Sexual Paranoia Strikes Academe(chronicle.com)
chronicle.com
Sexual Paranoia Strikes Academe
https://chronicle.com/article/Sexual-Paranoia-Strikes/190351/
15 comments
Yeah, the blowback to the article has been a bigger story than the article itself. It's worth noting she's been cleared of everything http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/laura-kipnis-is-cleared-of...
I read that first article about the liberal professor and his "liberal" students. The only student who seems to have threatened anything to get course material changed was a far-right student demanding that the course thoroughly cover the hypothesis that black people getting housing loans caused the Global Financial Crisis.
I'd really like to see some statistical evidence that the academic thought-police are louder, more prominent, or more powerful than in previous times before I start panicking over it.
I'd really like to see some statistical evidence that the academic thought-police are louder, more prominent, or more powerful than in previous times before I start panicking over it.
Why research when there's already an existing narrative about the liberal university turning our spoiled children into oversensitive, overconcerned, disrespectful, judgemental revolutionaries that lack sufficient respect for their parent's pragmatic decisionmaking?
If there's any increase in oversensitiveness in universities, for me it would make sense as an indicator that the universities are becoming increasingly out of reach for people who haven't had a life privileged enough to sustain the idea that one might be able to go through life without feeling bad or sad without the person who made you feel that way being expelled from the community.
Basically, they expect proper customer service, and they're used to it from the people that serve them from behind retail counters and fast food cash registers every day. With the prices they're paying, I'm not sure that they don't deserve it. If you're a tutor to royalty, there's no academic freedom; if you can't figure out that the customer is always right, you lose your head.
Anyway, aren't most people who teach at universities making less than minimum wage with no health insurance? Do we really want their 'truth' to endanger the incomes of the administrators? If it looks like a temp, swims like a temp, and quacks like a temp, you can fire it like a temp.
There's no doubt that there's been an increase of immediately firing anyone who generates any controversy anywhere, unless they're the ones bringing in the revenue.
If there's any increase in oversensitiveness in universities, for me it would make sense as an indicator that the universities are becoming increasingly out of reach for people who haven't had a life privileged enough to sustain the idea that one might be able to go through life without feeling bad or sad without the person who made you feel that way being expelled from the community.
Basically, they expect proper customer service, and they're used to it from the people that serve them from behind retail counters and fast food cash registers every day. With the prices they're paying, I'm not sure that they don't deserve it. If you're a tutor to royalty, there's no academic freedom; if you can't figure out that the customer is always right, you lose your head.
Anyway, aren't most people who teach at universities making less than minimum wage with no health insurance? Do we really want their 'truth' to endanger the incomes of the administrators? If it looks like a temp, swims like a temp, and quacks like a temp, you can fire it like a temp.
There's no doubt that there's been an increase of immediately firing anyone who generates any controversy anywhere, unless they're the ones bringing in the revenue.
This stuff really isn't liberal at all. Our culture is Protestant, Christian, Puritan. Always present beneath it is a deep subsurface ocean of sexual paranoia, prudery, and holier than thou moral crusading. Overt religious forms of this are out of vogue, so it creates a sort of pressure that must be released. Campus PC ideology forms an easy framework for a good old fashioned Protestant moral crusade.
That's how I start to view the SJW movement. Our parents and grandparents were outraged by people violating morality as described by religion. Our generation gets outraged by people violating whatever random moral sensitivities are popular nowadays (often opposite to the religious ones). Nothing has changed, people are people.
I think you're mostly right here, although as the downvotes indicate, this possibility is unsettling to many. When judgmental people are prevented by prevailing mores from fully exercising their judgmentalism, their efforts will be concentrated on the unfortunate few who remain acceptable targets. Many judgmental people don't like young women to be sexually active (this seems to have been the case for all of recorded history). One can't complain directly about that nowadays, however, so one must complain about whoever vile tempters can be blamed, however tenuously, for the sexual activity of young women.
A similar phenomenon exists with respect to abortion and infanticide. Once upon a time, we would have been fairly merciful toward young mothers troubled enough to kill their own children. Now, however, our harridan-in-chief Nancy Grace leads the popular crusade to crucify the poor mothers. The reason is that many people feel very uncomfortable about abortion, but have no other acceptable outlet for that discomfort.
A similar phenomenon exists with respect to abortion and infanticide. Once upon a time, we would have been fairly merciful toward young mothers troubled enough to kill their own children. Now, however, our harridan-in-chief Nancy Grace leads the popular crusade to crucify the poor mothers. The reason is that many people feel very uncomfortable about abortion, but have no other acceptable outlet for that discomfort.
That is a clever way to try to pin the PC craze on conservatives but it doesn't hold water. PC nonsense is wholly owned by the left.
Speaking as a college faculty member...this essay is just fucking absurd. The problem is not just the power dynamic that the professor wields over the student, but that an intimate relationship creates an uncomfortable, likely hostile environment for everyone else who is not fucking the professor.
Think about it...assuming that you (like most HNers) are male, you'd be at a distinct disadvantage -- especially in engineering and CS -- if your (presumably male and heterosexual) professors felt OK to pursue sexual relationships with the relatively few women in their classes...while the males have no chance to boost their grade with such favoritism. Even in a more egalitarian scenario, where the professor is bisexual and has no problem with being intimate with anyone in the class...well, the students who are less attractive, or choose to pursue a monogamous relationship with a non-professor...again, they're going to get screwed by the curve.
The OP comes off as a self-involved brat who has been tenured so long that she doesn't remember what it's like to have to spend $20,000 to $80,000 a year (obviously, she doesn't...that kind of money for tuition is a recent phenomenon) for a college education. The rules against professor-student relationships aren't there to baby the students, they're there to protect against incentives and dynamic that fuck everyone else over, not just the student who manages to score with their professor.
edit: In the rare chance that your true love coincidentally happens to be in a class you teach...OK, stranger things have happened in life. So do the adult thing: quit your job, then continue the relationship. True love should be stronger than the benefits of a tenured position. Don't screw it up for all the other poor students whom the gods did not make to be your soulmate.
Think about it...assuming that you (like most HNers) are male, you'd be at a distinct disadvantage -- especially in engineering and CS -- if your (presumably male and heterosexual) professors felt OK to pursue sexual relationships with the relatively few women in their classes...while the males have no chance to boost their grade with such favoritism. Even in a more egalitarian scenario, where the professor is bisexual and has no problem with being intimate with anyone in the class...well, the students who are less attractive, or choose to pursue a monogamous relationship with a non-professor...again, they're going to get screwed by the curve.
