Janice, thanks for another outstanding piece. You write:
"In response, 36 professors opposed to the plan have either left the college on their own initiative or been dismissed...".
Well, it's a welcome start. Hopefully these parasites on society will in future do something more valuable for their country. Flipping burgers at McDonald's comes to mind.
"Gender Studies" has never been about really understanding men and women; it has been about demonizing men, trivializing their problems, and screeching this false message out into the world.
One of the purposes of rebranding women's studies programs as gender studies was to avert the possible creation of men's studies programs since, as so boldly stated by feminists when it suits them, the concept of gender covers both men and women. And in this regard, it's fair to say that the gender studies department faculty have been successful in their mission
May this be the first in a Tsunami of closures of gender studies programs! That would do my heart good.
Great stuff Janice. My favorite sentence was this beauty! "All she can do is fire off rhetorical bullets from an arsenal of passive-voice obfuscation, graceless abstraction, and mind-numbing logical circularity." Perfect. Captured them in one sentence!
I've always considered a Gender studies degree to be useless. It only seeks to infiltrate science, mathematics, and engineering with the nebulous thought form of language arts. A person with a gender studies degree can't run a business, can't start a business, can't write a meaningful article or book, and only seem to be useful in Human resources to destroy a successful company.
Can you answer a question for me? Why do women support trans-identifying men who think they are women? Why do they participate in their own downfall?
Not all women do, of course, and this has precipitated a massive split within the women's movement itself. Those who do support transgender identity have usually accepted the argument made by feminists like Judith Butler that destroying the category 'woman' (or at least deeply unsettling it to the point of incoherence) is actually key to women's alleged liberation. These women do not accept that women have any privileges as women; they see only oppression in what they term an 'identity category,' which they define as part of a 'regulatory regime.'
Other women (gender critical/TERF/women's right advocates) accept that women do have some privielges and protections in our society, but do not always allow that recognition to soften their feminism, seeing the transgender phenomenon as a male plot to erase and colonize womanhood.
Not all women who oppose transgenderism are feminists, of course.
It's sophistry in front of self-centered foregone conclusions. It damages relationships broadly and specifically. It downplays and destroys women's best attributes.
I hope that if something good comes from mutilating kids, it's the destruction of this gender ideology from both a legal and political perspective. Competent women shouldn't have to account for it. Decent men should no longer be harassed for it. Innocent kids shouldn't be mutilated for it.
It's a cult, and will be exposed in courts of law. It's going to take a lot of academia and bureaucracies with it.
Very interesting. I've seen a combination of these at work:
Definitely #1. Feminists were hired in the 1970s because the liberal humanists who dominated disciplines like English and Art History were open-minded, said things like "Well, it's not my cup of tea at all, but it's an interesting perspective and shouldn't be shut out of academia." In time, of course, feminists insisted that anyone who was NOT a feminist should be shut out of academia.
#2 is absolutely the case. In the literature departments I worked in, I found that many literary specialists, especially in the younger cohorts, were not very interested in literature. But they were definitely interested in using literature to promote their pet social theories, which made them seem far more dedicated, more serious, and more socially conscious (not to mention hipper) than their dull colleagues who worked on Milton's color symbolism for 10 years (I did know a marvelous scholar who pursued this angle).
#3 in spades. There are a lot of power-hungry weirdos, smart in school but hopeless in life, hungry for a theory that allows them to persecute others in the name of social justice.
Aug 31, 2023·edited Aug 31, 2023Liked by Janice Fiamengo
I would add to you list of things gender studies grads can't do is that they don't make very good employees. I recently listened to a podcast that was discussing how inclusivity hires make life hell for fellow workers in writers' rooms for TV shows & movies.
"Why do women support trans-identifying men who think they are women?"
Feelings. Any affluent liberal woman knows she can do "anything a man can do", despite the fact that we're not all the same person, and some men are almost superhuman in their physical or cognitive gifts. No matter. It's all just society's fault. AWFLs could totes be building the next SpaceX rocket if it weren't for "math is hard" Barbie.
