Feminism starts to circle the wagons.

[dr e]

It's great to see feminism start to circle the wagons and hunker down knowing that there is an increasing number of people who are seeing their misandry and prejudiced writings.  Here is s little excerpt from a paper that LSBeene was kind enough to bring to our attention.  Sadly they didn't include SYG in the list of groups questioning women's studies and feminism's misandry. 

go to page 43:
http://www.nwsa.org/PAD/downloads/WSHandbook2006.pdf

contact info for those who might want to send them a tactful and clear response:
 Martha McCaughey, Appalachian State University,  mccaugheym@appstate.edu
 

Cat Warren  cwarren@unity.ncsu.edu

Responding to Right-Wing Attacks on Women’s
Programs

By Martha McCaughey, Appalachian State University, 
& Cat Warren, North Carolina State University


Women’s studies programs have had long practice in articulating the value of what we do to university administrators, students, and colleagues across campus.  (I couldn't resist...what do you do to administrators students and colleagues???  dr e) We’ve become adept at explaining interdisciplinary work, the meaning of gender, and the importance of feminist scholarship. In the past two years, however, a new series of attacks have come from community members, alumni, but most especially from far right-wing organizations and think tanks across the nation. Handling these attacks can be stressful and time consuming—even when one works under a supportive university administration.  Women’s studies program administrators need to be prepared for these attacks and know how best to respond to them.

Some of the attacks recently experienced by WS programs

• “Research reports” funded by right-wing think
particular WS program or WS in general (e.g.,
anti-marriage textbooks, our “proto-Marxist” beliefs,
men);

• Freedom of Information Act requests from right-
WS program records (e.g., budgets, syllabi, etc.);

• Newspaper editorials or letters to the editor complaining
waste of taxpayer dollars to support feminist
strategically printed on a day the state legislature
fund the university;

• Calls for investigating or firing an instructor for
heterosexual male about his homophobic speech;

• Hostile letters, e-mails, and blogs about projects
series, The Vagina Monologues, or a student-
Orgasm Awareness Day);
and

• E-mails and phone calls demanding that anti-
on a Women’s Studies Program’s or a Women’s
false name of “balance” and free speech, and
university administrators to those demands.

Organizations critical of women’s studies, feminism, and liberal academics:

Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute:
http://www.cblpi.org/

Independent Women’s Forum:
http://www.iwf.org

Intellectual Takeout:
http://www.intellectualtakeout.com/index.asp

Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE; note Daphne Patai is on
FIRE’s Board of Directors, and Wendy Kaminer and Christina Hoff Sommers are
on FIRE’s Board of Advisors):
http://www.thefire.org

Center for the Study of Popular Culture (David Horowitz’s Center, and the site for
his Front Page magazine):
http://cspc.org/

Eagle Forum Collegians:
http://www.efcollegians.org

Pope Center for Higher Education Policy:
http://www.popecenter.org/

Mike Adams on the Town Hall site:
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/contributors/mikeadams/archive/2005/

American Council of Trustees & Alumni:
http://www.goacta.org/flashindex.html

Students for Academic Freedom:
http://www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org

Students who report on politically biased professors:
http://www.noindoctrination.org

NWSA Women’s Studies Program Administrators’ Handbook p. 47
Concerned Women for America:
http://www.cwfa.org

National Association of Scholars:
http://www.nas.org

Intercollegiate Studies Institute:
http://www.isi.org

Accuracy in Academia:
http://www.academia.org/

[MAUS]

Oh Evil One (with the questionable medical degree from the University of Grenada)...You have no idea how much this post cheered me up and made my otherwise dreary day.

I was particularly glad to see that folks are giving them flack through their Alumnae associations and going directly after their funding

Just a matter of steps beyond the property lines of their campuses, if they were to get on a bus and announce "I am a feminist"...that would not intimidate the driver into waving the bus fare....in fact...that and a dollar wouldn't get you bus fare....it ain't worth bus fare or any portion thereof.....so why should it make them the Gestapo on the campus.

