Posted on 04/10/2005 3:59:28 PM PDT by CHARLITE
"When he started talking about innate differences in aptitude between men and women, I just couldn't breathe." - Nancy Hopkins (MIT biology professor)
"We live in strange, strange times . . . An entire era - call it the "New Deal-Great Society Epoch" - is drawing to its inevitable conclusion. And those who draw power and wealth from the decaying Welfare State are marshalling their forces for a life-and-death defensive struggle." - Rush Limbaugh
Strange indeed! The Society of Professional Journalists, at their recent convention, took a vote on the proposition "Journalists should cover both sides of an issue" and this proposition failed (true to the tradition of Pravda and the Third Reich)! And it only gets "curiouser and curiouser" when checking out the "vital signs" of Academia and the judicial system.
When a judge's mind is made up, he does not want to be bothered with listening to 'both sides' of a case any more than our "Professional Journalists." Terri Schindler can testify to that! And while it took decades for the courts to get the concept of "one man, one vote" right, the "Mainstream Courts" now believe in the concept that "One vote by one Judge" can trump all of the people, all of the time. "Never mind state constitutions or what the U.S. Constitution says about the state constitutions; we've just going to do it our way, and you can like it or lump it!"
As for our learned "public servants" in the colleges and universities, they testify out of their own mouths that they do not want to hear both sides, and they will even hold their breath until they turn blue in the attempt to "shield" their young Comrades from having to be confused by the "other side" of the story. They don't even say 2 + 2 = 5; they just say, "The answer is 5 and you don't even need to know the rest of the equation!" With 90 to 95 percent of the professors on the liberal side - admittedly! - who's going to challenge them? The answer will always be "5"!
Just for the record, Harvard President Larry Summers - concluding the speech that made Miss Hopkins breathless and "physically ill" - said: "I will have served my purpose if I have provoked thought on this question and provoked the marshalling of evidence to contradict what I have said."
But Nooooooooo! On certain select issues, there is now such a thing as too much "academic freedom," too much thought, and too much information - if it upsets the emotionally-based Conventional "Wisdoms" of the college Establishment. What is really desired is an emphasis on issues and information that can be controlled and manipulated! The college feminazis are flexing their steroid-enhanced muscles!
The "Coalition for an Anti-Sexist Harvard" [CASH] recently marched on a faculty meeting chanting, "Racist, sexist, anti-gay! Larry Summers, you must pay!" It's time for the taxpayers to pull the feeding tube to these robot/student organizations and their wealthy "professors"!
Imagine the chutzpuh of someone wondering if the two genders are born "different!"
The very thought that the genders are different sometimes leaves me breathless too - and I'm not even on the same side of the argument as Miss Hopkins! But let's take a deep breath and think for a change:
I'm not going to make the mistake Reggie White made by throwing out too many good examples of fact-based stereotypes all at once, but let's focus on just one example:
Ask ten men "Which way is north?" and then ask ten women which way north is. An easy majority of men will be able to tell you, and a large majority of women will say "I don't know" and/or look at you as if it's a stupid question. Just provoking thought, you know, but could this possibly have something significant to say about women's aptitude and/or interest in math and science?
Just as various ethnicities, nationalities, and "Professions" have their "quirks" (for lack of a better word), they also have their "strengths" (for lack of a better word); likewise the genders!
That the genders react differently to the same circumstances is inarguable. A front-page headline in the March 20, 05 Chicago Tribune reads: "Female GIs hard hit by war syndrome; VA study hopes to find out why"! According to the story, GI Janes from the Iraq war are suffering much more from post-traumatic stress disorder than GI Joes. One female who served behind the lines said that long hours of duty and appalling living conditions broke her spirit. Meanwhile, there are male amputees who can't wait to get back to Iraq. Breath-taking, isn't it?
I would surmise that the VA "study" may find that, by nature, females are better at nurturing than "warrioring," but for me to suggest that would be a gross offense to someone out there somewhere, so I won't even suggest it! I didn't do it.
An unapologetic disclaimer - to that someone out there who only wants to hear one side and might be offended by this column:
You may say that it's easy for me to theorize and be glib when "you've never suffered sexism or racism or anti-gay ism" yourself. Well, just a cotton-pickin' minute there.
My ethnic roots are in the Swedish Vikings who are mercilessly bullied by the Norwegian Vikings (while the Norsk Vikings sailed west, the Swedish Vikes retraced their roots back along European rivers to deal in commerce toward the south and east). Anyway, I think the Swedish conservatives all came to America, and that the Norwegian liberals all came to America - which makes it all the worse.
My father and I were grabbing a bite to eat one day in a diner in a nearby "Norwegian" town. After one of the locals at the counter chatted with us for awhile, he asked my dad what our name was and, when my dad told him, the old Norwegian thought for a minute and then he says, "Is that Norwegian or Swede?"
My dad said 'Swede' and the old man thought for a minute again, and then he says, "Well, there are a few good Swedes"! My dad and I laughed, but he was dead serious, and thought he was being generous to a fault. Point is: "racism" and other forms of "oppression" are all relative.
