Above: from the textbook Is Everyone Really Equal, page 46

Is it just me, or are the humanities becoming less humane?

Today’s gem comes from Drs. Ozlem Sensoy and Robin DiAngelo’s textbook “Is Everyone Really Equal? An Introduction to Key Concepts in Social Justice Education.” We’ll be focusing on page 46, which says:

There is no op­pression against men as men and therefore no “reverse” sexism (although there is oppression against men where they also inhabit oppressed positions, e.g., working class White men or gay Asian men or elderly Sikh men).

First of all, I don’t like to use the word “oppressed” when referring to either men or women as a group. It’s an extreme word, and its use in the context of sex can only be rationalized by dishonestly cherry-picking only the disadvantageous experiences of either sex, and then misrepresenting such cherry-picked data as if it were all or most of the picture of gender relations.

And as I’ve explained at length elsewhere, women were never historically “oppressed,” at least not in the west, and certainly not in the way blacks and Jews historically were. Women were indeed disadvantaged by traditional gender roles, but so too were men.

Nor – contrary to Feminist dogma – were such roles forced upon society against women’s will. As many women of today so eloquently demonstrate, women are quite happy to demand that men perform traditional roles whenever they work in women’s favor.

And they always have.

Historically, men died in the workplace and in war. Women tended to die during childbirth. Women didn’t have the option to work in the most advanced positions in society, but unlike men they weren’t forced to work the most brutal, filthy, and deadly jobs.

Women had limited options to establish a career, but men never had the privilege of society providing them with a partner who will fund their entire existence.

Women weren’t respected in the public sphere, but women weren’t held accountable in the public sphere either, and consequently were given a free pass by the criminal justice system. In many cases men themselves paid for their wive’s crimes.

Let’s also remember that men were historically obligated to die for women in the event that women got into more trouble than they could handle. Titanic, anyone?

Feminists and their apologists like to dismiss such counter-evidence by claiming that women were not “privileged” per se, but rather “treated like children.”

But were women treated like children, or treated like royalty? Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference. And compelling arguments could be made that children have historically been treated much worse than women.

The majority of men throughout history were not princes and kings – the 1%. They were born in the mud, lived in the mud, worked in the mud, and died in the mud. What was the historic relation of women to mud? Metaphorically speaking, something like this:

In a sense, Drs. Sensoy and DiAngelo are correct: there is no such thing as “reverse” sexism against men, because such a concept often rests upon the false premise that gender relations were ever one-sided against women to begin with. So it’s not “reverse” sexism. It’s just plain ol’ sexism.

The textbook also says:

“Women cannot be just as sexist as men because they do not hold political, economic, and institutional power.”

Notice how their definition of sexism leaves out the concepts of biological and cultural power, both of which tend to favor women.

In pre-industrial societies it is considered acceptable to kill off huge numbers of men. This is because no matter how many men a society/tribe/nation kills off, it can still repopulate itself so long as a few men and most of the women stay alive.

It cannot do this if it kills off most of its women. Hence, men have almost always been the ones put on the chopping block. This is the foundation of the phenomenon Dr. Warren Farrell calls male disposability. It is biological power.

Men may have indeed been favored by the laws of public institutions, but women are favored by the laws of Nature itself.

The phenomenon of male disposability. Sources here: http://boysmeneducation.com/know-the-issues/mhrm/issues/

Furthermore, even if it were the case that women historically did not hold any kind of power, the concept that women do not hold political, economic, and institutional power today is false on its face.

Women are the majority of consumers in society, which means that they are the target audience corporations (read: men) pander to. Hence, why Hallmark will make cards insulting men, but will never insult women.

In addition, women are the majority of voters. And many institutions are gynocentric – academia especially. So it’s a sham to pretend that women hold no power in society.

A simple Google search will show that this textbook is on the syllabus of many classes in “higher education”:

• A sociology class at San Jose State University
• A Latino Studies class at UNC
• A University of Alabama class on Multicultural Education
• A Iowa State University class on multiculturalism
• A Rutgers U school of management and labor relations class titled “Diversity in the Workplace”
• A diversity class for education majors at George Regents University

We have seen time and time again how Feminists in academia attempt to silence alternative perspectives on gender equity, often while violating others’ constitutional rights to freedom of speech and association and engaging in hateful and criminal acts.

The freshman orientation program “She Fears You,” presented at 60 colleges and universities. How would people react if it said “whites fear you”?

We have seen them preach many hateful things about men and boys, both individually and as a group, in the halls of academia. And we have seem them – surrounded by their political allies – translate these hateful ideas onto banners, posters, and other visual aids, and wield them in a public and symbolic manner that demonstrates communally shared beliefs.

But as I have made pains to stress in the past, the problem is not so much the singular and occasional anti-male statements and actions of students, faculty, and administrators. Those are merely the symptoms of a much deeper problem.

The real problem is the attitude and the worldview that creates and fosters them. It is the seething darkness and the underlying subtext beneath their words and deeds.

And that worldview is shared not just by the “radicals” in academia, but by the moderates as well.