ewwwwww, the national post disses women studies. (aka, feminists attack)

ewww. so i checked my facebook wall to see FemRev Collec Tive post this article from the National Post. National Post Editorial Board: Women's Studies is still with us.ew, ew , ew.

Some things this National Post article credits "radical" feminists (althought , I don' think they know what that means) and women studies departments (again, i think they just mean feminists, but i don't think they know any better...research people! come on!) : (i am quoting directly form the article)

• untold damage to families, our court systems, labour laws, constitutional freedoms and even the ordinary relations between men and women.
• employment equity
• mandatory diversity training
• divorcing men find they lose their homes and access to their children, and must pay much of their income to their former spouses
• the Supreme Court to permit preferential treatment for traditionally disadvantaged groups,"
• universal daycare and mandatory government-run kindergarten

so, actually...can't we be kind of proud of advocating for this list? I mean, minus their really out there first point.

and really, they missed a lot of the other stuff women and gender studies departments are working for.

some other things to note:

"The radical feminism behind these courses has done untold damage to families, our court systems, labour laws, constitutional freedoms and even the ordinary relations between men and women."

I wonder if they had thought to think that there could be other things related to the "damage to our families?"I can think of a few, like violence, racism, colonialism, poverty, homophobia..to name a few?

and the wacky things feminists come up with like "Their professors have argued, with some success, that rights should be granted not to individuals alone, but to whole classes of people, too. This has led to employment equity -- hiring quotas based on one's gender or race rather than on an objective assessment of individual talents."

oh no! employment equity? because we all know how "objective" assesment of individual is. clearly there is no hierarchy going on...i guess that is why women earn less money than men, and intersections of identiy hierarchies reduce this wage and employment opportunities even further.  

and now these feminists are asking that people like judges have to attend diversity training. i mean, really, what are these feminists thinking. "Executives, judges and university students must now sit through mandatory diversity training." Like, right, why would we want people making extemely important decisions with major ramifications to have to go through all this "training."

anyways, the article goes on and on and on. and it stinks. we are already seeing lots of cuts to women studies programs, and this just adds fuel to the fire. and it gets national publication. wtf! please share your reactions!

ps. NAWL's 2007 report on pay equity here