The Gender Studies Degree, in Detail

By Professor Doom

     It's easy to look at a degree printed on a sheet of paper and say "that's all crap," and one degree (of many, to be sure) that often receives such scorn is the Gender Studies (or Women's Studies) degree. Does it deserve this treatment?

      Well, Arizona State University, noted for turning higher ed into a boiler room operation, offers a Gender Studies degree, and generously lists the entirety of the degree requirements online. They're not the only school that does so, and I assure the gentle reader that similar degrees at other schools are very similar in course requirements.

       So, let's take a look at this degree.

Total Hours: 120

       A mere 120 college credit hours is required for this degree. This is fairly light. I initially chose my mathematics degree because it only required 128 hours, and many degree programs require over 130 hours. Doing the math for a 4 year program with 2 semesters, this means a Gender Studies student should be taking 15 credit hours a semester, and most students should take more if they intend to graduate in 4 years.

       I point out that many students are "guided" into taking 12 credit hours a semester. It isn't until their 2nd or 3rd year that they realize they've been given terrible advice, dooming them to being on campus 5 or more years, even if they fail no courses (and many do fail, because our colleges systematically admit students who demonstrably have no academic interest and/or training).

     The very first semester here includes two courses the Gender Studies student must take. There's a 1 credit hour "ASU Experience" course. In times past, a student would be offered an afternoon of "orientation" where they would be told the main landmarks on campus (library, where to get food, etc) as well as how to get/call for help or whatever. Now, they pay $1,000 or so to get that information by taking an "our college experience" course.

      The very first gender studies course for all students is "Women, Gender, and Society." I find the name interesting. In math, classes are called things like "Calculus" or "Statistics" or "Differential Equations," and I bet the gentle reader can determine math courses are about from the name (if not necessarily know what the name means). 

      But what of "Women, Gender, and Society"? The first two words I find contradictory...if "Gender" doesn't mean women, surely it includes women? Why the redundancy? Either way, are they not part of society by definition? The course description doesn't provide much insight:

Interdisciplinary introduction examining critical issues in women's studies.

     Apparently women's studies courses study women's studies. It really seems like they could have mentioned one of those issues, seeing as they're so critical and all. At least the words are long, so that's something, I guess.

        Maybe the more advanced courses will fill in some details. Before getting to those courses, the degree outline mentions a few "General Education" courses. Accreditation mandates that a degree have these courses, supposedly assuring that a graduate's education includes many of the basic things and skills an educated person should know and have.

     Years ago I decried that students were taking a college course called "College Algebra" which had less material than the algebra course I took in the 10th grade. Math majors get no credit for taking "College Algebra" courses, incidentally, because academic departments know the course is fake. Gender studies students need not learn the skills of students even in the 10th grade, however, as their intro math course is:

MAT 142: College Mathematics (MA)

      Let's look at the description:

Applies basic college-level mathematics to real-life problems. Topics include numerical reasoning, sets, counting techniques, probability, basic statistics and finance. 

     At least you can tell what's in the course. It's curious that ASU feels the need to tell us that this is "college-level" mathematics...other courses aren't so ashamed of what's in them to say that, after all. This course is typically called "Finite Mathematics", a semi-fake at best course covering introductory material from a wide range of topics--a student can take a whole month off and still do fairly well in this type of course.

      Taking a "real" college science course is pushed off until the third year, incidentally. This is a bit of a problem--a student won't find out she's incapable of passing a college course until sinking over 2 years of tuition into ASU. I'm sure that's just an accident.

      Let's get back to gender studies courses, at least the highliights (the student must choose 10 from a long list). Most of these courses are 3000 level (Junior level) or higher, but one is lower level:

Gender and Society Course Description:  Analysis of the development, nature, and consequences of gender in contemporary society.

     Recall, the first course was called "Women, Gender, and Society," and this more advanced course, to judge by the title, addresses one less topic. What? At least the description a bit more clear, I guess...but now I have to wonder what's in the first course?

      The next lowest level course has the same name structure: 

Gender, Crime, and Criminal Justice

Course Description: 

Women as offenders, victims and professionals in the criminal justice system.


       I can't help but suspect the "offenders" topic is de-emphasized. Note how "Gender" here is clearly used as a synonym for "women"...there is no course which specifically focuses on males, however, although I assure the gentle reader males are a big part of our criminal justice system.

