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May 30, 2015 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
23:50
Why Do People Hate #Feminism？ #4 - Gender Studies Degrees
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I was appointed as Goodwill Ambassador for UN Women six months ago.
And the more I've spoken about feminism, the more I have realized that fighting for women's rights has too often become synonymous with man-hating.
And my recent research has shown me that feminism has become an unpopular word.
Why has the word become such an uncomfortable one?
Hello and welcome to the fourth installment of Why Do People Hate Feminism, a series by which I attempt to explain to feminists why the world at large finds them so unbelievably annoying.
The fourth reason why people find feminism so annoying are gender studies courses at universities.
And there are many, many reasons for this.
But primarily because gender studies exists only to serve itself.
And this has led to gender studies degrees becoming such a clusterfuck of interlaced problems, the only sensible option seems to burn the whole thing down and start again.
But we'll get to that a bit later.
So a lot of people ask themselves, should I take gender studies?
And the answer is of course, no.
But that's too simple for some people.
Some people like complexity.
Some people like to know the reasons for things.
So I have found two articles on thoughtscatalogue.com, both written by people who have done a gender studies course.
The first advocates that you should do a major in women's studies, and the second advocates that you shouldn't do a major in women's studies.
Now, I haven't done a degree in gender studies, if you can believe that.
So I will be taking these people at their word and say that their experience is as representative of these courses as they make them out to be.
So the first point from the pro-gender studies article is, what you don't know actually does hurt you.
We'll ignore the first paragraph of Waffle and get straight to the actual meat of what she's saying.
When I took my first women's studies class, I'd often come home angry.
I'd grown up with a progressive family.
I was well travelled and I'd gotten good grades throughout school.
And yet I still hadn't heard about the Declaration of Sentiments or the Equal Rights Amendment.
I'd still never questioned the stereotypes that women are bad at math and men are bad at feelings.
I'd never heard of rape culture or the gender wage gap.
So going back through this list, I'm not going to deal with the gender wage gap because it's provably nonsense.
The author says, I'd never heard of rape culture.
Well, I think if you live in a rape culture, you don't have to be educated about it in a university.
Do you think that young women in South Africa aren't aware that they live in a rape culture?
Do you think that young women in the Congo aren't aware that they live in a rape culture?
Because I think you'll find they absolutely are, young lady.
Our author goes on to say that women's issues aren't getting the mainstream attention they deserve if you can believe, I mean they only have university courses to talk about them.
That women are widely underrepresented in politics, which again is nonsense.
They're just represented by men, men that they have voted for.
And in the number of sexual assaults on college campuses is staggeringly high, except it is also dramatically lower than the surrounding areas around the universities.
But, you know, rape culture, college campuses rape staggeringly high.
We may as well just assert these things as if they were true.
Carrying on, she says, women still get paid less for equal work, which again is not true.
And if you think it is true, go to the authorities.
If you were aware of an employer paying women less due to discrimination based on gender, then that's illegal and you'll probably get some kind of reward for it.
But the fact that women's studies was still obscure and somehow silly showed me that there's a long way to go before women are considered truly equal.
Well, I think that women's studies are considered, well, silly, because you can't really make any money doing it unless you become a professional feminist, which is a title I have seen.
So it seems that our advocate of women's studies hasn't really looked into the details of what they are espousing.
It kind of looks like they haven't really thought it through.
Which incidentally is the first reason against doing gender studies in the counter article.
They even go as far as to make a joke about this by saying, I don't care about tetration, I just want to listen to people talk in vague theoretical terms about their personal sexual experiences.
Which is coming from someone who has done a gender studies course, remember.
So the second point from our pro-gender studies article is that it applies to everything.
When you major in women's studies, you study politics, theory, literature, history, sociology, and psychology, all with a feminist perspective.
You discover and ask questions that no one's ever challenged you with before.
How have women been portrayed in the media and religion?
In what ways do gender stereotypes influence politics and literature?
How does our society compare to others in its treatment of women?
Well, you might be thinking, hmm, pretty good on all counts, but you'd be wrong.
Amusingly, our author lives in a land of delusion.
She says, since it covers so many different subjects, you have a broad range of job opportunities.
