Elsewhere (240)
Janice Fiamengo on ‘poor me’ feminism:
Yes, [the party invitation] is crude, in a Happy Days sort of way, but the fact that such a tame and entirely non-threatening bit of verse doggerel would inspire such Olympic-sized hyperventilating outrage shows us that American college campuses are the exact opposite of “rape cultures.” They are places where even the slightest hint of male sexual bravado is thunderously denounced by everybody breathing.
And wait for the tearful account of being oppressed and imperilled by toilet facilities in the Arctic. It’s what’s keeping women out of STEM, apparently.
Toni Airaksinen on the priorities of academic feminists:
In a recent academic journal article, two feminist professors claim that citing sources in scholarly articles contributes to “white heteromasculinity.” Rutgers University professor Carrie Mott and University of Waterloo professor Daniel Cockayne advance the claim in an article published last month in the Feminist Journal of Geography, but also suggest that citation can serve as “a feminist and anti-racist technology of resistance” if references are chosen with the explicit intent of promoting “those authors and voices we want to carry forward.” The authors say that “white men tend to be cited in much higher numbers than people from other backgrounds,” but dismiss the idea that this is due to the relative preponderance of white male geographers.
And Andrea Vacchiano on the cost of all that racial scolding and denunciation of privilege:
A sheet compiling the salaries of the top diversity administrators at 43 of America’s top public universities finds that virtually all are paid at least $100,000, with some going well beyond $300,000. The average of $175,088 per year is more than three times the average American’s salary of $44,980. The lowest salary identified by Campus Reform is $83,237, still almost twice as much as the average American salary. A 2016 report by American Association of University Professors found that the average professor salary across ranks was $79,424. In one example, an administrator at Rutgers University named Jorge Schement, vice chancellor of the office of diversity and inclusion, made $253,262 in 2016, while most faculty at Rutgers in 2015 made less than $50,000 a year.
Feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments.
The authors say that “white men tend to be cited in much higher numbers than people from other backgrounds,” but dismiss the idea that this is due to the relative preponderance of white male geographers.
Math is hard.
I’m quite interested in their suggestion that non-academics should be cited. The current academic climate, at least in the journals my wife submits papers to, is entirely against this.
Also, “graduate students”? How the hell are people supposed to find ‘publications’ by graduate students? They aren’t likely to be widely available, even on something as wide as Google Scholar.
‘poor me’ feminism
I thought it was supposed to be empowering?
I thought it was supposed to be empowering?
Judged by the commentary and behaviour of prominent feminists in the media and academia, the primary effect of feminism seems to be to make women whiny, joyless and neurotic, and more inclined to make excuses for their own inadequacies. And the more loudly feminism is embraced and advocated, the more pronounced and disagreeable those outcomes seem to be.
Please use proper attribution.
At last. A rational reason for all this diversity and equity stuff on campus. It’a a rational response to economic incentives. The solution, because all of the people doing diversity and equity are noble, driven by altruism and not grubby things like money, is to set a ceiling on such salaries. Maybe fix them at the average salary of oppressed people in the US? Then let’s sit back with some pop corn and watch the reaction.
From The Huffington Post
Dr Tiffany Page of the Centre for Feminist Research at Goldsmith’s College in London defining the difference between ‘sexual harassment’ and ‘sexual misconduct’ in Higher Education (my italics):
We use the term ‘sexual misconduct’ to describe forms of power enacted by academic and professional staff in their relations with students. Sexual harassment is one of a number of behaviours encompassed by misconduct, which can include assault, grooming, bullying, sexual invitations, comments, non-verbal communication, creation of atmospheres of discomfort and hostility, and promised resources in exchange for sexual access. While harassment certainly does occur, the term ‘sexual harassment’ captures only some of the possible abuses of power that may be enacted by staff in connection to students.
I wonder what “comments” encompasses? Could an off-the-cuff ‘dad’ joke suddenly be ruled an act of sexual aggression if spoken at the wrong time in front of the ‘wrong’ person?
Even “hostility”, which on the face of it seems clear and even fairly reasonable, begs the question of definition because if even “non-verbal communication” can lead to “hostility” then what could not be included in such wide-ranging term? What kind of gestures, stances, or glances could be redefined as displays of aggression under such an elastic phrase (I assume they do not mean overt gestures such as flipping the bird or other vulgar hand signs)? How on earth would they ever be able to define what that means in practice let alone actually identify effective means of determining the truth of any accusation based on an act of “non-verbal communication”? How could even a witness be used to support or refute an accusation that person A looked at person B ‘funny’?
But the one that really made my jaw go crashing to the floor is “creation of atmospheres of discomfort”.
