Speaking of Sara, I congratulate her on being quoted (and photographed!) in an IWF publicity pamphlet (.pdf link), and also for being compared to Betty Friedan and Gloria Stienem. (I know the pamphlet is from back in February, but I didn’t read it until today).
But the pamphlet itself is pretty funny. For instance, it proudly notes that “over 80 students and professors were in attendance at the University of Chicago event” to listen to anti-feminist uber-nit-picker Chistina Hoff Sommers.
“Over 80”? At a campus as conservative as Chicago? [Note: Apparently Chicago ain’t as liberal as its reputation. See “update 2,” below.]
How lame can they get?
Seriously – when the Guerilla Girls appeared at Lewis & Clark last year, the auditorium was standing room only – and that was an auditorium that could fit hundreds. Similarly, when I saw Catherine MacKinnon speak at Oberlin, the hall was packed. At Portland State University, every Take Back the Night march I saw drew hundreds of students.
Meanwhile, the IWF – with far more funding than any student feminist organization could even dream of – thinks it’s a big success if they can dredge up 80 people for an appearance by their intellectual leader.
Elsewhere, the pamphlet breathlessly reports that the IWF has formed organizations not only at Chicago, but also at Harvard Law, Columbia, and Penn State. Wow – four whole campuses. (Apparently the “SheThinks.org” campaign for a IWF campus presence was a bigger failure than even I had imagined).
And these are the people who constantly tell feminists that our movement is unpopular. At least the feminist movement actually exists, which is more than I can say for the anti-feminists. If the Olin Foudation stopped pouring unearned money into the anti-feminist movement, the IWF would dry up and blow away within a week.
UPDATE: An Alas reader who attended the Chicago event informs me that they deliberately kept the advertising for the event low-key and non-controversial, in order to have a quiet and intelligent event. If so, then the organizers – which is to say, Sara at Diotima – should be congratulated, not criticized, for their approach.
UPDATE 2: A few people – including Allen in my comments this morning, and Will Baude more recently – have pointed out that Chicago is not as conservative as I assumed from its reputation. Will, in particular, makes a good argument that the IWF actually did pretty well in Chicago, compared to the turn-outs that other conservative student groups muster:
Fair enough; I stand corrected. My congratulations to Sara on an event that was apparently well-organized. (For what it’s worth, had I been in Chicago, I certainly would have attended).
That said, I don’t think the campus presence that shethinks.org established (after several years, the campus chapters can still be counted on my fingers) is very impressive. Given how often anti-feminists, including Sara, have criticized feminism for allegedly being unpopular on campus, I think it’s fair to note that feminism remains vastly more popular on campus than their own movement.
(By the way, Will, MacKinnon isn’t a liberal – she’s far more radical than that. And the crowd at Oberlin wasn’t “adoring” – many of the folks there, including myself, were liberal feminists who disagreed with her strongly.).
The Guerilla Girls were at Lewis & Clark last year????? And I missed it???!!!! When was this? Was it when I was in Budapest, ’cause I’m sure I would have seen pamphlets advertising it on Reed’s campus.
its interesting that in conservative ohio, giuliani and steinem are scheduled to speak on the same day, same time, and tickets for steinem have been sold out!!!
Does an über-nit-picker pick über-nits?
Chicago’s conservatism is vastly overrated.
Yes, we did have “Allan’s Acolytes” when Allan Bloom was teaching there, but the vast majority of students there are apolitical, moderate, or liberal.
We’re not as leftist as Oberlin, but few places are. Chicago is about as liberal as any urban liberal arts campus is, but not as liberal as some more isolated enclaves like Oberlin, Reed, or Evergreen State.
Aaron, Reed is a ten-minute drive from my house – and my house is located near one of the busiest streets in Portland. I’d hardly call Reed isolated (standoffish, maybe).
Nonetheless, point well taken.
Another example of conservatives taking liberal ideas (e.g. feminism) and turning them into something they’re not.
One of the things that I think needs to be addressed more because it seems to justify a lot of bias against women (and men?) is the idea, quoted in the linked pdf article, of “hard-wired differences between women and men.” It seems like more and more conservatives (and liberals too!) are using information about sex differences coming out of the biological sciences to justify their biases.
How hard-wired are various differences between men and women? How much variabilty and plasticity is there? How well can we measure these differences? Even if there are generalizations we can make, how should this information be used?
(Hey, I’m a ten-minute drive away from Reed too! They do seem a little stand offish…they seem to identify so much as “Reedies” instead of just human beings…like other ivy league schools?)
We (Reedies) are also pretty isolated, blame it on an intensely rigorous academic environment that keeps most of us in the library at all times of the day, even those who live off-campus will spend most of their waking hours on-campus.
Give us a break on identifying ourselves based on the school, though. Reed’s community is pretty autonomous, as anyone who spends a semester here would know. There seems to be a general fear of breaking that autonomy and being subject to the general inclinations of the rest of the world. (No random nudity on the front lawn? Unacceptable!)
Off topic, but “80 whole people!” reminds me of an article I read a few months ago which claimed there were literally dozens (dozens!) of anti-Harry Potter websites out there. Dozens, I say!
Which is a big deal, since nobody has ever even considered posting a Harry Potter fan site. Ever.
Waaay off topic: I’d love to teach at Reed.
Closer to the topic: My impression of IWF-type anti-feminists is that they spend more time criticizing feminists than promoting a constructive agenda. For example, Hoff Summers talks about how the agenda of “equity feminism” has been lost among most feminists’ more radical agenda. While I think she’s wrong, I also wonder why she doesn’t spend more time promoting “equity feminism,” rather than attacking what she thinks other, misguided feminists are doing.
Cleis, because to my knowledge, equity feminists don’t exist, it’s just a word used to help criticize real feminists. (and by “real” I mean those that physically exist)
Pingback: Crescat Sententia