The OP comes off as a self-involved brat who has been tenured so long that she doesn't remember what it's like to have to spend $20,000 to $80,000 a year (obviously, she doesn't...that kind of money for tuition is a recent phenomenon) for a college education. The rules against professor-student relationships aren't there to baby the students, they're there to protect against incentives and dynamic that fuck everyone else over, not just the student who manages to score with their professor.
edit: In the rare chance that your true love coincidentally happens to be in a class you teach...OK, stranger things have happened in life. So do the adult thing: quit your job, then continue the relationship. True love should be stronger than the benefits of a tenured position. Don't screw it up for all the other poor students whom the gods did not make to be your soulmate.
> So do the adult thing: quit your job, then continue the relationship. True love should be stronger than the benefits of a tenured position. Don't screw it up for all the other poor students whom the gods did not make to be your soulmate.
Fellow academic here. I'm shocked a member of faculty would suggest that is a realistic option. You of all people know how difficult it is to find a tenure-track position. Yet you are suggesting voluntary career suicide for a consensual relationship between two adults? This is both unrealistic and complete overkill.
You seem to believe that an adult is not able to differentiate between romantic feelings and objective grading criterion. I think anyone who is unable to do so not only is a poor faculty member, they would be a poor spouse and a terrible scientist.
That is to say nothing of the edge case we are discussing. Unless students/faculty are gotten much more frisky, this is a negligable fraction of the interactions between students and faculty, and is lost in the noise of much more pressing academic grievances, such a treating grad students like human beings, or giving increased consideration to the role of teaching in promotion, instead of the pure emphasis on research at tier-1 institutions.
Fellow academic here. I'm shocked a member of faculty would suggest that is a realistic option. You of all people know how difficult it is to find a tenure-track position. Yet you are suggesting voluntary career suicide for a consensual relationship between two adults? This is both unrealistic and complete overkill.
You seem to believe that an adult is not able to differentiate between romantic feelings and objective grading criterion. I think anyone who is unable to do so not only is a poor faculty member, they would be a poor spouse and a terrible scientist.
That is to say nothing of the edge case we are discussing. Unless students/faculty are gotten much more frisky, this is a negligable fraction of the interactions between students and faculty, and is lost in the noise of much more pressing academic grievances, such a treating grad students like human beings, or giving increased consideration to the role of teaching in promotion, instead of the pure emphasis on research at tier-1 institutions.
It doesn't really matter if YOU THINK you can keep the feelings separate. What matters is that it damages the trust and confidence that students and everyone to whom their credentials are shown have in your judgement. It's a choice between career suicide because you choose to pursue a certain relationship instead, or career suicide because your integrity is in question.
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I think danso's response is a good one, but I wanted to add to a response to: "You seem to believe that an adult is not able to differentiate between romantic feelings and objective grading criterion."
Absolutely I believe that. Humans are host to a smorgasbord of cognitive biases and capable of the most astounding of rationalizations. The rules should acknowledge this.
Absolutely I believe that. Humans are host to a smorgasbord of cognitive biases and capable of the most astounding of rationalizations. The rules should acknowledge this.
> Fellow academic here. I'm shocked a member of faculty would suggest that is a realistic option. You of all people know how difficult it is to find a tenure-track position. Yet you are suggesting voluntary career suicide for a consensual relationship between two adults? This is both unrealistic and complete overkill.
Fellow human being here...I'm shocked you think that true love is so easy to find :). I was being half-facetious...but yes, if you do happen to find your one-and-only, you should do the mature thing and pursue the relationship in a way that doesn't damage the academic potential of all the other students. Or at least wait until the student has graduated.
> You seem to believe that an adult is not able to differentiate between romantic feelings and objective grading criterion.
Sorry but this is a serious LOL to me. At many medical schools, staff doctors are forbidden to take even a $50 dinner from a pharmaceutical company. Much of that policy is grounded in the desire to avoid the appearance of impropriety...but you have to think of it from the perspective of the pharma company. They have up-to-the-day data on prescribing habits of doctors. They have the analytics that show that even casual visits by an attractive/charismatic pharma salesperson has a direct impact on the doctor's prescribing habits. I doubt that the pharma companies have data on what happens if such visits turn into sexual relationships, but I'm going to guess that the correlation only gets stronger.
So let's assume that grading policy is more objective, more sanctified than the process of objectively prescribing life-saving drugs...even if that were the case, the problem is not just about meting out grades, but priorities. You must have experienced the phenomenon in which students who take the time to go to office hours often do better than students who don't...because they've spent hours picking your brain about the right way to think about things. Well, when you've chosen a student (or even several) to have intimate relationships...the hours that you have to freely conduct your duties with non-significant-others is reduced. Maybe you're objective enough to give your lover a B instead of bumping him/her up to an A...but are you really going to ignore them when they ask for help on their papers and homework?
And again, the problem is not just the practical reduction in time that you have to carry out your duties, or the impact on your objectivity...the problem is also the appearance of impropriety. Maybe you are the stone-cold objective professor who manages to keep love and work completely separate (keep in mind that now we're really in fantasy land at this point)...but your students do not have a window to your soul. Their guess is that you are in the 99% of human beings that can't be objective in that situation, and their trust in the academic process is going to be somewhat jaded. And a university does not benefit from a reputation of faculty who freely pursue relationships with students; you can imagine that many parents do not see such relationships as a bonding between consenting, free-willed adults.
Fellow human being here...I'm shocked you think that true love is so easy to find :). I was being half-facetious...but yes, if you do happen to find your one-and-only, you should do the mature thing and pursue the relationship in a way that doesn't damage the academic potential of all the other students. Or at least wait until the student has graduated.
> You seem to believe that an adult is not able to differentiate between romantic feelings and objective grading criterion.
Sorry but this is a serious LOL to me. At many medical schools, staff doctors are forbidden to take even a $50 dinner from a pharmaceutical company. Much of that policy is grounded in the desire to avoid the appearance of impropriety...but you have to think of it from the perspective of the pharma company. They have up-to-the-day data on prescribing habits of doctors. They have the analytics that show that even casual visits by an attractive/charismatic pharma salesperson has a direct impact on the doctor's prescribing habits. I doubt that the pharma companies have data on what happens if such visits turn into sexual relationships, but I'm going to guess that the correlation only gets stronger.
So let's assume that grading policy is more objective, more sanctified than the process of objectively prescribing life-saving drugs...even if that were the case, the problem is not just about meting out grades, but priorities. You must have experienced the phenomenon in which students who take the time to go to office hours often do better than students who don't...because they've spent hours picking your brain about the right way to think about things. Well, when you've chosen a student (or even several) to have intimate relationships...the hours that you have to freely conduct your duties with non-significant-others is reduced. Maybe you're objective enough to give your lover a B instead of bumping him/her up to an A...but are you really going to ignore them when they ask for help on their papers and homework?
