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Feminism Tag

Posted by Amy Miller on September 29, 2014 38 Comments
We've written previously about California's proposed "affirmative consent" bill, which codifies -- for lack of a more delicate terminology -- what constitutes acceptable foreplay between consenting adults on college campuses. On Sunday, that bill became law. Via Fox News:
[Bill author Sen. Kevin] De Leon has said the legislation will begin a paradigm shift in how college campuses in California prevent and investigate sexual assaults. Rather than using the refrain "no means no," the definition of consent under the bill requires "an affirmative, conscious and voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity." "With one in five women on college campuses experiencing sexual assault, it is high time the conversation regarding sexual assault be shifted to one of prevention, justice, and healing," de Leon said in lobbying Brown for his signature. The legislation says silence or lack of resistance does not constitute consent. Under the bill, someone who is drunk, drugged, unconscious or asleep cannot grant consent.
The bill holds hostage funding for colleges and universities unless "the governing board of each community college district, the Trustees of the California State University, the Regents of the University of California, and the governing boards of independent postsecondary institutions shall adopt a policy concerning sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking..." That policy is strictly defined within the bill, and mandates new, uniform procedures for the reporting, counseling, and investigation of alleged sexual misconduct on campus.

Posted by Amy Miller on September 23, 2014 40 Comments
There's nothing more offensive to me than an article that leaps off the cliff in the first sentence by dropping the "as a woman, I..." bomb. It doesn't matter how the sentence ends; what matters is that the author, whoever she may be, believes that on some level her gender proves her point for her. We're meant to accept everything that follows because to dissent is to deny not only her opinion, but her equal footing in society. Fortunately, conservatives are doing the work to fight back this flawed idea that feminism consists entirely of the full acceptance of womanhood as victimhood:
Women in America are the freest in the world, yet many feminists tell us women are oppressed. They advocate this falsehood through victim mentality propaganda and misleading statistics, such as the gender wage gap myth. In five minutes, American Enterprise Institute's Christina Hoff Sommers tells you the truth about feminism.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 29, 2014 42 Comments
Last March we covered how California Seeks to Redefine Consensual Campus Sex as Rape, and we asked the question: "How does classifying most consensual sex as rape help rape victims?" It doesn't, of course. The California affirmative consent legislation was not about preventing rapes or other sexual assaults, which already are crimes, but about redefining inter-personal relationships in accordance with radical feminist demands which always view the female as victim of the male patriarchy. The affirmative consent obligation now is on the verge of becoming law (emphasis added):
To address the problem of rape on campuses, California colleges and universities would have to adopt a standard of unambiguous consent among students engaging in sexual activity under a proposal passed by state lawmakers Thursday. If signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, such policies would be required at all public colleges and other institutions that receive state funds for student aid. They would have to include a detailed protocol for assisting victims of sexual assault, stalking, domestic violence and date violence.... Students engaging in sexual activity would first need "affirmative consent" from both parties — a clear threshold that specifically could not include a person's silence, a lack of resistance or consent given while intoxicated.
Campus relationship regulation now is about the predominance of "rape culture" theory which ensnares men into kangaroo campus courts, and even opposes objective preventative measures, like "Undercover Colors" nail polish that reacts to date-rape drugs. The normal sequence of romantic interaction now is a violation of law unless there is something more than objectively willing conduct. It's no longer "against our will," but rather, a matter of procedural steps imposed on willing, consensual participants in order to avoid creating a crime where none exists:

