Articles like these amuse me. Its title:
"College Textbook Reveals Radical Feminist Agenda"
In it, the author (who is listed as Eagle Forum, anti-feminist Phyllis Schlafly's organization) has super-sleuthed a textbook from a "Women and Gender Studies" class at a state university in Missouri and has exposed it to the readers of the "Right Side News" website.
It's not a particularly remarkable anti-feminist article, and it certainly falls into the lazy trap of treating feminism as a monolithic thing. What's most amusing about it is the way the author presents "radical feminist" ideas to the reader as though they're so ridiculous, so preposterous, so utterly asinine that they obviously don't even have to be seriously addressed, challenged, or rebutted.
For instance, on male privilege:
"The authors claim that being male is a privileged status, just as being white or heterosexual. Students are encouraged to recognize that these 'privileges' exist, understand how privileged classes suppress non-privileged people, and accept responsibility for the problem."
And then... that's it. No attempt to show why it's so outrageous to believe that male privilege (and white privilege and hetero privilege) exists. They just move on to talk about the next Totally Ridonkulous Feminist Idea. Like, bisexuality:
"A couple of articles discuss how common it is for women in particular to be bisexual. Limiting sexuality to simply gay or straight denies the true plasticity of human sexuality."
Well, yeah. Sounds pretty right to me. Since bisexual women really exist in the real world and all.
The article is annoying, offensive, and pretty simplistic. But, also funny in a way, because it demonstrates the insularity and close-mindedness of some political communities. The article's purpose isn't to change anyone's mind, it's to tell a like-minded audience, OMG can you even BELIEVE they think that?!? as though people couldn't just go to their freaking libraries, get on blogs, or get on Internet to find any of this stuff out. They have to act like they're Woodward and Bernstein about it all and revealing something Really Big, Secretive, and Sinister!
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