Examples of anti-male talk that the shapers of campus speech should address: "toxic masculinity," "testosterone poisoning," "frat boy," "bro." And then there's the problem of "rape-gendering":
[I]t’s sexist — and in light of data from the Centers for Disease Control showing rough equality here, it’s scientifically inaccurate — to pretend that sexual coercion on campus is strictly, or even largely, a male-on-female phenomenon. Discussions of sexual assault that assume a male perpetrator and a female victim, or the use of phrases like “Teach men not to rape,” constitute the gendering of a crime that is in fact committed by people of all genders. That is not okay.Another alternative, not discussed in the linked essay, is to back off on diversity instruction and let the free-speech market do its work.
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65 comments:
"Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules."
Althouse: "Another alternative, not discussed in the linked essay, is to back off on diversity instruction and let the free-speech market do its work."
Didn't that "horse" "leave the barn" a long, long time ago?
Back off on diversity instruction? How would that be possible in this day and age? What academic institution is going to take advice from conservatives or anyone else advocating backing off on diversity instruction?
I'm just glad my sons graduated before this crap started in earnest. I think we need to revert to single sex colleges and lock the women up in their dorm rooms after dark the way it was back in the sixties.
"It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. ... Those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." C. S. Lewis
With the women-to-men ratio of college students around 60:40, they need to dispense with the fiction that women continually need special treatment on campuses. Women are treated as an oppressed minority when the exact opposite is true.
Althouse wrote:
Another alternative, not discussed in the linked essay, is to back off on diversity instruction and let the free-speech market do its work.
The academic Left will never support this. They hate freedom.
"Another alternative, not discussed in the linked essay, is to back off on diversity instruction and let the free-speech market do its work."
That's about as likely as the possibility that people will stop using the word "gender" in reference to objects it does not apply to. The train has left the station. The universities are irredeemable. Burn 'em down. Salt the earth. Let not one stone stand upon another.
Ann, you ignorant slut! Of course this must be handled by layers of regulations with their handmaidens, college administrators, each adding their own weight to the growing burden of student debt so that we can park more Democrats in cozy sinecure!
It's all for the greater good, keep your eyes on the prize woman!
Men are expected to accept nagging and figure out what the woman wants.
The workshops just generalize it to various formal women's needs.
Not to be at fault is a women's need. Men are expected to take it on.
I see I am not the first to offer that opinion. I should read before I type. In partial recompense, I offer this thought;
It certainly does not appear that those of us who claim to favor free speech have any very high opinion of its efficacy. Is there any chance that all this Title IX and PC bullshit might somehow turn out to be a passing fad? I remember, when I was at university, that every Spring, they would ramp up some kind of absurd hate theater. As the weather improved, the climate on campus grew ever less tolerable, and the internal contradictions ever more glaring, 'til it seemed the whole edifice must collapse of its own nonsensicality. At which point, they would have Finals and everyone would go home. See you next Fall!
My favorite interview was for an LM3 position at a university library.
"What are your thoughts about diversity?" said the panel of 3 women without a hint of irony.
I was the only male in the building.
Billy Joel Always a Woman
now formalized in diversity workshops.
Free speech market -- a powerful concept.
Hurrah for the antics of college social justice warriors! They provide a handy reference of universities to steer clear of.
So far, the rot appears mostly at expensive liberal arts safety schools. That's OK, because I wouldn't waste my money or my childrens' time there anyway. Berkeley we already knew was a hot mess. Yale, Duke, Mizzou, Georgetown -- that's where the news is. Formerly excellent schools, now to be avoided. Harvard remains, for time being, well worth the bother.
This all avoids the truth, that all this is part of a political program with goals only tangential to the overt purpose.
It is meant to suppress any challenge to the prevailing ideology in universities. More "deep state" consequences of the long march.
Instapundit is just being amusingly disingenuous, or tongue-in-cheek if you like.
It's not a campus issue. The entire Democratic Party rests on a foundation of victim & oppressor. Like the Democrats of the past and slavery, to dismantle it is to dismantle the configuration of the party itself.
