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Feminism Tag

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 22, 2014 15 Comments
Ayaan Hirsi Ali knows what real feminism is about. As a vocal critic of the treatment of women in Muslim countries, she has risked her life. According to a new report from Ashe Schow at the Washington Examiner, Hirsi Ali is unimpressed with American feminism:
Hirsi Ali slams feminism's 'trivial BS' Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a harsh critic of Islam’s treatment of women, said Wednesday that modern American feminism is focused on “trivial bullshit” and needs to be reclaimed. Speaking at the Independent Women’s Forum Women of Valor dinner, where she received an award for courage, Hirsi Ali reminded her audience of how far feminism has strayed from its original purpose. “I want you to remember that once upon a time, feminists fought for the access — basic right — access of girls to education,” she said... “Feminists in this country and in the West fought against that and won the battle,” she added. But now, Hirsi Ali said, feminism has taken that victory and squandered it. “What we are now doing with the victory, and I agree with you if you condemn that and I condemn whole-heartedly the trivial bullshit it is to go after a man who makes a scientific breakthrough and all that we as women — organized women — do is to fret about his shirt?” Hirsi Ali said, referring to the controversy generated by the shirt featuring cartoons of scantily-clad women worn by the scientist who helped land a robot on a comet. “We must reclaim and retake feminism from our fellow idiotic women.”
Hirsi Ali may not be alone in her views.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 19, 2014 17 Comments
International Men's Day is today. For all the rabid man-hating men are forced to endure, and largely without recourse, today seems as good a day as ever to celebrate the awesomeness of men. According to the official IMD website, the purpose of International Men's Day is quite lovely. Well, mostly:

Objectives of International Men's Day include a focus on men's and boy's health, improving gender relations, promoting gender equality, and highlighting positive male role models. It is an occasion for men to celebrate their achievements and contributions, in particular their contributions to community, family, marriage, and child care while highlighting the discrimination against them.

The ability to sacrifice your needs on behalf of others is fundamental to manhood, as is honour. Manhood rites of passage the world over recognise the importance of sacrifice in the development of Manhood.

Men make sacrifices everyday in their place of work, in their role as husbands and fathers, for their families, for their friends, for their communities and for their nation. International Men's Day is an opportunity for people everywhere of goodwill to appreciate and celebrate the men in their lives and the contribution they make to society for the greater good of all.

Forgetting the whole "contributions and sacrifice" element, those not denouncing the day altogether have honed in on "improving gender relations and promoting gender equality bit." 

The Guardian's take is that, "it's clear why women have their day but men don't really need the same. Perhaps fathers and sons should bond over domestic skills instead." Right. I can just see my Dad bonding with my brother-in-law over a spirited discussion on the best eco-friendly cleaning product for cleaning the bathroom sink... 

The Washington Post praises IMD as another feminist day and a real opportunity for men to work on gender inequality because, "many of these men are surely blind to their own privilege and status in the world and within their own cultures." Ah yes, check your privilege, men. You have no idea just how good you have it. Just ask the comet scientist guy.

And the list goes on. 

But as a devout patriarchal loyalist, I've compiled a non-exhaustive list of just a few reasons men are wonderful human beings. 