[outdoors]

 yippeeeeee-which one is custer? Treating men like dirt is starting to back-fire ! I will be smilin' the rest of the day !

[Vet/Father]

These demonic-possess-whores of Satan are always active, during the Holy Weeks. A couple of years ago, they were enjoying seeing a disable woman (Terri Schindler-) strave too death slowly (13 days) (Palm Sunday weekend til Easter weekend), before that they were crazy attacking Mel Gibson (Passion of the Christ movie). I always see them ACT UP during this time.

just my .02 cents
 

[LSBeene]

Dontcha just WISH we were on that list?

Ya gotta love how everything they oppose is in "quotes".

Steven

[Men's Rights Activist]

Dontcha just WISH we were on that list?

We'll just have to keep trying.

[K9]

If I had that many organizations band together to specifically oppose my agenda, I would have to stop and think about what I was doing wrong.
 

[CaptDMO]

Let's see....

Organizations :

Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute:
Independent Women’s Forum:
Intellectual Takeout:
Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
Center for the Study of Popular Culture
Eagle Forum Collegians:
Pope Center for Higher Education Policy:
Mike Adams on the Town Hall site:
American Council of Trustees & Alumni:
Students for Academic Freedom:
Students who report on politically biased professors:
Concerned Women for America:
National Association of Scholars:
Intercollegiate Studies Institute:
Accuracy in Academia:

WIth a list of folk like this that are recognised as critical of current women’s studies, feminism, and liberal academics who, unlike the authors, have established a respectable position in acadamia, I'd say they're beyond circling their wagons. They're reaching for the NOW empty barn door to close it, lest any potential new recruits escape.

But that's just me....

[Tony Ananda]

Interesting how the very tone of the discourse has changed.  Examine (briefly) the following, highly typical, feminist screed:

http://www.counterpunch.com/redmond04052007.html

It says, “…for those of us who still believe women are oppressed, the book is a sharp rebuke of the ludicrous idea that raunch culture is a sign that women are liberated - which is what those who produce and profit from the objectification of women would have us believe - both men and women.”

Did you catch that?  What do you mean, “for those of us who still BELIEVE women are oppressed?”  Is it not an established fact, obvious even to small children?  Are there really those of US who dare not BELIEVE it?  Or is it merely a belief, open to debate and doubt? 

They are not nearly as bold in their pronouncements as they once were, gentlemen.

[LSBeene]

What I loved most in the PDF file that I and Dr E read is how they claim they are not leftists or liberals, but then go on to decry "conservative" groups as the ones giving them a spanking.

Now, I know we have liberal MRAs, and I respect your views even if I disagree with it.

So my post is a swipe at the fems, not at any progressive MRA.

Still, ya gotta admit, they keep referring to conservatives, white men, heterosexuals, and Christians in a negative way, all the while talking about inclusiveness.

What-the-f*ck-ever

Steven

[Men's Rights Activist]

A little bit of history would be helpful at this point.  I think this story (below) may be responsible for a very significant  portion of those on that list.  If you Google on it, you can see that this still brings up a number of hits so it was a very hot topic at the time.

Sorry for posting so much, but that's only a portion of what you'll still find online about that single flyer being published in school papers, most notably UCLA.

http://www.iwf.org/articles/article_print.asp?ArticleID=121

Take Back the Campus
4/17/2001

Are you tired of male-bashing and victimology?
Have you had your fill of feminist "Ms./Information"?
Have you been misled by factually challenged professors?
TAKE THIS TEST:

Campus feminism is a kind of cult: As early as freshman orientation, professors begin spinning theories about how American women are oppressed under "patriarchy." Here is a list of the most common feminist myths. If you believe two or more of these untruths, you may need deprogramming.

THE TEN MOST COMMON FEMINIST MYTHS:

1. Myth: One in four women in college has been the victim of rape or attempted rape.

Fact: This mother of all factoids is based on a fallacious feminist study commissioned by Ms. magazine. The researcher, Mary Koss, hand-picked by hard-line feminist Gloria Steinem, acknowledges that 73 percent of the young women she counted as rape victims were not aware they had been raped. Forty-three percent of them were dating their "attacker" again.