It will eventually change, but it's going to be ugly when it does. The time for subtle adjustment and compromise has long since passed.
Can a transitioning woman be a "bro"?
Women's minds operate largely on fuzz.
In other fora, Professor Reynolds has argued that anti-men talk on campus creates a hostile environment that violates Title IX, but he didn't make that argument in this column. I suspect that had to do with space limitations. I also suspect it had to do with crafting a message to reach his target audience (the readers of US Today, not attorneys or educrats). The general population may not be receptive of another call for litigation. But, it is receptive to a humorous column that points out the hypocrisy of culture warriors on US college campuses. Once the public starts to seriously question the legitimacy of what's being done in the name of diversity, colleges will start to change. Their state (and federal) legislatures will insist on it.
Laslo? Laslo?
Free speech is how the damage of these things is limited and the building freight train is slowed for closer examination. We should always support it for that reason alone, whether we find ourselves on the train or in front of it.
When people forcefully act to restrict speech, they have aligned with the tyrants no matter how noble their cause may appear.
Graduation rates are nearly 2 to 1 women to men.
Progressives at their core discriminate. Racism and sexism are the bedrock of their current platform.
"The entire Democratic Party rests on a foundation of victim & oppressor."
I think the Democratic Party rests on a foundation of Free Money. No one expects being a Democrat to require sacrifice. What the victim ideology provides is the rationalization required to steal from your betters with a clear conscience. It does not need to be particularly robust.
Using the phrase "free market" is a micro aggression. Report to reeducation at once.
I am still flabbergasted! How are we gonna keep our phoney baloney jobs?!?
Fen wrote:
"My favorite interview was for an LM3 position at a university library.
'What are your thoughts about diversity?' said the panel of 3 women without a hint of irony.
I was the only male in the building."
That is some funny shit! I remember my first interaction at my company's human resources department in the late 1990s when the diversity/sensitivity propaganda started in earnest- the very first thing I noticed about the department was that out of 17 employees it had, 16 were women and the only male was black (and he eventually got fired about a decade later for sexual harassment). I remember wanting to ask the drone who was conducting the diversity training if she thought HR needed more men in it, but then I came to my senses and kept my mouth shut.
Kevin said...
"Free speech is how the damage of these things is limited and the building freight train is slowed for closer examination. We should always support it for that reason alone, whether we find ourselves on the train or in front of it."
Not disagreeing, but it has been occurring to me that we believe this because we are incredibly spoiled. We are accustomed to living among people who will listen to arguments they don't want to hear. That luxury may be ending.
Althouse needs a "Leftwing Bullshit" Tag.
Instapundit is merely (and creatively) trying to respond to Leftwing Bullshit with equal and opposing Leftwing Bullshit.
Althouse is being incredibly naive here. There is no college campus in America where a left winger is suppressed by an organized group of Christians, John Birchers, American Legionnaires, ROTC guys or white male frat boys. It just doesn't happen. (In fairness, it did probably happen 50-60 years ago).
However, because the Left doesn't believe in free speech today, and has huge majorities, they feel quite comfortable suppressing the speech of others.
It certainly does not appear that those of us who claim to favor free speech have any very high opinion of its efficacy. Is there any chance that all this Title IX and PC bullshit might somehow turn out to be a passing fad?
Free speech is moderately effective in influencing public opinion. But it has no influence over institutional power. That's why institutional power is so important and why the left has worked to hard to control them.
"...people of all genders". Back when I was a kid there were only two.
Not disagreeing, but it has been occurring to me that we believe this because we are incredibly spoiled. We are accustomed to living among people who will listen to arguments they don't want to hear.
I have to believe there was always a part of the population for which this has been so. What worries me is the chilling effect on thinking that those who regulate speech create in the population. How many people would like to ask a question, but don't because they don't want to be ridiculed or ostracized? How many people come up with a good counterargument, but dismiss it because the implications have been painted as racist, or sexist, or something-ist?
