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- Nov 20, 2012
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“Uncomfortable Learning” is a student-run, alumni-funded organization that aims to encourage students to understand and engage with often provocative and uncomfortable viewpoints that oppose perceived popular opinions at Willams College in Massachusetts. It is intended to give provocative opposing views for debate. But the students could not handle this woman talking about the downside of feminism and protested vehemently. So what’s the point of this program? Embarrassing. Note that it was a student run board that made the decision to cancel her invitation although many professors there are in agreement. The only one of the board who voted to let her speak, Zack Wood (co-president), is taking much of the heat.
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College students can't handle 'feminism fails' message
Suzanne Venker event in 'Uncomfortable Learning' series canceled over content
Students at Williams College apparently are mentally and physically unable to handle messages such as “feminism fails.”
But according to Inside Higher Ed, her speech was too controversial for students to hear.
The aim of the series was “to expose students to controversial voices and opinions they might not otherwise hear.”
Inside Higher Ed said students who run the series decided to cancel it after its Facebook page began to attract acerbic comments and “things got a little out of hand,” according to co-president Zach Wood.
Wood explained on a blog that he was accused by posters of damaging people “who are dying in the streets.”
By having Venker express her opinions, “Know, you are dipping your hands in their blood, Zach Wood,” a critic wrote on Facebook.
“When you bring a misogynistic, white supremacist men’s rights activist to campus in the name of ‘dialogue’ and ‘the other side,’ you are not only causing actual mental, social, psychological, and physical harm to students, but you are also – paying – for the continued dispersal of violent ideologist that kill our black and brown (trans) femme sisters,” the critic said.
“You are giving those who spout violence the money that so desperately needs to be funneled to black and brown (trans) femme communities, to people who are leading the revolution, who are surviving in the streets, who are dying in the streets. You, you are dipping your hands in their blood, Zach Wood.”
Wood said he canceled the planned “One Step Forward, Ten Steps Back: Why Feminism Fails” event because of “vehement reactions.”
Wood wrote, “To claim that bringing Venker to Williams is an attack on what this college stands for and the women who work here is unfounded. At Williams, learning (theoretically anyway) begins with confronting challenging ideas. Tens of millions of Americas espouse Venker’s views – and I am not one of them.
“I am, in fact, of the opinion that her arguments deserve trenchant criticism, but to challenge her intellectually and critique her arguments substantively, we must first understand her views.”
He accused critics of judging the event “through a lens of motivated ignorance.”
“Put crudely, what contaminates this lens is not its focus; rather, it is the myopia of those who look through it. This myopia breeds a searing aversion to fruitful intellectual exchange that challenges politically progressive students at Williams to reexamine their sacred beliefs. Evincing said myopia, the ad hominem diatribe in this article’s opening quotation criminalizes freedom of thought, typifies progressive ideological absolutism, fuels motivated ignorance, and corrodes intellectual humility.”
He condemned the assassination of “Venker’s character (without presenting a shred of evidence).”
“I find it frustrating that some of our peers prefer demonization to thoughtful discussion. … At America’s top liberal arts college, we should not settle for petty personal attacks, unchecked confirmation bias, and Taco 6-like verbal harassments when we deeply disagree with people.”
Venker told Fox News she had been planning to encourage students to think for themselves. “Do not be swayed by groupthink no matter what your friends, your family or the culture believe,” was in her opening statement.Further, she was going to address feminism, she said.
“I was going to tell them why feminism fails. (Hint: because it denies the existence of biology and teaches that equality means sameness, which is a losing proposition when it comes to planning a life – particularly if that life includes marriage and family.)”
She said weeks of preparation “went down the drain.” “I’d even pushed aside a book I’m working on because I felt so strongly about sharing with students some critical facts about women, men, work and family – facts that, despite undermining the feminist cause, are nevertheless true and may have changed both hearts and minds. That is the point of an education, is it not?”
She continued: “The students who took issue with my appearance are as sensitive as their feminist leaders, who are notorious for cowering in the face of opposition. And I understand why: their arguments are weak. And weak arguments can’t ‘hold up to scrutiny.”
“Feminists and their followers love to define feminism as a push for ‘equal rights’ – as Hillary Clinton did in a recent gush-fest with Lena Dunham – because that’s a benign term with which few would disagree. But ‘equal rights’ is not at all what feminism is about,” she wrote. “What today’s feminists want is a new world order, one in which men and women become interchangeable. In other words, whatever men do women must do in equal numbers – and vice versa.
“To achieve this sexual utopia, feminists use fear. Everything they preach is predicated on the notion that some great calamity will befall women if they don’t insist that society change to accommodate the injustices American women face. And the nucleus of this fear is men. It is man – specifically: husbands, employers and the government – that holds women back.”
She said: “To be sure, that is one interpretation of the world. And it will bring women nothing but misery.”