Taken to it's (logical?) conclusion, men in drag are women. It's like science, but better. It's affirmation.
Sep 1, 2023·edited Sep 1, 2023Liked by Janice Fiamengo
I propose that for a significant number of woman, a trans identifying man fulfills the same role as a gay best friend serves them. I anticipate a primetime series that parrots the plot of Will & Grace but with a straight lawyer roommate who moonlights as a sassy dragqueen struggling with gender dysphoria. Will the kiss of a hardworking interior designer with her own 'body issues' save this off-key crooner in sequins and a boa? Thursdays at 9:00 central
I saw a Netflix show last year (can't remember the name) in which the main character, a woman, was still close friends as well as had a working relationship with a trans woman who had previously been her husband. The transgender woman ultimately died heroically.
Killing off the male lead love inerest, but in a respectfully dramatic manner, so that the female protagonist is free to pursue other relationships tabula rasa is a key narrative feature that insures success with female audiences. #expendability
If you look about, you can see the Pendulum beginning to travel back towards the Right.
North American Gays and Lesbians would be well advised to leave the alphabet association to the delusional and psychotic and lay claim to their own philosophical and experiential acreage before the backlash occurs and they lose the patronage of the middle class they’ve strived so hard to win over. A good place to start is to really show they have no interest in recruiting children.
Gender studies as currently taught need to go in the same trash bin of educational effluvia as phrenology and astrology.
A backhanded 'thank you' for the Judith Butler quotation. I have been forced to hack through acres of similar verbiage in the course of proof-reading tasks. At no point did my eyes glaze over and I concede nobody would notice the odd missed apostrophe or absent conjunction amongst the overgrowth of pseudoanalysis. Honest.
Literary scholars, like Butler, have no way of asserting that they understand the human condition in any way other than analysis of literary texts. Since we don’t actually live in novels, and have to deal with material realities that are actually measurable, they resort to obfuscatory language both to sound profound, and to disguise the fact that they have not the least fucking idea about reality.
You're forgetting that any word they use can mean anything they want it to. Functionally, their lexicon is infinite. They can, and do, express things far exceeding their comprehension.
It seems, at least at first blush, hard to believe. I've known many brilliant people in literary studies--huge vocabularies--who are on the Left. Perhaps becoming a committed left-winger, though, tends to reduce fluency by mandating the repetition of key phrases. But even that seems a stretch, I must admit. Still, fascinating tidbit.
Perhaps I ought to have said 'self-limiting'. The repetition of phrases and jargon from the Lacan/Derrida/Foucault/Butler Approved Lexicon is indeed the core of the issue. There is probably also a list of words once used by C.S. Lewis or G.K. Chesterton which are forbidden by academic publishers.
In Australia it took years before a course on Western Civilization was introduced to a PRIVATE University. Coz, like Western Civ eeeeoooowww, you're standing on it 🤗
Western civilization is the collectivity of the greatest achievements of our species. But it’s largely the product of White men. It must , therefore, be denounced as no better than he superstitions of illiterate farm laborers.
Exactly! Only illiterate black, NON Christian child soldiers need apply for Emigration to Australia. Why it would be EVIL & RACIST to invite 250,000 hard working, Christian South African WHITE FARMERS & their imperiled families into Australia! Heavens forbid we stop the black government of the new South Africa MURDERING & THEIVING all life and possessions of these horrid, horrid White People...
Excellent article. Gender studies relies on white liberal middle class guilt to suspend critical evaluation of its concepts. It has also benefited from using these sensitivities to gain influence and authority in academic politics. The New College episode manifests what happens when skilled politicians move into the campus fray to implement public policy aims, and when men and women sans guilt clearly evaluate goofy arguments. Mitch Daniel’s administration of Purdue has also produced impressive results. Leaders of the feminist movement have not calculated how they will contend with efforts to contain their antics. I doubt they will learn from this episode.