And again, the problem is not just the practical reduction in time that you have to carry out your duties, or the impact on your objectivity...the problem is also the appearance of impropriety. Maybe you are the stone-cold objective professor who manages to keep love and work completely separate (keep in mind that now we're really in fantasy land at this point)...but your students do not have a window to your soul. Their guess is that you are in the 99% of human beings that can't be objective in that situation, and their trust in the academic process is going to be somewhat jaded. And a university does not benefit from a reputation of faculty who freely pursue relationships with students; you can imagine that many parents do not see such relationships as a bonding between consenting, free-willed adults.
I would think that, regardless if the professor is capable of separating their feelings, it's always going to look like favoritism.
Then I guess we should ban being human. Even the most egalitarian people are not free from biases, nor they have consistent and stable mood. And even if a perfect egalitarian demigod were to be making decisions, someone would still find something to misinterpret in his/her actions in order to build an outrage-inducing story.
Reducing negative effects of human nature is hard as it is, but it becomes pretty much impossible when there are people with malicious intentions looking for you to do a single wrong step.
Reducing negative effects of human nature is hard as it is, but it becomes pretty much impossible when there are people with malicious intentions looking for you to do a single wrong step.
Rent-seeking behavior is just about innate to any system of social interaction. If you know someone, then it's quite likely that you can use said someone's influence for personal benefits.
Not that it cannot be regulated. However, any attempt to do so that falls under the naive but popular category of "BAN IT" creates negative blowback in the form of what the author of this piece elucidated, while the complexity space and sum of possibilities to give one's self an unfair edge remains high.
G.K. Chesterton said it best [1]:
Not that it cannot be regulated. However, any attempt to do so that falls under the naive but popular category of "BAN IT" creates negative blowback in the form of what the author of this piece elucidated, while the complexity space and sum of possibilities to give one's self an unfair edge remains high.
G.K. Chesterton said it best [1]:
And then, last but the reverse of least, there plunged in
all the people who think they can solve a problem they
cannot understand by abolishing everything that has
contributed to it. We all know these people.
If a barber has cut his customer's throat because
the girl has changed her partner for a dance or donkey
ride on Hampstead Heath, there are always people
to protest against the mere institutions that led up to
it.
This would not have happened if barbers were abolished,
or if cutlery were abolished, or if the objection felt
by girls to imperfectly grown beards were abolished,
or if the girls were abolished, or if heaths and open
spaces were abolished, or if dancing were abolished,
or if donkeys were abolished.
But donkeys, I fear, will never be abolished.
> In the rare chance that your true love coincidentally happens to be in a class you teach...OK, stranger things have happened in life. So do the adult thing: quit your job, then continue the relationship. True love should be stronger than the benefits of a tenured position. Don't screw it up for all the other poor students whom the gods did not make to be your soulmate.
It doesn't even need to be that extreme. I don't think a student and professor can't be on the same campus, the only thing that would need to happen is the student to drop the class.
That trivial, that simple, that easy. If you are screwing a college teacher, you can't be in that class. In the RARE case were the class is absolutely essential and only taught by a single person, then yeah, might need to quit for true love... or find a way to get that credit elsewhere.
It doesn't even need to be that extreme. I don't think a student and professor can't be on the same campus, the only thing that would need to happen is the student to drop the class.
That trivial, that simple, that easy. If you are screwing a college teacher, you can't be in that class. In the RARE case were the class is absolutely essential and only taught by a single person, then yeah, might need to quit for true love... or find a way to get that credit elsewhere.
The disadvantages of generic male (98% of my year) CS student at my uni back in 1999-2004 compared to even averagely-looking female student were real, apparent, and kind of accepted.
Nobody was whining about it that those few girls had it easier on quite a few oral exams (written parts were logically more balanced). Girls dressed apropriately.
What was a bit more infuriating, that hardest ever topic was advanced electric circuit calculus, toughest course we ever had, solely because of professor (even though I studied purely software engineering, this couldn't be avoided). This course went far beyond what was taught on Math courses itself btw. He disliked women ("they shouldn't be in engineering"), he disliked people with hungarian-sounding names, he disliked people with long hairs, heck the list of types he disliked would be long. He was the greatest filter in out faculty (end of second or third year at uni), throwing people out of school completely for literally lacking a single point (ie circle) above one variable in exam (didn't matter that in next line it was there). Seen it first hand. Nobody liked him, he was perfect example of somebody knowledgable but in the same time somebody who shouldn't be a teacher, ever.
World isn't fair, never was, and never will be. Some things get sorted out, some new pop up as things change. So, who got killed?
What was a bit more infuriating, that hardest ever topic was advanced electric circuit calculus, toughest course we ever had, solely because of professor (even though I studied purely software engineering, this couldn't be avoided). This course went far beyond what was taught on Math courses itself btw. He disliked women ("they shouldn't be in engineering"), he disliked people with hungarian-sounding names, he disliked people with long hairs, heck the list of types he disliked would be long. He was the greatest filter in out faculty (end of second or third year at uni), throwing people out of school completely for literally lacking a single point (ie circle) above one variable in exam (didn't matter that in next line it was there). Seen it first hand. Nobody liked him, he was perfect example of somebody knowledgable but in the same time somebody who shouldn't be a teacher, ever.
World isn't fair, never was, and never will be. Some things get sorted out, some new pop up as things change. So, who got killed?
You do know that in situations like this you can always balance the scales? There are many legal, although maybe immoral ways to f*ck over a profesor like this. Nobody is immune.
It's an incredible stretch to say that students who are voicing sensitivity about micro-aggressions and the slightest whiff of acknowledgement of sexuality are reacting out of concern for their grades.
The situation we see on campuses now is the result of the collision of gender feminism with the emotional state of young adults raised by helicopter parents.
The situation we see on campuses now is the result of the collision of gender feminism with the emotional state of young adults raised by helicopter parents.
Naw it's Gender Feminism + Standard American Moral Panic.
No need to plead that this generation is doing something every generation has done for different reasons.
No need to plead that this generation is doing something every generation has done for different reasons.
That assumes that any professor/faculty who enters into a relationship with a student will automatically grant grading incentives or be less harsh in grading said student's work. I'd imagine most professors are more professional than that. That's guilty until proven innocent. If there's ever any suspicion of such malfeasance, one could raise the issue with the department who could offer to do an unbiased regrading of the student's work to determine if there was any favoritism and if so, take appropriate action.