Venker’s books pose a number of questions, including, in “The Flipside of Feminism”: What if what your college professors taught you – along with television, movies, books, magazine articles and even news reports – have all been lies or distortions?”
She cites National Bureau of Economic Research studies showing that while women “have gained more freedom, more education and more power, they have become less happy.”
Read more at College students can’t handle ‘feminism fails’ message
‘ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
College students can't handle 'feminism fails' message
Suzanne Venker event in 'Uncomfortable Learning' series canceled over content
Students at Williams College apparently are mentally and physically unable to handle messages such as “feminism fails.”
But according to Inside Higher Ed, her speech was too controversial for students to hear.
The aim of the series was “to expose students to controversial voices and opinions they might not otherwise hear.”
Inside Higher Ed said students who run the series decided to cancel it after its Facebook page began to attract acerbic comments and “things got a little out of hand,” according to co-president Zach Wood.
Wood explained on a blog that he was accused by posters of damaging people “who are dying in the streets.”
By having Venker express her opinions, “Know, you are dipping your hands in their blood, Zach Wood,” a critic wrote on Facebook.
“When you bring a misogynistic, white supremacist men’s rights activist to campus in the name of ‘dialogue’ and ‘the other side,’ you are not only causing actual mental, social, psychological, and physical harm to students, but you are also – paying – for the continued dispersal of violent ideologist that kill our black and brown (trans) femme sisters,” the critic said.
“You are giving those who spout violence the money that so desperately needs to be funneled to black and brown (trans) femme communities, to people who are leading the revolution, who are surviving in the streets, who are dying in the streets. You, you are dipping your hands in their blood, Zach Wood.”
Wood said he canceled the planned “One Step Forward, Ten Steps Back: Why Feminism Fails” event because of “vehement reactions.”
Wood wrote, “To claim that bringing Venker to Williams is an attack on what this college stands for and the women who work here is unfounded. At Williams, learning (theoretically anyway) begins with confronting challenging ideas. Tens of millions of Americas espouse Venker’s views – and I am not one of them.
“I am, in fact, of the opinion that her arguments deserve trenchant criticism, but to challenge her intellectually and critique her arguments substantively, we must first understand her views.”
He accused critics of judging the event “through a lens of motivated ignorance.”
“Put crudely, what contaminates this lens is not its focus; rather, it is the myopia of those who look through it. This myopia breeds a searing aversion to fruitful intellectual exchange that challenges politically progressive students at Williams to reexamine their sacred beliefs. Evincing said myopia, the ad hominem diatribe in this article’s opening quotation criminalizes freedom of thought, typifies progressive ideological absolutism, fuels motivated ignorance, and corrodes intellectual humility.”
He condemned the assassination of “Venker’s character (without presenting a shred of evidence).”
“I find it frustrating that some of our peers prefer demonization to thoughtful discussion. … At America’s top liberal arts college, we should not settle for petty personal attacks, unchecked confirmation bias, and Taco 6-like verbal harassments when we deeply disagree with people.”
Venker told Fox News she had been planning to encourage students to think for themselves. “Do not be swayed by groupthink no matter what your friends, your family or the culture believe,” was in her opening statement.Further, she was going to address feminism, she said.
“I was going to tell them why feminism fails. (Hint: because it denies the existence of biology and teaches that equality means sameness, which is a losing proposition when it comes to planning a life – particularly if that life includes marriage and family.)”
She said weeks of preparation “went down the drain.” “I’d even pushed aside a book I’m working on because I felt so strongly about sharing with students some critical facts about women, men, work and family – facts that, despite undermining the feminist cause, are nevertheless true and may have changed both hearts and minds. That is the point of an education, is it not?”
She continued: “The students who took issue with my appearance are as sensitive as their feminist leaders, who are notorious for cowering in the face of opposition. And I understand why: their arguments are weak. And weak arguments can’t ‘hold up to scrutiny.”
“Feminists and their followers love to define feminism as a push for ‘equal rights’ – as Hillary Clinton did in a recent gush-fest with Lena Dunham – because that’s a benign term with which few would disagree. But ‘equal rights’ is not at all what feminism is about,” she wrote. “What today’s feminists want is a new world order, one in which men and women become interchangeable. In other words, whatever men do women must do in equal numbers – and vice versa.
“To achieve this sexual utopia, feminists use fear. Everything they preach is predicated on the notion that some great calamity will befall women if they don’t insist that society change to accommodate the injustices American women face. And the nucleus of this fear is men. It is man – specifically: husbands, employers and the government – that holds women back.”
She said: “To be sure, that is one interpretation of the world. And it will bring women nothing but misery.”
Venker’s books pose a number of questions, including, in “The Flipside of Feminism”: What if what your college professors taught you – along with television, movies, books, magazine articles and even news reports – have all been lies or distortions?”
She cites National Bureau of Economic Research studies showing that while women “have gained more freedom, more education and more power, they have become less happy.”
Read more at College students can’t handle ‘feminism fails’ message
