let’s see, the common ones are hysteria, fainting at the sight of blood, the inability to stomach arguments. Strange how men’s accusations all tend to center around women’s abdomens and reproductive processes. Project much, guys? A little uterine envy going around?”
Hmmm, seems Freud really had women like you pegged, didn’t he?
If we could all stop psycho-analyzing each other and return to the topic of the post, that would be nice. All future comments in this thread need to be explicitly Title IX related.
A lot to talk about!
Alexander, if you read any feminist blogs, boards, or books, you would realize that feminists are fighting to get women into combat roles; yes this would include the draft.
Good for them. Then I am assuming all these feminists are now marching on down to the military recruiting stations and volunteering for duty? Women can get into the military police corps, and the military police corps does engage in combat with insurgents (I used to train MPs for this, both men and women).
But on the campus I currently attend, I see no evidence of this. Most of the feminists I know are opposed to the military. Even though the US is (supposedly) fighting to liberate women in places like Afghanistan, and probably doing more for feminism in the Middle East than all the talking heads in the world. The armed forces could easily solve their recruiting shortfalls if all the feminists bloggers you mention would enlist. I include the feminists on this web site. How many have joined the military, or are veterans?
On the issue of ‘repression’, do you consider anti-discrimination laws in general repressive?
As long as you have men’s sports and women’s sports, there is discrimination. My solution is to integrate all sports teams. End of problem. But how can you have equality when you have men’s basketball vs women’s basketball? Since men and women are equal, there should be no problem.
Title IX does not forbid discrimination. If anything, it enshrines it by recognizing the differences in men’s and women’s sports.
Do you consider Title IX repressive independent of the fact that it’s conditional upon the school receiving certain government funds?
There are no “government funds.” The government creates no wealth. People create wealth, more specifically, the productive sector of society create wealth. Title IX, like all government programs, forces me to participate whether I desire to or not. It takes my money, in the form of taxes, by the use of force. Then the government uses this money, which has been extorted from me, to force me to participate in programs with which I may or may not agree. Were Phyllis Schafly to start her own college, and refuse federal funding, she would be discriminated against because she starts minus the amount of money taken by the government. This means her college could not compete as well with colleges that kowtowed to federal policy.
The left talks a good fight about “the people”. But the federal government uses the threat of withdrawal of tax money to enforce programs which the people might otherwise oppose. What if the people of a state want to lower the drinking age to 18? Or not have seat-belt laws? Or allow their sick people to use medical marijuana? Or not want to have librarians rat out people under the PATRIOT ACT? Sorry, no choice, the federal government will withdraw money (the taxpayers’ own money) if they the people dare dissent, not to mention sending in federal agents to bust you up.
This is what feminism supports?
Let me give you a recent example. The university I attend had a debate over ROTC on campus. It was settled when the college president (a liberal woman) announced that the feds would withdraw the $8 million in funds the government gives the university if ROTC were not allowed on campus. This meant that several programs benefiting handicapped children would be discontinued…the orphans would be tossed out onto the streets, literally.
END OF DEBATE!
The dissenters shut up and ROTC was allowed on campus.
Now, while I think ROTC on campus is a good thing, I do not think that it should be settled by the feds coming in and blackmailing the university by withdrawing the citizens’ own funds. Yet the same system of law which supports Title IX also dictates that any university which bans ROTC loses federal funds.
And this is OK with feminists?
Feminists talk a good fight about democracy and such, but clearly are opposed to local, democratic solutions. Instead, they want the federal government to come in and dictate policy at all levels, and use the threat of withdrawal of funds as the enforcer.
I am really interested in how feminists can support the federal government when the feds are destroying our freedoms via the PATRIOT ACT, the use of torture, attacks on dissident groups, et alia.
It’s interesting that liberals (I use the term quite broadly) can congratulate themselves over the recent movie about Edward R. Murrow fighting Joe McCarthy’s witch-hunt (and good for Edward R. Murrow!), yet engage in their own witch-hunt over Harvard’s Summer’s statements. Back in the 1950s, dissenters were labeled “communists” and expelled; now dissenters are labeled “sexists” and expelled.
There is no discrimination against women in the sciences on any campus I attend. Women can attend any science class they choose (and many do). Feminists are forced to blame “past discrimination” because they can not face up to the fact that there just may be inherent differences between men and women.
Let me note that despite segregation, black people created an impressive track record in the sciences. This at a time when black people could not only not vote (unlike women) and were subjected to an incredible amount of repression (when was the last time a white woman was arrested for not giving up her seat on a bus to a man?).
And of course, there are plenty of women scientists.
The response was that Summers completely ignored all the research that’s already been done on these areas, including feminist critiques
There’s a good reason for ignoring feminst critiques. They are invariably ideologically driven tomes designed to prove that everything wrong is the fault of “sexism”. Do feminists ever consider the possibility that there are inherent differences between men and women?
