Feminist scholars eat their own
[Hat tip: Ann Althouse.]
Feminism in academia has spiraled out of control, as evidenced by the brouhaha described in this piece by Vanderbilt professor Kelly Oliver, who found herself in the middle of a storm of rage for attempting a fairly mild defense of another feminist professor who had raised the ire of the pack.
Everyone on all sides of this issue is a woman. Everyone on all sides of this issue is a feminist. And everyone on all sides of this issue is a leftist. But the viciousness—and the number—of the attacks are as bad as anything the left lobs at the right. Perhaps worse. There’s no war like a civil war.
Its hard to summarize what the issues were, but I’ll try. The anger was sparked by an academic piece written by philosophy professor Rebecca Tuvel. Her crime? To claim that if transgender identities are valid (which she believes is the case), then to be philosophically consistent one would have to say that transracial identities (such as that of Rachel Dolezal) are also valid.
If you thought that this would be a fairly non-controversial position on the left—well, think again. Apparently it’s not okay to appropriate a different racial identity, even if you’re sincere and well-meaning. Duvel was the object of a torrent of abuse on social media as a result of what she had written about Dolezal’s racial identity. And Professor Oliver, who sought only to put the discussion on a more academic and civil footing, became a target as well for her pains.
You have to read the article to understand the extremity of the attacks. No summary does justice to the details.
But what interested me the most was that many of these feminist professors wrote to either Tuvel or Oliver saying that they privately supported them but were afraid to say so in public for fear of becoming targets themselves. Some of them even apologized for having joined in the abuse just for show.
Oliver writes:
Through every medium imaginable, senior feminist scholars were pressuring, even threatening, Tuvel that she wouldn’t get tenure and her career would be ruined if she didn’t retract her article.
Oliver seems shocked and surprised at all of this. She shouldn’t be. Has she never noticed what happened during the Soviet show trials? Is she unaware of the history of the Red Guards? Those historical events were of course much more serious and more violent than the incident Oliver describes, but the attack on Tuvel is a similar phenomenon in embryo, and that sort of thing is the left’s specialty. It also is a far less physical/lethal version of the Shirley Jackson story “The Lottery“—a group stoning of the designated sacrificial victim, who until recently had been a member of the group in good standing.
Chilling. Chilling. Chilling.
I think it’s more an academic environment problem. As about the only conservative at a college who doesn’t mind speaking my views, I’ve encountered the same phenomenon. Other faculty will tell me privately they agree with me, but can’t be seen doing such. For all their vaunted proclamations of being independent thinkers, most are cowards who are afraid not to run with the herd. It’s really rather disgusting.
I don’t see the problem. It’s good entertainment. Too bad it never went physical.
What’s curious though, is why any of these people should actually care what is said about them? I mean, are they going to lose their machines, or their engineering equipment, or their farms, or their carpenter’s tools, or their medical practice just because someone got on Facebook and had a breakdown?
If you did not know better, would think that they were a bunch of useless neurotics who had fake jobs which could be taken away from them the moment they stepped out of line; and that they would then have to resort to waitressing or something.
I liked the part about essentialist metaphysics, too.
If you can be anything all, what real claim have you to be anything in particular which anyone else is obligated to recognize?
Is my first thought something less than generous about the targets of this attack? Yes, I would be lying like an old dog if I claimed anything else. I am human. But I try to be the best human I can be, and it causes my second thought to be one of sympathy and alarm. The left is truly dangerous and out of control, beyond reason, beyond rational conversation.
It is rolling on to a Robespierrian end.
And the sad thing is, after the left really does eat its own, the survivors will not have learned a thing. The rest of society has to go through this cycle, generation after generation, while the leftist idiots never learn a f’ing thing and manage to infect every new generation with their bad ideas.
I think the entire thing is hilarious. Of course, Tuvel’s problem is that her observation endangers the racial spoils system- if anyone can call themselves black, what is the justification for treating them that way for, example, university enrollment? I mean, Senator Warren got to call herself a Native American, and other than those from the right who just mocked her, received no approbation for doing so.
In order to think gender is on a spectrum, one must alao believe race is binary. The chasm between the two, on all levels realistic and sociological, mandate they be opposites, so if you change the meaning of “spectrum” to include gender, one must also change the meaning of “binary” to include race.