This, surely, could not be anything other than Kafkaesque if it were ever to become actual policy? And from that point of view it seems hardly better than the poison it is meant to be a cure for.
Are there some professors who abuse their position and enter into inappropriate relations with their students? Yes, there are. Of course there are. And taking action to prevent such behaviour is a laudable goal in and of itself.
But to expand the definition of this kind of offence to include “creation of atmospheres of discomfort” seems, quite frankly, absolute folly. It is all too easy to imagine how such a broad definition could be exploited for personal gain by the malevolent, the maladjusted or the just plain mad. Besides, it seems to me to be completely unrelated to solving the problem of inappropriate and abusive behaviour.
It seems like a charter for transforming campuses into a state much like Florence under Savonarola.
such a broad definition could be exploited for personal gain by the malevolent, the maladjusted or the just plain mad.
Which, presumably, is why such carefully sweeping language is used, repeatedly.
Math is hard
My OCD is even harder. Thus I am compelled to point out that $175K is closer to four times the average salary of nearly $45K. $180K vs. $135K. Of course OCD and approximations are a bad combination.
A sheet compiling the salaries of the top diversity administrators at 43 of America’s top public universities finds that virtually all are paid at least $100,000, with some going well beyond $300,000. The average of $175,088 per year is more than three times the average American’s salary of $44,980. The lowest salary identified by Campus Reform is $83,237, still almost twice as much as the average American salary. A 2016 report by American Association of University Professors found that the average professor salary across ranks was $79,424. In one example, an administrator at Rutgers University named Jorge Schement, vice chancellor of the office of diversity and inclusion, made $253,262 in 2016, while most faculty at Rutgers in 2015 made less than $50,000 a year.
Given that these types seem to constitute a sort of secular priesthood these days, they could at least take a vow of poverty…
So are the administrators in positions of power across the globe in our higher learning instituions for or against free uni?
WTP, surely that should be CDO, so THE LETTERS ARE IN THE RIGHT ORDER !
I am compelled to point out that $175K is closer to four times the average salary
Somewhat related.
Tim Newman reflects on the joys of Manchester:
The place does seem to have an unusually large sociopathic underclass.
Ben Sixsmith on the higher education racket.
Remember when Minnow assured us that tattoos were not something that it was fair to judge people by, and that the ostentatiously tattooed were almost certainly better hires?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11889732
The Oamaru-born teenager says he had it inked a few months ago, while drunk on homebrew in a jail cell in Christchurch.
He chose… poorly.
Though I do like the blurb below it: “Do you have a similar story to share?”
Heather MacDonald:
Toni Airaksinen on the priorities of academic feminists:
Their argument in its simplest and most real form is that it is easier to crank out more garbage and protect their phony-baloney jerbs if they don’t even have to make any pretext of substantiating their “work”.
He chose… poorly.
Indeed, but a little bit of laser removal and a beard/moustache would solve his problem.
Indeed, but a little bit of laser removal and a beard/moustache would solve his problem.
Oh, I think the tattoo itself is just one of his problems, a secondary effect. Being the kind of person who ends up in jail for aggravated robbery – and who, while there, thinks it’s a good idea to get a huge facial tattoo that screams “do not employ” – is perhaps the bigger problem. And harder to fix.
Mattress Girl’s victim has (presumably) collected a wad of cash from Columbia:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/columbia-university-settles-gender-bias-suit-by-man-in-mattress-girl-accusations/
Should he stage a ‘Carry That Weight’ performance piece there by toting a large canvas bag stencilled $$$ ?
A huge tattoo while drunk in that selfsame prison on prison hooch, and while still a teen, concurrent with becoming a teen father.
Why, it’s almost as if the tattoo is suggestive of a wider pattern of bad judgment or something. Unfair of me to notice, according to the bait fish, but there it is.
Also rather obvious to point out that “I was drunk” only goes any sort of length as a bad behavior excuse if the getting drunk and choice of associations in prison are not themselves suggestive of very, very bad judgment. Which they are.
and who, while there, thinks it’s a good idea to get a huge facial tattoo that screams “do not employ” – is perhaps the bigger problem. And harder to fix.
A brief neck-trim would solve society’s problem?
http://everydayfeminism.com/2016/07/questions-i-ask-myself-before-sex/
I cannot imagine what life must be like when you monitor your emotional temperature every moment of every day.
It’s what’s keeping women out of STEM, apparently.
I am soooooo tired of the hyperventilating regarding the lack of distaff STEM graduates, ostensibly because of some sort of institutional oppression. I have a son in STEM and one neck deep in his college search. If a female high school graduate expresses even the most vague interest in a STEM field, colleges and universities will fight to the death to entice her to their campuses. They do everything except roll up a Brinks truck to her door and dump bags of $100 bills on her porch. It’s not STEM’s fault that women gravitate toward majors heavy on the “feelz.”