How many people mistakenly believe there are no good counterarguments, because they have yet to be exposed to them?
Those who truly don't want to hear are pushing a position. They are working to convince you to stop talking, lest others begin to listen. And they're trying to convince people that any discussion of the topic will be ugly and unproductive, so they should run away from such events.
Fortunately, controlling the direction of society doesn't require 100% compliance. It requires a large enough consensus to keep the minority from running away with it.
Even if that consensus is "we're still talking and deciding about what the right actions might be at this time".
Free speech is moderately effective in influencing public opinion. But it has no influence over institutional power. That's why institutional power is so important and why the left has worked to hard to control them.
Free speech can change institutions - we've seen this in our lifetimes. The key, as you point out, is to capture the institutions who can better restrict the speech of others than individuals can. When your employer or university can cast you out for saying the wrong thing, the people running the institutions have granted themselves incredible power over your thinking and behavior.
It would be fun to arm your male student with a bunch of setup questions to ask at these diversity workshops (recording by iPhone of course). I doubt it would be difficult to elicit all sorts of discriminatory condemnations of maleness, paleness, straightness, christian belief and euro ancestry, all of which no doubt violate the same speech codes these diversity idiots have pushed on the schools to adopt. Then file the complaint against the diversity department and watch the jerks squirm.
Big Mike said...
I'm just glad my sons graduated before this crap started in earnest. I think we need to revert to single sex colleges and lock the women up in their dorm rooms after dark the way it was back in the sixties.
5/24/17, 9:22 AM
What strikes me as odd is we do seem to be headed there. What are all these “rules of consent” where the guy has to ask permission to put his hand on his hookup’s boob but attempts to create a moral code without recourse to tradition or Judeo-Christian teachings? For a while, in the ‘60’s and 70’s, the old rules were gleefully broken. Now the Left is trying to reintroduce taboo into the sexual lives of young people, with this difference – their double standard works against men, not women.
Sorry, the ratchet only goes one way.
Title nine was originally intended to equalize sports. With the excessive overhead universities currently have that keeps resulting in ever higher tuitions a modest proposal to curb costs and lower the increases in tuitions (and the amount of student loan debt) is to eliminate all aspects of title nine that are not specific to equality in sports. Back to basics.
Class action lawsuit.
Free tuition for males.
Can you imagine?
I suspect Prof Reynolds left that bit out because he has adopted the strategy (paraphrased): "The most effective way to get rid of a bad law/rule is to enforce it aggressively and universally."
"The most effective way to get rid of a bad law/rule is to enforce it aggressively and universally."
The statement is just a mildly witty comment, not serious.
a. This only works if you are in charge of enforcing the law.
b. This only works if you have the political capital to do it more than once (see above).
Most of these laws/rules are made with an understanding as to how they will be enforced, and by whom. And the law is in any case simply a bit of paperwork to justify what they want to do anyway, and would, one way or another.
Power is everything.
How about this for a diversity workshop / freshman orientation: Treat EVERYONE with kindness & respect. Period. You're dismissed.
The interesting thing to me about those sexual ratios, is how they interact with Title IX and the fake campus rape epidemic. When I was in college, the ratio was the opposite where I went, to a small liberal arts school, it was 3:2 male:female. There, even guys in my fraternity sometimes didn't have dates to our parties. And, it was worse for the GDIs. The co-eds could be selective at who they dated, and were.
Now, 45 years later, the ratios are reversed, and they are no longer in charge of the dating scene. Making things worse, not all guys are of similar worth on the dating market. There are alphas and betas, of course, but there are also those who are below that, the deltas, etc. think the male cast on Big Bang Theory. This worked out for the women when they were in a minority - those delta males just ran around clueless, and didn't date, wiping out the male not metrical advantage. Now, with a 60:40 female ratio, the dating ratio may be closer to 2:1, or worse. And, of course, the fake campus rape epidemic is making thngs worse, driving some guys out of college, and others from the dating market, from prudence.
