The Silencing

by Kirsten Powers

  At xoJane, a writer accused the astrophysicist of “casual sexism” and claimed his “unbelievably sexist” shirt helped create an “environment where a lot of women might feel uncomfortable.”128 She fretted that the shirt “with naked women”—though none were naked—explained the shortage of women in the Science, Technology, and Math (STEM) fields. “We ask why more women don’t want to become astrophysicists, or mathematicians, or bench researchers, and, well, this is one example of why,” she proclaimed.129

  Really? It’s hard to believe that a crazy variation of a loud, Hawaiian shirt could be so powerful. One might more plausibly say that feminists obsessed with a sexist shirt, rather than with the science of the story, are a bigger problem. Or maybe, just maybe, the unequal distribution of women in different fields has something to do with many women’s choices to be mothers and spend more time with their families.

  It turned out that a female friend had made Taylor the shirt for his birthday.130 It was something of a joke. But the facts be damned, the illiberal mob got what they wanted. On a live-stream two days later Taylor apologized with a sob, saying, “I made a big mistake, and I offended many people, and I’m very sorry about this.” Syndicated columnist Jonah Goldberg called it “very North Korean.” The Daily Telegraph blared the headline: “Matt Taylor’s Sexist Shirt and the Day Political Correctness Officially Went Mad.”131

  A British scientist had his shirt. A student at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks had her April Fools’ Day joke, a faux story about the university’s plan to build “a new building in the shape of a vagina.” The story ran with a picture of oversized legs protruding from a building.132

  Sine Anahita, a sociology associate professor and the coordinator of the school’s women and gender studies program, was not amused. She filed a sexual harassment complaint with the university’s Diversity and Equal Opportunity office, accusing the paper of creating a “hostile environment”133 that contributed to “rape culture.”134 She invented the term “sexual slander” and lobbed it against the paper for attributing a fake quote to a professor at the university. Anahita deemed the picture, taken from a PG-13 movie, Patch Adams, “patently offensive.”

  The perpetrator of this alleged misogynistic travesty was a female African American student named Lakeidra Chavis, editor-in-chief of the student newspaper. She told me she thought the piece was “funny” and was intended “to poke fun at the political culture” at a university where the majority of the students are women. Chavis, who describes herself as a feminist, was shocked by the illiberal feminist reaction to her satire. She was accused of sexual harassment for writing the piece and at one point the campus police visited the newspaper as part of an official university investigation.135

  The university dropped its case against the student newspaper when lawyers from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) sent a letter warning the public university that it could be sued for violating the First Amendment.

  ILLIBERAL FEMINISTS AGAINST SCIENCE

  In February 2011, Dr. Lazar Greenfield—an emeritus professor of surgery at the University of Michigan School of Medicine and president-elect of the American College of Surgeons—reported in Surgery News on the discovery of mood-enhancing effects of semen. Research from the Archives of Sexual Behavior discovered that female college students practicing unprotected sex were less likely to suffer from depression than those whose partners used condoms. The kicker of the seventy-eight-year-old Greenfield’s article was clearly meant to be clever. “So there’s a deeper bond between men and women than St. Valentine would have suspected, and now we know there’s a better gift for that day than chocolates.”

  Perhaps his kicker fell short. That’s hardly a reason to fire someone. Yet even though Greenfield apologized to the Women in Surgery Committee and the Association of Women Surgeons, five women surgeons136 on the governing board of the American College of Surgeons (ACS) issued a letter demanding Greenfield step down as president-elect. The then-ACS president tried to argue that, “If someone is truly apologetic, we have to consider that,” but it didn’t matter.

  The illiberal feminist mob wanted a scalp and they got one. Greenfield—the author of one of the major textbooks of surgery—was forced to step down as editor of Surgery News and as president-elect of the ACS. In an interview, Greenfield explained what should have been obvious to anyone reading the article: “The editorial was a review of what I thought was some fascinating new findings related to semen, and the way in which nature is trying to promote a stronger bond between men and women. It impressed me. It seemed as though it was a gift from nature. And so that was the reason for my lighthearted comments.”

  Indeed, it is fascinating research. But thanks to the feminist jihad against this man, the entire February issue of Surgery News was removed from the website in the hopes that this medical information would disappear forever. The study Greenfield referred to in his article was done by a group of evolutionary psychologists at SUNY-Albany. Remarking on the controversy that met Greenfield’s article, one of the researchers, Gordon Gallup, told the Guardian, “I think it’s a tragic overreaction. The point at which we begin to let political agenda dictate what science is all about is the point when science ceases to be a viable enterprise.”137

  A New York Times wellness blog noted that “Many surgeons chose not to comment on the matter, for fear of professional repercussions, but one said, ‘It’s frankly been heartbreaking for all of us.’”138 The few who did speak out were ignored. Dr. Diane M. Simeone, professor of surgery at the University of Michigan, told the New York Times that while gender bias exists in surgery, she never saw it expressed by Dr. Greenfield. She described him as “always . . . completely above board and a role model for supporting women in surgery.”139 Dr. Mary T. Hawn described him as “always . . . above reproach.” She should know. Before becoming an associate professor of surgery at the University of Alabama School of Medicine in Birmingham, Hawn worked as a medical student, surgeon-in-training, and faculty member under Dr. Greenfield. She said that “he went out of his way to recruit women on the trainee and faculty level.”140