Rape is a uniquely horrible crime. That is why we need sober and responsible research. Women will not be helped by hyperbole and hysteria. Truth is no enemy of compassion, and falsehood is no friend.

(Nara Schoenberg and Sam Roe, "The Making of an Epidemic," Toledo Blade, October 10, 1993; and Neil Gilbert, "Examining the Facts: Advocacy Research Overstates the Incidence of Date and Acquaintance Rape," Current Controversies in Family Violence eds. Richard Gelles and Donileen Loseke, Newbury Park, CA.: Sage Publications, 1993, pp.120-132; Robin Warshaw (with Ms. Foundation) I Never Called It Rape: The Ms. Report -- With afterward by Mary Koss, New York: Harper Perennial, 1988; Mary Koss, et al "The Scope of Rape," Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1987, Vol.55, pp.162-170; Mary Koss, et al "Stranger and Acquaintance Rape," Psychology of Women Quarterly, 1988, Vol.12, pp.1/24.Campus Crime and Security, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education, 1997. *According to this study, campus police reported 1,310 forcible sex offenses on U.S. campuses in one year. That works out to an average of fewer than one rape per campus.)

2. Myth: Women earn 75 cents for every dollar a man earns.

Fact: The 75 cent figure is terribly misleading. This statistic is a snapshot of all current full-time workers. It does not consider relevant factors like length of time in the workplace, education, occupation, and number of hours worked per week. (The experience gap is particularly large between older men and women in the workplace.) When economists do the proper controls, the so-called gender wage gap narrows to the point of vanishing.

(Essential reading: Women's Figures: An Illustrated Guide to the Economic Progress of Women in America, by Diana Furchtgott-Roth and Christine Stolba, published by the Independent Women's Forum and the American Enterprise Institute, Washington, D.C. 2000.)

3. Myth: 30 percent of emergency room visits by women each year are the result of injuries from domestic violence.

Fact: This incendiary statistic is promoted by gender feminists whose primary goal seems to be to impugn men. Two responsible government studies report that the nationwide figure is closer to one percent. While these studies may have missed some cases of domestic violence, the 30% figure is a wild exaggeration.

(National Center for Health Statistics, National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey: 1992 Emergency Department Summary , Hyattsville, Maryland, March 1997; and U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Violence-Related Injuries Treated in Hospital Emergency Departments: Washington, D.C., August 1997.)

4. Myth: The phrase "rule of thumb" originated in a man's right to beat his wife provided the stick was no wider than his thumb.

Fact: This is an urban legend that is still taken seriously by activist law professors and harassment workshoppers. The Oxford English Dictionary has more than twenty citations for phrase "rule of thumb" (the earliest from 1692), but not a single mention of beatings, sticks, or husbands and wives.

(For a definitive debunking of the hoax see Henry Ansgar Kelly, "Rule of Thumb and the Folklaw of the Husband's Stick," The Journal of Legal Education, September 1994.)

5. Myth: Women have been shortchanged in medical research.

Fact: The National Institutes of Health and drug companies routinely include women in clinical trials that test for effectiveness of medications. By 1979, over 90% of all NIH-funded trials included women. Beginning in 1985, when the NIH's National Cancer Center began keeping track of specific cancer funding, it has annually spent more money on breast cancer than any other type of cancer. Currently, women represent over 60% of all subjects in NIH-funded clinical trails.

(Essential reading: Cathy Young and Sally Satel, "The Myth of Gender Bias in Medicine," Washington, D.C.: The Women's Freedom Network, 1997.)  

6.Myth: Girls have been shortchanged in our gender-biased schools

Fact: No fair-minded person can review the education data and conclude that girls are the have-nots in our schools. Boys are slightly ahead of girls in math and science; girls are dramatically ahead in reading and writing. (The writing skills of 17-year-old boys are at the same level as 14-year- old girls.) Girls get better grades, they have higher aspirations, and they are more likely to go to college.