Yes, I find it exceedingly likely that a faculty member in a relationship with a student with end up favoring them, in some manner, in class and with grades. It doesn't have to be conscious, we know people suffer many cognitive biases. The professional thing to do is to avoid being in such a situation that the cognitive biases can come into play.
Speaking as a former student. Your post is absurd.
EDIT: OP probably meant it academically. In which case the post is still absurd, but for different reason - the professor doesn't need to rate everyone else lower to rate one person higher, unless people are graded on a curve, but that's a problem with grading system and not a professor.
Not to mention if the women aren't involved with every professor simultaneously, only a few of them will get a benefit by having sex.
EDIT: OP probably meant it academically. In which case the post is still absurd, but for different reason - the professor doesn't need to rate everyone else lower to rate one person higher, unless people are graded on a curve, but that's a problem with grading system and not a professor.
Not to mention if the women aren't involved with every professor simultaneously, only a few of them will get a benefit by having sex.
I think OP meant you'd be at a disadvantage academically, not romantically.
Yeah, the reasoning has gone a full Orwellian loop, from an excuse/discussion-terminator to something people take seriously.
Maybe a less drastic idea is to wait at least until they have no classes together. Surely true love can last longer than one semester.
The same thing happens at the workplace all the time and often ends badly. It's ill advised for anyone but it's not illegal.
The same thing happens at the workplace all the time and often ends badly. It's ill advised for anyone but it's not illegal.
The victimless-crime police strike again
Seriously though... Unless there is an evidentiary, demonstrable long-term negative/harm to any given voluntary adult human interaction (say, to an institution, or to society at large, or to the educational process)... I think we need to live and let live.
Distaste and offense are not rational arguments against something
Seriously though... Unless there is an evidentiary, demonstrable long-term negative/harm to any given voluntary adult human interaction (say, to an institution, or to society at large, or to the educational process)... I think we need to live and let live.
Distaste and offense are not rational arguments against something
It is not distaste that is the argument against professors dating students. It is blackmail as well as academic integrity.
Did she pass just because she did a sexual favor? Is she being lenient on the argumentation of this paper just because she is dating the student?
These are legitimate arguments and concerns, and while I think the rules set up to stop these problems are stepping well over their bounds, let's not try and act like there wasn't a problem to being with.
Did she pass just because she did a sexual favor? Is she being lenient on the argumentation of this paper just because she is dating the student?
These are legitimate arguments and concerns, and while I think the rules set up to stop these problems are stepping well over their bounds, let's not try and act like there wasn't a problem to being with.
Conflict of interest is arguable, but these regulations paint a false portrait of an "all-powerful professor" picking and choosing students to deflower as he pleases, which is most definitely the furthest thing from how it actually works. They also make "inappropriate humor" against policy, which is frankly ridiculous. Having gone to Cornell, which made John Cleese of Monty Python fame a "Professor at Large", it would appall my every sensibility if the vast swathes of inappropriate humor in Monty Python were banned.
Well, what sociologists, psychologist, historians and anthropologists have found over the past five decades or so (and yes, many of the findings are very much evidentiary and demonstrable), is that it's very hard to define "voluntary". We therefore don't treat volition as binary, but as a point on a spectrum, signifying how much duress, influence -- the technical term is "power" -- was involved.
> (and yes, many of the findings are very much evidentiary and demonstrable)
You saying that there's evidence, is not the same as citing even a single instance of said evidence. :P I haven't seen anything that is actual evidence, other than people shouting angrily in text that things simply should be so (which seems to be almost what you're doing). Do you have a chip on your shoulder about this? (i.e., is there someone in your past who you feel took advantage of you via a power differential?) I think full disclosure is necessary.
> We therefore don't treat volition as binary, but as a point on a spectrum, signifying how much duress, influence -- the technical term is "power" -- was involved.
Fair enough, but you're conflating 2 things here, people who are together because of a power differential and people who are together because of an overridden will. I don't think these are the same thing. I think a person can be drawn to another's power even as that power may wrap around them. To an outsider it may look like an overridden will but to the person on the inside it does not look the same, it looks like a form of seduction. And I think this happens, and HAS happened, all the time.
There are millions of stable marriages that are based on a power differential of some sort, whether it's a beautiful woman, a wealthy man, a more intelligent spouse, or some other combination. Usually people are trading one power for another, such as beauty for intelligence. Are you suggesting we mark all of those as invalid?
You saying that there's evidence, is not the same as citing even a single instance of said evidence. :P I haven't seen anything that is actual evidence, other than people shouting angrily in text that things simply should be so (which seems to be almost what you're doing). Do you have a chip on your shoulder about this? (i.e., is there someone in your past who you feel took advantage of you via a power differential?) I think full disclosure is necessary.
> We therefore don't treat volition as binary, but as a point on a spectrum, signifying how much duress, influence -- the technical term is "power" -- was involved.
Fair enough, but you're conflating 2 things here, people who are together because of a power differential and people who are together because of an overridden will. I don't think these are the same thing. I think a person can be drawn to another's power even as that power may wrap around them. To an outsider it may look like an overridden will but to the person on the inside it does not look the same, it looks like a form of seduction. And I think this happens, and HAS happened, all the time.
There are millions of stable marriages that are based on a power differential of some sort, whether it's a beautiful woman, a wealthy man, a more intelligent spouse, or some other combination. Usually people are trading one power for another, such as beauty for intelligence. Are you suggesting we mark all of those as invalid?
That's too optimistic. The original acts in the Scarlet Letter didn't cause long-term negative/harm until society got involved after the fact.
Can you elaborate? Adultery being a betrayal of the family is arguably a negative (insofar as the traditional legally-enforced-monogamy marriage arrangement isn't fatally flawed... lol. I predict the default will be "open" in a generation or 2, max, which may have the positive side effect of fewer secret liaisons and divorces)
> For the record, I strongly believe that bona fide harassers should be chemically castrated, stripped of their property, and hung up by their thumbs in the nearest public square.
And the author wonders why things are like they are.
And the author wonders why things are like they are.
Yeah, when I got to that my thought was, "So you see the problem but you're unwilling to actually take a stand against it?"
I'm pretty sure that was a rhetorical technique designed to make people think "okay yes, I clearly do recognize that justice demands limits here."
As an aside: did anyone else immediately think of acid baths rather than hormone pills back when they first read the phrase "chemically castrated"?
As an aside: did anyone else immediately think of acid baths rather than hormone pills back when they first read the phrase "chemically castrated"?
In this sort of writing, such rhetorical techniques should be used sparingly, especially if you want to be taken seriously. Policy editorials need to stick to evidence, clear writing and solutions, not go off the rails with the polemics.
yea, I'm going to agree. This piece is pretty disappointing in that regard.
