Independent Women's Forum - Research Areas > Women's Studies

Colorado College Punishes Students for Satirical Flyer

info@iwf.org (Allison Kasic) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 12:06:00 EDT

The Foundation of Individual Rights in Education highlighted a ridiculous case in my home state of Colorado earlier this week:

Two students at Colorado College were found guilty of violating the school's conduct code regarding "violence" after they distributed a satirical flyer mocking a publication of the Feminist and Gender Studies program. As part of their punishment, student Chris Robinson and a second student have been required to hold a campus forum discussing issues brought up by their satirical publication.

More details here.

Debunking, Even Further, the First Lady War Zone Myth

info@iwf.org (Anne Trenolone) — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 14:36:00 EDT

As I was reading The Washington Post's "Fact Checker" piece on First Ladies and visits to war zones, "Further Debunking the War Zone Myth", I found it interesting, but by no means complete.

"The Clinton campaign has cited newspaper accounts, including one in The Washington Post, to bolster the senator's claim that her now-famous March 1996 trip to Bosnia was the first visit to a "war zone" by a first lady since World War II. She is overlooking a trip to Saigon by Pat Nixon at the height of the Vietnam War as well as a trip by Barbara Bush to Saudi Arabia two months before the Persian Gulf War began."

While I give the Post props for getting down to brass tacks regarding Pat Nixon's visit to Saigon in 1969, I also felt the history of First Ladies dredged for the article was quite shallow. First Ladies and American wars go much farther back than Eleanor Roosevelt. So let's give some credit where credit is due.

OK, yes this historical tidbit does go back farther than World War II, but how soon we forget the trials and tribulations of our young country. Chief amongst First Ladies in war zones and in danger, I would place one Dolley Madison, our nation's fourth First Lady. Note this from the White House Historical Association:

"Dolley Madison continued entertaining at the White House until war virtually reached her doorstep. The dinner table was set for 40 guests the day she left the White House. She and a few servants had remained at the White House, packing up valuable documents, silver, and other items of importance. With limited space, she made choices about what to take and what to leave....Even the soldiers assigned to protect the White House had fled before Mrs. Madison."

Oh, yes, Dolley Madison—she didn't just save the famous Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington from any-old-average fire at the White House. She saved it from being burned by British troops who sacked the executive mansion on the night of August 24, 1814 during the War of 1812. Washington at that point was very much an active war zone. In fact much of the city was burned. Dolly Madison and countless American treasures and documents escaped the White House in a scavenged wagon before British troops arrived, rendezvoused with the President and watched the city smolder from a distance.

Following the war the President and First Lady returned to Washington and Dolley Madison committed herself to restoring the White House as a symbol of national pride.

Love Your Body Day

info@iwf.org (Carrie L. Lukas) — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 13:15:00 EDT

Former IWF junior fellow, Arrah Nielsen, has a great piece on our campus homepage about yet another feminist-created holiday: Love Your Body Day. How does one celebrate Love Your Body Day? Arrah explains:

To celebrate you can play body-image boosting computer games like "Feed the Model" on AdiosBarbie.com, rail about the virtues of being a "thick chick," and listen to testimonials from women who do not like their thighs.
The ostensible purpose of Love Your Body Day is laudable-to encourage acceptance of all body types, and raise awareness of anorexia and bulimia. But while no one is proposing a Loath Your Body Day, Love Your Body Day is problematic because while event sponsors fixate on eating disorders and thin models they overlook the far more common problem of obesity. And in a land of super-sized ambulances and toilets built to withstand up to 1,200 pounds, America's obesity problem is well, big.

Arrah continues to bust myths like that thin models make us feel bad about ourselves. Read the whole piece here.

IWF in the News: Sex (Ms.) Education

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 00:00:00 EST

The Star Tribune

Katherine Kersten: Alert to the New York Times: Marriage is not on life support

By Katherine Kersten, Star Tribune

Recently, Minnesotans opened the Star Tribune to find a startling headline: "51 percent of women living without spouses." This probably marks a first in American history, said the article by New York Times reporter Sam Roberts, who added that in 1950 just 35 percent of women were living without spouses.