(See: Trends in Educational Equity of Girls & Women, Washington, D. C.: U.S. Department of Education, June 2000.)  

7. Myth: "Our schools are training grounds for sexual harassment... boys are rarely punished, while girls are taught that it is their role to tolerate this humiliating conduct."

(National Organization of Women, "Issue Report: Sexual Harassment," April 1998.)

Fact: "Hostile Hallways," is the best-known study of harassment in grades 8-11. It was commissioned by the American Association of University Women (AAUW) in 1993, and is a favorite of many harassment experts. But this survey revealed that girls are doing almost as much harassing as the boys. According to the study, "85 percent of girls and 76 percent of boys surveyed say they have experienced unwanted and unwelcome sexual behavior that interferes with their lives."

(Four scholars at the University of Michigan did a careful follow-up study of the AAUW data and concluded: "The majority of both genders (53%) described themselves as having been both victim and perpetrator of harassment -- that is most students had been harassed and had harassed others." And these researchers draw the right conclusion: "Our results led us to question the simple perpetrator-victim model...")(See: American Education Research Journal, Summer 1996.)

8. Myth: Girls suffer a dramatic loss of self-esteem during adolescence.

Fact: This myth of the incredible shrinking girls was started by Carol Gilligan, professor of gender studies at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Gilligan has always enjoyed higher standing among feminist activists and journalists than among academic research psychologists. Scholars who follow the protocols of social science do not accept the reality of an adolescent "crisis" of confidence and "loss of voice." In 1993, American Psychologist reported the new consensus among researchers in adolescent development: "It is now known that the majority of adolescents of both genders successfully negotiate this developmental period without any major psychological or emotional disorder [and] develop a positive sense of personal identity."

(Anne C. Petersen et al. "Depression in Adolescence," American Psychologist February 1993; see also, Daniel Offer, and Kimberly Schonert-Reichl, "Debunking the Myths of Adolescence: Findings from Recent Research," Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, November 1992.)

9. Myth: Gender is a social construction.

Fact: While environment and socialization do play a significant role in human life, a growing body of research in neuroscience, endocrinology, and psychology over the past 40 years suggests there is a biological basis for many sex differences in aptitudes and preferences. In general, males have better spatial reasoning skills; females better verbal skills. Males are greater risk takers; females are more nurturing.

Of course, this does not mean that women should be prevented from pursuing their goals in any field they choose; what it does suggest is that we should not expect parity in all fields. More women than men will continue to want to stay at home with small children and pursue careers in fields like early childhood education or psychology; men will continue to be over-represented in fields like helicopter mechanics and hydraulic engineering.

Warning: Most gender scholars in our universities have degrees in fields like English or comparative literature--not biology or neuroscience. These self-appointed experts on sexuality are scientifically illiterate. They substitute dogma and propaganda for reasoned scholarship.

(For a review of recent findings on sex differences see a special issue of The Scientific American "Men: The Scientific Truth, " Fall 2000.)

10. Myth: Women's Studies Departments empowered women and gave them a voice in the academy.

Fact: Women's Studies empowered a small group of like-minded careerists. They have created an old-girl network that is far more elitist, narrow and closed than any of the old-boy networks they rail against. Vast numbers of moderate or dissident women scholars have been marginalized, excluded and silenced.

(Essential reading: everything by Camille Paglia; Daphne Patai and Noretta Koertge -- Professing Feminism: Cautionary Tales from the Strange World of Women's Studies; and Christina Hoff Sommers -- Who Stole Feminism? How Women have Betrayed Women)

**Should you encounter an item of Ms/information in one of your classes, in a textbook, or a women's center "fact" sheet, let us know. We will print it on our campus website, SheThinks.org, correct it with accurate information, and politely inform the source of the mistake.

We are a women's group dedicated to restoring reason, common sense and open discussion to the campus.