     I point this detail out because in math classes, particularly the undergraduate ones, we focus on the most common concepts a person might experience. For example, lines and linear relationships are covered in great deal, while functions represented as infinite series of partial derivatives not at all. Yet for some reason, there's this weird fascination in the "Grievance Studies" fields to focus instead of the odd and unusual...I'm not sure knowledge of the arcane is more important for an educated person to know than the common stuff, but perhaps I'm wrong.

     Race, Gender and Sport

Course Description: 
Advanced and interdisciplinary examination of the social concepts of race and gender and their economic impact on sports in America. In-depth studies will focus on the role of regulatory agencies, the impact of these regulatory agencies have on sport as well as multiple legal issues surrounding athletics

     The above course might be useful, despite the weird "X, Y, and Z" name. I feel the need to point out how no prior knowledge of any other material is needed to get into this course, and the material in this course is of no use in any other course. So, perhaps it's useful but...if there really is a job that actually requires the above, you could just hire someone out of high school and teach them this material in 3 months, tops...there's really nothing in the degree program which requires 4 years of training to master.

      Let's look at some of the courses for the most advanced, senior level, students. For example:

Ethnic Women Writers

Course Description: 
Concentrates on selected women writers of the U.S. who are Native American, African American, Hispanic, and Asian American.

      Seriously, it's not at all obvious why this can't be a 1000 level course, especially as there are explicitly no prerequisites. Definitely a puzzle. Let's try another one:

Women and Health

Course Description: 
Women as healthcare workers and an in-depth analysis of issues of health, illness, and healthcare for women

     What a bizarre combination of topics for a course! Insofar as women are physically different than men, I completely understand a medical course focusing specifically on them (I again note the lack of an parallel course for men). But why also healthcare workers? Do cooking majors have a course on "how to make a salad, and kitchen decor"? I just don't get it, and again, no prerequisite for this 4000 level course.

Women and Politics Course Description:  Focuses on the uniqueness of women in modern political systems and political thought. Emphasis may vary with instructor.

      I *love* the warning about how emphasis may vary with instructor. Again, this is a 4000 level course of pure introductory material...nothing the student learned in any previous course will be of use here. It probably won't be of any  use in politics, since, as per the 2016 election, simply being female (and no other factors whatsoever) doesn't guarantee victory in an election.

     For what it's worth the history department does have a pair of linked courses, focusing on women in history. A quick look at the first one (the second focuses on post-1880):

Women in U.S. History, 1600 to 1880

Course Description: 
Historical discussion of American women of diverse racial, religious, and ethnic groups and classes; focuses on changing definitions of women's roles.

     Is it my imagination, or is the description here a bit more revealing as to what goes on in the course? I suspect the history department, being actually academic, felt the need to have a clear agenda of what the course entails. Let's finish with the highest-numbered course:

     Women in the Visual Arts

Course Description: 
Historical study of art by women in various media; related social, political, educational issues; representation of women in art.

     This 4000 level course does at least have a 1000 level introductory art course as a prerequisite. Seeing as there could be 3 years between taking these courses, I worry a student would have a hard time remembering, much less applying, the material in the intro course, but this still makes this  possibly the most academically demanding course in the entire Gender Studies (and seriously, the course descriptions make it very clear we're just looking at women here) program, quite literally in the case of this art class.

      Now that we've seen much of what a Gender Studies degree program entails, I still feel it doesn't quite have the gravitas as actual academic subjects, since almost none of it requires more than a few weeks' effort to master, as judged by the endless list of no-prerequisite "intro" courses. But I guess it's just a matter of opinion.

www.professorconfess.blogspot.com

Study: Widespread Sex Discrimination In College Scholarships

By Professor Doom



     It’s rough being a male on college campuses today. If you’re not told you’re a rapist, you’re told the guy either to your left or right is. You’re told of “toxic masculinity” time and again, and never, ever, will you be told that being male is a good or desirable thing.

      And if you’re interested in a scholarship, well, you’ll need to take a number behind any interested female:

An analysis of sex-specific scholarships at 115 of the nation’s largest universities reveals widespread sex discrimination policies. Among 1,161 sex-specific scholarships, 91.6% were reserved for female students, with only 8.4% designated for male students



     In reading the above, I can’t help but be surprised there are any scholarships strictly reserved for males. I somehow suspect those are sportsball related, reserved for top athletes, necessary for a winning team.