William Frey, a Brookings Institution demographer quoted in the article, described the shift as "a clear tipping point, reflecting the culmination of post-'60s trends associated with greater independence and more flexible lifestyles for women."

The "51 percent" story sparked a buzz around Twin Cities water coolers. Nationally, bloggers, talk radio hosts and newspaper commentators weighed in.

In the original, extended version that appeared in the Times, every woman quoted spoke glowingly about the joys of singlehood. "I can do what I want, when I want, with whom I want," exulted a divorced 57-year-old mother of two. "I'm just beginning to fly again, I'm just beginning to be me," explained another divorced mother. "Don't take that away."

But the Times story, like single life, isn't quite what it's cracked up to be.

Critics such as Jennifer Roback Morse, an economist at the Acton Institute in Michigan, blew the whistle on the story. The fact is, a clear majority of American women over 20 are married, according to the Census Bureau.

So how did Roberts, the Times reporter, reach the magic 51 percent "tipping point"? In the pool of marriage-age women, he included more than 9 million girls between 15 and 19, many still in high school. Then he added 11 million widows, and -- get this -- more than two million women called "married/spouse absent." These are women whose husbands are temporarily away, on military duty for example, in Iraq or Afghanistan, or even in prison.

There's no doubt that marriage is under pressure. But by treating widows, teenagers and soldiers' wives identically with divorced or never-married women, Roberts exaggerated the percentage of women who choose the single life.

More troubling than this number-fudging, however, was Roberts' attempt to portray the single life, and divorce in particular, as liberating for women. Single female investment bankers in Manhattan may revel in their "independent,"flexible" lifestyles. But for the average woman, divorce or single motherhood brings daily struggles.

The evidence is overwhelming. Married women, on average, are better off financially than their divorced (and single-mother) sisters, who are often plunged into poverty when a marriage ends. After 15 years, married couples, on average, have amassed 93 percent more net wealth than single and divorced individuals, according to one study.

Married women also enjoy happier, healthier and less violent relationships, compared with women in dating or cohabiting relationships, according to research cited in "Why Marriage Matters," a report by family scholars published by the Institute for American Values.

And you don't hear from kids in the Times story. They are the biggest victims of divorce. On average, children who live with their own two married parents have better mental and physical health, higher grades and lower rates of delinquency and substance abuse than other children. They are more likely to graduate from college, have higher earnings and are at lower risk for divorce themselves, according to the Acton Institute report and other sources.

Today, the problem isn't that too many women are stuck in oppressive marriages. It's that well-educated women benefit from marriage more often than poorer, less-educated women do. As of 2000, only about 10 percent of college-educated mothers were living without husbands, while 36 percent of less-educated mothers were, according to "Marriage and Caste in America," a new book by family scholar Kay Hymowitz. This "marriage gap" perpetuates serious class inequities in America, and hits black families especially hard.

Apparently, America's young people understand that marriage is important.

In recent years, overwhelming majorities of high school and college students say they plan to marry, or agree that having a good marriage is important to them. In a 2001 study by the Independent Women's Forum, 83 percent of college women surveyed said that "being married is a very important goal for me."

The Times' "51 percent" story presumably encouraged some women to say, "I give up," and some men to sigh with relief: "I'm off the hook." Marriage has been under assault in the last four decades, but it's still our most important institution.

Katherine Kersten kkersten@startribune.com Join the conversation at my blog, Think Again, which can be found at www.startribune.com/thinkagain.

A Victory for Women, or a Victory for Liberal Women?

Fri, 17 Nov 2006 00:00:00 EST

By Ashley Herzog

Upon learning of last week's election results, feminists across the nation were glowing with praise for Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the first female Speaker of the House. The excitement was palpable. As the ladies at the National Organization for Women put it, "We look forward to cheering as Nancy Pelosi breaks through the marble ceiling." Women had spoken, they declared, and history had been made.