You're not tied to a specific field like you would be with marine biology or an accounting degree.
With whatever jobs you end up having or not, you can apply what you've learned from women's studies to any situation.
It's not so much a career choice as it is a life choice.
You're adopting a new perspective that you'll use in every relationship, every job, and every circumstance.
And my goodness, doesn't that sound like you're joining a cult?
It really does sound like doing women's studies is going to turn you into a crazy person.
For a while, all of the fallout happens internally.
You might see a scon at a trendy locally owned coffee shop and wonder about whether or not the sugar in the scon was harvested primarily by men or women.
And if it was harvested by women, whether or not that should be considered a triumph for gender equality, because women should be breadwinners too, damn it, or that it's evidence that women have always been exploited.
Unsurprisingly, this isn't exactly the sort of thing you're going to want to bring up at parties.
Marine biology, on the other hand, is a pretty cool subject.
Telling people about the time you went swimming with whale sharks while diving is way more exciting than telling people about your personal preferred pronouns.
The third pro-women's studies argument also doubles up as a fine example of circular logic best avoided.
Women's studies is relevant because it's in the news.
And it's in the news because of all the people who have done women's Women's studies complaining and making it news.
Women and women's health are at the center of politics right now.
Shit just got real.
And that, of course, is where a women's studies major comes in.
So, when women's studies isn't being the source of its own problems, I'd like people studying women's studies to remember that we have covered how you are all crazy people.
And because you're all crazy people, nobody will want to bring you up.
As the advocate against doing women's studies says, your parents are likely to stop bringing you up at cocktail parties or family reunions for fear of having to concede that they pay $40,000 a year for you to study white masculinity in US popular culture and beauty, fashion, and self-styling.
Notice your parents are wondering why they're spending so much money when you're probably not going to end up earning a lot of money at the end of it.
Not only will you be absolutely piss poor, but you will also be a whiny, self-righteous, moral crusader who unironically thinks that while oppression knows no bounds, the good news is that justice doesn't either.
And you will unironically tweet to that effect from your iPhone while sat in Starbucks.
Because apparently the funny thing about women's studies is that it's not just about women.
It makes you think about layers of identity and explore how oppressions like racism, sexism, and ableism, which is a real thing, apparently, are comparable and intertwined.
One of the first words you learn as a women's studies major is intersectionality, a word that also acts as a warning to anyone who happens to be in conversation with you that now is about the time that they need to start making their excuses to leave.
Basically, what we're talking about is identity politics 101.
It's a theory that examines how different forms of identity like race, class, gender, and sexuality and ability intersect and interact on multiple levels.
It's highly subjective and nobody, absolutely nobody, comes out a winner unless you are of course a disabled black female lesbian who was originally born a man.
Apparently majoring in women's studies allows you to challenge these intersecting oppressions and address the systemic problems that create them and it instills a huge sense of compassion for the disadvantaged oppressed groups and we all know that compassion leads to justice.
Well I don't think it necessarily does and I don't think that instilling compassion for disadvantaged oppressed groups gives one license to be hateful and vindictive against those groups who women's studies deems to be advantaged within society.
In fact, in fact, if you are slightly racist or sexist towards, I don't know, white people or men, doing women's studies, intersectional women's studies, is a fantastic way that will allow you to indulge in your hatred and give you an ample cover from the inevitable pushback you'll receive from the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.
Just ask Goldsmith University's diversity officer who wrote, kill all white men on Twitter and yet hasn't been banned from Twitter, hasn't even been reprimanded in her job.
Why?
Because she did gender studies and now she claims she can't be racist or sexist.
So I mean that's fine if you want to be overtly hateful in public and many people do which is why they choose women's studies degrees but many people also like to be able to feed themselves, provide a good quality of life for themselves and their family.
And women's studies really isn't the degree for you if you want to get a good job and earn some money.
The problem with a gender studies degree is that there is very little you can do at the end of it.
All you can really do is go around pointing out how sexist and racist the patriarchy is, while being sexist and racist yourself.
And this isn't really something people pay money for.
It doesn't produce anything, except for people who go around spewing hate on Twitter.
And that's not really all that easy to monetize.
