Featured Video

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...
Showing posts with label Feminist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Feminist. Show all posts

15 September 2013

The diferences between a woman and a feminist


05 August 2012

Feminist Quotes

"The nuclear family must be destroyed... Whatever its ultimate meaning, the break-up of families now is an objectively revolutionary process." -- Linda Gordon

"I feel that 'man-hating' is an honorable and viable political act, that the oppressed have a right to class-hatred against the class that is oppressing them." -- Robin Morgan, Ms. Magazine Editor.

"I haven't the faintest notion what possible revolutionary role white hetero- sexual men could fulfill, since they are the very embodiment of reactionary- vested-interest-power. But then, I have great difficulty examining what men in general could possibly do about all this. In addition to doing the shitwork that women have been doing for generations, possibly not exist? No, I really don't mean that. Yes, I really do." -- Robin Morgan

"We can't destroy the inequities between men and women until we destroy marriage." -- Robin Morgan

"I claim that rape exists any time sexual intercourse occurs when it has not been initiated by the woman, out of her own genuine affection and desire."
-- Robin Morgan

From her "The Demon Lover" (NY: Norton & Co., 1989 Morgan doesn't hide her bigotry):

* p. 138-9: The phallic malady is epidemic and systemic... each individual male in the patriarchy is aware of his relative power in the scheme of things.... He knows that his actions are supported by the twin pillars of the State of man - the brotherhood ritual of political exigency and the brotherhood ritual of a sexual thrill in dominance. As a devotee of Thanatos, he is one with the practitioner of sado-masochistic "play" between "consenting adults," as he is one with the rapist.
* p. 224: My white skin disgusts me. My passport disgusts me. They are the marks of an insufferable privilege bought at the price of others' agony.
* p. 229: Sex to this point in my life has been trivial, at best a gesture of tenderness, at worst a chore. I couldn't understand the furor about it.
* p. 316: Did she die of the disease called "family" or the disease called "rehabilitation", of poverty or drugs or pornography, of economics or sexual slavery or a broken body?

"And let's put one lie to rest for all time: the lie that men are oppressed, too, by sexism--the lie that there can be such a thing as 'men's liberation groups.' Oppression is something that one group of people commits against another group, specifically because of a 'threatening' characteristic shared by the latter group--skin, color, sex or age, etc. The oppressors are indeed ****ED UP by being masters, but those masters are not OPPRESSED. Any master has the alternative of divesting himself of sexism or racism--the oppressed have no alternative--for they have no power but to fight. In the long run, Women's Liberation will of course free men--but in the short run it's going to cost men a lot of privilege, which no one gives up willingly or easily. Sexism is NOT the fault of women--kill your fathers, not your mothers".
-- Robin Morgan

"To call a man an animal is to flatter him; he's a machine, a walking dildo."
-- Valerie Solanas, Authoress of the SCUM Manifesto

"Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation, and destroy the male sex."
-- Valerie Solana, SCUM founder (Society for Cutting Up Men.)

"The male is a domestic animal which, if treated with firmness...can be trained to do most things."
-- Jilly Cooper, SCUM (Society For Cutting Up Men, started by Valerie Solanas)

"Since marriage constitutes slavery for women, it is clear that the women's movement must concentrate on attacking this institution. Freedom for women cannot be won without the abolition of marriage." -- Sheila Cronin, the leader of the feminist organization NOW

"I want to see a man beaten to a bloody pulp with a high-heel shoved in his mouth, like an apple in the mouth of a pig." -- Andrea Dworkin

"Marriage as an institution developed from rape as a practice." -- Andrea Dworkin

"Heterosexual intercourse is the pure, formalized expression of contempt for women's bodies." -- Andrea Dworkin

"In my own life, I don't have intercourse. That is my choice." -- Andrea Dworkin

Under patriarchy, every woman's son is her potential betrayer and also the inevitable rapist or exploiter of another woman." -- Andrea Dworkin

"To be rapeable, a position that is social, not biological, defines what a woman is." -- Andrea Dworkin

"Q: People think you are very hostile to men.
A: I am." -- Andrea Dworkin

"Men use the night to erase us." -- Andrea Dworkin

"The annihilation of a woman's personality, individuality, will, character, is prerequisite to male sexuality." -- Andrea Dworkin