There is even more and tons more than this crapola…
want to know abou textermination?
want to know how some want a new shoa?
lots of great stuff, but we are mostly verboten to cover it
instead, we created MGTOW…
Im one of the founders of the movement, it started years ago right after my ex used feminist stuff to really do extreme crazy things WITH the state and law helping
lookup just MGTOW on google and nothing else and you get About 2,340,000 results
when i came here i was trying to build similar for anti-communism and so on.. it didnt work, unlike the men, no one here cared enough to listen to get the facts which then build into somethig rather than stew into nothign.
for over 15 years the men have kept my articles and stuff for future references and usages… they replaced the site, carried over the posts and have had them now since 2005… i left long ago, and they kept my login, and everything as it was in case i returned.
which i have… [and they have best long posts place]
i do more against communism since feminism has changed to communism since the 50s-60s (read erin pizzey)
one person taht comments who hhavent met is
Karen Straughen: Girl Writes What? (here is her channel)
https://www.youtube.com/user/girlwriteswhat
she is incredible smart and self taught and as most do, got into this becasue she fell in love with a man who loved her kids who got caught in the machine…
but who cares, right? its only men…
she has done panels with other famous feminists and antifeminsts… does stuff with crowder…
What A Feminist Learned From Listening To An Anti-Feminist
Listening to Karen Straughan
https://www.theodysseyonline.com/listening-to-karen-straughan
well, duh… NOW and the movement been blacklabeling the hwole thing and lying all over they could get a word in as their peeps in pussy hats prevent dialoge
she also comments on/with honey badger..
REALLY good vids to watch for karen are:
Feminism and the Disposable Male
1,470,181 views
Men not marrying? How deep does “the problem” go?
1,121,747 views
Look out! It’s a Nice Guy! DESTROY HIM!!11!
929,485 views4 years ago
THis one is especially good as it covers feminists going over feminists, about the RED PILL movie
…wherein a die-hard feminist vomits red pills everywhere…
179,949 views
the tyranny of female hypoagency
166,857 views
How feminism conned society, and other not-so-tall tales…
All those dangerous women-haters!
more red pills everywhere…
and lots more..
you can find my articles on MEN.com… and other stuff all over the net..
enjoy… i tried to compress this as much as i could.
there is so much stuff that you think you know that is soooo wrong, and covered… if you think trump and the election, or the dems socialism, and other things are bad, this is the area the others copy from. its amazing and its doubly amazing that good people have very little idea what is going on. THE NUTTY KEEP THE SANE OUT AND FROM SEEING WHAT THEY ARE DOING
“lookup just MGTOW on google” as someone with an interest in aviation, the first thing I thought of was Maximum Gross Takeoff Weight. 😉
BY the way i am in academia, and you would be HORRIFIED as to what is in the world class top colleges in medicne and other areas… blown away.
i tried to share, but women dont like to post things that go agasint women, even if they arent part of them.
unlike men, women link because they are women, men are in competition with each other, so we dont do that the same way…
[karen does a huge great science based point on this, and things like hypergamous, and neotony, and more]
i decided that no one here really wanted to listen to a famous MRA from years back who was a big part of all this and the changes… i failed to do the same for race and leftism in general..
Gator describes MGTOW as “quirky bunch of guys.” – Reddit:
It changed cause i left, and it lost the moderating voice who kept the more extreme in check by explaining things.. and keeping their focus on the wackaloons… (and leave decent women out of that… its not them)
even the left and communists wanted to take over
Why can we have a left/communist MGTOW movement? If there’s enough of us and we…
[cause the founders and others are anti communist and anti despots, and libertarian, and so on.. ]
here is a commenters advice:
if you guys dont know the arguments, your not going to say or do anything useful in this thread as all your going to do is the same old things that people say when they see it and have no idea whats under it!!!!!!!!!!!
same with the socialist movement and communist mvoement, after all, how many bother to learn about harmon, and popenoe, and munsenberg, and tons of others that dont exist in the minds of people trying to undersand things.. despite what they are trying to understand is the work of these men (And sometimes women)
basically the movement if valid, would ahve quit at the time it took off as it acheived its goals, but it got communized around the time of erin pizzey (and shelters), with naomi goldstein the comunist writer (betty friedan) and others… like franz boas people who worked for the soviets.
the ladies were planned to be used for revolution going back to marx and engels and nechyeve who said you use them because they control the men and the men will destroy the society if THATS what the women wanted!!
and they did..
they exterminated most of the caucasians, and now have created similar atmoshphere of germany 1933, but this time, you wont get a PART of that group, you will get the whole group and get rid of the part that is the target since the magyar struggle was written in 1849
Two thoughts come to mind. It used to be that it was the more doctrinaire religious leaders who firmly believed that they were anointed as custodians of truth, and would use any means to sustain their privilege, and destroy Apostates. Not so much any longer, except of course with respect to Islam. Progressives, and the sub-set known as Feminists, have replaced the religious Despots as self-proclaimed apostles of truth. So, it is not surprising that they act brutally to maintain the sanctity of their version, and incidentally their own status.
