When women’s experience is made intelligible in the communications of consciousness raising we can recognize that it is in the structures of men’s stories of the world that women don’t make sense — that our own experience, collectively and jointly appreciated, can generate a picture of ourselves and the world within which we are intelligible.
-Women, Knowledge and Reality, Ann Garry and Marilyn Pearsall
When it comes to language, I am something of a conservative. There is little that annoys me more than the propagation of ugly, obtuse and unintelligible writing. This is one of the reasons I admire Orwell, who vigorously protested the degeneration of the English language in essays and books, most notably 1984.
Feminists, for their part, often appear to have taken it upon themselves to wage war on the English language. The style and language they use, which employs a number of neologisms and, dare I say, “neosemanticisms,” could be described as having some attributes that mimic classical philosophy, but the effect is more what one might expect from a gang of axe-wielding orcs set loose upon an ancient, wooded grove.
Hallowed academe, once the keeper of the classics, has been invaded by a new form of literature; one that has metastasized throughout the stacks of libraries, shoving the beautiful old books full of clear, delightful language to the margins. Here, I’d like to offer a few examples of what kind of text can be found in a typical humanities class in the 21st century, and leave it up to the reader to determine why boys and men are fleeing these institutions:
“The power of the Marxian critique of class domination stands as an implicit suggestion that feminists should consider the advantages of adopting a historical materialist approach to understanding phallocratic domination.”
–Nancy Hartsock in “The Feminist Standpoint”
This is the first sentence of Hartsock’s essay. The term “phallocratic domination” is a euphemism for patriarchal society, i.e. rule by men, which is the norm throughout most of the world. Hartsock reduces this to rule by penis. Both Hartsock and I live in Washington state, which is largely ruled by women. Our governor and two senators are female. How would feminists react if men were to call that a “vaginocracy?” Essentially, Hartsock is reducing men to their genitals, which is a very primitive slur. This is easy to do when one has a guaranteed position at a university, and contradicts her fundamental premise that penises rule.
Nancy Hartsock is a tenured professor of Political Science at the University of Washington in Seattle.
“The relation between ourselves as practicing sociologists and ourselves as working women is continually visible to us, a central feature of experience of the world, so that the bifurcation of consciousness becomes for us a daily chasm which is to be crossed, on the one side of which is this special conceptual activity of thought, research, teaching, administration, and on the other the world of concrete practical activities of keeping things clean, managing somehow the house and household and the children, a world in which the particularities of persons in their full organic immediacy (cleaning up the vomit, changing diapers, as well as feeding) are inescapable. Even if we don’t have that as a direct contingency in our lives, we are aware of that as something that our becoming may be inserted into as a possible predicate.”
–Dorothy E. Smith in “Women’s perspective as a Radical Critique of Sociology”
Here, Dorothy Smith, who also published “Feminism and Marxism: a place to begin, a way to go”, expresses in convoluted terms her anger and frustration about how her maternal duties imposed upon the “conceptual activity” that she apparently cherished. In fact, her grief is shared by plenty of women who are not conceptually capable, and she is simply a more verbose (although far from eloquent, as the quote clearly demonstrates) example of the woman who just doesn’t want to be bothered by motherhood. Note how she uses “predicate” where she clearly intends “predicament.”
Dorothy Smith is currently an adjunct professor at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada.
One phenomenon feminist historians have focused on is the rape and torture metaphors in the writings of Sir Francis Bacon and others (e.g. Machiavelli) enthusiastic about the new scientific method. Traditional historians and philosophers have said that these metaphors are irrelevant to the real meanings and referents of scientific concepts held by those who used them and by the public for whom they wrote. But when it comes to regarding nature as a machine, they have quite a different analysis: here, we are told, the metaphor provides the interpretations of Newton’s mathematical laws: it directs inquirers to fruitful ways to apply his theory and suggests the appropriate methods of inquiry and the kind of metaphyiscs the new theory supports. But if we are to believe that mechanistic metaphors were a fundamental component of the explanations the new science provided, why should we believe that the gender metaphors were not? A consistent analysis would lead to the conclusion that understanding nature as a woman indifferent to or even welcoming rape was equally fundamental to the interpretations of these new conceptions of nature and inquiry. Presumably these metaphors, too, had fruitful pragmatic, methodological, and metaphysical consequences for science. In that case, why is it not as illuminating and honest to refer to Newton’s laws as “Newton’s rape manual” as it is to call them “Newton’s mechanics”?