Okay, so so far the arguments in favour of doing a women's studies degree have been falsehoods, cult thinking, circular logic, and mob rule and vigilante justice.
And the arguments against are that it's not really a very wise move, you will become crazy, people won't want to talk to you or about you, and you probably won't get a good job.
So I've got to admit, so far I'm not really sold on the idea of doing a gender studies degree.
Honestly, it kind of sounds like a complete waste of time and money.
But you know what?
Wasting time and money is not a good enough reason not to do something in my opinion.
I'm okay with wasting time and money.
But I suppose if one of their arguments sounds like the sort of thing the Nazi party may have said prior to the outbreak of World War II, then I really have to question.
Then I really have to sort of take a step back and say, okay, when you start saying things like this, in addition to the sort of cult-like thinking and the justification of hate, you've got to really wonder who is actually on the right side of history.
This paragraph tells you everything you need to know about doing a women's studies degree.
So they say, when you choose this major, you become an agent, not a bystander, in the process of bringing humanity one step closer to equality.
You do it not just for yourself, but for your partner, for your family and the future.
Shit.
A women's studies degree opens doors that you may not have known were there or otherwise even comprehended.
It's going to blow your mind, man.
Women's Studies explores why women are underrepresented in politics and higher level jobs, and then it shows you how to change that, except by going into politics or higher paying jobs.
Instead of doing women's studies, you could have done anything else and earned more money and made sure that women are represented better elsewhere.
But instead, you did women's studies and now these women's studies advocates are going to suggest that you do women's studies to complain about the dearth of women in science.
I fucking love science started as a Facebook page with, as you can see here, 20 million likes and they founded a website to do science news.
And my goodness, wasn't this popular?
Everyone's really excited to see interesting science developments presented in a fun and upbeat way.
And it is with our eye on I fucking love science that we will turn to the final point against doing gender studies.
People will assume that you want to talk about feminism.
And that's primarily because people who do women's studies want to talk about nothing but feminism.
For some reason, the people who run I fucking love science have gone full gender studies.
They have assumed that 20 million people liked their page and visit their website because they must want editorials, constant editorial after editorial talking about women in science, sexism in science, evil patriarchal men in science.
Oh my fucking lord.
As if everyone isn't fucking tired of hearing about the number of people with vaginas doing science.
But the thing is, it's not that these gender studies courses are training young people to go out and be activists for things that either aren't true or can be accurately summed up in the term first world problems.
The problem really is that this much navel gazing is becoming a severe problem for the people in universities themselves.
It is breeding a deep-seated strain of paranoia within universities themselves.
The author of this article is talking about how it has been a year since what they call the Great Prohibition took effect on her own workplace, which is where students and professors now they are not allowed to romantically fraternize.
The author continues by saying, forgive my slightly mocking tone.
I suppose I'm out of step with the new realities because I came of age in a different time and under a different version of feminism, minus the layers of prohibition and sexual terror surrounding the unequal power dilemmas of today.
In our author's day, when she went to university and ended up in relationships with her teachers and got hurt, this was something that fell under the category of life experience because ultimately nobody was really hurt there.
It was just stupid and embarrassing, but not traumatizing.
There was time when feminists thought seducing their professors made them feel empowered and, in the words here, cocky, not taken advantage of.
But according to the latest version of the campus policy for our author, differences in institutional power and the inherent risk of coercion are so great between teachers and students that no romance, dating or sexual relationships will be permitted, even between students and professors from different departments.
Relations between graduate students and professors aren't outright banned, but are problematic and must be reported if you're in the same department.
Everywhere on campuses today you will find scholars whose work elaborates on sophisticated models of power and agency.
It would be hard to overstate the influence across disciplines of Michael Foucault, whose signature idea was that power has no permanent address or valence.
And this obsession with power, which is what gender studies degrees have bred, this is what intersectionality has bred.
The attitude that students lack volition and independent desires of their own, and professors are would-be coercors with dastardly plans to corrupt the innocent.
The increased popularity of gender studies courses has bred a kind of paranoid fever in academia.
Our author sums this up wonderfully.
In the post-Title IX landscape, sexual panic rules.