Secondly, and I may be venturing onto thin ice, I suppose. During twenty-five years in the USN, followed by a couple of decades in industry, I can’t say that I have ever seen such viciousness among the men I associated with. My experience included years in squadrons, where competition was intense, and life in the close quarters aboard ship afforded no “safe spaces”. So, is such vitriol a female characteristic? Or, as someone said, endemic to Academia?
by the way, the cultural appropriation is old. send stuff years ago on it.. there are also microagressions, and i even sent you and posted the stuff that if you dont open a door for a woman, you hate women – and if you do, you hate women, but are sneaky..
tons of stuff… but you guys are late to the party
these ideas are over 10 years old and could have been talked about before neo even started her blog!!
heck… you guys missed the social justice nazi angle, as the original social justice was father coughlin.. .
its like watching someone find something that has been around for 100 years, and think its “new”
very funny from a distance
sad when you realize what will happen
If only subconsciously, enraged feminists are reacting to the corrosponding subtext; to claim that transracial identities are valid, one has to assert that emotional identification supersedes physical reality, a demonstrably false assertion.
Which calls into question the transgendered person’s claim that emotional identification supersedes biological reality.
Thus the necessity for the proposition that gender is separate from sex. The transgendered’s emotional identification is in conflict with their biological reality. Their ‘gender’ is in conflict with their ‘sex’.
Someone in conflict with themselves is the very definition of dysfunctional. But dysfunctional implies abnormal and abnormal implies some degree of faultiness. Thus the rage at societal standards of normality.
The majority of today’s feminists have ‘issues’ with confident, self-assertive men. They are in conflict with psychologically healthy males, a personal and societal dysfunction.
Ms. Tuvel’s original assertion strikes too close to home. Ms Oliver’s defense fans the flames. Feminist’s rage allows their denial of the obvious to remain unexamined.
I have no pity or sympathy for Tuvel or Oliver. They chose a path, choices have consequences. They live in a fantasy world where chromosomes do not define gender. A world where I can identify as a midget 15 year old eskimo female and get a pat on the back for my bravery. A world where CO2 is causing the planet to fry. They are fighting an imaginary war on women, they are ‘resisting’ a fairly won election, and so on and so forth. They deserve their misery.
“Serves them right to suffer.”
Saw a lengthy piece riffing from a child who’d been raised in an abusive home and, no matter what she got when she demanded it, would melt down.
She could not enjoy being happy.
The point was the gay activists who aren’t happy with a commitment ceremony, but must bankrupt the devout and harrass those who vote the wrong way…..
I suspect it’s true of pretty much all progs.
And, pour discourager les autres.
This really is nothing new. Feminists have now branded Germaine Greer a transphobe, and before that, they went after Betty Friedan over her 1981 book The Second Stage, which questioned some of the priorities of feminism — here’s what she said in an interview about it:
What is new now, perhaps, is what Kelly Oliver points out in her piece:
Ah, when “afraid to voice their opinions in public” they forfeit all their principles and become frightened puppies with tails firmly tucked. Laugh, laugh. No pity, sympathy, remorse, or quarter.
Humanism replaces religious belief. Without some anchoring beliefs everything is questioned and everyone has their version of truth. There are no standards, no guidelines, except what can be enforced by vicious attacks on anyone that disagrees with you. Without reasoned debate and dissent no idea, no wisdom, no belief can ever be examined for how it works for the human condition. When nothing is true and all is myth, life is like flying blind with no instruments. You just make it up as you go. That’s what is happening in the post modern world of which feminism is just one segment. The internet and social media have unleashed a monster.
Female chauvinists are first to eat their competitors, other female chauvinists, and women who are viable threats to their narrative. As was with male chauvinists, so it is with female chauvinists, but the former have less Choices. First, they came for the male chauvinists…
Post and discussion thread on the topic at Chicago Boyz:
http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/55238.html#comment-986488
Richard Aubrey Says:
May 12th, 2017 at 5:08 pm
Saw a lengthy piece riffing from a child who’d been raised in an abusive home and, no matter what she got when she demanded it, would melt down.
She could not enjoy being happy.