The GI Jane who thought that her living conditions in Iraq were "appalling" just hadn't seen enough of the world. Academics who cry wolf about "academic freedom" every time someone breaks out of their strait jacket - and expresses himself in a way that is contrary to the speech codes of the Establishment - haven't seen enough of real totalitarianism to know what they're talking about.
Judges who kiss off whole states or whole regions will have no one to blame but themselves for the rising tide of resentment. Academic institutions that accept the false premise of "sexism" or "racism," dumbing down the curricula and apologizing for "potential" offenses, will have no one to blame but themselves when the taxpayer revolt comes.
It's time to pull the feeding tubes (Pell Grants, etc.). The male students are already starting to abandon traditional four-year institutions for other forms of education. "Co-eds" far outnumber the male students.
And feminists who get so emotionally wrought over hearing a politically incorrect theory (biology teacher or no biology teacher) will have no one to blame but themselves if they "can't breathe" and turn blue.
Personally, I wouldn't want to live that way! Pull the plug.
Comments: treeman1776@yahoo.com
Academia needs to be fumigated. All little Ward Churchills must be exposed and FIRED!
What I could never really fathom is how a lot of women who consider themselves strong feminsists (like Nancy over here, of people I have encountered in my life), and yet wilt and recoil as a response to just a few spoken words.
I recall that another progressive woman at the Larry Summers event talked about how she 'literally' got sick to her stomach. Wow, that's one tough woman, I'd say!
You've come a long way, baby.
BUMP
I couldn't agree more. Academia is an abysmal mess, an unbelievable mess.
But how are you going to fix it when they are all turning out clones of themselves from graduate programs, and hiring clones of themselves as new colleagues?
I've seen departments put into receivership they were so lousy, and the committees brought in to do the hiring for them STILL couldn't manage to hire anyone decent. That happened at Harvard, it happened at Columbia, it happened at Duke after Stanley Fish left and the new guys made things even worse. I don't see this changing any time soon.
LOL.....I remember "Sticks and Stones will Break my Bones, but Words will NEVER hurt me.." As a young girl my mother taught me that.....and I took it to heart and MIND! SHEESH....Academia is full of WIMPY WOMEN!
Yeah, she should have just decked him - lol.
My mother taught me the same thing as a young girl, and I grew to be the man I am today!
Ok, yall, JUST JOKING!!! =P
It's hard to reconcile - how can modern women, who trumpet their toughness and skill, collapse into a heap of insecurity, fear, and exagerated sensitivity, etc if they overhear an off-color joke or a contrioversial statement.
Ultimately, I don't consider men or women who react that way (the 'terminally offended crowd' as I call them) as notably tough at all.
You don't get it.
It is an act - to pretend that what has been said is so disgusting it has turned the person's stomach - thus no polite person would think it polite to discuss the topic - and thus no discussion.
It is done for the purely passive aggressive reason that the person cannot support a rational discussion of the topic, so they throw the smoke screen of the irrational response.
Diva's Husband
bump
You got that right - just how 'tough' are a generation of men and women who go running to the human resources department, or heaven forbid, a lawyer at the local mall, at the slighest imagined offense?
Whacked out!
Ahhh... You might be looking at a big part of the fix, right at this very moment.
(steely)
I'm sorry I wasn't clear - I do get it and agree with you. Often when I encounter this in real-life I nicely (but pointedly) ask about the person getting nauseated, light-headed, or otherwise physically repulsed.
After some coaxing I get them to admit that they didn't literally get ill. I do it for fun!
In any case, their hypersensitivity is clearly incongruent with their rhetoric about being tough. Things usually get hot when I get into that! ;-)
It's all one big theatrical act........kind of like Killery's histrionic claim of a "vast right wing conspiracy" being waged by Republicans against Bill The Sexual Predator. They "faint" only when someone in a position of authority "strays over the line." That's the liberal line, you understand. When did we ever see conservative women passing out, feeling "literally sick to their stomachs" at a remark made by - say - Al Franken?
Have we ever seen Kay Bailey Hutchison, or Libby Dole in need of smelling salts while enduring a speech by Killery? Barbar Boxer, Pelosi?........or Teddy Kennedy?
It's just an act and a pretense, to gain attention to a "cause" which is so feeble that they can't support or defend it with persuasive, rational arguments.
It's the same as their "selective outrage." Same exact ploy.
Why weren't all of these frail feminazis fainting by the hundreds, all across America, while one of their gender was slowly dying of starvation and dehydration???!!...(and while George "darth veder" Felos was announcing to the world how utterly "beautiful" a starving, dehydrating woman can be?!)
Well that's exactly what it is - it's insincere and shouldn't be given the credibility it has.
But it is the liberal main stream media who have made this a "story." Lame and frivolous as it actually is, it's red meat for them.
Men are baling out of academia. I know two Asian families whose #1 sons are opting for first class technical schools as opposed to college. A few years ago any track except college would have been unacceptable. I think these smart, hard working folks do a lot more hard thinking about the future than your ordinary Joe/Jane Hooplehead and have adjusted their priorities accordingly.
Do you mean places like WPI or Renseleer or do you mean the local two year techs in everyone's town?
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