Which, of course, was true. But whenever feminists celebrate one of these "first woman" milestones, I can't help but feel unsettled-- not because the accolades are unwarranted, but because they are reserved only for women at least as liberal as Pelosi.

It seems funny that a movement that supposedly seeks to promote women is reluctant to even acknowledge a large number of them. While middle school girls can recite brief biographies of Geraldine Ferraro, Madeleine Albright, and Janet Reno, the feminist establishment maintains a strict silence on the achievements of non-liberal women. This deliberate oversight prompted conservative radio host Dr. Laura Schlessinger to ask: "What's a girl gotta do to be a feminist role model?"

I became concerned with this question back in high school, when I first sought the acceptance of the women's-liberationist clique. From the moment I understood the word "feminist," I labeled myself as one. What kind of forward-thinking girl wouldn't embrace a movement that championed equal opportunity and freedom for women? Back then, the feminist label was exhilarating, like a personal declaration of independence.

But to my disappointment, it became apparent that the feminists didn't much like me-- especially the ones I encountered in college.

I was shunned for a variety of reasons. I didn't brand myself a "Vagina Warrior" or chant obscenities in a crowded auditorium (see the feminist play The Vagina Monologues for details). I wasn't offended by suggestions that men and women are innately different. The message from the feminist clique was clear: conform to our worldview, or remain permanently on the outs.

I chose the outs-- and the outcome wasn't pretty. As any conservative woman on a college campus knows, it's tough to be on the feminists' bad side.

Just ask Karin Agness, a University of Virginia graduate who founded a conservative group called the Network of Enlightened Women (NeW). The group's description sounds laudable enough: "NeW provides a place for college women to explore and discuss ideas-we meet regularly to discuss the opportunities and challenges facing women today." And yet Agness and the members of NeW were bullied and denigrated for daring to challenge the feminist orthodoxy -- mostly by the "women's advocates" themselves. As Ann Lane, former director of UVA's women's studies program, said of NeW's existence: "I just don't like it."

But wait a second-- isn't it the stated goal of feminism to achieve greater liberty for women? Certainly, Agness and the members of NeW had acted of their own accord, exercising their freedom to fight for a cause. And yet the women's liberationists are quick to shut out women who show a capacity for independent thinking.

This behavior alone should make us question the intentions of the so-called "women's movement." Ideally, a "women's movement" would respect the independence of all females, whether or not they choose to align with feminists. If they don't, feminism is not an honest "women's movement" -- it's just estrogen-heavy branch of the left wing. "Women's studies departments' should be renamed 'liberal women's studies departments,' and NOW should become NORLW-- the National Organization for Radical Leftist Women.

At least then we would know what embracing "women's liberation" actually entails.

Unfortunately, the punishments are harsh for women who refuse to cower in the face of feminist intimidation tactics. The godmother of the women's movement, Gloria Steinem, famously called Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson a "female impersonator" and said, "having someone who looks like us but thinks like them is worse than having no one at all."

Silencing, harassment, intimidation, relegation to non-human status-- all of the ill treatment feminists predicted for women who challenge the "patriarchy" is actually what conservative women endure from feminists. The fact that feminists treat non-liberal women worse than the most dedicated male chauvinist reveals where their loyalties lie: with their own band of leftist thinkers, not the female sex as a whole.

Remember that the next time the feminists toast to another "first woman" milestone.

Ashley Herzog is a junior at Ohio University. This article originally appeared in the Washington Times as a Letter to the Editor.

A must-read essay on the crisis in Islam...

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Hays) — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 10:16:00 EDT

Canadian newspaper columnist David Warren has fond memories of growing up in Lahore. He has used these boyhood memories and his wide reading to produce perhaps the most provocative essay on Islam I've read. I am not going to summarize Warren's essay (which was actually a talk) for the simple reason that I am still trying to digest it.