"Men love death. In everything they make, they hollow out a central place for death, let its rancid smell contaminate every dimension of whatever still survives. Men especially love murder. In art they celebrate it, and in life they commit it. They embrace murder as if life without it would be devoid of passion, meaning, and action, as if murder were solace, stilling their sobs as they mourn the emptiness and alienation of their lives."
-- Andrea Dworkin

"Men are rapists, batterers, plunderers, killers; these same men are religious prophets, poets, heroes, figures of romance, adventure, accomplishment, figures ennobled by tragedy and defeat. Men have claimed the earth, called it 'Her'. Men ruin Her. Men have airplanes, guns, bombs, poisonous gases, weapons so perverse and deadly that they defy any authentically human imagination."
-- Andrea Dworkin, Pornography: Men Possessing Women

"On the Left, on the Right, in the Middle; Authors, statesmen, thieves; so-called humanists and self-declared fascists; the adventurous and the contemplative, in every realm of male expression and action, violence is experienced and articulated as love and freedom."
-- Andrea Dworkin, Pornography: Men Possessing Women.

"The institution of sexual intercourse is anti-feminist" -- Ti-Grace Atkinson

"Feminism is the theory, lesbianism is the practice." -- Ti-Grace Atkinson

"Rape is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear" -- Susan Brownmiller; Authoress of Against Our Will p.6

"When a woman reaches orgasm with a man she is only collaborating with the patriarchal system, eroticizing her own oppression." -- Sheila Jeffrys

"Politically, I call it rape whenever a woman has sex and feels violated." -- Catherine MacKinnon

"All sex, even consensual sex between a married couple, is an act of violence perpetrated against a woman." -- Catherine MacKinnon

"You grow up with your father holding you down and covering your mouth so another man can make a horrible searing pain between your legs."
-- Catherine MacKinnon (Prominent legal feminist scholar; University of Michigan, & Yale.)

"In a patriarchal society, all heterosexual intercourse is rape because women, as a group, are not strong enough to give meaningful consent."
-- Catharine MacKinnon, quoted in Professing Feminism: Cautionary Tales from the Strange World of Women's Studies.

"The more famous and powerful I get the more power I have to hurt men." -- Sharon Stone; Actress

"Ninety-five percent of women's experiences are about being a victim. Or about being an underdog, or having to survive... women didn't go to Vietnam and blow things up. They are not Rambo."
-- Jodie Foster; Actress - as quoted in The New York Times Magazine.

"The proportion of men must be reduced to and maintained at approximately 10% of the human race." -- Sally Miller Gearhart, in The Future - If There Is One - Is Female.

"And if the professional rapist is to be separated from the average dominant heterosexual (male), it may be mainly a quantitative difference."
-- Susan Griffin, Rape: The All-American Crime.

"If life is to survive on this planet, there must be a decontamination of the Earth. I think this will be accompanied by an evolutionary process that will result in a drastic reduction of the population of males." --Mary Daly, former Professor at Boston College, 2001.

"If anyone is prosecuted for filing a false report, then victims of real attacks will be less likely to report them." - David Angier

"Men who are unjustly accused of rape can sometimes gain from the experience." - Catherine Comins

"As long as some men use physical force to subjugate females, all men need not. The knowledge that some men do suffices to threaten all women. He can beat or kill the woman he claims to love; he can rape women...he can sexually molest his daughters... THE VAST MAJORITY OF MEN IN THE WORLD DO ONE OR MORE OF THE ABOVE."
-- Marilyn French (her emphasis)

My feelings about men are the result of my experience. I have little sympathy for them. Like a Jew just released from Dachau, I watch the handsome young Nazi soldier fall writhing to the ground with a bullet in his stomach and I look briefly and walk on. I don't even need to shrug. I simply don't care. What he was, as a person, I mean, what his shames and yearnings were, simply don't matter."
-- Marilyn French; The Woman's Room.

"All patriarchists exalt the home and family as sacred, demanding it remain inviolate from prying eyes. Men want privacy for their violations of women... All women learn in childhood that women as a sex are men's prey."
-- Marilyn French

"All men are rapists and that's all they are"
-- Marilyn French, Authoress; (later, advisoress to Al Gore's Presidential Campaign.)

"The media treat male assaults on women like rape, beating, and murder of wives and female lovers, or male incest with children, as individual aberrations...obscuring the fact that all male violence toward women is part of a concerted campaign."
-- Marilyn French

"I believe that women have a capacity for understanding and compassion which man structurally does not have, does not have it because he cannot have it. He's just incapable of it."
-- Barbara Jordan; Former Congresswoman.

"Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release."
-- Germaine Greer.

"Man-hating is everywhere, but everywhere it is twisted and transformed, disguised, tranquilized, and qualified. It coexists, never peacefully, with the love, desire, respect, and need women also feel for men. Always man-hating is shadowed by its milder, more diplomatic and doubtful twin, ambivalence."
-- Judith Levine; Authoress

"Men's sexuality is mean and violent, and men so powerful that they can 'reach WITHIN women to ****/construct us from the inside out.' Satan-like, men possess women, making their wicked fantasies and desires women's own. A woman who has sex with a man, therefore, does so against her will, 'even if she does not feel forced.'
-- Judith Levine, (explicating comment profiling prevailing misandry.)

"I feel what they feel: man-hating, that volatile admixture of pity, contempt, disgust, envy, alienation, fear, and rage at men. It is hatred not only for the anonymous man who makes sucking noises on the street, not only for the rapist or the judge who acquits him, but for what the Greeks called philo-aphilos, 'hate in love,' for the men women share their lives with--husbands, lovers, friends, fathers, brothers, sons, coworkers."
-- Judith Levine, Authoress of My Enemy, My love

"There are no boundaries between affectionate sex and slavery in (the male) world. Distinctions between pleasure and danger are academic; the dirty-laundrylist of 'sex acts'...includes rape, foot binding, fellatio, intercourse, auto eroticism, incest, anal intercourse, use and production of pornography, cunnilingus, sexual harassment, and murder."
-- Judith Levine; summarizing comment on the WAS document, (A southern Women's Writing Collective: Women Against Sex.)

"All men are good for is ****ing, and running over with a truck".
Statement made by A University of Maine Feminist Administrator, quoted by Richard Dinsmore, who brought a successful civil suit against the University in the amount of $600,000. Richard had protested the quote; was dismissed thereafter on the grounds of harassment; and responded by bringing suit against the University. 1995 settlement.

((Delaney Nickerson, of the American Coalition for ABUSE AWARENESS, refers to the False Memory Syndrome Foundation as "The ****ing Molesters Society". (Miami Herald, April 3, 1995) The ACAA is a lobbying group, which includes Ellen Bass (co-author of THE COURAGE TO HEAL), and Rene Frederickson, leading feminist psychotherapist and strong proponent of repressed memory theory.))

((At the STONE ANGELS satanic ritual abuse conference in Thunder Bay in February, 1995, the following was contained in the handouts at a conference supported financially by the Ontario Government: FMS stands for: FULL OF MOSTLY SHIT; FOR MORE SADISM; FELONS, MURDERERS, SCUMBALLS; FREQUENT MOLESTERS SOCIETY.))

"Women have their faults / men have only two: / everything they say / everything they do."
-- Popular Feminist Graffiti

"I was, in reality, bred by my parents as my father's concubine... What we take for granted as the stability of family life may well depend on the sexual slavery of our children. What's more, this is a cynical arrangement our institutions have colluded to conceal.".
-- Sylvia Fraser; Journalist

"We are taught, encouraged, moulded by and lulled into accepting a range of false notions about the family. As a source of some of our most profound experiences, it continues to be such an integral part of our emotional lives that it appears beyond criticism. Yet hiding from the truth of family life leaves women and children vulnerable."
-- Canadian Panel on Violence Against Women.

Catharine MacKinnon ( ) maintains that "the private is a sphere of battery, marital rape and women's exploited labor." In this way, privacy and family are reduced to nothing more than aspects of the master plan, which is male domination. Democratic freedoms and the need to keep the state's nose out of our personal affairs are rendered meaningless. The real reason our society cherishes privacy is because men have invented it as an excuse to conceal their criminality. If people still insist that the traditional family is about love and mutual aid--ideals which, admittedly, are sometimes betrayed--they're "hiding from the truth." The family isn't a place where battery and marital rape sometimes happen but where little else apparently does. Sick men don't simply molest their daughters, they operate in league with their wives to "breed" them for that purpose.
-- Donna Laframboise; The Princess at the Window; (in a critical explication of the Catharine MacKinnon, Gloria Steinhem et al tenets of misandric belief.)