Now comes the more speculative part of my theory, and that is that the competition for the alpha and beta males has gotten fierce on many campuses. There just aren't enough to go around, and a lot of the women find themselves pressured by their nature and peer groups to have sex in order to get male attention. But sex in trade for a relationship works if the females have their scarcity to their advantage. It doesn't nearly work as well when the tables are turned. What so many of these questionable Campus Rape stories have in common (beyond mutual drunkenness, which arguably has the same cause) is that the woman was involved inevitably has been scorned. She put out, and he said "slam, bang, thank you mam", and walked out. No long term relationship in return for the female putting out. Nada. From their point of view the guy acted like it was no big thing. Just sex. Duh! These are young males at their sexual peak, and some of them would happily sleep with a different girl every night if they could get away with it. These supposedly wronged women mostly thought that they were going to get a relationship in return for sex. Doesn't work that way in real life, because there is less incentive to get involved with a woman, when the sex comes first.
" Berkeley we already knew was a hot mess. "
I think there are students in STEM majors that are never seen in rallies or demonstrations and who ignore what is going on around them.
I do know that there have been attempts at "feminist science" but these are still small.
College science classes are hostile to women and minorities because they use the scientific method, which assumes people can find reliable truths about the natural world through careful and sustained experimentation, concludes a recent dissertation by a doctoral candidate at the University of North Dakota.
Laura Parson, a student in the university’s education department, reviewed eight science class syllabi at a “Midwest public university” and said she discovered in them a hidden hostility to women and minorities:
This example is undoubtedly an Ed D dissertation.
Judge people by the "color of their skin". [class] diversity is a profitable political, economic, and social enterprise.
With respect to women and men, the [class] diversitists are either genuinely incapable of reconciling "equal and complementary" or they feign concern for profit.
I assume that this is Reynolds pathetic attempt at satire. Jonathon Swift he ain't.
>>She discovered in them a hidden hostility to women
Must be the same effect that causes hostility to women for roofers, machinists, and sewage treatment plant workers.
>>I assume that this is Reynolds pathetic attempt at satire. Jonathon Swift he ain't.
I assume your comment is also satire? Or are you saying there is no actual generalized hostility towards young men on college campuses?
I think that I would find the Reynolds dinner discussions interesting. Glenn is, of course, married to Dr Helen Smith (the "Instawife") who has been a loud voice on this War On Men for quite some time now.
@Freder - pretending that you don't see (or are actually not seeing) Reynolds' humor doesn't answer his point, that if you interpret Title IX as banning a hostile sexual/gender environment at schools, which seems to be the case, esp after 8 years of Obama, then there is probably a far better claim that colleges are a hostile environment for men, than for women. Indeed, this is clearly true, applying a well known and used progressive tool - "disparate impact" analysis. Numbers don't lie here - current policies have a significant negative impact on males over females, as evidenced by the significant shift in college attendance over the last half century or so, to a place where there are significantly more women than men now in this traditionally male environment, and an even more lopsided ratio for college graduations. How else do you explain the disparate impact that these policies have on males statistically?
Kevin said...
Free speech can change institutions - we've seen this in our lifetimes.
Maybe you're older than I but I don't think we've seen this. In my lifetime universities have moved away from free speech and equal treatment toward treatment based on the victim hierarchy. But this change was not driven by free speech in fact the overwhelming majority of Americans reject this approach. Universities achieved it by hiding their actions and lying to the public.
I think Bruce Hayden is onto something. If you read about the "mattress girl" case, it quickly becomes apparent that Mattress Girl was really into the guy she accused of raping her. Really wanted to have a relationship with him but he just wasn't interested. Finally, in an attempt to win him over, she let him do her in the ass. And then... nothing.
He went on with their relationship the same as before - just casual friends. Thanks for the anal sex, that was fun, we should meet up again some time. Tomorrow? No, I'm busy tomorrow, but some time.