But I am going to whet your appetite to read it by quoting several passages that have haunted me all weekend:

"By some cosmic accident, I spent the most impressionable years of my early childhood in the city of Lahore, in what was then West Pakistan. This was at the end of the 1950s, and the beginning of the '60s, when my father was a teacher in the College of Art, across from the Lahore Museum, with the gun, Zam-Zammah, in the traffic circus between -- a scene that is set at the opening of Rudyard Kipling's wonderful epic, Kim. My father made a Pakistani wage -- later we were rich, when he worked for the United Nations -- but in my earlier childhood we could hardly afford to live the life you may associate with North American professionals abroad, in gated, air-conditioned isolation.
"For me, Islam is something I have touched, in the sense inadequately conveyed by the word "aesthetically". If any of you are old-fashioned Catholics, or were, perhaps, in some distant childhood, attending the mass, absorbing the smells and the bells, the poetry and mystery of the old Latin liturgy, the family gatherings at Easter and Christmas, you can appreciate what this means -- the way in which you are held by that heritage, the bonds that hold you, as strong as self-love.

"The sounds of the muezzin calling the hours of prayer; the daily rhythm of life that follows; the sight of holy men preparing their ablutions at the entrance to the mosque; the sense of the town shut up in the holy month of Ramadan; the blaze of stars as the day's fast ends; the smells and sights of dainty food at Eid; the feeling of belonging to a very large, extended family; even the knowledge of being contained within a world that is complete, and which can explain itself in every little detail -- this is what it ‘means' to be a Muslim, and this is no small thing. ....

"...It is a commonplace today that Christians in the West have lost their faith, whereas Muslims in the East are still believers; that what we now have is a confrontation between decadent post-Christian secularists, and sincere if possibly misguided Muslims. The first part of this proposition often seems true enough, especially of contemporary Europe. But I really think the second proposition is false. I think one of the reasons Islamism has erupted with such gale force in the Muslim world is indeed the very loss of faith, and the fear that comes from this.

"They are, again to speak very crudely, in a position a little like that of our own ancestors of the later Victorian and Edwardian era, those many who had lost their faith, but continued to observe the outward forms of religion. It is exactly this kind of mind that creates the biggest welcome for the devil. I have often thought that the violent combustion of Europe in the 20th century was, at the deepest level, the fallout from the loss of faith; of the transformation of spiritual into political energy. Communism and Nazism were themselves pseudo-religions; and indeed all ideological systems, including political Islamism, are pseudo-religions -- replacements for the real thing. They take infinite longings and turn them towards finite ends, and seek a new redemption not in heaven but on earth.

"Something like this -- in a Muslim, of course, not a Christian form -- is happening today to the Muslims, not only in Lahore but everywhere. Professor Lewis says they feel defeated by the modern world, and this is true. They have been in retreat since the Ottomans failed to take Vienna, now more than three centuries ago. They were licked in one military encounter after another, by an arrogant, triumphant Europe. Napoleon could take Egypt with a small army and his eyes closed, and then only the English could remove him. They feel they are no competition for the modern West, that those corrupt, decadent, Christian weasels have won the contest between civilizations. The issue of Israel and Palestine is a pure red herring, it is merely the point of one Western stick, which happens to be poking directly in their ribs.

"We concentrate too much on the foreground circumstances. The bigger issue is that the Muslims themselves have begun to wonder whether their God exists, whether he is really going to help them.
It is in moments of doubt that one often makes the wildest, most desperate, professions of faith; and in a way Osama bin Laden is doing this within his own person, and calling to fellow Muslims who are experiencing the same dark night of the soul. It is as if they were confronting not us, but instead Allah, and saying, ‘Show us! Prove to us you still exist; because, if you don't, we will give up on you entirely.'"

And the conclusion (but you should really read the whole thing before getting here):

"On this side, the endless effort to understand ‘where those people are coming from', mostly missing the main point, that they do not think as we do. On that side, no effort at all, and it is taken for granted that we are ‘infidels' simply, living ‘beyond the pale', even when, as often, there is no desire to harm us. For us, there can be both Israeli and Palestinian victims; for them, only Palestinians feel pain.