–Sandra Harding in “The Science Question in Feminism”
The assault on men in this instance becomes so ridiculous as to accuse Sir Isaac Newton, a lifelong virgin, of surreptitiously writing a rape manual while publishing one of the most influential scientific works of all time. Keep in mind that this woman is a tenured professor at a public university, and actually gets paid taxpayer money to write these kinds of things. “Phallocracy” indeed!
Sandra Harding is currently a professor of Social Sciences and Comparative Education at UCLA.
[First published 6/03/2009 in the Welmer blog]
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{ 59 comments… read them below or add one }
Perhaps it is a good thing that the academy is presently in real danger of falling apart.
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I heard that if you give one hundred feminists one hundred typewriters, they shall eventually type out the complete works of William Shakespeare.
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I could never call these women eloquent. They are verbose and pompous. They don’t use language to communicate, but twist and deform it depriving it of all its life and vigour. To try to understand what they are trying to say is like putting together an insane jigsaw puzzle. Their language is full of misfit terms which are poor fig-leaves covering up what is little more than assembled jargon.
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“Feminists, for their part, often appear to have taken it upon themselves to wage war on the English language. ”
…and to themselves, and to men, and to children and to the universe, at vitam aeternam, amen!! Hahaha!
“I heard that if you give one hundred feminists one hundred typewriters, they shall eventually type out the complete works of William Shakespeare.”
Apparently it was monkeys who succeeded in doing that, following which, the feminists organized a protest rally to condemn macho chimpanzees for winning over strong, independant and intelligent weemeen.
And it’s not one hundred women it takes but one hundred billion. (the one hundred typewriters were for apes: PC demanded to women be given a “slight” edge (as in a marathon)
“
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This isn’t just feminism-speak, it’s university-speak. Men and women earn doctorates so they can talk to each other like this in their ivory towers.
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I believe they call it ‘post modernism’..
http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/
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After reading the last quote from Sandra Harding, I did some Googling and found the quote came from a book from 1986. Naturally, I thought well things were different then and well even feminism had to evolve somewhat from such a ridiculous position. But, no, she’s still publishing this crap, though she has moved from phallocentricism to racism.
http://www.amazon.com/Science-Social-Inequality-Feminist-Postcolonial/dp/0252073045/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260816766&sr=8-6
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Forgot to add this lovely quote from Blaise Pascal (1657)
“I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter.”
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In my experience in academia, the people with the best understanding of the material were the easiest to talk to. Its the mediocrities who tend to be unreadable. Of course, I studied physics, which certainly has its pointless esoteric side, does seem to have verifiability to it
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This style of writing is the norm in postmodernist academia. I believe it originated with Marx, and was used by later communist intellectuals. It’s intended to be confusing and menacing at the same time, so it’s not strictly speaking bad writing. It’s more effective to conceal a stupid idea in bad writing than to explain it clearly and have it easily exposed.
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“When women’s experience is made intelligible in the communications of consciousness raising we can recognize that it is in the structures of men’s stories of the world that women don’t make sense — that our own experience, collectively and jointly appreciated, can generate a picture of ourselves and the world within which we are intelligible.”
I’ve read this four times now. If a student gave me a paper that had this sentence in it, I might well write “WTF??” in the margins with my red pen.
The typical university book store will give you about $60 at the end of the semester, for a book from the hard sciences that you paid $100 for.
The books from Women’s studies classes? Buy them for $50, and maybe get $8 back before Christmas. That’s because they are all filled with bullshit.
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I have a theory about how universities effect us all. I will be brief. If the sixties the in-subject was sociology. In the eighties the in-subject was women’s studies. In the nineties the in-subject was environmental studies. Each of these phases produced their own wave of graduates who then acted as a sort of advocacy group for their subject. This was in part driven by the desire to generate employment without which these people would have been jobless. I am quite sure climate change protesters will do rather nicely out of the climate change bureaucracy that they would like to invent.
May be not the whole story but I think it is part of it.
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Reply to Kevin K:
Good comment Kevin, I agree. I was actually a communications (social studies) major, but I did not finish as I transferred to a vocational school in my junior year.
Never got my bachelor’s but I’m now a gainfully-employed professional writer…
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This is a universal truth, it’s the same outside of academia as well.