Posted by Amy Miller on August 26, 2014 39 Comments
If you went to college, you probably know someone who became the victim of sexual assault after a night out with friends. Now a group of engineering students at North Carolina State University are developing a tool that can help young women avoid becoming victims of sexual assault. Stephen Gray, Ankesh Madan, Tasso Von Windheim and Tyler Confrey-Maloney teamed up to develop "Undercover Colors," a new type of nail polish that changes colors when it comes into contact with common "date rape" drugs like Rohypnol, Xanax, or GHB. In their mission statement, the four developers state that, "[o]ur goal is to invent technologies that empower women to protect themselves from this heinous and quietly pervasive crime... Through this nail polish and similar technologies, we hope to make potential perpetrators afraid to spike a woman’s drink because there’s now a risk that they can get caught. In effect, we want to shift the fear from the victims to the perpetrators." Via the International Business Times:
"With our nail polish, any woman will be empowered to discreetly ensure her safety by simply stirring her drink with her finger. If her nail polish changes colour, she'll know that something is wrong." The team was granted $11,250 (£6,600) from North Carolina State's Entrepreneurship Initiative, which aims to develop solutions to "real-world challenges". Each of the students personally know someone who has been sexually assaulted.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on August 08, 2014 19 Comments
God bless Cheerios for their latest ad campaign. Forgoing the tired and insulting schtick of the 'dumb dad' who is too inept to tie his kid's shoes, General Mills decided to highlight the awesomeness of dadhood to promote Peanut Butter Cheerios. The longform web ad begins with a man waking up to find his kid sitting on top of him wearing a horse head mask. The man's response? "Is that a new mask? I like it. It's really creepy. Good stuff." And it just gets better. Getting right to the point, "Hey, let me introduce myself. My name is Dad and proud of it and all dads should be." Take a look: Far too many companies choose to portray fathers as bumbling morons or inconsiderate burdens. Take this cringeworthy Kraft commercial for example, "here we go again, Dad always messes up everything! Thank goodness Kraft Mac N Cheese is here to save the day, otherwise Dad would really be an intolerable oaf." Not an exact quote, but that's the gist:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 19, 2014 20 Comments
Some privileges are permissible topics for discussion on campus and in the media. For example, White Privilege is the obsession of some faculty and students. George Will pointed out that there is another privilege on campuses -- false or contrived claims of victim status.  Will did not argue that real victims, be it of actual racism or sexual assault, share some special privilege, but rather, that there are people who contrive or encourage others to falsely create victimhood where none exists. We see it in theories such as microaggression, where in the absence of proof of actual racism, critical race theorists find racism in routine everyday interactions where the participants do not even realize they are being "racist," much less have any racist intent. We see it in repeated instances of fake, self-inflicted "hate crimes" in which the victim is, in fact, the perpetrator. We also see it in the lowering of the standards of proof and definitions of what constitutes sexual assault. I think everyone agrees that sexual assault as used in the criminal law deserves condemnation and punishment. But colleges, under pressure from the Justice Department and supposedly feminist groups, have started using definitions of sexual assault that can reach absurd results.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 26, 2014 27 Comments
This video comes a little round-about. It started with a post by Dr. Helen Smith (h/t Instapundit) regarding some feminists trying to blame the Pick-Up Artist community for the mass murder by Elliot Rodger. Revelation No. 1: There's a " Pick-Up Artist community"? Do they have rights? Revelation No. 2: A reference to a 2012 incident in Toronto with which I was not previously familiar:
Perhaps it is the feminists and their supporters who block funding and education going to boys’ and men’s issues that are to blame. Case in point? Warren Farrell tried to give a talk in Toronto about suicide in young men and other topics and was accosted by nasty feminists who did not want him to speak.
The link is to this video about Warren Farrell: Here's some more videos about the protest (Language Warning):