"I would like to call this an over-simplification -- being a child of the Enlightenment myself -- but I'm afraid it is not much over-simplified. The gap between us yawns very wide. For the sad truth is that the only people to whom we can appeal for ‘mutual understanding' from the other side, are the people who have themselves been Westernized, or ‘Enlightened'.

"I must therefore end on a pessimistic note, as I look to the immediate future. As a Christian, I feel optimistic that God will lead us, Muslims, Jews, and Christians alike, finally to the best conclusion, in the grand cosmic scheme of things. But as a practical person, using everything I know to understand the present order of cause and effect, I must tell you, that this clash is unlikely to end well."

Academic Frauds

info@iwf.org (Carrie L. Lukas) — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 00:00:00 EDT

National Review

Summer vacations no longer consist of lazy days on the beach or income-generating jobs. Many college students now dedicate these months to unpaid internships or meagerly compensated opportunities that supposedly provide real-world experience and build impressive résumés. Ambitious undergrads heading back to school should be just as careful in selecting their courses as they were planning their summers. One tip for the serious student: Avoid women's studies.

One might assume that women's studies courses are no less relevant to real life than your average college class. A semester of medieval poetry or art history certainly seems like poor preparation for a career in marketing or sales, undoubtedly where many humanities majors end up. But at least in these types of classes students are taught forms of analysis and critical thinking that come in handy in the future.

Women's studies courses are different. They tend to abandon rigorous analysis in favor of consciousness-raising exercises and self-exploration. One textbook explains that women's studies consciously rejects many traditional forms of inquiry, concepts, and explanatory systems; at the same time, it is developing new and sometimes unique traditions and authorities of its own. Those "unique" traditions include providing students with "credit for social change activities or life experience, contracts of self-grading, diaries and journals, even meditation or ritual."

This is too flaky for some students. The textbook warns of potential resistance to these teaching methods. Students may commit such sins as challenging facts in an effort to "undermine the credibility of feminist reading materials and instructors." In other words, students aren't supposed to read texts critically and reach their own conclusions. They are supposed to accept without question the materials and views of their instructors.

It's no accident that women's studies is so different from other subjects. It has an explicit agenda, and the agenda is not simply to provide young women (and men) with knowledge and tools for future learning. Women's studies is unabashedly political and intermingled with the feminist movement. The National Women's Studies Association's constitution, written in 1982, made this link clear: "Feminist education is a process deeply rooted in the women's movement and remains accountable to that community." One textbook author writes: "Women's studies is faced with a vast responsibility". We must prepare the next generation for its participation in the women's struggle.

Recruiting women into the organized feminist movement begins with convincing women that they are victims. Recruits are told that women suffer because of an oppressive societal structure, the patriarchy, which gives men power over women. Marriage lies at patriarchy's core: Traditional marriage and family is a trap for women. Men are viewed with suspicion, potentially violent and looking to oppress. Salvation lies in an enlightened workplace, with generous paid maternity leave, free onsite daycare, and salaries that ignore factors like the number of hours you work or your job responsibilities, but ensure men and women are all paid the same.

It's no surprise that women's studies courses are often unabashedly political. Republicans are described as "overtly opposed not only to women's rights but to advances in civil rights in general." Students learn that the 1990s have given us "The Contract on America, the virulent racism and misogyny of the religious and political right, attacks against the poorest and must vulnerable among us-- welfare mothers and children."

Students should hear such a view. But there should be balance: Students should read and hear alternative perspectives. Balance is something most women's studies classes sorely lack.

Serious students shouldn't waste their time in women's studies classes. For a taste of what women's studies has to offer, pick up the latest issue of Ms.e or read NOW's latest rant. But use limited class time on something more relevant to the real world, like a course on Beowulf or East Asian art.

Carrie Lukas is the vice president for policy and economics at the Independent Women's Forum and the author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex, and Feminism.

Carrie Lukas quoted on Women's Studies

Tue, 27 Jun 2006 00:00:00 EDT

Campus Report

Women's MisStudies
by: Julia A. Seymour, June 27, 2006

From a recent debate on college-level women's studies courses, we get a glimpse of why graduates with that degree are hard to find, though such classes have become commonplace in most universities.