     On the other hand, the female-reserved scholarships are most typically for STEM fields, luring females into science, technology, engineering, or math degrees even if they aren’t so inclined. I have four issues with this:

     First, this is wrong because it’s often claimed there’s an “underrepresentation” of females in these fields. There’s never any research provided, it’s simply taken for granted that since less than 50% of majors in these disciplines are female, it must be a problem.

     Second, and closely related, is the overlooked issue that there are many fields where the majors are predominantly female (hi Psychology!)…but no money is provided to “rectify” the imbalance via strictly male scholarships.

     Third, these scholarships can lure females into field that they wouldn’t try…what often happens here is these students end up wasting a year in courses they just aren’t interested in, causing them to drop out, or harming their GPA.

     Fourth, a big part of the reason these degrees are valued is their scarcity. If, overnight, our country had 100,000,000 people with STEM degrees, we’d just end up with that many more people pouring coffee with a STEM degree. Despite this obvious result from basic economics, the push has been, for years, to increase the size of these programs at all cost.

      Now, there’s a batch of laws called “Title IX” which is supposed to address this level of unbalanced gender treatment. Title IX was originally targeted to protect females…does it work the other way? Yes!

      Well, it does if someone complains enough, and indeed, someone has:

University of Michigan-Flint economist Mark Perry has company in his one-man crusade to expose scholarships that exclude men from consideration in possible violation of the law.



      Now, such complaints can merit investigation, and each investigation can cost around $200,000. Granted, that’s pocket change to most schools…but the gentle reader should realize that a school able to blow this money on an investigation should have already spent the money on scholarships.



SAVE noted Tulane resolved an OCR investigation late last year, but the university suggested the resolution will not change its prior practice.





   While the above is harmless enough on the surface, do note the extreme irony here: the slightest hint, the merest theoretical microaggression against any group besides males, and a school will warp its campus to keep it from ever happening again. 

    On the other hand, when a school has objectively sexist policies against males? They’ll just cough up the money and change nothing.

     When did hypocrisy at this level become such a fundamental part of higher education?



www.professorconfess.blogspot.com

   



      

Question Progressivism? No Degree For You!

By Professor Doom



     Once again I find myself comparing the people who run higher ed to the Soup Nazi of Seinfeld—any deviation from what he wanted meant “no soup for you.”


     I grant that in the advanced fields, acceptance and belief in a certain orthodoxy is pretty much necessary to get a graduate degree. Mathematics, of course, would be Exhibit A for really needing to believe in the truth of the things your field has to say, and I concede my own belief in such is so strong I can’t even conceive of how someone could pursue a graduate degree without believing (more accurately, “understanding,” at the risk of being presumptuous) the same things I do.


       In less rigorous fields, say economics, I’ve heard that there’s likewise little room for dispute of “established” facts, with many economists with opposing views (say, against our Keynesian system) advising to keep such views silent until after receiving tenure. Since on most campuses such is nigh impossible, opposing views in economics, and other fields, are basically silenced by action within the department.


       Perhaps established scholars should have this ability…perhaps. It’s no secret that ideologues have taken over many of our campuses, but they’re generally not scholars. Do they poke their noses into what the graduate students think? The clarification is important. I can totally see a bunch of mathematicians being unwilling to award a doctorate to a student who says “calculus is all wrong and doesn’t actually work,” (unless the student come produce an amazing proof, anyway). Ultimately, it’d be up to the scholars to make the decision, no matter the field.


       So the question remains: does admin enforce ideological purity, or the scholars?


       Scholars may have been the sole arbiters of such in the past, but no more:


Feminist grad student says biological men can’t be women. Now the university is investigating her.




      Isn’t it fascinating how reality appears to have changed. A century ago, if you said “men can’t be women,” it’d be considered just as much an obvious statement as “the number 2 can’t have the same value as the number 3,” and yet today the former is no longer clear, to the point that even saying as much can get you in trouble with the “leaders” running the school.


      How did they even out about this heretic in their graduate school?


University of California-Santa Barbara feminist grad student Laura Tanner is under fire for remarks that she made on social media — particularly on her Twitter page. Tanner, a doctoral candidate in the school's department of Feminist Studies, is an "outspoken critic of transgender ideology," according to the outlet.