Slippery slopes abound, gropers become rapists, accusers become survivors, opening the door for another panicky conflation to teacher-student sex and incest.
Recall that it was incest victims who earlier popularized the use of the term survivor, previously reserved for those who had survived the Holocaust.
The migration of the term itself is telling, exposing the core anxiety about teacher-student romances, that there's a whiff of perversity about such couples, notwithstanding all the venerable married ones.
Lastly, the new codes sweeping American campuses aren't just a striking abridgment of everyone's freedom.
They're also intellectually embarrassing.
Sexual paranoia reigns.
Students are trauma cases waiting to happen.
If you wanted to produce a pacified, cowering citizenry, this would be the method.
It will probably come as no great surprise to you that this mindset is fostering an atmosphere that produces witch hunts.
Yes, you are reading that right.
Feminist students protest feminist professor for writing about feminism.
This is again a use of the Title IX legislation.
As a Northwest University professor, Laura Kipniss found herself entangled in a trial after two female graduate students filed a Title IX charge against her because of an essay and a tweet that she authored.
Kipniss was then plunged into a secretive and labyrinthine bureaucratic process that she believes threatens her academic freedom.
The trouble for Kipniss started a few months ago when she published an essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education about the growing sexual paranoia on college campuses.
You'll be familiar with it as we've already covered it in this video.
Although Kipniss primarily focused on conduct between professors and students, her essay did feature a cutting indictment of the current activism around consent and on sex on campus.
Student activists at Northwestern protested Kipniss' essay by carrying around mattresses in the style of Emma Solkowitz.
Now, if you're not familiar with Emma Solkowitz, she is a woman who alleges to have been raped by an ex-lover and so carries around a mattress everywhere on campus because of it.
The chances are it's not true.
But she will undoubtedly come up in a later video about why everybody hates feminism.
Probably one about pathological liars.
Anyway, so after the petition was circulated and mattresses dragged to the university president's office, two students filed Title IX complaints against Kipnis.
Kipniss was informed of the complaints through email, but was not told what she had done or to whom she had allegedly done it.
Kipniss says, I wrote to the Title IX coordinator asking for clarification.
When would I learn the specifics of these complaints, which I pointed out, appeared to violate my academic freedom?
And what about my rights?
Was I entitled to a lawyer?
I received a polite response with a link to another website.
No, I could not have an attorney present during the investigation, unless I had been charged with sexual violence.
I was, however, allowed to have a support person from the university community there, although that person couldn't speak.
I wouldn't be informed about the substance of the complaints until I met with the investigators.
That sounds fucking awful.
Kipniss refused to meet with investigators until she'd learned what the charges were about.
The investigators were attorneys from outside law firm hired by Northwestern.
The attorneys agreed to tell Kipness about the nature of the complaints over Skype and agreed not to ask her any questions.
Both complainants were graduate students.
One turned out to have nothing whatsoever to do with the essay.
She was bringing charges on behalf of the university community as well as on behalf of two students I'd mentioned, not by name, because the essay had had a chilling effect on students' ability to report sexual misconduct.
I'd also made deliberate mistakes she charged, a few small errors that hadn't been caught in fact-checking were later corrected by the editors, and had violated the non-retaliation provision of the faculty handbook.
The second complainant was someone Kipniss mentioned, not by name, in connection with the lawsuit brought up by a Northwestern professor who had two sexual harassment investigations brought against him, and the professor was suing Northwestern for defamation, and one of the students.
So one of the complaints claims that Kipnis is creating a hostile environment by mentioning the lawsuit and that it was retaliatory.
The support person that Kipniss had who wasn't allowed to speak was also slapped with a Title IX complaint as if they themselves have done something wrong.
And to really round out this slow-motion train wreck that is modern feminism, Title IX investigators asked Kipdis if she would like to file her own retaliation claim against the students.
This did not come out of the classroom of a STEM field.
This absolute clusterfuck of feminists attacking feminists is entirely the result of women's studies.
If this crap hadn't been brewing and bubbling beneath the surface for so long and reached such a critical mass in universities, none of this would be happening.
But it has and it is.
So if you were a young woman and you were wondering why does everyone hate feminism, maybe I should do a gender studies degree to figure it out.
Well, don't.
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