"I've been waiting a long time to learn what a women's studies degree does. My guess is it qualifies you for a future teaching women's studies," said Professor Mike Adams of University of North Carolina at Wilmington as the students laughed loudly and applauded the debaters.

After a lengthy historical explanation of how women's studies arose from women's movements which were birthed by civil rights movements of blacks, Dean Gay L. Gullickson of the University of Maryland concluded that "research and teaching on women could not be pursued better by forsaking women's studies."

"On an intellectual level, courses about women's issues are a good idea and they are also good pedagogically," said Gullickson.

Women's Centers are different in that they are student-initiated and organized, but they are good and students have the right to create them, according to Gullickson.

Professor and Townhall.com columnist Adams, however, had something very different to say at the debate before Eagle Forum Collegians.

"Women's resource centers are not student-organized. In 2000, UNC-Wilmington established an ad hoc committee of feminist Democrats who wanted to create a women's resource center and they created a survey," said Adams.

The survey did not ask students if they wanted a women's resource center, instead it listed a series of proposed activities for the upcoming women's resource center (WRC), said Adams.

With a stacked deck of mostly female respondents caused by the school's 70-30 female-to-male student ratio, Adams explained, the students still only approved 5 percent of the activities.

"67 percent approved self-defense courses. I like that, I want them to have guns," said Adams, earning loud applause, "but [UNC-Wilmington] already had self-defense courses."

"In 2001 we had [the center], but no physical location and no classes were ever offered. But they [the feminists] used the survey as justification to create it," Adams said. Even after two female students were killed in separate incidents in 2004, no self-defense classes were offered at the center, according to Adams.

What these people really wanted to do was promote their agenda, said Adams, who further explained that the WRC began advertising for Planned Parenthood, he told them they were required by law to allow Lifeline Pregnancy Center to advertise too. Rather than advertise for Lifeline, they chose to remove Planned Parenthood advertising.

"Abortion is the holy sacrament for them," said Adams.

"The kinds of women's centers I mentioned are the kind found all around the country, not those established by faculty," Gullickson said in her rebuttal.

Gullickson also disagreed with Adams regarding balanced viewpoints. "That would mean you would have to argue FOR slavery. In all cases you do not have to present both sides," she said, "I'd also like to say I don't know any feminists for whom abortion is a holy sacrament, but they believe in equality."

Adams responded with an explanation of when viewpoint neutrality is required: "when you open a public forum with funding the University must remain viewpoint neutral." Adams also said his WRC is just like others across the country and that when he called 12 different schools and asked to speak to one pro-lifer among WRC staff there were zero out of 120 people.

During Q and A, Gullickson said that professors cannot cover everything in a class and it is their job to define subject matter and students can always choose what courses to take. She also said calling women's studies "notorious" is a caricature.

I was able to ask Gullickson how she can say that women's studies is good for research when, as Carrie Lukas points out in her new book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex and Feminism, these texts have misinformation and missing information that women need to make life decisions.

"I don't like textbooks," said Gullickson, "I don't use them when I teach and I haven't read the book you are referring to so I really couldn't say."

Feminism in Freefall

info@iwf.org (Malcolm A. Kline) — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 00:00:00 EDT

Feminist professors go ballistic when observers such as your humble correspondent report that the constituency they are appealing to finds women's studies irrelevant, if not ridiculous.

"Does the typical woman graduating from college have the information she needs to make decisions that will improve her chances for long-term health and happiness?," the Independent Women's Forum's Carrie Lukas asked in a recent column in The Washington Examiner. "Probably not."

"Chances are she's been given a lot of bad information-- much of it in the name of political correctness." Lukas, author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex, and Feminism, will speak at an Accuracy in Academia event on the evening of June 6th from 6:00 until 7:30 PM.

Imagine how feminist professors feel when they hear the same thing from the girls they are trying to reach and teach. You don't have to use your imagination, though. Just read the dispatch from the front lines of academia that appears in the latest Chronicle of Higher Education.