     Wow. Much like my previous post on the nazis running our campuses, a social media post can get you in hot water. Note carefully: she didn't speak this heresy within the department or on a campus web-page, merely to her friends. And punishment will still be meted out.

     What, exactly and precisely is the problem here? Here’s the awful thing she said:


"A woman is someone with a female body and any personality ... not a 'female personality' and any body." 


"Any other definition is sexism," the banner concludes. 




     I begrudgingly concede there may be some things a student can publicly say which would merit investigation—a call for violence, particularly violence against specific people, comes to mind, but the above? She’s a grad student, a borderline scholar at the very least, so perhaps admin should have let the department “educate” her, and keep their grotesquely overpaid noses out of it.


…the school is investigating her remarks after trans "allies" demanded that the administration take action against her. Such critics called Tanner "absolute trash" as well as a "dumb b****." Some have even suggested that Tanner should die because of her sentiments.




     See, now those death threats should merit investigation, but I know how hypocritically these places are run. The gentle reader should note carefully what happened here: someone snitched to admin about this heretical student, and it’s not a stretch to figure it was someone in her department. So, the Bias Response Team is activated and a mighty pack of dogs of war is unleashed:

The school's newspaper even went as far as calling her "transphobic." The chair of her department — Laury Oaks — said that Tanner's remarks are "distressing," and said that he could file both ethics and Title IX complaints agains her. Online, Oaks shared responses from the school's Title IX Coordinator, Ariana Alvarez, who confirmed that the department is "actively engaging in a response" to Tanner's social media posts.


     Poor girl, she’s screwed. The mighty Title IX fiefdom will come crashing down on her to enforce purity, I can assure you.


     I know scholars aren’t always known for extreme bravery, but the department head there worries me greatly. The head is distressed over a Twitter page. Where do they find these people so unsure of their knowledge that a tweet can cause such turmoil?


     The answer to the above question is contained in the above. Anyone with the courage to question the narrative, even a little, is filtered out long before they can get their degree (although they probably would be unemployable even afterwards).


       Like so many who question the narrative, this graduate is long past childhood, and is a mother of three (all young adults), as she’s willing to share on her website.


        Since her scholarly work will doubtless be silenced, I’ll allow her the last word here, where she (like so many other adults) questions “transitioning” children, among other things:



My research and scholarship are currently focused on resisting the discursive erasure of women and girls, particularly in health and gender discourse; attempts to disassociate the female body from womanhood; the mistaken idea that biological sex is socially constructed or possible to change, the loss of women and girls' civil rights through changes to laws that remove sex protections and define gender as a feeling; and the abusive and dangerously experimental practices of medically "transing" children and young adults.



www.professorconfess.blogspot.com



     

The Sugarbaby Students of Minnesota

By Professor Doom



     I didn’t exactly work my way through college—I lived at home, and mowed many, many, lawns in the Florida sun, among other unpleasant jobs. They were paying the princely sum of $5 an hour for sheet metal roofing, and it only took a few weeks of that to make enough to pay the $1,000 or so yearly tuition of my late teenage years.


      Those days are long gone, of course, and now average annual tuition runs $25,000 or more (it varies wildly, of course). Most people can’t work their way through college. That said, if you’re a winsome lass with malleable morals, you can find employment of sorts, as a sugarbaby, a female whose tuition (and other expenses) are paid for by a sugardaddy, in exchange for, well, “companionship.”


      I know, this is just a variant of the oldest profession, but it’s gone from stories of “that one girl” on campus to a distinct sub-culture. NYU is most notorious for its sugarbabies, with around 1,300 students (about 5% of the female students there, to put things in perspective…many classes would have at least one such student/sugarbaby).


     Of course, 2018 tuition at NYU is over $50,000, and is a private, for-profit university with a notorious reputation for putting the screws to the students. You’re not going to scrape together that kind of money mowing lawns. I know, it’s not my business how a young woman wants to make a living but this strikes me as wrong all the same.


      What about our state schools? These are built and supported as a public benefit. Tuition at University of Minnesota is a “mere” $14,000 or so, surely they don’t have a sugarbaby community?