"If the classroom situation is very heteropatriarchal--a large beginning class of 50 to 60 students, say, with few feminist students--I am likely to define my task as largely one of recruitment...of persuading students that women are oppressed"
-- Professor Joyce Trebilcot of Washington University, as quoted in Who Stole Feminism: How Women Have Betrayed Women.

"Men, as a group, tend to be abusive, either verbally, sexually or emotionally. There are always the exceptions, but they are few and far between (I am married to one of them). There are different levels of violence and abuse and individual men buy into this system by varying degrees. But the male power structure always remains intact."
Message on FEMISA, responding to a request for arguments that men are unnecessary for a child to grow into mature adulthood.

Another posting on FEMISA: "Considering the nature and pervasiveness of men's violence, I would say that without question, children are better off being raised without the presence of men. Assaults on women and children are mostly perpetrated by men whom they are supposed to love and trust: fathers, brothers, uncles, grandfathers, step-fathers."
Both quotes taken from Daphne Patai's excellent critical work, Heterophobia

"At Brandies I discovered Feminism. And I instantly became a convert... writing brilliant papers in my Myths of Patriarchy class, in which I likened my fate as a woman to other victims throughout the ages."
-- Heather Hart 7

Here are 10 reasons why we are concerned about feminism and the National Organization for Women.

1. "The simple fact is that every woman must be willing to be identified as a lesbian to be fully feminist" (National NOW Times, January, 1988).

2. "Since marriage constitutes slavery for women, it is clear that the women's movement must concentrate on attacking this institution. Freedom for women cannot be won without the abolition of marriage" (feminist leader Sheila Cronan).

3. In response to a question concerning China's policy of compulsory abortion after the first child, Molly Yard responded, "I consider the Chinese government's policy among the most intelligent in the world" (Gary Bauer, "Abetting Coercion in China," The Washington Times, Oct. 10, 1989).

4. "Overthrowing capitalism is too small for us. We must overthrow the whole...patriarch!" (Gloria Steinem, radical feminist leader, editor of MS magazine).

5. "Marriage has existed for the benefit of men; and has been a legally sanctioned method of control over women.... We must work to destroy it. The end of the institution of marriage is a necessary condition for the liberation of women. Therefore it is important for us to encourage women to leave their husbands and not to live individually with men.... All of history must be re-written in terms of oppression of women. We must go back to ancient female religions like witchcraft" (from "The Declaration of Feminism," November, 1971).

6. "By the year 2000 we will, I hope, raise our children to believe in human potential, not God." (Gloria Steinem, editor of MS magazine).

7. "Let's forget about the mythical Jesus and look for encouragement, solace, and inspiration from real women.... Two thousand years of patriarchal rule under the shadow of the cross ought to be enough to turn women toward the feminist 'salvation' of this world." (Annie Laurie Gaylor, "Feminist Salvation," The Humanist, p. 37, July/August 1988.

8. "In order to raise children with equality, we must take them away from families and communally raise them" (Dr. Mary Jo Bane, feminist and assistant professor of education at Wellesley College, and associate director of the school's Center for Research on Woman).

9. "Being a housewife is an illegitimate profession... The choice to serve and be protected and plan towards being a family- maker is a choice that shouldn't be. The heart of radical feminism is to change that." (Vivian Gornick, feminist author, University of Illinois, The Daily Illini, April 25, 1981.

10. "The most merciful thing a large family can to do one of its infant members is to kill it." (Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, in "Women and the New Race," p. 67).

"We are, as a sex, infinitely superior to men." -- Elizabeth Cady Stanton

From 'A feminist Dictionary; ed. Kramarae and Triechler, Pandora Press, 1985:

MALE:...represents a variant of or deviation from the category of female. The first males were mutants...the male sex represents a degeneration and deformity of the female.

MAN:...an obsolete life form... an ordinary creature who needs to be watched...a contradictory baby-man...

TESTOSTERONE POISONING: ... 'Until now it has been though that the level of testosterone in men is normal simply because they have it. But if you consider how abnormal their behavior is, then you are led to the hypothesis that almost all men are suffering from "testosterone poisoning."

Letter to editor: "Women's Turn to Dominate". "......Clearly you are not yet a free-thinking feminist but rather one of those women who bounce off the male-dominated, male-controlled social structures. Who cares how men feel or what they do or whether they suffer? They have had over 2000 years to dominate and made a complete hash of it. Now it is our turn. My only comment to men is: if you don't like it, bad luck--and if you get in my way I'll run you down."
Signed: Liberated Women, Boronia Herald-Sun, Melbourne, Australia. 9 Feb., 1996.