> did anyone else immediately think of acid baths rather than hormone pills
Maybe you wanna keep that one on the inside . . .
Maybe you wanna keep that one on the inside . . .
I don't think that was a rhetorical device; at least - I didn't recognize it as such. Though it must be...
Mustn't it?
Mustn't it?
Not me ... if you have to make someone suffer with potent chemicals - bases are way nastier than acids.
I feel sorry for what the various special interests groups are increasingly doing to girls growing up, so many conflicting ideas pushing and pulling them in contradictory directions.
Boys have it so much easier in this respect - yes, the downside for them is they are often the victim of trumped up "rape" charges, but at least they don't have to contend with the mental health aspects of being simultaneously told that they are both all powerful (you go girl, you can do anything) and a perpetual victim (misogyny everywhere, all the time, etc).
Adolescence and young adulthood is confusing enough without experiencing it as if in a house of mirrors.
Boys have it so much easier in this respect - yes, the downside for them is they are often the victim of trumped up "rape" charges, but at least they don't have to contend with the mental health aspects of being simultaneously told that they are both all powerful (you go girl, you can do anything) and a perpetual victim (misogyny everywhere, all the time, etc).
Adolescence and young adulthood is confusing enough without experiencing it as if in a house of mirrors.
"the downside for [boys] is they are often the victim of trumped up "rape" charges"
I do not know a single person that is the victim of trumped rape charges but do know several girls who were victims of actual rape (and many more of sexual abuse).
If fake rape charges is a downside for boys then it's not an actual downside, it's a trumped up downside.
I do not know a single person that is the victim of trumped rape charges but do know several girls who were victims of actual rape (and many more of sexual abuse).
If fake rape charges is a downside for boys then it's not an actual downside, it's a trumped up downside.
> I do not know a single person ...
That says more about you than anything else. I know two guys who were accused of rape, separate incidents, in both cases the guy had an air tight alibi - one was out of town and the other was at church. The churchgoing fellow didn't even know the woman, the only point of overlap for the accuser and the accused was the fact that they went to the same high school ten years prior.
> If fake rape charges is a downside for boys ...
You have no idea, by your own admission, how incredibly destructive the event can be.
That says more about you than anything else. I know two guys who were accused of rape, separate incidents, in both cases the guy had an air tight alibi - one was out of town and the other was at church. The churchgoing fellow didn't even know the woman, the only point of overlap for the accuser and the accused was the fact that they went to the same high school ten years prior.
> If fake rape charges is a downside for boys ...
You have no idea, by your own admission, how incredibly destructive the event can be.
Regardless of if I do or do not understand how destructive being on the wrong end of a false rape charge is, generalizing this as a downside for males is utterly offensive.
> ...generalizing this as a downside for males...
Where does the logic not follow? False rape accusations disproportionately affect men, and it is a negative experience. So it isn't a generalization, it is a statement of fact.
> ...is utterly offensive.
That sounds like a personal problem, don't worry - men won't be included in any kind of protected class over this.
Where does the logic not follow? False rape accusations disproportionately affect men, and it is a negative experience. So it isn't a generalization, it is a statement of fact.
> ...is utterly offensive.
That sounds like a personal problem, don't worry - men won't be included in any kind of protected class over this.
The comment I responded to used false rape charges as a single example of disadvantages challenging men. Perhaps I misunderstood the authors intention but that statement left alone presents an idea that of all the challenges facing men this one is one of the most important to mention. This is offensive to me as a male. It was also said in comparison to challenges facing women. This is offensive to me as a human. And I appear to not represent the majority opinion here so you are right, at least on HN, this is a personal problem.
The problem isn't an issue of deviant opinion, I'm sure many feel as you do, the issue is the distance between the original statement and the emotion driven conclusion you've leapt to. It looks like nobody else has interpreted it the way you have, or at least hasn't felt as strong a sense of righteous indignation.
I'd probably reflect on the 'offense as a human' bit as well, leave yourself some spectrum of offense as a buffer - or else you'll be left unable to describe your emotions for the real offenses to humanity. Like how one time I saw a pack of feral dogs tear a human corpse apart after it had been left on the street for a few days, that was offensive to me as a human. Luckily for me I had reserved that category of offense, otherwise my brain might have popped out like a jack in the box upon having my prior threshold of inhumanity, a stale candy apple served to me at the county fair, surpassed.
I'd probably reflect on the 'offense as a human' bit as well, leave yourself some spectrum of offense as a buffer - or else you'll be left unable to describe your emotions for the real offenses to humanity. Like how one time I saw a pack of feral dogs tear a human corpse apart after it had been left on the street for a few days, that was offensive to me as a human. Luckily for me I had reserved that category of offense, otherwise my brain might have popped out like a jack in the box upon having my prior threshold of inhumanity, a stale candy apple served to me at the county fair, surpassed.
tis true. I was aware that it's not so much as offensive to my humanity as it is offensive to something other than my male identity. But "offensive to me as a not-male" makes no sense. at that point if it cannot be clearly expressed it is, as you said, overly emotional. wisdom and rebuke (of sorts) welcomed.
Psh, what's a little false rape allegation? Man up!
False rape allegations are a crime. But it would be better to say that the downside of being is male is that it appears they are more inclined to rape people. Because I guarantee if you if it were not for that little fact the allegation problem probably wouldn't exist.
> But it would be better to say that the downside of being is male is that it appears they are more inclined to rape people.
That's long been held to be obviously true. But a recent study shows that it may not be correct.
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2014/04/male_...
That's long been held to be obviously true. But a recent study shows that it may not be correct.
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2014/04/male_...
the article is good read and I agree males are also victims. But the statistics on those perpetrating the crime (sexual assault or rape) are overwhelmingly male.
In the US males are both more likely to be the victim and more likely to be the perpetrator. In large part due to Prison but also younger victoms.
Note: It's really hard to collect good population statistics, as victims often don't report things. And non-victims sometimes do.
Note: It's really hard to collect good population statistics, as victims often don't report things. And non-victims sometimes do.
Statistically, yes. But stating that statistic is like stating the (also true) statistic that "black people commit statistically more violent crime" - it's worthless on its own, and is often a political dog whistle.
Of course, aside from all the mental health problems girls suffer from, and the constant pressure to accuse guys of rape, they also have to contend with the (less important, perhaps, but undeniable) fact of society actually putting them down.
(the first part was sarcasm, obviously)
(the first part was sarcasm, obviously)
Where is society putting girls down? The wage is not a result of putting women down, but of lifestyle choices. So might be representation in STEM subjects. Men are more often usbject to violence than women, campus rape is a myth that stems from a long refuted decades old study. What problem exactly do women REALLY have?