The bittersweet life of sugar babies at the University of Minnesota



     NYU is private, and I haven’t read their mission statement, so perhaps creating whores sugarbabies is one of their goals…but were the taxpayers of publicly funded UM told their money was going to increase the number of people in this profession?


     Again, stuff happens, so I suppose “that girl” has always existed on campus. We don’t have many of them at UM, right?


Ava is one of the 542 students at the University of Minnesota who were registered on…

--“Ava is a fake name, and I’ll avoid mentioning the several sites that specialize in supporting this profession.




     UM has the same enrollment as NYU, tuition is about 33%, and we have about 50% of the sugarbabies…that’s a surprisingly high number. Can we get a handle on how many sugarbabies we have around the country?


Approximately 3 million college students in the United States are registered on…



--that’s JUST ONE SITE.




      Perhaps not all sugarbabies are female (or identify as female, whatever, bear with me as I make a possibly false assumption about gender here), but that translates to around 15% of college students.


      Are there truly no “leaders” in higher education willing to take a look in the mirror and ask about their own responsibility for doing this?



“I found it exciting. It felt good getting paid money,” Ava said. “It was kind of fun in a weird way. I would feel hyped after using it.”




      A Minnesota sugarbaby gets about $100 for a date, which need not include much beyond dinner. I suppose one such date is harmless enough if that’s all that goes on, but…these are still formative years, I’m not so sure our young ladies’ education should include an expectation of being handed money directly from males, particularly since this expectation is far less likely to be valid as one leaves her 20s. Perhaps I’m a bit old-fashioned in this regard, I concede.


     Granted, I suspect many sugarbabies ae discarded after a few years, and then the university discards them a few years after that, perhaps…what is the only job experience they have after they receive their all too often worthless degree? Is it such a stretch to worry about what profession they’ll have no choice but to enter? It’s not like I haven’t identified a clear link between prostitution and student loans before.


      In case the gentle reader is wondering how the sites are sure they’re getting college students, well, students get free memberships by using their university-provided e-mails. Um…should our universities be in the business of validating prostitution credentials?


      I’m sorry to ask so many rhetorical questions here, I’m trying not to be judgmental as so many concerns come to mind.


Sarah Polowin, a graduate of Carleton University in Canada who wrote her doctoral thesis on [a sugarbaby site[ in 2017, found that money is the primary motivating factor for college students using the service.




      I concede I haven’t read the thesis, but I had to chuckle at the Ph.D. level conclusion there of “prostitutes do it for the money.” Yeah, no kidding. For what it’s worth, I think the article is wrong here, as it appears to be a Master’s thesis…I’ll chuckle less, conceding that kind of result is indeed Master’s level.


      I also note she writes of the phenomenon in Canada…this issue is not strictly an American problem.


      The article dances around the negative impact on the students who engage in this practice, beyond the usual “this one whacko became a stalker…” story one would expect.


      I know my blog is read by far more than the clicks I get directly from Blogspot would indicate. Anybody out there know, is, or better yet was, a sugarbaby? Please contact me, I’d love to ask a few questions about how all this works out.




www.professorconfess.blogspot.com

"Sexist" Scholar Reported To Bias Response Team...Your Taxes Pay For This.

By Professor Doom

   
      With so much student loan money pouring onto campus, it's only natural for much of it to be wasted. One of the largest, most evil wastes of this money is to "Diversity Institutes," fiefdoms packed with $100,000 (often much more) a year commissars eager to enforce social justice.

      This waste just leads to more waste, as today's story shows:

‘Sexist’ business scholar reported to bias response team


      Yes, our campuses now have a "bias response team," a collection of NPCs who sit around bored for weeks on end, waiting for someone to cry RACIST. Our campuses survived for centuries without such teams, and yet now we have universities proud of wasting their surplus wealth in this manner, instead of using the money for education and research.

      Does it even matter what the complaint was? No. But let's take a look all the same:
The report also accused the professor of frequent sexist language, but the bulk of the complaint centered on his assigned readings for the business course.


     Since "sexist language," much like "hate speech," is in the eye of the beholder, let's focus on those assigned readings. What was the problem, citizen?

“I believe it to no longer be necessary when teaching the foundations of our country’s economic system and those who helped build [its] ideals to be presented in conjunction with their sexist beliefs that have already planted their roots within our global and local communities,” the student stated in her complaint, filed in December 2018


       It's hard to parse what exactly the problem here is, but do keep in mind that hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of commissars' time will be spent finding the wrong here.