"As that distinction between feminisms suggests, a generational conflict is currently being played out on college campuses," Suzanne Ferriss and Mallory Young write of the apparently raging controversy surrounding so-called 'Chick Lit.'" For some of us who identify ourselves as feminist professors, the concerns of young women represent a betrayal, not only of our academic work, but of our life's work.

"Why are they worrying about their appearance more than their education?" Ferriss is an English professor at Nova Southeastern University. Young is a professor of English and French at Tarleton State.

"Understandably embittered at the rejection of their most cherished ideals, many professors prefer to ignore or dismiss student's concerns, and certainly prefer not to teach the literature they believe glorifies what they so strongly resent," Ferriss and Young explain. "As for the students, they often start out bemused by their teachers, inexplicable bitterness and end up frustrated and disappointed."

From their point of view, the choice between becoming, say, a neurobiological surgeon without kids or a pharmacist with a family is a very real one. And those are just the girls that sign up for the classes.

"The academic conflict between the second- and third-wave generations is by no means limited to literature departments," Ferriss and Young report. "We hear laments about similar disagreements from colleagues and students in history, sociology, communications, and the sciences."

But at a time when popular literature and culture of almost all forms have been accepted by the academy, the struggle is particularly apparent in the response to chick lit.

This is a genre that includes works such as Bridget Jones's Diaryby Helen Fielding (1996). The novel became a popular film in which Renee Zelwegger played Bridget.

"Even the term 'chick lit' embodies the conflict: happily embraced by students, it grates annoyingly on the sensibilities of feminist professors, who see monikers like 'chick' as a way to demean women," Ferriss and Young note. "As one student told us, her professor refused to use this term without making quotation marks in the air as she said it."

"As members of an older generation of women ourselves, we do not generally identify with the chick-lit protagonists."

Interestingly, the authors find, what the younger readers might be looking for in chick-lit is something feminist writers rarely produce- actual literature. For a sample of feminist literature, try reading some of Sandra Cisneros' charming poetry about breaking beer bottles over the heads of barflies.

Chick lit, then, will do until genuine literature comes along but when the real thing arrives, Bridget Jones is gone. "In recent courses on classic women's fiction and chick lit, our students came to a surprising conclusion: they overwhelmingly preferred the classic fiction," Ferriss and Young conclude. "They weren't completely certain if that was because of the older novels- intricate plots, subtle characterizations, memorable language or some other factor."

But they were convinced that although chick-lit raises fascinating cultural issues, it can't compete with the work of Jane Austen, the Brontes, Virginia Woolf, and Zora Neale Hurston. And most of their achievements predated modern feminism.

So why wait to get to the good part? Give Ellen Messer-Davidow a rest.

Malcolm A. Kline is the executive director of Accuracy in Academia. For another take on modern feminism, come see Carrie Lukas, vice president of policy and economics for the Independent Women's Forum, at AIA's June 6th Pizza Party at Armand's on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., starting at 6:00 PM.

And you thought women's studies wasn't a legit major...

info@iwf.org (Allison Kasic) — Wed, 10 May 2006 10:24:00 EDT

Human Events reports that a women’s studies professor at the University of Southern California has posted topless pictures of herself on the internet.

I have too many jokes floating in my head to choose one, so I’ll just leave you with the article.

IWF in the Media: Washington Times

Tue, 15 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST

The Washington Times

The Washington Times offers a profile of "Sex (Ms.) Education," IWF's recent report on women's studies at college campuses.

Women's studies courses at colleges and universities teach misinformation and give bad advice, says a study by the Independent Women's Forum (IWF).
In these classes, the report says, female empowerment is a project advanced by casual sex in a world without marriage and male dependence.
But a hard look at the facts, says IWF, shows that casual sex brings scars, not power, and that long-term relationships are more likely to lead to happiness.
The special report "Sex (Ms.) Education: What Young Women Need to Know (But Won't Hear in Women's Studies) About Sex, Love and Marriage," was written by Carrie Lukas, IWF policy director.
"The point of this paper is really to give young women the full story of sex, love and marriage so they can make informed decisions on how to achieve their own long-term happiness," Mrs. Lukas says.
Although feminist texts depict sexual liberation as the source of ultimate freedom, that is simply not the case, she says.