I assume you're being sarcastic, but on the off chance you're not, I'll refer you to the last 50 years of research in social studies (and I'm not going to go through the "please cite one paper" game; I've done it too many times, the people "asking" for them are clearly not interested in the vast incontrovertible evidence, there are literally thousands of papers -- some by very renowned researchers -- and you can find most of them with a simple Google Scholar search). It's a myth just as much evolution is a myth. Both have been thoroughly studied and confirmed. Of course, there are people who deny facts because they don't agree with their world view -- that is also a well-known psychological phenomenon as is the phenomenon that that no amount of evidence can sway most people's opinions once they've made up their minds, so -- learn if you want, or don't.
Huh what? So you just say "undeniable" and that's it, not even a specific "accusation"?
I could also point to countless papers. What about boys being left behind in education, men dying years earlier, more men being homeless and in shitty, dangerous jobs, men having less children and less time with their family and so on.
What you say also goes for yourself. Your opinion won't be swayed, presumably because you feel safe and comfy in the feminist camp and don't want to risk losing your faith.
I could also point to countless papers. What about boys being left behind in education, men dying years earlier, more men being homeless and in shitty, dangerous jobs, men having less children and less time with their family and so on.
What you say also goes for yourself. Your opinion won't be swayed, presumably because you feel safe and comfy in the feminist camp and don't want to risk losing your faith.
> I could also point to countless papers.
Nope (unless they are papers of the sort I found on a Christian website "proving" the creation of life contradicts the second law of thermodynamics).
> What about boys being left behind in education, men dying ...
What does that have to do with anything? The reality of heart disease doesn't take away from that of cancer.
> Your opinion won't be swayed...
Probably. Except my opinion is actually backed by science while yours is plain-and-simple science denial, just as there's no symmetry between people who know evolution to be true and those who deny it -- these are not two opinions, but truth and fantasy. Your personal beliefs won't make the reality of our sexist society disappear, just as they can't make the sun and the stars revolve around the earth (though in this case, I wish they could). In your case -- as in that of geocentrists -- the false belief stems from a very powerful subjective feeling that the scientific findings are wrong (the earth doesn't feel to be moving), but that doesn't make it any less false.
Of course, you can go on and on as science denialists do ("but where is the evidence?", "why, it's right here", "but where?" etc.), but I'll leave you there.
Nope (unless they are papers of the sort I found on a Christian website "proving" the creation of life contradicts the second law of thermodynamics).
> What about boys being left behind in education, men dying ...
What does that have to do with anything? The reality of heart disease doesn't take away from that of cancer.
> Your opinion won't be swayed...
Probably. Except my opinion is actually backed by science while yours is plain-and-simple science denial, just as there's no symmetry between people who know evolution to be true and those who deny it -- these are not two opinions, but truth and fantasy. Your personal beliefs won't make the reality of our sexist society disappear, just as they can't make the sun and the stars revolve around the earth (though in this case, I wish they could). In your case -- as in that of geocentrists -- the false belief stems from a very powerful subjective feeling that the scientific findings are wrong (the earth doesn't feel to be moving), but that doesn't make it any less false.
Of course, you can go on and on as science denialists do ("but where is the evidence?", "why, it's right here", "but where?" etc.), but I'll leave you there.
"What does that have to do with anything?"
You'd expect women to be worse off than men if they are being suppressed. That's the relation. You know, stuff you can verify.
Honestly, I think you are using the word "science" too loosely. You can't just go "because... science". That's exactly not science.
Good bye.
You'd expect women to be worse off than men if they are being suppressed. That's the relation. You know, stuff you can verify.
Honestly, I think you are using the word "science" too loosely. You can't just go "because... science". That's exactly not science.
Good bye.
> You'd expect women to be worse off than men if they are being suppressed. That's the relation. You know, stuff you can verify.
Women are worse off in nearly every culture on earth (that, of course, doesn't mean that men don't suffer too). And don't worry, it's been verified over and over. You can, of course, look at the vast collected body of research, but you won't so you'll continue to deny reality with conviction kept strong by your gut feeling and anecdotes. The measure that concerns the feminist struggle in Western societies is called power. You can read about it, but you won't.
Women are worse off in nearly every culture on earth (that, of course, doesn't mean that men don't suffer too). And don't worry, it's been verified over and over. You can, of course, look at the vast collected body of research, but you won't so you'll continue to deny reality with conviction kept strong by your gut feeling and anecdotes. The measure that concerns the feminist struggle in Western societies is called power. You can read about it, but you won't.
Let's stick to the Western world. I'd love to see Feminists travel to other parts of the world to help with REAL issues, though.
I'd be curious how they measure power in your papers.
But it's a common tactic of (western) feminism to pick arbitrary aspects which make women look bad seen out of context. For example why measure the wage gap, and not the family gap (time spent with loved ones), or the real income (which is usually split among married couples) and spending power? And also not measure income per hour worked and so on.
Maybe you can find a measure of power in which women are worse off. So what? You can also define other measurements in which men are worse off, including "power to reproduce".
And you have no idea what I did and didn't read about feminism. You are just living in your own little bubble.
I'd be curious how they measure power in your papers.
But it's a common tactic of (western) feminism to pick arbitrary aspects which make women look bad seen out of context. For example why measure the wage gap, and not the family gap (time spent with loved ones), or the real income (which is usually split among married couples) and spending power? And also not measure income per hour worked and so on.
Maybe you can find a measure of power in which women are worse off. So what? You can also define other measurements in which men are worse off, including "power to reproduce".
And you have no idea what I did and didn't read about feminism. You are just living in your own little bubble.
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Right, no mixed messages for boys, we just tell them they are unwelcome and useless, their hobbies suspect and ambitions outdated.
Let's not forget the lack of male teachers in pre-K and K-8, so a majority of their day has no positive male role models.
> yes, the downside for them is they are often the victim of trumped up "rape" charges,
How often? I've seen little evidence that this is very common.
How often? I've seen little evidence that this is very common.
Compare and contrast how women are treated when accused of rape with men treated when accused of rape. Guilty until proven innocent.
Google is your friend this happens a lot more than you realize.
Google is your friend this happens a lot more than you realize.
It might not be that every man is falsely accused of rape, but that the false positive rate might be high. Which would mean that the existence of an accusation provides little predictive power regarding the guilt of the accused.
If 90% of rape allegations resulted in convictions then the existence of an accusation would usually be meaningful. If only 10% of accusations result in convictions, the existence of an accusation would not be very meaningful statistically for the guilt or innocence of any one alleged perpetrator.
What makes the situation even more difficult is that there's often little hard evidence of a crime. There can be evidence of sexual contact, but that doesn't ipso facto make the accusation true, because statistically sexual contact in overwhelmingly consensual.