       What would a scholar do? Well, as soon as the student said "I believe..." the complaint would be over. The scholar would trust the professor of the course to know more about the material than the student, close the complaint in a few seconds, and free up enough money for "full ride" scholarships for a dozen or more students.

      The gentle reader should keep that above in mind always: if the people running our schools honestly cared about helping students, they could do so easily and generously simply by using all that money for education instead ideological pursuits.

In the female student’s bias report, she stated that while her professor “never applauded these philosophers on their sexist beliefs,” he “never outright said they were wrong” and “continued to place them upon a pedestal.”


      It's unknown who the philosophers (in this case, economists, the closest business classes come to philosophy) are in this case, and perhaps they are outright wrong but...that's not the purpose of education, which is far more about discussing ideas than shouting down those with whom you disagree.

       Again, this aspect of the complaint would be ignored by a scholar.  I guess we'll examine the charge of "sexist" talk.

She continued that she began to “fear” his sexist banter and said she “also began to fear the readings and I could not even finish one assigned reading due to its clear sexist message.”


       Fear? Poor kid, she's so afraid she can't read. Obviously, the proper response is to kick her off campus for her own good, though I suspect the Bias Response Team would never show such integrity.

According to the complaint, the student was especially disturbed by a conversation that took place on the last day of class about robots taking jobs from working Americans. The professor allegedly claimed that “while all our jobs will be taken by robots,” he will be “retired living in Tahiti surrounded by 40-45 beautiful women feeding him grapes.”


     The last day of class? The kid had to wait until the end of the semester to come up with an example? I'd look at this as a joke rather than "sexism," but now I want to point out the reality here, a reality an educator knows, but not a commissar.

     This kid is failing the course. By her own admission, she had not finished even one assigned reading, and I suspect she wasn't doing well on the class assignments, assuming she attempted any.

      Rather than just fail the course, she appeals to the Bias Response Team and levels a series of charge. You better believe the professor has gotten the message here: fail a student, and a pack of crazy ideologues might be breathing down your neck in short order.

      Does anyone honestly believe education is improved by the addition of Bias Response Teams on campus? Anyone off-campus, that is?

     This is what I mean by edu-fascism, the merger of administrative and ideological interests on campus. Bias Response Teams, despite being wasteful and harmful to education, are on campus because both the ideologues (to enforce their beliefs) and admin (to expand the number of subordinates) want them.

      This whole complaint should have been shrugged off as insignificant, even if it wasn't just an obvious ploy by a failing student. What's the criterion for investigation?

According to the university’s Office of Inclusive Excellence website, an act of “bias” is “any act of intolerance, motivated wholly or in part by bias or prejudice against an individual’s race, color, ethnicity, age, religion, size, disability, national origin, language, gender, veteran status, identity expression, sexual orientation or age—regardless of severity.”

--emphasis added.


      Holy micro-aggression madness! Regardless of severity? Talk about defining your own job parameters. Even if the severity is absolute zero, nothing, you STILL are engaging in bias!

       I bet if students had a choice in the matter, or the lunatics running the schools cared about the students, severity would be cranked up to "actual harm caused," in exchange for freeing up enough resources to offer full scholarships every year for a few dozen students.

       Lest the gentle reader believe this kind of waste is only happening at one school, the College Fix has a helpful list of similar Bias Response Team activity at other schools across the country:

Indiana University: Janet Jackson’s nipple triggers bias complaint at Indiana University

Virginia Tech: Virginia Tech on the hunt for campus penis artists

North Carolina State University: Troll mocks campus anti-bias effort with complaint Warren’s Native American DNA claim was triggering

Michigan State University: Student files bias complaint against dorm roommate for watching Ben Shapiro video

University of Oregon: Bias report filed against professor for defending Brett Kavanaugh

Portland State University: Making jokes at Portland State gets you reported to its bias response team

SUNY-Binghamton: Off-campus road rage incident reported to university’s ‘Hate or Bias’ system

University of Florida: Recent bias complaints filed at U. Florida cite a grumpy professor, a racist Snapchat, and a crass joke

      This is all paid for by the student loan scam. End it.

www.professorconfess.blogspot.com