20 May 2012

Young Feminists: Strong, Confident, & Single — Dating Distresses of a Young Feminist

By Christina Cherel

They say good men are hard to find and that sailing through the dating waters can be rough. I’ve found that, for an outspoken, pro-choice feminist woman in her early twenties, the pool of eligible bachelors is even shallower.

I have publicly self-identified as a feminist for about five years now. Even before my official declaration, dating was difficult — to say the least. I never purposefully attempted to emasculate prospective partners but, for some reason unknown to me, my opinions on legal abortion, access to reproductive health care, and women’s rights in general seemed to scare away even the most promising suitors. Our dates were enjoyable, we had good chemistry, and then the inevitable “F” word would find its way into our conversations — and that was it. Relationship over. It appeared as if the right to form my own opinions and beliefs was acceptable only as long as doing so did not empower me or other women.

My strong connection to feminist ideas are at the very core of who I am and yet I found myself minimizing the importance of feminism to me in order to appease the men I was dating. I did not want to scare them away by demonstrating my unwavering dedication to women’s rights and justice — so instead, for a time, I dismissed their meaning in my life. Relationships require a certain degree of concessions and balance, but I realized that sacrificing the part of myself I most loved was not a compromise I was ready to make. As realization took hold that these men would never truly appreciate and love my whole self, I ended whatever relationship we had. It may be difficult to imagine spending a cold winter evening without a significant other, but being forced to downplay how important feminism in my life would be even harder for me.

The men who comprise my recent dating history are by no means “bad” men, but they clearly did not respect or reciprocate my desire for independence and equality — socially, politically and financially — for myself and all women. Admittedly, I voiced my passion for these issues quite vocally but, for me, this was the same as discussing my favorite band or sports team: a piece of myself I wanted my partner to understand. I would discuss at length the importance of copay-free birth control access and programs to promote gender equity, but my dates never could comprehend why these were more than just ideological beliefs for me. They didn’t get that these beliefs form the basis of both my professional and my personal life, and are not matters on which I am ready to compromise.

Turns out, I’m not alone in thinking that feminist men are hard to find. While women may unite and rejoice in the opportunities and advancements feminism has afforded us, men are not as quick to do so. According to one survey conducted in the United Kingdom, 50 percent of men reported feeling unappreciated or undervalued; an astonishing 82 percent of men reported feeling that their traditional role in society has been usurped. Undermining men’s traditional role as “family breadwinner” and making them feel unappreciated is not the goal of feminist ideology, but maybe it’s become an unintended effect. Though fewer women are dependent on men to provide economic security and physical protection, feminism does not eliminate the basic human desire to love and to be loved in return. Accepting women as equal human beings with the same rights, responsibilities, and desires and being in a loving, mature relationship should not be treated as mutually exclusive entities.

Perhaps men’s fear of the growing ubiquity of feminism in popular culture and among younger women isn’t completely unjustified. Although women still only earn 73 cents to every dollar men earn (even for the same job), we are becoming more financially self-reliant and, as a result, are marrying later in life. Women have substantially increased both their education and wage earning levels, so marrying to gain financial security has become a way of the past for many women. It may be that for some, feminism, and ideals of social equality generally, may cripple men’s spirits as much as it empowers women’s.

On the way home from work recently, a friend and I discussed a rally I’d attended at the Supreme Court building to defend women’s access to contraceptives. As I described my disenchantment with the numerous anti-choice supporters who were also protesting that day, an older gentlemen sitting across from me gave me a puzzled glance. He asked me if I found it hard finding men to date who were not intimidated by my strength and dedication to feminist ideals. At first, his question amused me; how could my dedication to equality intimidate any well-educated, socially-conscious person? I had never given much thought to the way my passion for women’s right and reproductive freedom may threaten others — especially men.

He clarified by explaining that he thought it must be hard for a young woman with such strong beliefs in feminism — which is sometimes, albeit falsely, perceived to be anti-male — to date. I realized that he’s right. Dating can be difficult and frustrating; it can make you want to give up on love entirely — and those are on the good days! Attempting to find a man who not only accepts my own feminist beliefs, but also endorses them himself feels almost impossible at times. According to my dating history, men view feminism as an unknown force to fear, not as the source of empowerment and sisterhood I’ve experienced.