Women's Studies Texts Distort and Misrepresent Marriage and Sex

Thu, 10 Feb 2005 00:00:00 EST

Contact: Louise Filkins
Phone: (202) 419-1820

WASHINGTON, DC -- The Independent Women's Forum today released the special report "Sex (Ms.) Education: What Young Women Need to Know (But Won't Hear in Women's Studies) About Sex, Love, and Marriage," written by Carrie Lukas, IWF's director of policy. The report contains numerous eye-opening examples from women's studies textbooks that would shock most parents, as well as students.

"Too often, college women are getting a warped perspective on sex, love, and marriage," said Lukas. "People might not be surprised to hear that young women get misinformation from much of pop culture, but they might be surprised to know that it can also be found in many college classrooms."

Pouring through women's studies texts, Lukas found feminist authors criticizing the institution of marriage as repressive for women and uncovered essays glorifying promiscuity.

"These texts tend to focus on warning women of the perils of marriage and traditional relationships, and encouraging women to take a much more liberal view of sex. What's always left out of the discussion is the benefits associated with marriage and the downsides of a promiscuous lifestyle," Lukas continued.

"Sex (Ms.) Education" recounts how many women are regretful and confused after engaging in casual sex, and how women are much more vulnerable than men are in contracting sexually transmitted diseases. The report also highlights research that suggests that marriage is associated with greater happiness, health and financial security.

"Young women need to know all of the facts about sex, love and marriage so that they can make informed decisions about how to achieve their own long-term happiness," said Lukas.

Sex (Ms.) Education

info@iwf.org (Carrie L. Lukas) — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 00:00:00 EST

This paper explores some of the messages college women receive about sex, love, and relationships from entry level women's studies courses -- as well as from the popular culture. It further highlights the research that too often is left out of these discussions.

The freshman who arrived on campus this fall already knows that university life is about more than books and classes. College is a time of transition from being a kid to a young adult. For many freshmen, it is their first time away from home. They are forming friendships that will last a lifetime. Many will have their first serious romantic relationship.

During the school year, a young college woman will receive information about sex, dating and relationships from a variety of sources -- professors, campus organizations, friends, the media and the prevailing culture.

Unfortunately, much of the information young women receive will come from a skewed perspective. They might hear that sexual liberation is synonymous with women's liberation; that the instinct to associate sex with love is old-fashioned and stems from a patriarchal structure designed to oppress women; and that marriage is a prison women are tricked into pursuing.

Many young college women will be handed condoms as they enter their dorms, and be lectured on safe sex and the dangers of date rape. They will be led to expect that sex is simply a part of college, that "everyone is doing it."

There is another side to this story. Young women deserve to know that not everyone is doing it, and that many sexually active teens have reported that they wish they had waited longer. Research suggests that women have a more difficult time divorcing sex from emotional attachment.

Marriage is not just a tool of patriarchy -- it is an institution that generally brings higher levels of happiness, health and financial well being. Feminists celebrate the sexual revolution for having brought greater awareness of human sexuality, created greater acceptance of premarital sex, and broken the silence that surrounded sex in much of society. Today, however, it seems the pendulum has swung to the other side, and a new ethic of silence surrounds the problems associated with casual sex and the benefits of reserving sex for committed, monogamous relationships.

More than eight in 10 college women say that "being married" is an important goal for them. The purpose of this paper is to reassure those young women that their hopes and desires for a stable, loving marriage does not just result from an oppressive society, but is a sensible aim consistent with long-term happiness. If women view sex as an emotional exchange and want their partners to respond with commitment and support, they are not weak prudes bowing to unfair social pressures. They are normal young people who instinctively resist conforming to a novel feminist definition of what "liberation" means. Young women should know the facts about sex and love so that they can make informed decisions about how to achieve their own long-term happiness.