The authors say that “white men tend to be cited in much higher numbers than people from other backgrounds,” but dismiss the idea that this is due to the relative preponderance of white male geographers.
A global map of scientific papers published might be somewhat instructive as to why this could be:
It’s not STEM’s fault that women gravitate toward majors heavy on the “feelz.”
Again, I’m reminded of Celia Edell, a “feminist philosopher interested in social justice,” who claims that, being a woman, she’s a “gender minority” in academia, and therefore oppressed – albeit in ways never quite specified or convincing. This claim is aired despite the preferential hiring of women across much of academia, including in departments of philosophy, despite the fact that women earn a majority of both Batchelors and Masters degrees, and despite the fact that Ms Edell inhabits an environment where female students outnumber male students by quite some margin.
Needless to say, lecturers in gender studies tend to have qualifications in English literature, rather than, say, biology or neuroscience. Both of which, you’d imagine, might be more appropriate, at least if the objective were to find things out, and not merely indoctrinate.
Tim Newman reflects on the joys of Manchester:
Vaguely related: in 1968, my family lived for a brief time in Compton, California (as in “Straight Outta…”). The particular neighborhood were we lived, at the time, was mostly Samoans and old white people, and was fairly well kept and a generally pleasant place. That was nearly 50 years ago, and I definitely do not want to see it now.
He’s using the full power of that English degree.
Tweet of the day, I think.
Oh, and click through for the endorsement of Mr Cooper by Hanna Brooks Olsen, mentioned here previously, and who is also struggling to find a use for her needlessly expensive English literature degree.
R. Shermasn,
It’s not STEM’s fault that women gravitate toward majors heavy on the “feelz.”
Why, yes it is: STEM fields must adapt, and become more focused on “feelings” and less on mere cis-hetero-patriarchal “numbers” and “facts”. The old white males clinging to the old white ways must understand that there are no “wrong” answers (except their old white ones).
[ now I’ve given myself a headache ]
“At last. A rational reason for all this diversity and equity stuff on campus. It’a a rational response to economic incentives.”
Was that ever in doubt?
So much for basic history knowledge. Via Ace.
It really must be asked – first use of time machine:
1. Kill Hitler, or
2. Diversify Dunkirk, and make sure it gets referred to as “D-Day”?
Was particuarly touched by the travails of the woman scientist trying to overcome the gender barriers of the polar potty break.
As a man who is for some reason totally incapable of defecating standing up (and God knows, I have tried), I can certainly sympathise…
As a man who is for some reason totally incapable of defecating standing up (and God knows, I have tried),
I’m… not sure how to respond to that.
Will Self observed… that all of Britain’s professional writers could attend a modestly sized cocktail party. . . . There were more journalism students at my university than there are journalists in the United Kingdom.
Rather a number of years ago there was a general computer Stuff magazine that would finish an issue with a guest essay. One particular issue—and I’d love to track down a copy at some point—had someone telling of training to be a software coder way back even further.
He and his tiny cluster of, say, 75 classmates hung out among their computer lab(s) and did the exercises and got their grades, and, in time, graduated. The writer went off to one job, and then another, and then another. A particular friend of his didn’t bother, stayed at their uni, and taught.
Twenty years went by and the writer then went back to that uni to join his friend and also teach, bringing in the what it’s like out there point of view—’cause twenty years on, coding had become the big thing to do, where by that point even hipsters—which would have been preppies and then yuppies at that point—can make big money.
By that point the coding classes were enormous and filled entire lecture halls . . . . and then the writer started noticing a particular pattern. In the cavernous lecture hall, as the lecture progressed, off thataway someone’s having lunch, thisaway is someone having a nap, that one’s reading a newspaper, this other one over here is . . . Etc.
And in and amongst the obvious educational hangers on he had that rather definite coder over there, this one over here, there was that cluster of two or three over thataway, and once all the actual coding students were added up, the number came out to, oh, about, say, 75 . . .
Oops, sorry, I forgot to use these htlml tags: <sarcasm > </sarcasm>
Here are a few possible responses to these incidents. Roll your eyes . . . Stage counter-demonstrations . . . as an antidote to the brothers’ well-known performance problems. Announce a sex boycott . . .
In short, follow at least one established successful response with announcements such as I like Turtles! . . . Bring Back Crystal Pepsi!!
‘Weird hobby!’ Couple gain hordes of fans after picketing pro-life abortion clinic protests with witty inappropriate signs
‘Feminist Critic Trashes New Doctor Who For Not Being Black And Transgender’
http://dailycaller.com/2017/07/17/feminist-critic-trashes-new-doctor-who-for-not-being-black-and-transgender/
Not a parody.