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 17, 2014 29 Comments
Last Friday Kemberlee covered the feminist attack on Dr. Matt Taylor, the brilliant British scientist who helped achieve the seemingly unachievable, landing a scientific probe on a comet hundreds of millions of miles away, 5 Reasons “feminists” can’t complain about comet scientist’s “sexist” shirt. How dedicated was Taylor to his work? He had a large tattoo regarding the project on his right front thigh: Matt Taylor Rosetta Project Leg Tattoo That's how much this project meant to him. Taylor was attacked not for the tattoo, but because Taylor wore a shirt -- given to him by a female friend -- which had cartoon characters of pretty women on it. Not naked women. Not women engaging in sex acts. Just pretty women in "sexy" outfits. Here is the shirt in close-up (it's sold out since the controversy): You can see it easily in this photo, but on the video you have to really be looking for trouble to find it. The camera is pretty far away, and Taylor is only a relatively small part of the overall report.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 14, 2014 64 Comments
Yesterday, mankind achieved something seriously amazing: we landed a space probe on a comet millions of miles away from Earth. Unfortunately for the scientists involved in this momentous accomplishment, modern day "feminists" exist. One of the scientists was wearing a shirt covered in sketches of of scantily clad women. Not actual photos of women, but sketched images of pin ups in skivvies. So this chick from The Atlantic does what "feminists" do when encountering the inane: she lost her damn mind. Naturally, this scientist's wardrobe selection means women are not welcome to participate in scientific oriented fields... What should've been the happiest day of this man's life for doing something no human being has ever in the history of our entire species done, turned into a tearful apology because of his choice of SHIRT. I kid you not:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on October 31, 2014 36 Comments
The October surprises just keep on coming, courtesy of President Obama. According to The Weekly Standard, "during a speech in Rhode Island today, President Obama called for more taxpayer-spending on pre-school in order to "make sure that women are full and equal participants in our economy." I can respect that. But then the President followed those remarks by saying (emphasis added):
And sometimes someone, usually mom, leaves the workplace to stay at home with the kids, which then leaves her earning a lower wage for the rest of her life as a result. That's not a choice we want Americans to make.
Um, ok. I'm interpreting his remarks to mean that women shouldn't have to choose between lower wages or being stay at home mothers. Sounds noble, but it's not realistic, at least not in most cases. Condescension aside, aggravating is the constant drum beat of the modern "feminist" lie that women can have it all. It's simply not true. Those with successful careers and families are routinely put in a place of choosing one or the other. Men with families also find themselves in the same dilemma, yet no one wants to talk about their struggles, because "feminism."

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 17, 2014 30 Comments
I've seen people writing and tweeting about #GamerGate. I have no idea what that is, still. Looks like it has something to do with Gamers and Liberal Feminists (image below of Christina Hoff Sommers, who has confronted liberal feminists herself): I received the email below, which intrigued me. I'm too caught up in #Ebola to research #GamerGate, so I'm issuing a cry for help -- What is #GamerGate?
This might look like another inconsequential Twitter war, but it intersects with issues you find relevant and is gaining traction. Gamergate is a growing movement by (don't laugh) video game enthusiasts who are fed up with: 1) favoritism within the $90 billion gaming industry, namely game journalists who have essentially become king-makers and who use their influence to benefit friends and patrons to the detriment of objectivity in reporting, the financial prospects of respected upstarts, and most of all community trust.