Click here for a printable flyer.

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/leo053101.asp

Tina Oakland, feminist and director of the UCLA Center for Women and Men, was particularly incensed about the ad's first item: "Myth: One in four women in college has been the victim of rape or attempted rape." Challenging this number, Oakland told Ben Domenech of National Review Online, is like denying the Holocaust. But the 1-in-4 stat is one of feminism's most popular "advocacy numbers" that can't stand much analysis. A recent survey funded by the Justice Department said about 1.7 percent of female college students per year are victims of rape–"unwanted completed penetration by force or the threat of force"–and an additional 1.1 percent are victims of attempted rape. In a companion study, when a comparable group of women were asked differently worded questions, the rate of completed rapes was 11 times lower, 0.16 percent. The U.S. Department of Education's studies of reports to campus police came up with a low rate, too. Counting both on- and off-campus offenses, these stats show about 1,800 forcible sex offenses (including fondling) each year at the more than 6,300 post-secondary instititions. If you triple that number to allow for unreported offenses, it would still come to less than one rape per school each year.


Oakland told the Daily Bruin that the 1-in-4 rape statistic had been cited on the official Web sites of the FBI and the American Medical Association. She wasn't fazed when Ben Domenech told her that the stat is nowhere to be found on either the FBI or AMA site. No problem. "The statistics don't really matter that much in the big picture," she told Domenech. "We're just trying to focus on the real issue here . . . not bicker about numbers."

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-kurtz052401.shtml

You can hear this in the rhetoric of the leaders of the UCLA women's center as they demand that the Daily Bruin "retract" the IWF ad, apologize for running it, and promise never to run such an ad again. According to Christie Scott, head of UCLA's feminist "Clothesline Project," the ad "was basically justified through a free-speech argument. I feel that's somewhat cowardly." Obviously, Scott has no patience for the distinction, carefully and rightly made by the editor of the Daily Bruin, between the paper's endorsing the ad and simply allowing it to run as a stimulus to public debate.

But it's worse than that. UCLA's "Clothesline Project" is part of a national program to combat "violence against women." The great theorist of that movement is University of Michigan Law Professor Catherine MacKinnon, who frankly argues against the classic liberal theory of free speech underlying the First Amendment. According to MacKinnon, in a society pervaded by "gender inequality," so-called free speech simply disguises and ratifies the dominance of powerful men over victimized women. From this, MacKinnon concludes that Playboy Magazine — and maybe even the Constitution itself, with its power-disguising theory of free speech — are actually more than just words printed on a page. They are themselves violent assaults upon women, and deserve to be rejected or censored.

You can hear MacKinnon's ideas in the words of Christie Scott, when she says of the IWF ad, "I think it was a violent ad, a very hostile ad," or when she says, "[the ad is o violent in nature and is presented in such a hostile way." Of course, once words we don't like have been equated with acts of violence, there's no place left for free speech. Every debate must inevitably become a war, exactly as debates over race and sex have become wars on our college campuses. So the attempts by UCLA's feminists to suppress the IWF ad are not simply emotional outbursts from people who, in their calmer moments, would favor our traditions of free speech. No, the move to censor the IWF ad is the logical outcome of the profoundly undemocratic and anti-democratic way of thinking that now pervades large sections of the academy. A direct and conscious attack on the core traditions of liberal democracy has been systematically undertaken by professors who hold positions of honor at our greatest universities, and we ignore this at our peril.