The point was the gay activists who aren’t happy with a commitment ceremony, but must bankrupt the devout and harrass those who vote the wrong way…..
I suspect it’s true of pretty much all progs.
And, pour discourager les autres.
* **
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/05/thoughts-from-the-ammo-line-167.php
Oldflyer Says:
May 12th, 2017 at 4:29 pm
.. So, is such vitriol a female characteristic? Or, as someone said, endemic to Academia?
* * *
Yes.
But seriously, there are plenty of men who react this way, and many of them are academics.
Few of them join the Navy.
via arfldgr above:
What A Feminist Learned From Listening To An Anti-Feminist
Listening to Karen Straughan
https://www.theodysseyonline.com/listening-to-karen-straughan
“In the weeks and days leading up to the conference, I decided to accept it for what it was. Early in the quarter, one of my professors told us that people learn when they are uncomfortable. I like to learn, and I have been in intellectually uncomfortable events before, so I wanted to try my best to approach it with an open mind. Finally, the moment of truth came.”
What a novel idea.
Oldflyer…”During twenty-five years in the USN, followed by a couple of decades in industry, I can’t say that I have ever seen such viciousness among the men I associated with.”
I think this is probably related to the difference between *thing people* and *word people*. If you are a pilot or a farmer or a machinist or an engineer, the difference between *speech* and *action* is pretty clear. But if you are a writer or a lawyer or a consultant or an academic (outside of the hard sciences), then words and images *are* your form of action. Hence the word and image people will be more likely to feel psychologically deeply threatened by speech and images they don’t like than will the thing people.
unlike men, women link because they are women, men are in competition with each other, so we dont do that the same way…
Not really, at least in my experience.
Women may not admit to being in competition, but that just makes the fighting more bitter because it usually has to be underground.
Men who fall out either patch it up, agree to avoid each other, or fall out pretty much permanently. There’s very little pretending to get along when you don’t.
I know women who can’t stand each other — and if they were men would make an effort to avoid each other — who pretend to still get along.
The most extreme example of rooting out apostasy among the Left occurred during the Maoist Cultural Revolution in the sixties. The “struggle sessions” where mobs would publically shame and abuse the errant escalated into sports stadiums full of hysteria followed by executions. Millions were killed.
So in spirit like our Twitter wars against those who go off script on feminism, climate change, BLM, capitalism, etc., so far only destroying careers and relationships.
I expect we will see the more violent enforcement of “ism” standards relatively soon when Muslims gain majority in some western European contries.
Usually identifing oneself as something different is a way to escape from reality，choosing to retreat into a safespace from the fight instead of facing whatever issues you have head on is an act of cowardice not bravery. But what do we know？ we are just a bunch of stupid，low IQ，ignorant，non educated racist，bigot，deplorable rednecks who voted for Trump. Build bridges not walls，let us all teat down every wall and build bridges around our houses.
The best phrase in that article:
“the mob mentality of Facebook”
so spot on.
Think the best thing to do is sit back and let them be ensnared by the rules they helped implement.
* * * *
.. So, is such vitriol a female characteristic? Or, as someone said, endemic to Academia?
My guess is female, or at minimum, feminist.
Here’s a petty and catty squabble among NYC feminist leaders over the unattributed use of a grrrl power quote at a jean jacket patch party (yes, that’s a thing). This is worthy of The Onion.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/kdawe6x
The first two words in your post are unnecessary.
Academia has spiraled out of control.
The only laughable supposition is that “her career would be ruined if she didn’t retract her article”.
Do you think apologizing means anything to anyone on the Left? Apologizing only cements that someone has committed a grievous error and is proof of their guilt. Since these women who are outraged hold the levers of power in the feminism racket, and an apology is proof of guilt to them, her career is ruined either way, and most assuredly if she does apologize.
After they finish eating one another, I’ll give them 2 scoops of ice cream for dessert. And when the LGBTQ…. types finish, I’ll give 3 scoops.
Read the essay by William Voegeli in the just-arrived Claremont Review of Books, titled “The New Abnormal”.
Among the points made, by referring to a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education by William Deresiewicz, is that our colleges and universities have become religious schools where the faith is secularism, environmentalism, “and, above all, the holy trinity of race, gender and sexuality.
And where there’s dogma, there’s heresy.”
Deresiewicz also pointed out that the term, “political correctness” originated on the Left as an “ironic invocation of Stalinism.” We’ve lost the irony but kept the Stalinism.