Posted by Amy Miller on October 16, 2014 30 Comments
I've written previously about California's new "Yes Means Yes" law, which codifies a strict definition of "affirmative consent" as it applies to students on college campuses. It's a terrible bill, but some liberals are touting its absolute failure to address any real problems as its greatest achievement. A group of professors at Harvard Law School recently published a joint letter in the Boston Globe begging the university to rethink its implementation of a similar standard:
We call on the university to withdraw this sexual harassment policy and begin the challenging project of carefully thinking through what substantive and procedural rules would best balance the complex issues involved in addressing sexual conduct and misconduct in our community. The goal must not be simply to go as far as possible in the direction of preventing anything that some might characterize as sexual harassment. The goal must instead be to fully address sexual harassment while at the same time protecting students against unfair and inappropriate discipline, honoring individual relationship autonomy, and maintaining the values of academic freedom.
28 professors from one of the finest law schools on the planet believe that these laws go to far. They're not just a change in policy; they redefine the meaning of "sexual assault," and "consent." They're a gross overreach into the lives of students that flies in the face of the basic concepts of justice and due process. Chief Voxsplainer Ezra Klein recently penned an article explaining why he believes affirmative consent regulatory overreach---and subsequent overregulation of the sex lives of young Californians---will eliminate the alleged culture of "sexual entitlement" on college campuses. In Ezra Klein's illiberal utopia, we achieve that goal by making examples out of men whose only crime is that they are male:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 02, 2014 23 Comments
Somehow, this seemed inevitable. Just-resigned Secret Service Director Julia Pierson allegedly is the victim of male privilege, and was treated differently than a man in a similar position would be treated. This video clip -- just before the resignation -- led to charges of sexism: Those charges increased after the resignation.
At The New Republic, Secret Service Director Julia Pierson Was a Victim of the "Glass Cliff": On Wednesday, Julia Pierson, the first woman to ever lead the Secret Service in its nearly 150-year history, resigned her post amid heavy criticism over an intruder who was able to get as far as the East Room of the White House. Reasonable people can disagree about whether, ultimately, she deserved to lose her job or whether anyone in charge during such an incident would have to resign. But it’s probably not pure chance that Pierson, who held that position for just a year-and-a-half, was a woman. Time and again, women are put in charge only when there’s a mess, and if they can’t engineer a quick cleanup, they’re shoved out the door. The academics Michelle Ryan and Alex Haslam even coined a term for this phenomenon: They call it getting pushed over the glass cliff.
On Twitter, the claim was made that Pierson was just the fall gal for male failure reflecting male privilege:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 02, 2014 29 Comments
There are seemingly endless programs and advocates to increase the participation of women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) as a means of addressing the gender imbalance, which is particularly dramatic at the graduate and doctoral levels. The National Science Foundation has special grant programs.  The White House emphasizes the issue.  Efforts are made at the elementary and secondary school levels to increase participation by girls. One of my daughters was a computer science major in college (the only female CS major that year), so I'm well aware of the extensive outreach to women. Despite years of concerted efforts, the STEM gender imbalance has barely moved. Men still dominate, by a lot. But the gender imbalance is equal or even more dramatic in fields dominated by women, as this chart shows (via AEI, h/t Ron Coleman): Total Graduate Enrollment by Gender 2013 AEI continues, Women earned majority of doctoral degrees in 2013 for 5th straight year, and outnumber men in grad school 137.5 to 100
The Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) recently released its annual report recently on US graduate school enrollment and degrees for 2013, and here are some of the more interesting findings in this year’s report:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on October 01, 2014 5 Comments
A few weeks ago, we covered the story of Columbia student, Emma Sulkowicz, who alleged she was raped by another student. Rather than pursue the matter all the way through the legal system (she dropped her case), Sulkowicz took her case to the University tribunal. Her alleged rapist was not found guilty by the campus tribunal, so Sulkowicz decided to protest her trauma through performance art (and college credit) and carry a mattress around campus as long as her alleged rapist remained on campus.  Carrying the mantel of Sulkowicz's cause, what was supposed to be a national day of action and a million mattress march, was not widely protested.  The only two protests we could find are at Texas Tech and Cornell. At Texas Tech:

Some Texas Tech University students have demonstrated against what they say is a "rape culture" on campus by laying bed sheets spray-painted with "No means No" at three locations.

The women's actions Wednesday came a day after university officials sent an email to students and faculty that called activities at a recent off-campus fraternity party "reprehensible."

A picture of a banner at the Sept. 20 Phi Delta Theta fraternity gathering, briefly posted online, read, "No means yes," followed by a graphic sexual remark.

University spokesman Chris Cook said the school learned of the banner the day after the party and began investigating immediately. Last week the university established a task force to review Greek organizations.

The bed sheets displayed Wednesday were removed by police after about 30 minutes.

Cornell took the call to action more seriously and approximately one hundred students showed up to protest. According to Casey Breznick at The Cornell Review (he also writes for Legal Insurrection and College Insurrection), a National Day of Protest Against Rape Culture took an odd turn yesterday. The protest was co-sponsored by Students for Justice in Palestine, Black Students United, Crunch: The Kinky Club at Cornell, Cornell Organization for Labor Action, the Cornell Progressive, DASH: Direction Action to Stop Heterosexism,Women of Color Coalition, and Grrls Fight Back. The protest was meant to be the decisive blow to "rape culture" on Cornell's campus. To that end, students read poems aloud. Breznick reports:

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.
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