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 19, 2014 27 Comments
Columbia University has been the focus of heated arguments over the university's handling of sexual assault complaints. In recent days, the names of alleged "rapists" have been scrawled on bathroom walls and in flyers, as reported at The Columbia Spectator, The NY Daily News, and The Columbia Lion, and Jezebel, which provided this redacted image: http://jezebel.com/rapist-list-mysteriously-appearing-in-columbia-universi-1575660992/1575819470/+morninggloria Also this week, a former Columbia student went public with her story of an alleged rape: Against this backdrop of claims that sexual assaults are not addressed adequately by administrators, there has been substantial pushback at many campuses that the definitions of sexual assault and consent used on campuses are overly broad and that males are not given sufficient due process protection: Earlier today in federal court in New York a Complaint was filed by a former Columbia student alleging that he was unfairly found to have committed a sexual assault based upon allegedly flimsy and inconsistent evidence, without due process protections. The Complaint is embedded at the bottom of this post. The heart of the Complaint is that the sex was consensual, as evidenced by the lack of contemporaneous complaint and a delay of 5 months in complaining:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 05, 2014 32 Comments
The last time we visited the Dominican Republic, the only English-language news channel in the hotel was CNN-International. Which is like not having access to the news. This time, however, all of the major network and cable news channels were carried. I saw this live on Megyn Kelly's show, and found it of great interest. Here's the trailer from The Honor Diaries:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 12, 2014 49 Comments
Yeah, me too. Donald Trump. But I don't think that's what the Ban Bossy campaign is about. The #BanBossy movement pretends to protect little girls from the humiliation of being called "bossy," and thereby will empower a generation of strong, powerful female leaders (so long as you don't call them bossy, because that would crush them). The movement is backed by "Lean In" Sheryl Sandberg and The Girl Scouts, for whom every girl is a potential victim. (Put aside all the objective evidence that girls are outperforming boys in almost every measure.) A slew of major corporations and celebrities have lined up behind the banning of bossy. ) There nothing wrong, and much good, at encouraging young girls to lead. But this campaign has a strong victimization narrative. This teaches young girls that they are victims and need the emotional protections that little boys don't. At best that is a mixed message. And why now? Why have the word police suddenly descended on us to shape our speech? Can't boys and men be bossy too? Has there been some epidemic of bossy such that now is the time to act. A follower on Twitter made the connection to prepping the battlefield for Hillary:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 15, 2014 28 Comments
Prof. KC Johnson, best known for his investigative work regarding abysmal university and faculty handling of the Duke Lacrosse case, has a post at Minding the Campus regarding a disturbing appointment at Dartmouth, 'Why Have a Hearing? Just Expel Him':
"Why could we not expel a student based on an allegation?" That astonishing question was posed at a conference on how colleges respond to sexual assault issues by Amanda Childress, Sexual Assault Awareness Program coordinator at Dartmouth. According to Inside Higher Ed, Childress continued: "It seems to me that we value fair and equitable processes more than we value the safety of our students. And higher education is not a right. Safety is a right. Higher education is a privilege." Give Childress credit for candor--even the campus spokespersons for increasing the number of guilty findings in campus tribunals usually aren't so bald in their disdain for basic principles of due process. Childress' jarring remarks coincided with news that Dartmouth had promoted her, and given her additional power over the college's sexual assault policies. Last Friday, the college announced that Childress will head the newly-created Center for Community Action and Prevention, which Childress said would "be the focal point on campus for Dartmouth's sexual assault and violence prevention initiatives" and "drive the College's mobilization efforts around preventing sexual violence and increasing the safety and well-being of all members of our community." (All members, it seems, except students facing unsubstantiated allegations of sexual assault.) Incredibly, Dartmouth theater professor Paul Hackett suggested that despite Childress' appointment, the college isn't going far enough on the issue.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 18, 2014 28 Comments
We have noted before the tensions between white liberal feminists and non-white liberal feminists. Sometimes it breaks out into a Twitter War, as it did when #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen hashtag unleashed bitter intra-feminist racial grievances. Or when Joan Walsh of Salon.com got into a twitter war with some ladies who did not like Walsh's condescending "professional left" attitude towards women of color, Dem Base Fractures Into Twitter War And Charges Of Racism Against Professional Left. This past week, for reasons unknown to me, the eruption used the hashtag #WhiteWomanPrivilege. It was like Festivus, the airing of grievances: There was not enough popcorn growing in the States of Iowa and Nebraska combined to cover this outbreak of intra-feminist racial greivances. Here are some of my favorites, but by all means scroll through the hashtag -- but don't get any butter on the couch please:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 29, 2013 36 Comments
We have noted here many times the war on little boys in elementary school through the absurd application of "zero tolerance" rules, When do we finally stop the harassment of little boys by school administrators? We also have noted Dr. Helen Smith's book Men on Strike regarding how similar policies through college and beyond have had a negative impact. So this recent interview with Camille Paglia in The Wall Street Journal is familiar territory, A Feminist Defense of Masculine Virtues:
'What you're seeing is how a civilization commits suicide," says Camille Paglia. This self-described "notorious Amazon feminist" isn't telling anyone to Lean In or asking Why Women Still Can't Have It All. No, her indictment may be as surprising as it is wide-ranging: The military is out of fashion, Americans undervalue manual labor, schools neuter male students, opinion makers deny the biological differences between men and women, and sexiness is dead. And that's just 20 minutes of our three-hour conversation..... Ms. Paglia argues that the softening of modern American society begins as early as kindergarten. "Primary-school education is a crock, basically. It's oppressive to anyone with physical energy, especially guys," she says, pointing to the most obvious example: the way many schools have cut recess. "They're making a toxic environment for boys. Primary education does everything in its power to turn boys into neuters." She is not the first to make this argument, as Ms. Paglia readily notes. Fellow feminist Christina Hoff Sommers has written about the "war against boys" for more than a decade. The notion was once met with derision, but now data back it up: Almost one in five high-school-age boys has been diagnosed with ADHD, boys get worse grades than girls and are less likely to go to college....

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 24, 2013 32 Comments

Pro Blogger Tip: When you're dead tired, out of ideas, almost everyone else at the blog is away or shopping...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 06, 2013 17 Comments
A rare dose of sanity at Salon.com, Who will protect us? Why I’m still conflicted about guns as a black feminist:
I was 15 years old when my mother and I were robbed at gunpoint. It was 1982.... I don’t own a gun but I know plenty of educated black women who do. These are working- and middle-class women, some of them single and some with families, and  statistics support what I see. According to a National Shooting Sports Foundation report, 78.6 percent of retailers reported an increase in the number of women buying guns in 2012. Although a 2013 Pew research report reveals that gun ownership remains overwhelmingly white and male, black women made up the fastest growing purchasers of concealed handguns in Texas between the years 2007 and 2012. J. Victoria Sanders, a black Texan and journalist, reported this trend in a 2011 article detailing the increased marketing of guns to women and Sanders’ own journey toward gun ownership. This movement toward guns seems a rational decision for black women when you consider some of our experiences. Historically, black women have been left unprotected as a matter of law and custom, our bodies designated as commodities, used as “de mule uh de world” as Zora Neale Hurston wrote, and as sites for sexual violence and mockery. In an analysis of 2011 data, the Violence Policy Center reported that black women are murdered at rates three times that of white women and these murders usually involve a gun used by someone that the woman knows. Given these realities, some of us are pragmatic about self-defense. Even when we identify as feminist, as I do, we remain uncommitted to anti-gun feminism that erases our specific experience....
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