Also, you figure that up until comparatively recently, most scientific work was done outside the university. Now, if a Brno or a Newton or a Mendel could create great works on their own, often in the face of things like the Inquisition, then why couldn’t women do the same on their own?
I’ll try to keep my responses to alexander and Mr Bad separate, but apologies in advance if I slip up. I’ll also try to keep my response to Mr Bad short, since Hugo’s already come in and yelled at us once.
Mr Bad, I used ‘debate’ the way academics usually do — to refer not to a single staged event, but to the ongoing conversation that takes place within and is the bulk of what academics see ourselves as doing. We write papers, we read them in front of small groups of other academics, we engage in q-and-a, we publish them in journals, and then we listen to and read other people responding to what we’ve written. Thus, Summers wasn’t engaging in this sense of debate: he was, as I said before, acting as though research on discrimination hadn’t been done, acting as though the scientific studies he was gesturing at to suggest innate differences in ability was well-established when there are all kinds of criticisms that it isn’t, and so on.
If you want to see feminists engaged in debate, in your sense, with anti-feminists, then I understand Hugo goes on the radio with an anti-feminist friend of his semi-regularly, or something along those lines. Or James Sterba (full disclosure: an acquaintance of mine here) was going to write a debate book with Christina Hoff Sommers, but she backed out, and now I believe he’s writing it with another prominent anti-feminist, a man from Southern California whose name completely escapes me at the moment because I’m tired. If you want to see feminists engaged in debate, in my sense, with anti-feminists, here’s a good example. Hey, it’s even about feminist epistemology and feminist science studies!
alexander, I’m sorry if my wording was unclear, but the point of my question was whether you would consider Title IX to be repressive even if money from the federal government to the university in question — whatever its ultimate origin — was off the table completely. I guess your answer to that is yes, when you say it’s inherently discriminatory because it recognizes a separation of teams into male and female. I’d have to agree with you there — in my ideal world, we’d see as many women as men professional football players. But given that segregation is inimical to the organization of so many college sports, could you recognize it as at least an imperfect means to address the problem of discrimination? Would you rather there be legislation requiring all teams to be co-ed?
Finally, I’d suggest you actually read (or, read much more carefully) feminist critiques before (in a deep display of irony) dismissing them as ideologically driven. Your last post displays a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature and structure of discrimination, at least insofar as feminists have criticised science departments, the academy more generally, and the practice of science, as participating in discrimination. A great classic paper is Ruth Hubbard’s ‘Have Only Men Evolved?’, which you can find in many decent textbooks on feminist science studies, but I read in Janet Kourany’s anthology The Gender of Science (full disclosure: I’m taking a class from Kourany right now). If you want to see a feminist (and biologist) considering the notion of inherent differences between men and women, Anne Fausto-Sterling has two excellent books, Myths of Gender and Sexing the Body (I believe a chapter from the former is in Kourany’s anthology). Another reference on discrimination in academia in the more conventional sense (and which I happen to have handy from this thread) is the “Gender and Racial/Ethnic Differences in Salary and Other Characteristics of Postsecondary Faculty: Fall 1998 Statistical Analysis Report September 2002″ from the National Center for Education Statistics, which reports, for instance, that, after controlling for a variety of factors, full-time female faculty make significantly less than full-time male faculty.
Sorry I didn’t restrict myself to Title IX, Hugo. I just can’t let a good argument die, I suppose. Mr Bad and alexander — and, indeed, anyone else — please contact me via my blog if you wish to continue this part of the discussion.
They coerced Summers into silence and tried to get him fired.
They put a gun to his head? They kidnapped his family members and told him to shut up? They rigged the HR computer?
if she’d work to convince families that someone needs to be home while children are in the home
You know the saying about how one should teach the Gospel everywhere and, if necessary, use words? That caution really applies to all kinds of preachers.
This great article just in: The Trouble With Boys.”
Even though the writer uses the predictable, hackneyed PC language that ridicules boys, e.g., calling teenage boys “the juvenile primates that they are” (can anyone here imagine an article calling teenage girls “juvenile primates?”) and thus makes this type of boy-friendly article acceptable to the feminist-biased media, there’s some very good info in this article.
Quotes:
Boys are biologically, developmentally and psychologically different from girls—and teachers need to learn how to bring out the best in every one. “Very well-meaning people,” says Dr. Bruce Perry, a Houston neurologist who advocates for troubled kids, “have created a biologically disrespectful model of education.”"
Thirty years ago it was girls, not boys, who were lagging. The 1972 federal law Title IX forced schools to provide equal opportunities for girls in the classroom and on the playing