items tagged with womens studies

David Horowitz is primping and preening about forcing the hand of feminist scholars in their Open Letter from American Feminists.  You see, if it weren't for Islamocommunifascifarian Awareness Week, women's studies scholars would never have acknowledged that women face violent oppression in the Middle East.  Thank goodness for noted feminist activists Rick Santorum and Ann Coulter who've been raising the alarm!

Or... it could be that feminist scholars have been raising these issues for years and David Horowitz was too disingenuous to admit that point, lest his propaganda outfit be deprived of that sweet, sweet cash.  By taking credit for years of feminist scholarship being raised to the forefront, DHo keeps finding a way to keep the financial spigots flowing. 

You have to wonder what the faculty in Women's Studies departments did to David Horowitz and his cohort to justify the bounty that FrontPageMag has placed on their collective heads.  Insulted their mothers fathers, maybe?

Sara Dogan fires of the latest ill-researched broadside against the discipline, trotting out the tired meme that Women's Studies programs ignore the oppression of women in the Islamic world.  The claim is, of course, absurd:

Allison Kimmich, executive director of the National Women's Studies Association, said that Horowitz was "completely off the mark" with his view of the discipline and she noted that many scholars in the field examine the treatment of women in Islam and in countries all over the world. "I think that the notion that women's studies faculty ignore the complexity of women's treatment under Islam or any fundamentalist religion is a demonstration of how little Horowitz knows about the field of women's studies, because there is a great deal of scholarly work on this subject," she said. 

Not content to let facts stand in the way of a good smearing, Dogan utilizes a bogus unconventional methodological strategy which, if I had to guess, could be summarized thusly: doing a Control-F search for "Islam" on the Women's Studies course offerings in undergraduate bulletins at selected universities, and when the search turns up little to nothing, leaping to the conclusion that these departments don't talk about the issue.  Granted, it's slightly more sophisticated than googling the keywords "diversity," "freedom," and "liberty" on university websites and then concluding that higher education cares more about multiculturalism than "American values," but not by much.

I do realize that trying to have a rational conversation about a complex issue with the likes of David Horowitz is akin to talking to a wall, so I'm aware that what I'm about to engage in is little more than an academic exercise.  But it will point out the distortions of fact that Horowitz depends on to score his points.  He has again targeted his favorite bête noir women's studies in his sloppily reasoned response to the AAUP's Freedom in the Classroom statement:

Therefore, it is deeply troubling when the report also states, "It is not indoctrination for professors to expect students to comprehend ideas and apply knowledge that is accepted as true within a relevant discipline." That may be appropriate for the hard sciences, where truths can be tested through experimental procedures, but it is far from appropriate for the humanities and social sciences, where no such verification methods exist.

Many women's-studies curricula, for example, are committed to the thesis that gender is "socially constructed" - it is a "truth" within the discipline. That claim is challenged by the findings of modern neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, and biology, as readers of Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate (Viking, 2002) would know. Yet to the AAUP, it is not indoctrination for women's-studies professors to assert their dogma as truth, and expect students to accept it as such.

What Horowitz wants you to believe here is that your average women's studies professor believes - indeed, indoctrinates her students - that men and women are essentially the same.  "Nonsense," Horowitz bellows.  "Science, much less a commonsense peek in your drawers, says that men and women are not the same!  But those loopy feminists want you to think that these obvious differences are ‘socially constructed!'  The unmitigated gall!"  As usual, Horowitz only knows, or more likely, is only relaying, a small part of the story.

read on... 

What's been happening on the world wide webs that you should know about?  I'm glad you asked!  Or at the very least, I'm glad I planted the idea in your head and you seem kind of interested.  Click, click, click away at the following links for some Free Exchange related goodness.

• Lisa Schulter informs us that her Women's Studies courses were not... wait for it... indoctrination!  Funny how the world looks a lot different when a person actually enrolls in a course that has been unjustifiably vilified.
  
• Rob Weir suggests backing slowly away from these academic slugfests.  We're particularly fond of numbers 7 and 8.
• While Horowitz and ACTA search for ghosts to defend some bizarre conceptualization of academic freedom, the Center for Science in the Public Interest points to some actual threats to this cherished ideal.
• As you may remember, we started a meme last week asking academics, "Why do you teach?"  In addition to our own fabulous guest bloggers, a growing number of blogger-scholars have taken up the gauntlet and provided some fascinating answers.  Head on over to our newly created Campus Voices section (added to the menu bar to your left) and find out what drives people to be educators.  We'll keep it updated as new folks chime in.