She continued to text and otherwise contact him for a while but ultimately had to deal with the fact that she gave up her ass to this guy and it still wasn't enough to get him to date her. Months later, devastated and humiliated, she decided he must have raped her.
I have a feeling that Mattress Girl is not the only girl who has decided that a guy raped her because he didn't live up to his end of the "deal" she created in her head - I give you sex and you give me a relationship.
"I think there are students in STEM majors that are never seen in rallies or demonstrations and who ignore what is going on around them."
Even at Berkeley, which still has a very good reputation esp in math and engineering.
"I do know that there have been attempts at "feminist science" but these are still small."
Which, I don't expect to work out that well. The problem is that in a lot of science and engineering, there is a bottom line. In civil engineering, the bridge either stands or falls. In medicine, the patient either lives or dies. Feelings and the like don't matter when the question is whether the bridge stands or falls, etc. And the consequential market value of science and engineering graduates from schools that aren't as scholasticly rigorous is going to be lower than those that are still rigorous. No doubt, you aren't seeing very many science and engineering students at those Berkeley protests to some great extent because they are too busy doing homework, studying, or doing labs, to waste time like that. Valuable time that may ultimately result in a lower grade if wasted on protests and the like (or, French, even on a social life), and, thus, resulting in less fruitful job prospects after college.
The one place where science and engineering seems to be moving in a more feminist direction is that it seems to be more and more collaborative. In my kid's graduate program, they have a bull pen arrangement for all their desks for their research group, and all their experimental apparatus is right there together in another room. Everyone seems to help everyone a bit. Seems to work fairly well - but I wouldn't have done well in that environment. For one thing, even cubicles hurt my productivity a lot, and a bull pen environment destroyed it. Couldn't concentrate due to the distractions. Still, I think that this may be a good trend in science and engineering.
"Power tends to corrupt." This has not changed simply because the people in power have changed. Colleges are pushing for absolute power, but are in danger of over-reach. When cic-gendered, privileged, white, Protestant, males ran things, they tended to abuse their position to enhance their privileges. Now that they are not in power, the new class is looking to do the same with the veneer of justifiability. All this sturm and drang does not change the central truth that humans are tribal and will work to advance the tribe's interest over other the other tribes'. Some might say it's only fair that C-GPWPMs get a taste of their own medicine. They forget that injustice in the name of payback is still injustice and will result in undesirable pushback. No one gives up status, wealth or privilege without a fight.
Glenn is trying to make the education-diversity complex live by their own rules. The problem is that the education-diversity complex does not live by their own rules now. Words like "diversity", "rape", "tolerance", "racism", etc. have been redefined so that they can never violate their own rules even if they take actions that would make a ruthless third world dictator smile in appreciation. Meanwhile, those out of the party are guilty by definition and are completely incapable of changing that, though if they say the right things the complex might kill them last.
I suspect Glenn's target audience is not the complex itself. It's the people outside that can pressure it.
" Still, I think that this may be a good trend in science and engineering."
I think we are seeing a lot of feminist trends in Medicine. Much more "feelings" and less anatomy.
Students no longer dissect a cadaver and much basic science, like bacteriology, is gone.
I am not enthusiastic but some empathy emphasis could be helpful.
The students seemed to like my approach which was pretty much old school and much less "feelings."
I finally gave up on teaching because of the terrible layout of the new county hospital and the electronic medical record.
Long story. Lots about it in medical circles.
Suicide Squeeze said...
When cic-gendered, privileged, white, Protestant, males ran things, they tended to abuse their position to enhance their privileges. Now that they are not in power, the new class is looking to do the same with the veneer of justifiability.
...
No one gives up status, wealth or privilege without a fight.
5/24/17, 1:54 PM
True to a point BUT the "system in place" mostly worked. Those that graduated had a sheepskin that stood for something. There was a level of accountability in place across the board. Having a college degree was more than attending 4 years of pre-K. The new "lords of the manor" have working to tear down all accountability, turning college into 4 years of vac-cay with nothing to show for it but debt. They are turning out SJW that can't even get a job at Starbucks. Schools that offer all of these "studies" degrees should lose all Federal funding and get sued for perpetuating this fraud on "kids".