  After his resignation, Dr. Barbara Lee Bass, chairwoman of surgery at the Methodist Hospital in Houston, told the New York Times she was glad he resigned, despite his positive track record, saying “some things you can’t recover from if you’re in a leadership role.” That’s true. It’s just that nobody thought that the “things you can’t recover from” would include citing a peer reviewed scientific study. Three of the researchers who produced the study—Drs. Steven M. Platek, Rebecca L. Burch, and Gordon G. Gallup Jr.—issued a statement that concluded: “How can someone be asked to resign for citing a peer-reviewed paper? Dr. Greenfield was forced to resign based on politics, not evidence. His resignation is more a reflection of the feminist and anti-scientific attitudes of some self-righteous and indignant members of the American College of Surgeons. Science is based on evidence, not politics. In science knowing is always preferable to not knowing.”141

  Illiberal feminists love to crow about how they are the intellectual members of society; the only ones who rely on science, not faith for their worldview. They invoke their worship of “facts” and “science” usually in furtherance of whatever silencing campaign they are on that particular day. But what to do when science says that women benefit mentally and emotionally from male sperm? This doesn’t fit with feminist dogma—after all, “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle,” according to the slogan popularized by feminist icon Gloria Steinem. The idea that there might be some symbiotic relationship between men and women is offensive to this notion. The only option here is to silence the person sharing medical research that undermines feminist ideology. The fact that it might be interesting to the majority of the population that is heterosexual is irrelevant. Big Sister will decide what information you need to know.

  ILLIBERAL FEMINIST STATISTICS

  Illiberal feminists are as committed to silencing research they
don’t like as they are to promoting phony facts and statistics that support their ideological goals. If one questions these statistics, then a campaign of delegitimization begins.

  As we will see in the following chapter, they have intimidated and shamed anyone who doubts their questionable rape statistics. But this shading of the facts goes beyond one issue. Domestic abuse is a serious enough issue without its prevalence needing to be inflated. In 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder claimed that intimate partner homicide was the leading cause of death for African American women aged fifteen to forty-five. Washington Post “Fact Checker” Glenn Kessler investigated this claim and found the statistic was made up. Charting a lengthy and complex genesis over more than eleven years, Kessler traces the statistic back to 2003 studies in the American Journal of Public Health142 and the Justice Department’s National Institute of Justice Journal,143 which themselves erroneously cite a 1998 Bureau of Justice Statistics survey that says nothing of the sort.144 Confusing though this years-long factual mutation may be, the truth is simple—the number is entirely fabricated.145 The Department of Justice admitted they learned the fact was wrong after Christina Hoff Sommers (widely considered a feminist antichrist by the illiberal left for her frequent debunking of their pet theories) pointed it out in USA Today146 but did not correct their website until the Washington Post raised the issue in 2013.147

  Another favorite “liberal fact” is that American women earn 77 cents for each dollar148 a man earns. The White House often cites this “fact” even though they know it’s been thoroughly discredited. A number of publications—including Forbes,149 the Washington Post,150 and the Wall Street Journal151—have outlined how the calculations are based on the difference between median earnings for men and women, and do not compare men and women with the same jobs in the same industries.152 The statistics also fail to take into consideration the fact that women tend to work fewer hours in a year, and often leave the workforce upon having children. A study done for the Department of Labor in 2009 suggested that the gap “may be almost entirely the result of individual choices being made by both male and female workers.”153

  Liberal journalist Hanna Rosin blasted the statistic at Slate in 2014. She asked, “How many times have you heard that ‘women are paid 77 cents on the dollar154 for doing the same work as men’? Barack Obama said it during his last campaign. Women’s groups say it every April 9, which is Equal Pay Day . . . I’ve heard the line enough times that I feel the need to set the record straight: It’s not true.”155 The data, she wrote, show that women earn 91 percent of what men do.

  This does not mean that there isn’t a debate to be had on these issues. There are plenty of women who could share horror stories about experiencing wage discrimination or domestic abuse. The problem is the willful deception in presenting thoroughly debunked statistics as gospel. Even worse is trying to silence people who question the statistics. One Forbes writer, for example, was accused of “victim-blaming”156 for discussing how differing life decisions between the sexes might affect the pay gap.

  Best of all, though, is the Center for American Progress, which dismisses facts altogether, calling the “77 cents” figure a “colloquialism—shorthand for expressing a complex economic truth.”157

  It’s not true but it represents truth. Got that? And don’t you dare question it.

  NINE

  FEMINISTS AGAINST FACTS, FAIRNESS, AND THE RULE OF LAW

  “No, no!” said the Queen. “Sentence first—verdict afterwards.”