Is it too much to ask that a partner understand and respect my views as a feminist? Women have undoubtedly achieved major strides in economic, political, and social sectors, but how meaningful are those achievements if a self-proclamation of feminism still intimidates men? I envision a dating world where my strength, perseverance, and dedication to social justice are what attracts a man to me, rather than being attributes he’s willing to overlook. Marching in DC at women’s rights rallies, supporting feminist women’s health organizations, and never relenting in the fight for affordable and accessible health care for all women are among my greatest passions. Participating in these events with other women (and men!) make me feel alive and that I can accomplish anything. It is hard to envision my life without these wonderful elements, and yet I have not yet had success finding a man willing to not only accept that them as part of my life forever, but also be proud of my strength and commitment.

Feminist men exist and have certainly grown in numbers over the years. But, the sad reality is that there just are not enough men who are comfortable admitting to being a feminist, whether out of fear of the unknown or false perceptions of what feminism means. While the long-term dating potential of most men I meet now may be limited, I continue to hold out hope for a caring, intelligent, AND feminist man to complement my social activism and very busy life!

Christina Cherel is a former NWHN intern; she is currently working on her Masters in Public Health in Epidemiology at Boston University.

31 March 2012

The Ten Most Common Feminist Myths:

  • 1. Myth: One in four women in college has been the victim of rape or attempted rape.
Fact: This mother of all factoids is based on a fallacious feminist study commissioned by Ms. magazine. The researcher, Mary Koss, hand-picked by hard-line feminist Gloria Steinem, acknowledges that 73 percent of the young women she counted as rape victims were not aware they had been raped. Forty-three percent of them were dating their "attacker" again.

Rape is a uniquely horrible crime. That is why we need sober and responsible research. Women will not be helped by hyperbole and hysteria. Truth is no enemy of compassion, and falsehood is no friend.

(Nara Schoenberg and Sam Roe, "The Making of an Epidemic," Toledo Blade, October 10, 1993; and Neil Gilbert, "Examining the Facts: Advocacy Research Overstates the Incidence of Data and Acquaintance Rape," Current Controversies in Family Violence eds. Richard Gelles and Donileen Loseke, Newbury Park, CA.: Sage Publications, 1993, pp.120-132; and Campus Crime and Security, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education, 1997. *According to this study, campus police reported 1,310 forcible sex offenses on U.S. campuses in one year. That works out to an average of fewer than one rape per campus.)
  • 2. Myth: Women earn 75 cents for every dollar a man earns.
Fact: The 75 cent figure is terribly misleading. This statistic is a snapshot of all current full-time workers. It does not consider relevant factors like length of time in the workplace, education, occupation, and number of hours worked per week. (The experience gap is particularly large between older men and women in the workplace.) When economists do the proper controls, the so-called gender wage gap narrows to the point of vanishing.

(Essential reading: Women's Figures: An Illustrated Guide to the Economic Progress of Women in America, by Diana Furchtgott-Roth and Christine Stolba, published by the Independent Women's Forum and the American Enterprise Institute, Washington, D.C. 2000.)
  • 3. Myth: 30 percent of emergency room visits by women each year are the result of injuries from domestic violence.
Fact: This incendiary statistic is promoted by gender feminists whose primary goal seems to be to impugn men. Two responsible government studies report that the nationwide figure is closer to one percent. While these studies may have missed some cases of domestic violence, the 30% figure is a wild exaggeration.

(National Center for Health Statistics, National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey: 1992 Emergency Department Summary , Hyattsville, Maryland, March 1997; and U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Violence-Related Injuries Treated in Hospital Emergency Departments: Washington, D.C., August 1997.)
  • 4. Myth: The phrase "rule of thumb" originated in a man's right to beat his wife provided the stick was no wider than his thumb.
Fact: This is an urban legend that is still taken seriously by activist law professors and harassment workshoppers. The Oxford English Dictionary has more than twenty citations for phrase "rule of thumb" (the earliest from 1692), but not a single mention of beatings, sticks, or husbands and wives.

(For a definitive debunking of the hoax see Henry Ansgar Kelly, "Rule of Thumb and the Folklaw of the Husband's Stick," The Journal of Legal Education, September 1994.)
  • 5. Myth: Women have been shortchanged in medical research.
Fact: The National Institutes of Health and drug companies routinely include women in clinical trials that test for effectiveness of medications. By 1979, over 90% of all NIH-funded trials included women. Beginning in 1985, when the NIH's National Cancer Center began keeping track of specific cancer funding, it has annually spent more money on breast cancer than any other type of cancer. Currently, women represent over 60% of all subjects in NIH-funded clinical trails.