One of the best rules of thumb to employ in one’s working life is this: if a colleague, boss or employee has difficulty explaining something to you, she probably doesn’t understand it herself.
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“When women’s experience is made intelligible in the communications of consciousness raising we can recognize that it is in the structures of men’s stories of the world that women don’t make sense — that our own experience, collectively and jointly appreciated, can generate a picture of ourselves and the world within which we are intelligible.â€
Roland3337 said:
I’ve read this four times now. If a student gave me a paper that had this sentence in it, I might well write “WTF??†in the margins with my red pen.
Translation: When women talk to each other about how men just don’t understand us, we figure out that it is because they are men and we are women. But, we can take comfort in the fact that among other women we are understood.
Lots of foo foo writing to make that simple point. My dissertation committee (one of the men, Dr. S. in particular) would rip it to shreds.
There is probably also an unstated point, and that is that women’s experiences are more valid and thus more important to women.
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Paul, what was the “in” subject for this decade, and what will it be for the one that’s about to begin in a few weeks?
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“Translation: When women talk to each other about how men just don’t understand us, we figure out that it is because they are men and we are women. But, we can take comfort in the fact that among other women we are understood. ”
Now I see the light!
Further translation:
“When we understand one another, we understand one another and when we don’t, then we don’t.”
That gave her a Phd?
WOW!!!
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Can we get the part where some women’s studies cupcake says that “logic and reason are tools of the patriarcy”?
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You want Feminispeak? Here is the Mass Women’s Bar Association applauding that state’s supreme justice court’s Pierce-vs-Pierce (“Till Death Do You Work”) alimony ruling:
hxxp://www.womensbar.org/images/pressrelease_alimony_0909.pdf
This my friends is Feminispeak.
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>>”I heard that if you give one hundred feminists one hundred typewriters, they shall eventually type out the complete works of William Shakespeare.”
Well, we found that was untrue upon the advent of the internet.
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“Differences [between men and women], including the products of social inequality, make unequal treatment not unequal at all.” — Catharine MacKinnon, “Reflections on Sex Equality Under Law,” Yale Law Journal, 1991
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The language used in women’s studies isn’t all that different from the language used by many other humanist scholars and disciplines. Incomprehensibility is a virtue to some.
Clear thinking begets clear writing, in reverse.
Learner:
Let’s not forget feminist standpoint theory, which states something like that in the open. Feminist language may be bad, but the thinking behind it can be equally confusing for those of us who are not well versed in the black arts of postmodernism.
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What I find funny is that most feminists cannot spell the most important work in their vocabulary. They come up with :
“mysoginist”
“mysogynast”
“misoginist”
Sort of sums up how empty they are, eh?
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If any of these professors are actually still teaching someone should try to distribute the link to this article to the students in their class. You know… a little fly in the “goodthink” soup.
I have a relative attending the UofV, I’ll see if I can find anything out.
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Well, according to the Calendar … D E Smith is not teaching any courses in the next semester. Too bad.
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@LS
“Well, we found that was untrue upon the advent of the internet.”
There was a typo. The number of women thus required is one hundred… billion. Time was set to :Infinity.
So, it may still happen in humpteen gazillion years. Please do not underestimate weemin.
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Learner’s got the essence of it, but as I speak fluent Idiot, I’ll just add a little more translation for your illumination:
“When women’s experience is made intelligible in the communications of consciousness raising we can recognize that it is in the structures of men’s stories of the world that women don’t make sense — that our own experience, collectively and jointly appreciated, can generate a picture of ourselves and the world within which we are intelligible.â€
Translation: If you don’t like feeling silly, just throw out logic and structure. Then remake the narrative on your own. It’s the men’s fault for not accounting for our way of seeing the world, because it’s not faiiiiiiir.
“The power of the Marxian critique of class domination stands as an implicit suggestion that feminists should consider the advantages of adopting a historical materialist approach to understanding phallocratic domination.â€
Translation: Marxism has had such success in subverting or wiping out capitalism, that we should consider using its tactics in subverting or wiping out patriarchy. Capitalism, of course, isn’t faiiiiiiir.