The attempts by UCLA feminists to quash the IWF ad also neatly illustrate just how insidiously campus speech codes can be used as weapons against our traditions of free speech. The feminist protesters against the IWF ad discovered a provision in guidelines laid down for advertisements in student publications that forbade any ad that "stereotypes…persons of a particular gender." Since the IWF ad claimed that "males are greater risk-takers; females are more nurturing," the protesters insisted that the ad be pulled for violating the ban on stereotyping. Of course, as the Daily Bruin editor pointed out, "If you look at the policy very literally, we almost couldn't run any ads." That's right. And if you take this speech code literally, you almost couldn't have any debates about "gender" at a university — even a debate among feminists.

http://www.reason.com/news/show/31927.html

And this from a UCLA alumni...
http://www.glennsacks.com/controversial_iwf_ad.htm

Controversial IWF Ad is Accurate,
Exposes Anti-Male Distortions
By Glenn Sacks
 
Neither Chaitra Shenoy's "Myths belittle female population, problems relevant to culture" (Daily Bruin, 5/11/01) nor Barrie Levy's "Bruin ad Misleading" (Daily Bruin, 5/11/01) do much to defend feminist statistics against the evidence presented by the Independent Women's Forum in its April 18 Daily Bruin ad. The research‑based, methodical IWF ad tells us what serious researchers already know‑‑that feminist statistics and claims are often terrible distortions based on unprofessional and dishonest methodologies.

http://www.nationalreview.com/nr_comment/nr_comment051801b.shtml

Oakland also takes issue with many of the IWF ad's stated facts. She told Daily Bruin reporter Scott Wong that the first item, which debunks the notion that one in four women in college has been the victim of rape or attempted rape, was part of a "campaign of misinformation." Oakland claimed that the "one-in-four" statistic had been cited on the official websites of the FBI and the American Medical Association.

But the statistic is nowhere to be found on either of these two websites. In fact, according to the FBI, incidents of rape in the United States are the lowest they've been since the early 1980s; they were approximately 64 per 100,000 women in 1999. And according to Department of Education studies of campus police-report data, a total of 1,600 or fewer forcible sex offenses are reported on U.S. campuses annually on average — hardly the epidemic that Oakland's information suggests.

"The statistics don't really matter that much in the big picture," Oakland told NRO when questioned about the subject. "We're just trying to focus on the real issue here, to debate about civil rights, not bicker about numbers."

Oakland also said she believes the ad is a "very political" one.

"Anytime you have an ad this big, a full page, it costs a lot of money," Oakland said. "That entails wealth, the upper class, and that translates to certain political ideas."

and

The creator of the ad, War Against Boys author Christina Hoff Sommers, finds the whole furor more than a little bit amusing.

"This is a common response, hysteria and irrational reactions," Sommers said. "Free and open discussion doesn't exist in most academic forums. Instead of research or debate, they hold rallies and protests — not exactly the most reasonable way to spark discussion."

 

[Men's Rights Activist]

Women's studies, where classroom participants speak ISL, "insanity" as a second language.

[Libertariandadd]

What I loved most in the PDF file that I and Dr E read is how they claim they are not leftists or liberals, but then go on to decry "conservative" groups as the ones giving them a spanking.

Now, I know we have liberal MRAs, and I respect your views even if I disagree with it.

So my post is a swipe at the fems, not at any progressive MRA.

Still, ya gotta admit, they keep referring to conservatives, white men, heterosexuals, and Christians in a negative way, all the while talking about inclusiveness.

What-the-f*ck-ever

Steven

This tactic by feminists to contradict themselves followed by flippant denials is a deliberate calculation. This strategy is supposed to have three seperate sets of meanings to three different audiences. One being their own constituency as a propaganda reinforcement, ourselves (their enemies) in an attempt to castigate and evoke guilt and then ultimately politicians to extract funding and legislation. Their propaganda machines weapons dont continue being repeated just by accident. I just saw CNN display several radfem statistics just recently for example along with some devious segment about women being abused by men etc which included that 1/4 rape statistic.

[Virtue]

Oakland told the Daily Bruin that the 1-in-4 rape statistic had been cited on the official Web sites of the FBI and the American Medical Association. She wasn't fazed when Ben Domenech told her that the stat is nowhere to be found on either the FBI or AMA site. No problem. "The statistics don't really matter that much in the big picture,

Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
    Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

[BRIAN]

What I am wondering is what skills do womens studies courses pass on to the students? Can someine give me an example of what a person graduating college with a "Womens Studies" degree would be qualified to do as employment?