(Essential reading: Cathy Young and Sally Satel, "The Myth of Gender Bias in Medicine," Washington, D.C.: The Women's Freedom Network, 1997.)
  • 6. Myth: Girls have been shortchanged in our gender-biased schools
Fact: No fair-minded person can review the education data and conclude that girls are the have-nots in our schools. Boys are slightly ahead of girls in math and science; girls are dramatically ahead in reading and writing. (The writing skills of 17-year-old boys are at the same level as 14-year- old girls.) Girls get better grades, they have higher aspirations, and they are more likely to go to college.

(See: Trends in Educational Equity of Girls & Women, Washington, D. C.: U.S. Department of Education, June 2000.)
  • 7. Myth: "Our schools are training grounds for sexual harassment... boys are rarely punished, while girls are taught that it is their role to tolerate this humiliating conduct."
(National Organization of Women, "Issue Report: Sexual Harassment," April 1998.)

Fact: "Hostile Hallways," is the best-known study of harassment in grades 8-11. It was commissioned by the American Association of University Women (AAUW) in 1993, and is a favorite of many harassment experts. But this survey revealed that girls are doing almost as much harassing as the boys. According to the study, "85 percent of girls and 76 percent of boys surveyed say they have experienced unwanted and unwelcome sexual behavior that interferes with their lives."

(Four scholars at the University of Michigan did a careful follow-up study of the AAUW data and concluded: "The majority of both genders (53%) described themselves as having been both victim and perpetrator of harassment -- that is most students had been harassed and had harassed others." And these researchers draw the right conclusion: "Our results led us to question the simple perpetrator-victim model...")(See: American Education Research Journal, Summer 1996.)
  • 8. Myth: Girls suffer a dramatic loss of self-esteem during adolescence.
Fact: This myth of the incredible shrinking girls was started by Carol Gilligan, professor of gender studies at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Gilligan has always enjoyed higher standing among feminist activists and journalists than among academic research psychologists. Scholars who follow the protocols of social science do not accept the reality of an adolescent "crisis" of confidence and "loss of voice."

In 1993, American Psychologist reported the new consensus among researchers in adolescent development: "It is now known that the majority of adolescents of both genders successfully negotiate this developmental period without any major psychological or emotional disorder [and] develop a positive sense of personal identity."

(Anne C. Petersen et al. "Depression in Adolescence," American Psychologist February 1993; see also, Daniel Offer, and Kimberly Schonert-Reichl, "Debunking the Myths of Adolescence: Findings from Recent Research," Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, November 1992.)

  • 9. Myth: Gender is a social construction.
Fact: While environment and socialization do play a significant role in human life, a growing body of research in neuroscience, endocrinology, and psychology over the past 40 years suggests there is a biological basis for many sex differences in aptitudes and preferences. In general, males have better spatial reasoning skills; females better verbal skills. Males are greater risk takers; females are more nurturing.

Of course, this does not mean that women should be prevented from pursuing their goals in any field they choose; what it does suggest is that we should not expect parity in all fields. More women than men will continue to want to stay at home with small children and pursue careers in fields like early childhood education or psychology; men will continue to be over-represented in fields like helicopter mechanics and hydraulic engineering.

Warning: Most gender scholars in our universities have degrees in fields like English or comparative literature--not biology or neuroscience. These self-appointed experts on sexuality are scientifically illiterate. They substitute dogma and propaganda for reasoned scholarship.

(For a review of recent findings on sex differences see a special issue of The Scientific American "Men: The Scientific Truth," Fall 2000.)
  • 10. Myth: Women's Studies Departments empowered women and gave them a voice in the academy.
Fact: Women's Studies empowered a small group of like-minded careerists. They have created an old-girl network that is far more elitist, narrow and closed than any of the old-boy networks they rail against. Vast numbers of moderate or dissident women scholars have been marginalized, excluded and silenced.

(Essential reading: everything by Camille Paglia; Daphne Patai and Noretta Koertge--Professing Feminism: Cautionary Tales from the Strange World of Women's Studies; and Christina Hoff Sommers--Who Stole Feminism? How Women have Betrayed Women)

Source

Share

Twitter Delicious Facebook Digg Stumbleupon Favorites More