“The relation between ourselves as practicing sociologists and ourselves as working women is continually visible to us, a central feature of experience of the world, so that the bifurcation of consciousness becomes for us a daily chasm which is to be crossed, on the one side of which is this special conceptual activity of thought, research, teaching, administration, and on the other the world of concrete practical activities of keeping things clean, managing somehow the house and household and the children, a world in which the particularities of persons in their full organic immediacy (cleaning up the vomit, changing diapers, as well as feeding) are inescapable. Even if we don’t have that as a direct contingency in our lives, we are aware of that as something that our becoming may be inserted into as a possible predicate.â€
Welmer pretty well nailed this one: “Not only do I have to take care of the kids, but I actually have to drop what I’m doing and take care of them. That’s not faiiiiiiir.”
One phenomenon feminist historians have focused on is the rape and torture metaphors in the writings of Sir Francis Bacon and others (e.g. Machiavelli) enthusiastic about the new scientific method. Traditional historians and philosophers have said that these metaphors are irrelevant to the real meanings and referents of scientific concepts held by those who used them and by the public for whom they wrote. But when it comes to regarding nature as a machine, they have quite a different analysis: here, we are told, the metaphor provides the interpretations of Newton’s mathematical laws: it directs inquirers to fruitful ways to apply his theory and suggests the appropriate methods of inquiry and the kind of metaphyiscs the new theory supports. But if we are to believe that mechanistic metaphors were a fundamental component of the explanations the new science provided, why should we believe that the gender metaphors were not? A consistent analysis would lead to the conclusion that understanding nature as a woman indifferent to or even welcoming rape was equally fundamental to the interpretations of these new conceptions of nature and inquiry. Presumably these metaphors, too, had fruitful pragmatic, methodological, and metaphysical consequences for science. In that case, why is it not as illuminating and honest to refer to Newton’s laws as “Newton’s rape manual†as it is to call them “Newton’s mechanics�
Translation: Hard science is hard. Asking me to view the universe in terms of absolutes isn’t faiiiiiiir.
There you go.
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Thank you Mrs. Pilgrim.
One observation. Another technique used for making the bullshit pass, and is one that we also see on the Internet, is putting it in a text wall. Paragraphs make stuff clear, and if the bullshit is clear and understandable people won’t support it, so if you put your nonsense in a text wall, people just assent without bothering to try to understand it.
Or, as a WoW player put it:
That also goes for grammar, but that one could be explained for simple stupidity.
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Basic rule of social science, not just wimmins studies, is to hide your vacuity behind high falutin’ verbiage. This raises the barriers to entry (to understand the stuff) so that it’s safer from opponents and by the time anyone has understood it they are likely to be more invested.
Same principle as building a fence around a factory.
It also makes people less likely to finish reading the book, more likely to have them uncertain what it means, and thus less likely for them to feel confident in challenging it and leaving the author more wiggle room when corned by any given passage.
Stanislav Andreski’s book “Social Science as Sorcery” is an excellent take down, from abotu 1972.
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This would all be very amusing if the consequences of feminist dumbing down of academia weren’t so serious.
How many of you know that the next important objective of leading women’s organizations is to apply Title IX to science and engineering education? My heart sank when I first discovered this, but it is not a joke. It will happen.
Here is a typical feminist fantasy view of this initiative:
And here is the politically incorrect reality:
I remember watching a press conference given by a female program manager after NASA’s Columbia disaster. She was well-groomed and dressed in a suit that would not have looked out of place on an IBM Vice President, but as she spoke she incrementally revealed her utter lack of knowledge of the core technology of her organization. I realized that day that NASA was screwed. Applying Title IX to US science and engineering will roll out the NASA model of technology development and management across the nation. Timidity and lack of competence, decision making by committee, poor outcomes justified by consensus and with less and less to show for the application of more and more resources.
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There’s a good reason this story originally went “If you give one hundred chimpanzees one hundred typewriters…”
With chimps, at least there’s a chance they would type out great literature. They’re not consciously opposed to quality writing, so if they blundered upon a master-piece they wouldn’t feel the need to turn it into “The Women’s Room”.
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Echoing Krauser, Orwell’s great essay “On politics and the English language” pointed out that people who speak nonsense employ large words and convoluted sentences to hide their meaning. Orwell’s thesis: if you can’t say it plainly, you have nothing to say.
He then used examples both from politicians and from academics to illustrate his point. Since feminism is both political and academic….well, let’s just say Orwell would agree that feminist thought is like piling one heap of garbage on another and saying you have a mountain of food.
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I’m not sure how seriously to take this. I’ve read Christina Hoff Sommers write about it and she gets some good quotes, but I’ve never heard anyone in the physics community I work in talk about it other than to acknowledge it makes no sense.