Read the whole thing!
http://www.claremont.org/crb/article/the-new-abnormal/
Among the first lessons of Christianity is the fall of man. The teachings that we as flawed creations, have to consistently self-reflecting on our actions to avoid sinning has been taught to children at an early age. Sins lead us to a destructive path, even when our intentions were good. We are all very aware of the fact we are all one step away from falling to the dark side. the lefties have never been taught the concept of introspection. Communists believe they are perfectly evolved beings that can never be wrong. in fact questioning the legitimacy of the ideology, ever possessing the doubt that they might ever be on the wrong path and attempting to change course is a sin to them, its called revisionism. I voted for Trump, but there is not a day since Nov 8 that i might have made a mistake. I highly doubted the idea that Hillary is corrupted has ever crossed a Hillary voter’s mind, or the possibility that Michelle Obama, champion of the underprivileged, appeared in every event in nothing but the most luxurious outfits and jewelries designed by the most renowned designers, may be a hypocrite has ever pondered by an Obama voter. Modern liberals are champions of elementary school reasoning. Their search for an answer stops at the first idea their tiny untrained minds can come up with and never go beyond the most basic and paper thing surfaced reasoning. I will give you an example. Major liberal news outlets promoted the idea that the low turnout at the inauguration was the manifestation of Trump’s unpopularity, they had never mentioned any other possible reasons. perhaps Trump wasn’t the first black president caused the low turnout; perhaps it was storming at the day of event that made people wanted to stay home; perhaps DC population being predominantly liberal could contribute to that. Nope, to liberals, there was only one reason only that only a small crowd showed up to watch Trump sworn into office and it was because everyone hates him. It is the most basic elementary school reasoning you can find, but somehow they are the elite thinkers and conservatives are stupid.
Frog:
Their faith is twilight fringe (a.k.a. penumbra). Their religion is Pro-Choice (i.e. selective, opportunistic, unprincipled). Their ideology is minority oriented in the spirit of monopolies. The unholy trinity is class (e.g. racism, sexism), congruence (e.g. discrimination, exclusion), and credit (e.g. progressive debt, redistributive change).
Speaking of krazy kats or crazies cat fighting or whatever … welcome to the post-human world.
http://jezebel.com/girl-believes-shes-a-cat-trapped-in-a-humans-body-and-i-1755717058
Just because you are not a human, doesn’t mean you’re not human! Or something. A Jezebel contributor stands with Nano!
I’ll believe it when I see her eat a raw mouse she’s pounced on.
Well, no I won’t; but I dare her all the same.
That’s cruel. How could you even say such a thing?
Next you will be suggesting the unthinkable: that they be placed in a roped off area, given sticks and shoulder pads, and instructed to have at it; as we pull up lounge chairs and crack a beer to enjoy.
You, being you, would probably want to sell tickets too.
Maybe for 10 bucks a head. Bet you probably figure you could attract a gate count of a couple thousand spectators easy.
Since the combatants don’t get a cut, not even the survivors if any, the pot while modest, looks worthwhile.
The concession stands would probably bring a pretty good rental too. Say, a 16 oz beer for $4.50.
If people enjoy watching innocent Japanese game contestants fall off floating logs into the dirty fluid, they no doubt would really go crazy at the sight of insane feminists ripping each other to shreds.
Geez, the till would be overflowing … you would have suitcases full of cash to deal with, just like some 1980s Colombian drug lord!
Not that I, personally, would approve … necessarily …
DNW,
Shoulder pads? Why?
David Foster, that observation about word- vs thing-oriented people is really interesting. I feel as if I live in both of those realms at different times, and yet somewhat at a remove from both. It makes me think that I have certain buffer zones between me and the respective realities involved. In that context, I’ll see if I can take your interpretation and apply it.
“To claim that if transgender identities are valid (which she believes is the case)”
But according to the APA definition, gender is imaginary and has no physical existence. The APA definition is confusing and conflates sex, a term from biology, and gender, a term from linguistics.
Gender (n): the condition of being male, female, or neuter. In a human context, the distinction between gender and SEX reflects the usage of these terms: Sex usually refers to the biological aspects of maleness or femaleness, whereas gender implies the psychological, behavioral, social, and cultural aspects of being male or female (i.e., masculinity or femininity.)
It should add to the comic effect. Helmets would offer too much protection.
There obviously have to be some trade offs.
Right you are, Ken!
Somehow, this seems relevant:
http://news.nationalpost.com/arts/magazine-editor-quits-after-writing-that-he-doesnt-believe-in-cultural-appropriation