Sixteen Yale students and recent alumni are siccing the U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights on Yale College, claiming that the college denies girls the “same equal opportunity to the Yale education as their male counterparts,” in the words of civil rights complainant Hannah Zeavin. The ground for their complaint? A handful of juvenile frat hazing incidents deliberately designed to violate sacred feminist taboos. I analyse the narcissism and astounding lack of perspective embodied by this ongoing action here:
Yale has one of the greatest library systems in the world; it showers on students top-notch instruction in almost every intellectual discipline; it lavishes students with healthy food, luxurious athletic facilities, and rich venues for artistic expression. All of these educational resources are available on a scrupulously equal basis to both sexes. But according to the Yale 16 and their supporters, female students simply cannot take full advantage of the peerless collection of early twentieth-century German periodicals at Sterling Library, say, or the DNA sequencing labs on Science Hill, because a few frat boys acted tastelessly. Thus the need to go crying to the feds to protect you from the big, bad Yale patriarchy. Time to bring on the smelling salts and the society doctors peddling cures for vapors and neurasthenia.
Can we just declare feminism dead in the US now? If this is all they have left to fight for, they really have no battles left. Just. Go. Away. Or fight real battles, like helping Saudi women drive, or keep their earnings instead of turning it over to their dad/husband.
Nah, that’s too hard.
While your scathing words about feminists remind me of PZ Myers’ irrational attitude toward conservatives, I have to agree with your central point here that a lawsuit against the university is a terrible way to handle this issue.
My favorite sentence from your article: “Stage counter-demonstrations outside the DKE and Zeta Psi fraternities giving out the toll-free number for Viagra prescriptions as an antidote to the brothers’ well-known performance problems.”
While I consider myself a feminist for my own reasons, I strongly disagree with the segment of the movement that promotes this perpetual victim complex. Hiding behind big government and lawsuits doesn’t make you stronger; standing up for yourself does.
Prissy neurotics looking for an excuse to tyrannize other people?
I really appreciate your continual focus on this particular kind of lunacy.
It’s nice to see the passion and energy level of someone like PZ Myers channeled in a more interesting direction.
Christian-bashing (of he PZ Myers variety) is boring, tiresome, and reflexive.
The problems with Christian zealotry are obvious and uninteresting. The problems Heather MacDonald (and Theodore Dalrymple) focus on are more interesting, weird, and novel.
The way highly motivated high-IQ people with an axe to grind can make a total hash out of legitimate scholarship and even exert influence over the thinking of an entire society is a morbidly fascinating phenomenon.
Frankly Heather, I’m curious what makes you think the chicks complaining about frat boys are the same ones trying to join the Navy SEALs?
To Audrey the Liberal:
The answer to your question is contained in the last two sentences of the article.