When police find a body that's been shot or stabbed that's generally hard evidence that a crime has taken place. There's often no question as to the existence of the crime (except when suicide is a possibility) and it's their job to figure out who did it and bring them to justice.
But many rape cases start with the identity of the perpetrator known, and the objective is to figure out who is telling the truth in a situation with no hard evidence to back up either party. It's very different from a murder, but with just as much import. And since prosecutors don't like to lose cases (their job is to win them, and they are judged on their conviction rate) they often don't prosecute unless they have a strong case.
So what happens is that it's very difficult to tell if most accusations are false, or merely not provable-enough to win in court. And because there are conflicting motivations by a number of parties in the legal process it's very difficult to suss out the actual truth and then measure the error from the actual truth that the legal system achieves, and then use that to reform the process.
Because of all this, it's entirely possible that people who are accused are "often" the victims of trumped up charges while at the same time, only a very few people are accused.
If 90% of rape allegations resulted in convictions then the existence of an accusation would usually be meaningful. If only 10% of accusations result in convictions, the existence of an accusation would not be very meaningful statistically for the guilt or innocence of any one alleged perpetrator.
What makes the situation even more difficult is that there's often little hard evidence of a crime. There can be evidence of sexual contact, but that doesn't ipso facto make the accusation true, because statistically sexual contact in overwhelmingly consensual.
When police find a body that's been shot or stabbed that's generally hard evidence that a crime has taken place. There's often no question as to the existence of the crime (except when suicide is a possibility) and it's their job to figure out who did it and bring them to justice.
But many rape cases start with the identity of the perpetrator known, and the objective is to figure out who is telling the truth in a situation with no hard evidence to back up either party. It's very different from a murder, but with just as much import. And since prosecutors don't like to lose cases (their job is to win them, and they are judged on their conviction rate) they often don't prosecute unless they have a strong case.
So what happens is that it's very difficult to tell if most accusations are false, or merely not provable-enough to win in court. And because there are conflicting motivations by a number of parties in the legal process it's very difficult to suss out the actual truth and then measure the error from the actual truth that the legal system achieves, and then use that to reform the process.
Because of all this, it's entirely possible that people who are accused are "often" the victims of trumped up charges while at the same time, only a very few people are accused.
Your answer is weirdly confused.
You describe the problems of obtaining a conviction - proving lack of consent beyond a reasonable doubt such that jurors will return a guilty verdict. But you start with
> If 90% of rape allegations resulted in convictions then the existence of an accusation would usually be meaningful. If only 10% of accusations result in convictions, the existence of an accusation would not be very meaningful statistically for the guilt or innocence of any one alleged perpetrator.
Which seems to miss the obvious point that "not guilty" sometimes means "not guilty - didn't do it" and sometimes means "not guilty - not proven beyond reasonable doubt". (Obviously all not guilty verdicts should be interpreted as "Not guilty - didn't do it". It's important to protect that legal principle.)
You describe the problems of obtaining a conviction - proving lack of consent beyond a reasonable doubt such that jurors will return a guilty verdict. But you start with
> If 90% of rape allegations resulted in convictions then the existence of an accusation would usually be meaningful. If only 10% of accusations result in convictions, the existence of an accusation would not be very meaningful statistically for the guilt or innocence of any one alleged perpetrator.
Which seems to miss the obvious point that "not guilty" sometimes means "not guilty - didn't do it" and sometimes means "not guilty - not proven beyond reasonable doubt". (Obviously all not guilty verdicts should be interpreted as "Not guilty - didn't do it". It's important to protect that legal principle.)
Yeah, you're right! So I guess there are maybe three (or four) data sets?
1. the actual truth (rape or not rape)
2. what a prosecutor decides to prosecute (reasonably provable case versus not provable case)
3. what is claimed by the accuser (this is always rape, else there is no accusation)
4. what is not claimed by a could-be accuser (a person who gets raped but doesn't report it)
In order to get a conviction you need someone from set 3 and set 2. That completely neglects set 4 and should have some correlation with set 1, but this correlation probably isn't going to be amazing because there are both false positives (people who claim to have been raped, but were not) and false negatives (rapes which did happen, but that go unreported or unprosecuted).
What really sucks about everything surrounding this particular category of crime is that unlike many other crimes, there's a lot of possibility (not necessarily probability though!) for false accusations. I don't honestly know what the underlying probabilities are, and in fact they might well be unknowable.
As an engineer the idea that you can't even measure the error to figure out how well the system is performing at its job is deeply troubling. I certainly HOPE that the error rate is low and that innocents are being jailed and criminals aren't walking freely. But keeping up with the news certainly causes me to have some doubt that the error rate is truly low. I'm not saying that there's a pandemic of false accusations or a pandemic of unprosecuted criminals. But it's hard to hear about a few high profile accusations gone wrong (Duke, mattress girl, etc) and not wonder.
Anyhow thanks for pointing out the contradiction in my post!
1. the actual truth (rape or not rape)
2. what a prosecutor decides to prosecute (reasonably provable case versus not provable case)
3. what is claimed by the accuser (this is always rape, else there is no accusation)
4. what is not claimed by a could-be accuser (a person who gets raped but doesn't report it)
In order to get a conviction you need someone from set 3 and set 2. That completely neglects set 4 and should have some correlation with set 1, but this correlation probably isn't going to be amazing because there are both false positives (people who claim to have been raped, but were not) and false negatives (rapes which did happen, but that go unreported or unprosecuted).
What really sucks about everything surrounding this particular category of crime is that unlike many other crimes, there's a lot of possibility (not necessarily probability though!) for false accusations. I don't honestly know what the underlying probabilities are, and in fact they might well be unknowable.
As an engineer the idea that you can't even measure the error to figure out how well the system is performing at its job is deeply troubling. I certainly HOPE that the error rate is low and that innocents are being jailed and criminals aren't walking freely. But keeping up with the news certainly causes me to have some doubt that the error rate is truly low. I'm not saying that there's a pandemic of false accusations or a pandemic of unprosecuted criminals. But it's hard to hear about a few high profile accusations gone wrong (Duke, mattress girl, etc) and not wonder.
Anyhow thanks for pointing out the contradiction in my post!
You wouldn't think 'don't fuck your undergrads' would be as controversial a statement as it is.
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I still chuckle to recall my friends in grad school who TA'ed being told by professors, quote, "Don't fuck your students."
You wouldn't think an alternate perspective like "People, including undergrads, should be free to do what they want" would as controversial a statement as it is, but neither your statement nor mine are fully germane because they're broad principles that don't necessarily cover the minutia of every situation.