Its not like female sports where they may not be interested in it, but they may be interested in a scholarship to fund their college degree and they are seperated out from men. Its not like medicine or law which women do academically as well as men and are reasonably lucrative career paths. Physics, the main target of these initiatives, is 1) overcrowded 2) underpaid 3) really hard even for people who are good at it 4) totally miserable for someone who isn’t 5) something only a few particular women have any interest in. I would argue there are already too many women in physics and women are already wildly overpromoted and the ratio of male to female grad students is still 4 to 1 or so. I just don’t see how they can make it work.
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@ fedrz December 14, 2009 at 12:58 pm
“Differences [between men and women], including the products of social inequality, make unequal treatment not unequal at all.†— Catharine MacKinnon, “Reflections on Sex Equality Under Law,†Yale Law Journal, 1991
Separate but equal comes to mind… Wasn’t that the issue in Racial Relations way back when? Settled in a series of cases including Plessy v. Ferguson, Brown v. Board of Education, and Bolling v. Sharp? (See Wikipedia.)
But I guess it is true that, “All animals are Equal, but some animals are MORE equal than others.”
I have a (radical) thought: Let’s force women to take steroids, so they can have the same upper-body strength as men. They can then endure the exact same situations men en masse do, the same facial hair, muscle hypertrophy, deep voice, (fe)male pattern baldness, even serve on the front lines in combat, since they’ll have masculinized skeletal structures. It adds to their utility, makes them men’s equals in many ways, even will change how they think and re-order their brains (See the Grey matter vs. White matter convo on another thread, or google it.)
Problems solved, they really CAN walk a mile in our shoes… You know, the ones that DO NOT have heels, ladies… you always say you like flats better, strap ‘em on…
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@ Kevin K December 14, 2009 at 6:34 pm
The issues you list? Those are the REASONS Title IX is to be applied to STEM, specifically to f*ck it up. These people believe in an ideal, and they see women and men as tools, to be turned into perfect cogs in the machine. They will not be satisfied until women are “equally represented” in all fields and endeavors, whether the women want to be or not. Oh, except the “icky” ones, we boys can keep sewage waste treatment and crab fishing and probably Deep sea operations like salvage, working as roughnecks, etc. Those will then be used to further cement the power base, because then there never will be parity between men and women.
The divide and conquer approach is intentional. If they can’t do it by coercion of interest, it’s a reflection of the sexism in the field, and it must be corrected by force. Again, unless it’s “icky”.
Try this approach:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_rGD8ozZLXgc/SwDaE_WBDOI/AAAAAAAAASs/9HP85DYB9L8/S660/A+SURE+CURE+FOR+SOCIOPATHY.jpg
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agreed Charles Martel with the famous Math55 example — the collectivist/female ideological conquest of academia and the wider culture is antithetical to civilization itself, which cant exist modernly w/o identifying and nurturing its geniuses– even if they happen to be, horrifyingly and incorrectly enough, b-o-y-s
such willful self-destruction demonstrates group pathology, and amongst human beings only cults carry this kind of power across generations
feminism and matriarchy is a goddess-religion masquerading as politics, and such cults have always not only existed amidst civilizations, they have occultly ruled them
the difference in the modern west is the bold, abrupt, and mocking exteriorization of the cult — its going mainstream, a la it’s A Womans Nation now, suckers
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@Kevin K
Title IX
“It makes no sense.” And your point is?
“Don’t argue! You cannot win, you cannot beat a woman in a argument…. Cause men, we are handicapped when it comes to arguing cause we have a need to make sense …Chris Rock
Title IX can be applied to Science and Engineering education at the college level in the same way it has been applied to college athletics programs – enforcement of quotas in undergraduate admissions to STEM programs under penalty of fines and withdrawal of federal funds. The law is already in place. All it will take is the political will to enforce the existing law.
There is more at stake here of course than there has been in applying Title IX to athletics and so there will be more resistance from the reality-based community. But there is no room for complacency. Download this document : “A Title IX Timeline: The Enforcement of Title IX in Science and Engineering Education” here.
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Some good reading for those interested and who can stand a very dry read.
Postmodernism disrobed by Richard Dawkins
Sex Differences In Mathematical Aptitude by La Griffe du Lion
From Dawkins…
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Here I was foolishly thinking that it was because fluid mechanics has no known exact solution, and finding an exact solution is equivalent to the halting problem.
