his page collects blog entries about Womens' Studies, the much-maligned, frequently nutty academic discipline that nevertheless does a great service by trying to poke some holes in the male-dominated world of academics, history, and other old-boy-network areas. Do professors in Womens' Studies offer valid criticism, understandably paranoid observations, or are they just insane?  See below for answers.

More recent additions are added on top of the page.

Here's some reader feedback, commenting on the "snow penis" blog from a couple of days ago

I agree with your conclusions about the Harvard incident. Every woman I spoke to about this subject seemed to think it unoffensive; however, it was deemed childish yet amusing. As I work at a State University, many of my female contemporaries possess PhDs. They (and myself) felt this extremism often typecasts legitimate women's oppression struggles in the same manner. I think the penis rather funny, and it's likely that I would have added some leaves around it. Additionally, I think PETA does undermine its messages with shock, which is sad.

Boidea

The thing I found funny was that the quote in my update, from "a female friend" was from a woman who will soon have her own PhD, and obviously didn't think much of the women's studies field either.  We're just wrecking over-educated female stereotypes left and right today.

March 4, 2004

Women's Studies is a much-maligned field in academia.

If you don't know what it is, it's basically a sort of institutionalized women's lib, with academic trappings and research added in, but mostly to codify their pre-suppositions about women's roles (oppressed), men's roles (oppressors), sex (rape), porn (violence), etc.  That's the stereotype anyway. You can see it lampooned by noted social commentator Space Moose, in this classic series of strips, ones written from a very phallocentric PoV.

(Ironically, I was ready to write this a few days ago, and just now checked the Space Moose site which hasn't been active in like 3 years and guess what he's got an update about?  Yep, this.)

I tend to have a lot of sympathy for this sort of issue, since most of my friends are female and I'm very interested in the world from their perspective.  And a lot of men are pigs, and most of the world is dominated by them.  Us.  My kind.

So in a world of 50 billion internet porn sites, mail order brides, Hooters "family" restaurants, upskirt camera websites, and anti-abortion protesters, I can see why some women get very heavily into professional, institutionalized anti-men research.  And it's not always anti-men, and they aren't all fat lesbians. That's just another stereotype, the type promoted by bitter angry sexist men, basically.

The problem with Women's Studies is when they get carried away, and start to take themselves way too seriously.  And something like spelling it "Womyn's" to avoid the "men" in the word, or speaking about everything in this codified, almost foreign language where everything is a tool or an oppressor or a symbol.

The story is that some guys at Harvard built a big snow erection, complete with balls, in the commons. Joke to them, they left, other guys were hanging around. Seems a bit suspect to me, I mean all those guys, hanging around a big snow erection.  Get a room, fellas. Anyway, they were hanging around worshiping their phallus, and predictably enough, some people were offended by it.  A couple of women's studies majors, from the sound of their quotes.

“As a feminist, pornography is degrading to women and creates a violent atmosphere,” she said.

Keel said that her personal experience as a rape survivor makes this statue even more uncomfortable to observe.

“Men think they have the right to force that on you,” she said. “It’s a logical extension.”

“A few people came out and crowded me with their bodies and one person shoved me away from the penis,” she said. “It was gendered violence, because [their comments] were said in the context of our gender and accompanied by aggressive actions toward us.”

All scientific disciplines have some practitioners who get way too into it, and lose all touch with reality, or try to apply their geek-speak to real life situations where it seems ridiculous. But to others in their discipline, it's all perfectly clear and logical. "Ivory-tower speak" is Malaya's suggestion, and we'll go with that for now. And you end up with phrases like "gendered violence" which turns their real situation into a sort of comic book of overt symbolism.

One of the women quoted above says she was raped in the past (of course she says "rape survivor" and somehow that's the first/only biographical detail of her presented, like it's her middle name or on her business card) which may or may not related to this, but I'll give her the benefit of the doubt.

I asked a female friend about it, since I felt bad for being cynical. She had a nice reply:

Personally, I don't care what issue it is: race, abuse, gender, politics, etc. At some point, when people start using it as an excuse for inaction or an excuse to perpetuate more abuse, it's wrong. Sure, bitch, complain, talk about it- for healing or positive change. But to bring it out like some sort of Excuse Card cheapens the experience, and slaps the face of everyone else who has gone through it

Anyway, rape or no rape, if they're offended by the statue, they have a right to be offended by it.  Here's the first quote from the woman, and it's more reasonable:

“It was offensive because it was pornographic,” said Amy E. Keel ’04, who said she and her roommate “dismantled” the giant snow penis.

I didn't intend to pick at her every comment, but this one is so pickable.  First of all, how is a snow sculpture of a penis pornographic?  I'll bet this woman has various "goddess" statues of naked women around.  Are those not pornographic also?  Secondly, how is pornography automatically offensive?  According to whom? (Well, according to Amy E. Keel, obviously.)  She could say it was pornographic, and/or offensive.  But I don't see how one necessarily equates to the other.

Also, don't you think that any anatomical statue they made could have been used for the same argument?  Statues of a breast with snowball nipple or a giant labia would have been pornography also, and symbols of the male need to dominate and control, or something like that. Whereas some women making this statue would have been a ritual of empowerment, where they could create and have control over the rampant phallocentrism of our patriarchal society.  Etc.

The quotes above are from the student.  Here we hear from the master:

Women’s Studies Lecturer Diane L. Rosenfeld, who teaches Women, Violence and the Law this semester, said that the implications of the snow phallus go beyond the legitimacy of the statue’s presence.

“The ice sculpture was erected in a public space, one that should be free from menacing reminders of women’s sexual vulnerability,” Rosenfeld wrote in an e-mail yesterday.

She said the snow penis follows a long line of public phallic symbols, including the Washington Monument and missiles.

“Women do not need to be reminded of the power of the symbol of the male genitalia,” Rosenfeld said. “My guess is that they are constantly reminded of it in daily messages.”

Uh huh. Missiles. Someone has seen Dr. Strangelove too many times. You know, they tried the rocket-propelled amorphous blob in the past, but somehow it just wasn't all that aerodynamic.

The way she's got it so thought out is what makes it funny.  Tracing a lineage from every obelisk in ancient Egypt through to the Washington Monument and culminating in the great snow phallus of Harvard, February 2003.  Meanwhile, here's what the dumb non-frat boys who made it thought they were doing:

Skey said he came up with the idea to allow a few members of the team to “hang out together” outside of practice.

“We built it for fun, instead of building a snowman,” he said. “We built it specifically as a junior high prank.”

Sometimes a snow penis is just a snow penis?

My conclusion? This is a hilarious article.

In the bigger picture, the two female students and their quote-o-matic professor are doing their cause a disservice by getting so wound up over what was obviously just some dumb guys and a silly/obscene prank. Most people read what they said about this and are inclined to dismiss their entire discipline, if they are so silly about such a minor thing.

The problem is that there is institutional sexism and racism in the US and most of the rest of the world, and that exposing it on a larger scale is an important and valuable task.  This snow penis statue issue is such a tempest in a teapot, and rather a case of "girl crying horny wolf" since hardly anyone is going to view it as a real issue, no matter how many wordy quotes are issued about it. Save your energy for something more important.

In fact, their making such a big deal out of this makes them look all the sillier.  If the two women had said they thought it was offensive and gone out to knock it down, and said some guys shoved them and tried to stop them, they'd have a lot more sympathy. Men are pigs, after all.  Try that next time, and leave the press releases about how "public spaces should be free from menacing reminders of women’s sexual vulnerability" at home.

All site content copyright "Flux" (Eric Bruce), 2002-2007.