My (abandoned) dissertation was on academic novels, and one thing I found interesting is the way feminists in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s fought relentlessly to argue that women were adults who could make their own choices, sexual and otherwise, and didn't need institutions to act like their parents. Lynn Peril's book College Girls: Bluestockings, Sex Kittens, and Co-eds, Then and Now has an okay but not great account of this.
Sometime in the 80s or 90s, though, the script flipped, and now there is a small but loud minority calling for colleges to do the thing a lot of women wanted colleges not to do! For those of us with a sense of history, the results are entertaining.
My (abandoned) dissertation was on academic novels, and one thing I found interesting is the way feminists in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s fought relentlessly to argue that women were adults who could make their own choices, sexual and otherwise, and didn't need institutions to act like their parents. Lynn Peril's book College Girls: Bluestockings, Sex Kittens, and Co-eds, Then and Now has an okay but not great account of this.
Sometime in the 80s or 90s, though, the script flipped, and now there is a small but loud minority calling for colleges to do the thing a lot of women wanted colleges not to do! For those of us with a sense of history, the results are entertaining.
It's not hard, is it? Don't have relationships with students you teach. If you're teaching Maths and you have a relationship with a History of Art student, fair enough. However, dating one of your own students is as bad as dating a subordinate at work. Just don't do it.
Agreed. This is no different than any other conflict of interest. Do you think bosses should be able to have sexual relationships with their direct reports, or with customers and vendors? There are safeguards in place to deal with such situations that remove the potentially biased individual from key decision making processes.
I've been a professor for close to ten years now, and I can't tell you how strongly I disagreed with this essay. Maybe it's a generational thing: a perception of what's acceptable in life even outside academia. For instance, she says,
> "Somehow I don’t see the publishing industry instituting codes banning unhappily married editors from going goopy over authors,"
but from my perspective, the story she relayed showed exactly why publishers should (and, I think, often do) fire or strongly sanction any editor who abuses his or her position in that way. Part of the author's point seems to be, "We need to prepare students for the dangers of the world out there," which I think is entirely sensible. But her proposed solution appears to be, "Make sure that college provides practice fending off unwanted advances by people with power over you," while I'd much prefer, "Make sure that college teaches them those advances aren't acceptable."
Don't get me wrong: I think sex can be awesome, and I think a whole lot of people are way too eager to make rules about what other consenting adults ought to be able to do. But the thought of a professor putting a student in a position where they fear the consequences of saying no (when they might be counting on that professor for a good grade or a recommendation letter) just horrifies me. Professors: if you want to get it on at work, you've got plenty of colleagues to choose from. And if there's some student you're convinced is your soulmate, just cross your damned legs for a couple years.
> "Somehow I don’t see the publishing industry instituting codes banning unhappily married editors from going goopy over authors,"
but from my perspective, the story she relayed showed exactly why publishers should (and, I think, often do) fire or strongly sanction any editor who abuses his or her position in that way. Part of the author's point seems to be, "We need to prepare students for the dangers of the world out there," which I think is entirely sensible. But her proposed solution appears to be, "Make sure that college provides practice fending off unwanted advances by people with power over you," while I'd much prefer, "Make sure that college teaches them those advances aren't acceptable."
Don't get me wrong: I think sex can be awesome, and I think a whole lot of people are way too eager to make rules about what other consenting adults ought to be able to do. But the thought of a professor putting a student in a position where they fear the consequences of saying no (when they might be counting on that professor for a good grade or a recommendation letter) just horrifies me. Professors: if you want to get it on at work, you've got plenty of colleagues to choose from. And if there's some student you're convinced is your soulmate, just cross your damned legs for a couple years.
This article fails to note that a lot of the paranoia is driven by the slow infantilization of 18 year-olds since the author was in college. When the author of this article was in college, pre-AIDs, therefore probably late 70's or early 80s, an 18 year-old was allowed to drink and would largely be considered an "adult." If you weren't in college, you were likely working full time, and not living with your parents until you were 26. You probably had an older brother, cousin, or uncle who was drafted sent to Vietnam at around 18-19 years of age.
So back then when you hooked up with a professor, people probably thought you were stupid, but you were an adult and you owned your stupidity.
Today colleges totally infantilize their students and it has become more like extended high school (lots of homework, attendance taken, strict rules of social conduct, etc.) than what the author experienced 35 years ago. But to be fair, it is not just colleges, what society expects out of an 18 year old has changed dramatically as well - so the way power dynamics are looked at on campus today sort of makes sense.
So back then when you hooked up with a professor, people probably thought you were stupid, but you were an adult and you owned your stupidity.
Today colleges totally infantilize their students and it has become more like extended high school (lots of homework, attendance taken, strict rules of social conduct, etc.) than what the author experienced 35 years ago. But to be fair, it is not just colleges, what society expects out of an 18 year old has changed dramatically as well - so the way power dynamics are looked at on campus today sort of makes sense.
> Personally I’d start by promoting a less vulnerable sense of self than the one our new campus codes are peddling.
Not possible.
A less vulnerable sense of self runs dangerously close to the idea that students are accountable for their actions, which is directly antithetical to the culture of adolescence that is being dragged into ever-higher age groups.
Not possible.
A less vulnerable sense of self runs dangerously close to the idea that students are accountable for their actions, which is directly antithetical to the culture of adolescence that is being dragged into ever-higher age groups.
I'm sure everyone will now fly into a moral panic about not being allowed to have sex with whom they please. All I wish to point out is that, seemingly unmentioned in this article, the power relation between professor and student really has changed, as the academic job market has gotten that much more difficult.
Other than that, carry on. Happy moral panic, and may the odds be ever in your favor!
Other than that, carry on. Happy moral panic, and may the odds be ever in your favor!
> [...] popularized the use of the term "survivor," previously reserved for those who’d survived the Holocaust.
I agree with the author that it's wrong to use "survivor" instead of "accuser" when the guilt has not been established, but you can not reserve such a generic word as "survivor". It simply means somebody who survived something life-threatening.
I agree with the author that it's wrong to use "survivor" instead of "accuser" when the guilt has not been established, but you can not reserve such a generic word as "survivor". It simply means somebody who survived something life-threatening.
If the adverbial phrase "stupidly and inchoately" appears, it must be the Chronicle.
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In 2000 Francine Prose wrote a hilarious and sometimes sad novel called Blue Angel (http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Angel-Novel-Francine-Prose/dp/006...), which is worth reading both for its own sake and because its story and themes are compatible with Kipnis's. Decades of academic satires seem to have had near zero effect on campus politics.
(I taught as a grad student at the University of Arizona and have been teaching as an adjunct at Marymount Manhattan College.)