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Ray
“agreed Charles Martel with the famous Math55 example — the collectivist/female ideological conquest of academia and the wider culture is antithetical to civilization itself, which cant exist modernly w/o identifying and nurturing its geniuses– even if they happen to be, horrifyingly and incorrectly enough, b-o-y-s”
Exactly correct. One of the greatest contributors to civilization was a man named Tesla, who had some interesting characteristics if one cares to look them up. He would have been drugged and relegated to obscurity in this bizarre perversion of an ‘educational system’. Because he was not, his discoveries (much that we aren’t even aware of yet) have improved the quality of life. This is just one, however I can point out others. Please name women who have contributed to this extent. I’ll be waiting, but not holding my breath.
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Gwallan
Newton studied a large number of fascinating archaic texts during his life. Physicists from Newton, Einstein, Bohm to Aspect, etc., and material science professors who have worked for industry and put their knowledge to actual practical applications have my respect. Luce Irigaray and Katherine Hayles I have never even read about, however we might find their names listed in a book someday entitled “Feminist BS theories you’ve never heard of and why”.
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Lol ! When the message is impervious to fault attack the messenger . Now I understand why your posts are so empty and frivolous. You might try having more than shallow thoughts.
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Well, this ruined my morning.
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DB
??????
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Easy enough, really. All they need to do is get Title IX to be enforced in academic disciplines, and then, unless there is parity in STEM on a sex basis, federal funding will be yanked. So what they will do is simply discriminate against men. It’s easy enough to do, and it’s going to happen, because they now view STEM as a kind of “male citadel” that needs to be stormed and feminized. It’s probably a good thing, because doing so will accelerate the inevitable decline, really — I don’t think that India and China will be implementing mandatory sex parity in their own STEM faculties, and so eventually we will cease to be competitive with them. Ho hum. The revolution will eat its grandchildren. It always does, it’s just a question of how long it takes.
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Hi everyone, commenting for the first time here because of the Title IX and STEM discussion
I’m a physics prof at a PhD-granting university and the “problem” of improving gender equality in the hard sciences is receiving serious attention. The possibility of Title IX being applied to the STEM disciplines has been raised at conferences by colleagues and at my home institution by administration. Its pretty scary when you want the most qualified colleagues, and 5/6 PhD’s are earned by men, and there is pressure to hire women.
Anecdotally, the last search committee I was on had no women among the final 5 candidates, and we had to seriously discuss whether or not we would need to add a woman to avoid any appearance of sexism.
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Novaseeker, “eventually”…. the USA already have an economy based on consumerism by 70%….
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I heard that if you give one hundred feminists one hundred typewriters, they shall eventually type out the complete works of William Shakespeare.
+1 Snark
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BP, I didn’t mean to imply there isn’t pressure to hire women and generally promote them in physics departments (one of my friends was pretty much given a faculty job because she was the only female that applied and was told so by the hiring committee).
However, Title IX is about the balance in undergraduate physics programs, which is nuts. I don’t know about at your university, but at my undergraduate school (which was a big state university) there were 2-4 undergraduate women in most of my classes amongst 30 guys. In grad school, there were zero females in a class of 14. Those are maybe extreme cases (mainly because my undergrad had a big engineering program and any female with STEM tendencies tended to go there. My understanding that liberal arts universities have better parity), but are they really going to size down the classes to 8 people? Where are they going to find 20 females to fill in the gap if not?
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Just finished reading the comments, including the application of Title IX to math and science departments. All I can say is wow. I haven’t paid any attention to this issue. I like to consider myself well aware of the absurdities of feminism, but this had not even occurred to me. Of course it makes perfect sense within the feminist agenda… but it’s SO unconscionably backwards that this naive, reality-based male just hadn’t even considered it as a possibility.
I guess the lesson is, never, EVER, underestimate the self-serving absurdities of feminists.
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None can compete with afrocentrics in verbose nonsense.They confuse that act with scholarship .In trying to mimic real scholars they miss the necessary underlying meaning.Asante is a notible example .
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University Speak December 14, 2009 at 11:04 am
Forgot to add this lovely quote from Blaise Pascal (1657)
“I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter.”
Yes, I have often said I am perfectly prepared to give a one hour presentation but a 5 minute presentation takes much longer to prepare.
