December 19, 2003

Agenda-Driven Academia

Readers of my recent Meandering who thought for some reason that I'm some sort of misogynist because women can't be priests (and the whole point of that small part of the Meandering was to blame God, not me - as if I'm somehow responsible for what is and is not in the eternal order of all things) will certainly not like the latest burr in my saddle.

In an recent academic setting, one of the people who opposed my view (and that of a fellow Orthodox colleague) on women priests explained her opposition on was based upon what she had been taught in her very first class at university. Then she mentioned that her degree is in Women's Studies.

I can't recall where she said she got her degree, but at a nearby university, "Women's Studies is the study of power and gender relationships. It enables you to learn about women's experiences and achievements and to devise strategies for social change." So in their own words, it is only study insofar as it enables the student be active in a particular ideological agenda. You think I'm making this up? Jumping to conclusions? Well, the next sentence continues, "Women's Studies offers the opportunity to study across disciplines and / or within individual fields on women-centred, feminist-based issues."

One course in this degree "examines paradigms based upon recent scholarship which questions and contrasts with androcentric assumptions in ‘traditional’ methodologies, theories and research." How loaded and biased is that? But what really needs questioning here is how they decided that even methods of scholarship and research are so "androcentric" as to be questionable. In other words, the only way feminists can create anything of any academic credibility is to simply redefine credibility.

That's why to get anything out of this degree, students need this course in "Feminist Research Methods" where "Students are introduced to the range of methodologies particularly appropriate for interdisciplinary studies of women and gender. The module examines androcentric theory, gender as a construct and feminist research practice."

The course on "Gender, Power, and Subversion" is not just focued on the horrors of patriarchal societies. No. What is it they are wanting to subvert? Well, the course "considers the strategies available to women for exploiting and destabilising gender boundaries." So exploit the boundaries when it is to their advantage and destablise them when it is not.

Now I hate to state the obvious, but since it clearly may not be obvious to some... Do you think that the purveyors of women's studies would support the destablising of gender boundaries in political correctness and support the development of men's studies departments and degrees? Should their be courses in challenging feminist assumptions? Do they really want academic parity? And should masculinist academics be free to use the same kind of terminology about women as feminists use about men?

Who am I kidding? There is no way that that the detesticulated (and of course atesticular) principalities and powers in the decision making positions of academia would ever consider such a thing.

And while I'm at it, here's another thing. I noticed that the University of Central England offers a BA (Hons) in women's health. Why is there not a corresponding degree in men's health? Is this related to the fact that in 1997£4.4 million was spent on breast cancer research and £47,000 was spent on prostate cancer? Perhaps it is part of their self-avowed destablising subversion to just kill off as many men as possible through medical neglect.

As 60% of medical students in the UK are female, surely the focus will remain on women's health. After all, isn't it one of the premises of feminist studies that the dominant gender has safeguarded its own interests?

Posted by david at December 19, 2003 01:17 AM | TrackBack
Comments

Whew!

David, have you read Fr. Schmemman's journal 1973-83? He has some very interesting perspectives on the "women's ordination" issue and was actually involved in debate/discussion of the issue at St. John's Cathedral in NYC in 1974. Perhaps, i'll post some quotes on the Munkee in the near future.

Posted by: aaron at December 23, 2003 09:30 PM

I have not read Fr Schmemman's journal.

Posted by: David Holford at December 23, 2003 11:22 PM