The Vagina Gang
Christina Hoff Sommers isn't one of them -- the ladies who stand first for "feminist scholarship," and second for the truth. She writes on AEI:
Consider what happened recently when I sent an e-mail message to the Berkeley law professor Nancy K. D. Lemon pointing out that the highly praised textbook that she edited, Domestic Violence Law (second edition, Thomson/West, 2005), contained errors.Her reply began:
"I appreciate and share your concern for veracity in all of our scholarship. However, I would expect a colleague who is genuinely concerned about such matters to contact me directly and give me a chance to respond before launching a public attack on me and my work, and then contacting me after the fact."I confess: I had indeed publicly criticized Lemon's book, in campus lectures and in a post on FeministLawProfessors.com. I had always thought that that was the usual practice of intellectual argument. Disagreement is aired, error corrected, truth affirmed. Indeed, I was moved to write to her because of the deep consternation of law students who had attended my lectures: If authoritative textbooks contain errors, how are students to know whether they are being educated or indoctrinated? Lemon's book has been in law-school classrooms for years.
One reason that feminist scholarship contains hard-to-kill falsehoods is that reasonable, evidence-backed criticism is regarded as a personal attack.
That's just a start. She gives unbelievable examples. Read the whole thing -- and note this, especially:
The critical work of 21st-century feminism will be to help women in the developing world, especially in Muslim societies, in their struggle for basic rights. False depictions of the United States as an oppressive "patriarchy" are a ludicrous distraction. If American women are as oppressed as Ugandan women, then American feminists would be right to focus on their domestic travails and let the Ugandan women fend for themselves.All books have mistakes, so why pick on the feminists? My complaint with feminist research is not so much that the authors make mistakes; it is that the mistakes are impervious to reasoned criticism. They do not get corrected. The authors are passionately committed to the proposition that American women are oppressed and under siege. The scholars seize and hold on for dear life to any piece of data that appears to corroborate their dire worldview. At the same time, any critic who attempts to correct the false assumptions is dismissed as a backlasher and an anti-feminist crank.
It's called confirmation bias. We all have it, and it's insidious.
Pseudonym at June 30, 2009 8:39 AM
Pussy Posse? Cunt Crew?
What always gets to me about Ms Sour Lemon & her ilk is not just the endless bile & slander they spew about men, but that they have no sense of humor or joy in being women at all. They're always miserable, and it's always the Patriarchy's fault. Why would anyone want to be like them?
Martin at June 30, 2009 8:47 AM
But Amy then she would have to admit that she was wrong...exactly when have we ever seen a hardcore Feminist do that?
The Other Mike D at June 30, 2009 10:05 AM
Oh, but Martin, there really is a group of bearded old men in white robes called "The Patriarchy" who get together in secret to scheme how to make women's lives miserable for the benefit of men. They've been at it for millenia.
I hear the root beer at the meetings is pretty good, too.
Thomas Fullery at June 30, 2009 10:13 AM
That becuse it come out of the nipples of the latest line of animatronic sex dolls
lujlp at June 30, 2009 10:32 AM
By the way Tom the last meeting was about how long it would take upload software into the cell phone network to activate the subliminal programing we buried buried in childrens cartoons ten yrs ago designed to turn women into strippers.
Let me tell you in a few years there will be so many stippers a lap dance will cost a quarter
Viva la Patriarchy
lujlp at June 30, 2009 10:40 AM
"She gives unbelievable examples." I do so wish that was a true statement but they are actually far too common.
Vivictius at June 30, 2009 11:15 AM
"By the way Tom the last meeting was about how long it would take upload software into the cell phone network to activate the subliminal programing we buried buried in childrens cartoons ten yrs ago designed to turn women into strippers."
Jeez, why'd you have to go and blab? Just for that, we aren't letting you into the meeting tomorrow night.
Cousin Dave at June 30, 2009 1:26 PM
That would explain all those really annoying 10 year old girls with "Juicy" written across their butts.
Couldn't you have waited until they were in their 20s at least?
And feminist's biggest problem is that they are unable to laugh. The inability to even *pretend* they're human really kills their cause.
ErikZ at June 30, 2009 1:37 PM
We may be all powerful but we arent all knowing, How exactly were we to anticipate people giving cell phones to their pre pubecets?
lujlp at June 30, 2009 5:22 PM
Well, lujlp, we will just have to card anyone underage trying to sneak into a stripper club to work to prevent this.
I know that all males are issued a Male Privileges™ card at birth. Maybe we can issue cards to girls at birth related to oppressing them?
Thomas Fullery at June 30, 2009 6:43 PM
Yes but if the patriachry starts issuing cards to women we cant really deny we exist anymore, and quite frankly the inititive to turn women in to brain dead sluts incapable of ratonal thought isnt proceeding well at all.
There was some problem with the formula and the test subjects while incapable of rational thought still have the abilty to think for themsevles, retain information, and unfortunalty have little intrest in sex.
We had to kill the entire research team and start from scratch
lujlp at July 1, 2009 5:39 AM
These examples are appalling, but for what it's worth, they don't match my experience in Women's Studies classes at my liberal arts undergrad. I actually went into it with a somewhat skeptical attitude (my term paper was on the question of whether it was actually a legitimate academic discipline - I concluded that it was, after research that included reading the scathing public criticisms of political science as a soft and useless major filled with ideologues), but really appreciated the experience. Our professor was tough and smart, the material was interesting and challenging, and I gained a lot of useful information and perspective in history, culture, economics, and other areas. While my experience doesn't excuse the fact that people like Professor Lemon apparently can't handle academic debate, I'd urge people not to think of the entire area of study as worthless.
CB at July 1, 2009 8:06 AM
Also, the suggestion that the US is somehow "oppressive" to women is downright disrespectful of the serious struggles faced by women in other parts of the world. We still have problems with sexism, sure, but that's worlds away from issues like unequal legal status.
CB at July 1, 2009 8:08 AM
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