>>The problem is that in a lot of science and engineering, there is a bottom line. In civil engineering, the bridge either stands or falls.
Bruce, your naiveté is touching.
When bridges designed by 'underrepresented communities' engineers fall down, that is simply proof that the standards are too high, and must be lowered to be more inclusive.
Ask Kara Hultgreen.
Hint: You will need a Ouija board....
@DanTheMan, Kara Hultgreen was not the first nugget to be killed by the Pratt & Whitney engine.
Michael K:
Berkeley has enough tech cred to still remain attractive, despite the craziness, to a STEM major. As well, the freaks provide an interesting sideshow, and there is a little bit of cool bad-boy cred that goes along with attending Berkeley.
Mizzou, on the other hand, is another excellent STEM school, but the far smaller amount of freakiness had a much more dramatic negative impact. Penn State had a similar problem with the Sandusky revelations.
School reputation is a significant asset/liability. I'd argue it can cost alumni tens of thousands of dollars in salary if a university lets its reputation go down the tubes. Plus, who wants to be ribbed about their Alma Mater for sixty years?
>>Kara Hultgreen was not the first nugget to be killed by the Pratt & Whitney engine.
The air is full of Lieutenant eaters. The question is: was she passed through when male pilots making the same mistake would be washed out?
Similar to the way physical standards were lowered to increase the number of female police and firefighters...
Objective reality is ignored when required by PC.
@DanTheMan, I've heard it both ways -- that she'd have washed out except for the Navy's desire to have a female fighter pilot, and I've heard that she'd have made it regardless. I have no way to know which is right, but I do know from other sources that the fatal flat spin in "Top Gun" where "Goose" dies is based on a real incident at Miramar that was traced to its Pratt & Whitney engines (a former neighbor was at Top Gun school at Miramar when the movie was being filmed). That engine was a pilot killer and Hultgreen was a nugget. Shot happens.
" that she'd have washed out except for the Navy's desire to have a female fighter pilot, and I've heard that she'd have made it regardless"
That was the post-Tailhook era when the Navy was desperate.
When I started college in 1961, we were provided with no such indoctrination. We were expected to know how to behave. Of course, some of us sometimes didn't know how to behave. At that time we had some students from the South who had a tendency to refer to Black students as n*ggers. It was up to others of us to tell them that this was not a word that could be used "in company". And we did. We (male students) didn't share dorms, bathrooms, or showers with female students, and if we wanted to have sex with a female student we treated her very nicely. My guess is that being a female student there was a pretty good deal in many respects.
My purpose is not to talk on and on about how great things used to be back in the day. The point is that what the colleges and universities are doing today is not instructing students on how to behave toward people who are different, but is indoctrinating their students in an ideology. Parents really need to ask themselves whether they want to spend megabucks to pay for such indoctrination.
I think Glen's argument is a bit tongue n cheek - more of a reductio absurdem argument, that ultimately ends where you suggest.
Can a transitioning woman be a "bro"?
No, and so the word must be abolished. It's obviously hurtful.
"My favorite interview was for an LM3 position at a university library.
'What are your thoughts about diversity?' said the panel of 3 women without a hint of irony.
I was the only male in the building."
The obvious reply: "Diversity? Yes, and specifically regarding that of the library staff: I think that would be a great idea!" And the inevitably followup questions also can (honestly) be met with similarly enthusiastic replies.
Let your interviewers assume whatever it pleases them to assume; why show your cards until/unless you must? It's all theater anyway. What do they expect to hear, "Diversity is fine so long as we all recognize that The West is the Best"? Or, perhaps, "Monoculture today, monoculture tomorrow, monoculture forever!"?
" I doubt it would be difficult to elicit all sorts of discriminatory condemnations of maleness, paleness, straightness, christian belief and euro ancestry."
You don't understand: diversity is our strength, but, some are more diverse than others.
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