  —ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND

  A Chicago-area seventh-grader returned home from school in the spring of 2014 upset about an announcement made by her middle school’s principal that day. Students had been informed of a revised dress code policy. Yoga pants were no longer allowed, the girl recounted, as they were too “distracting” to boys. The girl’s parents—both educators, she at Columbia College and he at New Trier High School—wrote to the principal to express their outrage and urged the school to consider how a yoga pants ban “contribute[d] to rape culture.” Blaming girls for distracting teenage boys—an allegation the school later vigorously denied—was a “message . . . squarely on a continuum that blames girls and women for assault by men.”

  Eliana Dockterman declared in Time that the school’s argument that the pants created a distraction “is not that distant from the arguments made by those who accuse rape victims of asking to be assaulted by dressing a certain way.”1 The feminist website Jezebel asked why “the solution is to make girls cover up instead of . . . teaching boys to not be gross sexist pigs?”2 A feminist writer tweeted, “#RapeCultureIsWhen we tell 13-year-old girls they can’t wear leggings because it’s ‘distracting’ to the boys.”3 School administrators say they never claimed that the form-fitting pants were distracting to boys, though they no doubt are.4 Saying so does not promote rape culture or “blame” girls for anything, because boys noticing girls’ bodies is not an offense unless it is done in a harassing or intimidating way, which was never alleged. It turns out all the principal asked was that the teen girls wear a shirt or skirt over their bum-hugging yoga pants.5 A parent reported that the principal told her the school was merely “trying to figure out a way to tamp down the sexualization of middle-school girls,” which seems like something feminists might support if they weren’t so busy promoting the idea of a “rape culture.”6

  Rape is a heinous crime. Feminists invoking the term “rape culture” to condemn actions they perceive as a slight is a stark misuse of the word. In Transforming a Rape Culture, Emilie Buchwald defines rape culture as “a complex set of beliefs that encourage male sexual aggression and supports violence against women.” She wrote, “A rape culture condones physical and emotional terrorism against women as the norm. . . . In a rape culture both men and women assume that sexual violence is a fact of life, inevitable.”7 Does this sound like the United States of America to anyone? How many people who live in this country today actually condone “physical and emotional terrorism” against women?

  Yet illiberal feminists hurl the horrific accusation of being a “rape apologist” or supporting “rape culture” with abandon to demonize anyone who has offended them or won’t affirm their ideological or partisan worldview.

  Even trying to prevent rape can be labeled part of “rape culture.” Students at Arizona State University who had organized an anti-rape rally were accused of “perpetuat[ing] sexism and rape culture”8 by campus newspaper columnist Kaelyn Polick-Kirkpatrick. The groups—Man Up ASU and WOW Factor!—were created, according to their mission statement, “to build a culture of respect between men and women at ASU.” All Polick-Kirkpatrick could see was a stew of toxic misogyny. As she wrote in the school’s paper, the name “Man Up” was offensive because “the phrase . . . is one of the most common, and most misogynistic, expressions of patriarchy.” The problem with “Wow Factor” was that it stood for “Women of Worth,” sending a message that if a woman didn’t belong to their group, she had no worth, Polick-Kirkpatrick said. The columnist was also upset that a video for the 2013 rally featured someone applauding the fact that, “300 men have pledged to respect women on campus.” She wrote, “Are we really rewarding men for respecting women? Shouldn’t that be a given? And why should women have the responsibility of ensuring they obtain the respect of men? Together, Man Up and WOW Factor! are handing out gold stars to mildly decent human beings who probably don’t even realize the organizations they are a part of are full of sexism and misogyny. Ignorance must be bliss.”

  In 2014, four male college students invented a nail polish that would detect if a date rape drug—known as a “roofie”—had been slipped into a woman’s drink. They explained it was meant to “empower women to protect themselves from this heinous and quietly pervasive crime” of rape. Women wearing the polish could test their beverages by dunking a finger and seeing if the polish reacted. Liberal blog ThinkProgress published a story that explained the nail polish “actually reinforces a pervasive
rape culture in our society” by putting the onus on women to take steps to protect themselves.9 Rebecca Nagle of FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture complained, “I don’t want to f--king test my drink when I’m at the bar. That’s not the world I want to live in.”10 Alexandra Brodsky, a law student at Yale University and a founding co-director of Know Your IX (a “student-driven campaign to end campus sexual violence”), said that the nail polish could end up “fueling victim blaming.” Truly, no good deed goes unpunished.

  Roofie-detecting nail polish, middle-school dress codes, and anti-rape rallies are all proof of “rape culture” but when an actual rape culture was uncovered in Rotherham, England, in 2014 the illiberal feminists mostly yawned. Authorities discovered that between 1997 and 2013, some 1,400 girls had been raped, abused, and trafficked in the northern English town. “Some children were doused in gasoline and threatened with being set on fire if they reported their abusers,” the New York Times reported, “and others were forced to watch rapes and threatened with the same fate. In more than a third of the cases, the victims appear to have been known to child protection agencies, but the police and local government officials failed to act.”11 The reason officials turned a blind eye? They did not want to be called racists. The girls who were systematically raped were underprivileged white girls and the perpetrators were mostly Pakistani-British men.