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Women can’t communicate. What else is new? Women can’t do ANYTHING as well as men because men are better than women in every way except the ability to have babies. This is ESPECIALLY true when it comes to communicating or transmitting complex ideas or even just writing novels or even presenting them to students. That women use more words to communicate less does not make them ‘better communicators’. Women consistently point out they use more words in a day than men do and claim that makes them ‘better communicators’. That us a self defeating argument. Men get the message across far more effectively.
I still recall the instant I finally gave up on anything to do with english literature and women teachers in general. We were doing Sons and Lovers by DH Lawence. Paul gives Miriam a bunch of flowers (roses I think) and the stems are cut. My english teacher claimed this signified the relationship was cut and over. She was engaged to be married. So I asked her if her fiancee had ever given her flowers. She said yes. I asked if they were cut or had the roots attached. She said they were cut. I asked her if that meant her relationship with her fiancee was over as she claimed the relationship bewteen Paul and Miriam was over. She looked at me and said “GM, you are too realistic.”
Wow…what harsh criticism for a 17 year old who was hoping to win the top scholarship in Australia for physics! LOL! (Which I did by they way.)
Then there was the time at uni when we were doing epistimology (the study of what it is possible to believe). The question for the semester was “What is it possible to believe and still be considered sane”. And the discussion was around is it possible to believe two clearly conflicting ideas and still be ‘sane’. I was 20 so this is 25 years ago now. When I was asked to speak I said something like:
GM: “Well this is going to be a short semester.”
Lecturer: “Why?
GM: “Well, clearly we must accept that it is possible to believe two conflicting ideas and still be declared ‘sane’. Indeed, we must accept it is possible to believe all sorts of nonsense with a myriad conflicts and still be declared sane.”
Lecturer: “Really? Why?”
GM: “Do you know anything about women? They believe the most ludicrous of things that are completely contradictory. We must either declare all women insane or accept that they are sane yet believe nonsense that is contradictory.”
I meant it as a sincere comment. I thought I was being helpful in making it abundantly clear that we could not declare half the adult population insane just because they had cotton wool for brains.
The women took great exception to my comment. 25 years later? I have not seen one scrap of evidence to contradict my statement as a young man. Not one scrap.
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To be frank, we also have a lot less vapid bullshit to talk about.
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That made me laugh. When my sister tries to justify the unjustifiable she sends me one-sentence emails that should be 4-5 paragraphs as one big block of text, and doesn’t punctuate …’you said I shouldn’t get mad about that how would you knowI do my best don’t you thinkI have no idea’ type rants , and I know she’s fudging and the truth is in there somewhere so I go through and punctuate and then read the whole thing
It’ s like fluffing a term paper I guess.
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Overuse of pretentious verbiage is not the only way they’ve assaulted the English language. Over the past 15 years or so (that I’ve noticed, it could be earlier) any words formerly used to praise men, or with favorable connotations, have been twisted into insults. ‘Patriarch’, ‘nice guy’ etc are all pejoratives now. It’s jarring, to say the least. I don’t believe for a minute that it’s simply a question of language evolving.
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Thanks for article. Everytime like to read you.
Kicker
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The preponderance of a radical linguistic shematic shift and deconstruction realigns a previously under-understood dalectal dichotomy of masculine energy supressing and engulphing feminine mystique and marginalizes the phalic hierarchal pyramid of biased Jungian dynamic interpretation. The result of which, is a ephemeral realignment of a once collapsed spiritual accendance of motherhood and mothernature, as we all intinctively know as women, with freedom, comes feminine function, the function of which is to nurture; our bodies, our minds, our spirits, and the lineage of such through a non-rape reproductive paragdigm. Thats all. What do you men not understand about this.
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LOL, J.
That was good. I don’t think I could write like that even if I tried, so props to you.
I have to agree with afrocentric and feminist writers spouting verbose garbage. They both have the same enemy: the white man. It usually sounds like:
Blah, blah, patriarchy is evil even though I’d be living in a grass hut without it, blah, blah, the white man should be put down, blah, blah, taxpayers should give me money to sit here and write this crap, blah, blah.
That’s why I like to read the Economist, Scientific American or something from Thomas Sowell, instead; crisp, clear writing. Even their opinion columns try to use facts to back up their analysis.
Have you guys seen this? It’s hilarious:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/04/AR2009120403231.html
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