Not a parody.
Will gender-swapping the lead character actually make the series any good? As a child, I sort of liked the idea of Doctor Who, the premise, but what ended up on screen was almost always dire. Even the supposedly “classic” episodes seemed pretty ropey, veering into panto, even as a wee seedling. Now it’s pitched as an all-ages drama, so every year or so I watch an episode in the hope that it might have improved. I’m still waiting for that surprise.
Not a parody.
Who can tell anymore? Even blatantly obvious, over-the-top parody like The Peoples’ Cube gets a disapproving (“pants on fire”) write up by the decidedly left-leaning Politifact.
So much for basic history knowledge.
2. Diversify Dunkirk, and make sure it gets referred to as “D-Day”?
Apparently everyone is caving to the SJWs. Heaven forfend you should play a game as something you are not.
Heaven forfend you should play a game as something you are not.
Like, for instance, an 18-year old from Nebraska, in 1944?
‘Feminist Critic Trashes New Doctor Who For Not Being Black And Transgender’
I’ve not watched any of the show, but have read of bits in passing. So as I recall, there are recurring female characters that do rotate in and out, and certainly a big central bit is that the Doctor is a time traveler who does a shift from one body to another after awhile.
Sooo, to have everyone happy, the solution is obvious:
A) Have the Doctor and the assistant(s) all be female and some shade of other than white.
B) Very quickly have them all turn out to be trans, and for each person, for some reason which for each is carefully explained and shown to be quite sound, the color is all just wrong.
C) Given Doctor Who storyline advances in science and the basic bit of a Time Lord shifting time at will, use both to rather speed up the change(s)
D) By three episodes into the new season, all characters will be white males, and all critics will be completely happy because they did indeed get exactly what they wanted.
In a recent academic journal article, two feminist professors claim that citing sources in scholarly articles contributes to “white heteromasculinity.”
This is lazy of me, but I’m simply going to copy what I had to say over at Kim du Toit’s place:
Isn’t this a great time to be alive? Scholars of the future will write theses, earn doctorates, make whole careers erecting a field of study trying to figure out just what our civilization’s major malfunction was. Probably working in a stone abbey, in a world lit only by candles and torches.
Bronze Age, Iron Age, Age of Discovery, Renaissance, Enlightenment, Industrial Age; I wonder what they are going to call ours? The Great Squawking? The Era of Daft Cows? That Time of the Millennium?
Looking at the second picture of Professor Cockayne makes me think of the Fred Reed quote, “Without men, civilization would last until the oil needed changing.” Hmmm.
“creation of atmospheres of discomfort”.
This, surely, could not be anything other than Kafkaesque if it were ever to become actual policy?
Hostile environment harassment is a well-codified bit of law in Our Fair Dominion. I’ve used it myself to put the boots to a particularly odious HR department.
It is all too easy to imagine how such a broad definition could be exploited for personal gain by the malevolent, the maladjusted or the just plain mad.
…and all too readily proved by the legal history here, yes.
If a female high school graduate expresses even the most vague interest in a STEM field, colleges and universities will fight to the death to entice her to their campuses.
After twenty years of women-only scholarships, mentoring programs, advertising, and insulting the faculty for being sexist, the percentage of women in my alma mater faculty (chemical engineering) has dropped by seven points. Good job, ladies.
lecturers in gender studies tend to have qualifications in English literature, rather than, say, biology or neuroscience.
I once knew a female schoolteacher who was inordinately proud of her multiple degrees in English, ethnomusicology, education, and neuroscience. I asked about the neuroscience degree, odd man out that it was, and discovered that she needed a science degree to get a higher pay grade in the public school system, and had made it through the program by trading sexual favours to the male students to do her coursework for her.
Will gender-swapping the lead character actually make [Doctor Who] any good?
The lone season with Chris Eccleston I quite enjoyed, as he portrayed the Doctor as the sort of person you could actually believe would choose to cold-bloodedly genocide an entire species for the greater good, as opposed to a mincing, twee fop.
This was of course what got him fired.
I’d just killed a woman. A black woman.
Yay feminism! Yay intersectional feminism!
I wonder what “comments” encompasses?
Harrumphs of agreement, elaborations upon the main point by the host, polite nods to the henchlesbians, an occasional appearance by a giant closing i tag who always looks frustrated, and once in a while there’s cake.
… a giant closing i tag …
That would be the enormous sign hanging above the bar:
I vote for “The Great Squawking.”
If a female high school graduate expresses even the most vague interest in a STEM field, colleges and universities will fight to the death to entice her to their campuses.
My elder daughter is off doing Statistics at University. She found the pressure to do STEM, once it became clear she was very good at Maths, was horrendous. Indeed off-putting rather than inspiring.