Unfortunately, even in more rational disciplines like science, true change often must wait for the elites in charge, who are wedded to their notions, to die and not be replaced by their followers.
Very True. However, with tightening budgets and students increasingly dissatisfied with returns on their educational investment, pressure is there for change. The economic rents graduates enjoyed in the past, are being eroded. I would argue that it is not because of an over supply of graduates but because they offer very little to the bottom line. Reading, writing, numeracy and critical thinking are fundamental to taking action to build businesses and value in capitalism. When people do have this they find themselves locked in process and meaningless work and not earning returns on their education. However, when they can change businesses processes, strategies and value creation and lead others in the process, returns abound. It is an unhappy lesson I am seeing many people learn.
I do hope so. One of the unfortunate effects of this huge gender studies industry in the USA (and Canada) is that we British have a great tendency to copy things from North America, usually with a time delay of about 5 years. Which often means we are well into the swing of some fad or other just at the point its fading in North America. This process seems to take even longer in non English speaking European countries. With Spain's recent storm in a teacup, the "non consensual" kiss, revealing the same notions of Toxic masculinity, rape culture , micro-aggressions and so on, that are so familiar after a couple of decades here. One hopes we'll be equally impressionable if there is a pulling back in the USA and Canada.
Isn't it incredible? I've heard that Spain's family court system has become truly toxic for fathers. The kiss business is so astounding that I thought of writing about it but gave up because I literally don't know what I could say beyond the obvious.
Yes over the past few years Spain has passed draconian laws, starting with Domestic abuse of course. One of the problems in many European countries is the voting systems tend to produce coalition governments dependent on the support of small parties. This leverage often leads to quite niche ideas/policies/laws as the small partners are given their way. It used to be various forms of "greens" but in Spain and one or two others the feminist gender wars have come into vogue.
The gender studies "rot" you correctly identify as having infected most disciplines is a subset of the long-standing, leftist "long march" through the institutions.
For example, I remember the eugenicists' Malthusian-remix known as "The Club of Rome Report " being on the conservative Adelaide University Economics course reading list back in the early 70s. Of course the "Women's Lib" Hydra was beginning to sprout its late-20thC appendage at the same time.
Aug 31, 2023·edited Aug 31, 2023Liked by Janice Fiamengo
I'm male. I read this literary beating by Janice and smile like a boy peaking out from behide the legs of his protective mother. A mature, logical, and intuitive writer. I'm envious and grateful.
Aug 31, 2023·edited Aug 31, 2023Liked by Janice Fiamengo
If gender is unconnected to biology, as the feminist and trans activists always claim, wouldn't that be true for culture/civilization as well? So, why is it the claims of the gender ideologues are always good and the fruit of western civilization is always bad?
When I was naive, I can remember wanting to sign up for a genders study course and was subsequently warned off, as the university held separate classes for any male due the hostility and intolerance of the female gender who were undertaking such a course.
Aug 31, 2023·edited Sep 1, 2023Liked by Janice Fiamengo
The University of Canberra. I should add one of their departments plagiarised me. Although I think the information I had was passed to them by a third party.
Just a minor note, a “classical liberal education” would involve reading Locke, Hume, Adam Smith, and Hobbes. A “classic liberal education” would involve Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Homer, Virgil...
Plato, et al. are from the Classical Age, generally agreed to be the 4th and 5th centuries BCE. There was also a Classical Period from 1775 CE to 1825 CE characterized by a fascination with and emulation of the Greeks and Romans of the Classical Age.
To further the confusion, any work of literature from the Classical Age is called a 'classic' while modern works can also be called classics, but only if they're exceptional or unique in some way.
Ah, I hadn’t realized your mistake: “Classical liberal” means a person who believes in economic, and political, freedom. Specifically, the people who initially developed the discipline of political economy in the eighteenth century.
Sep 1, 2023·edited Sep 1, 2023Liked by Janice Fiamengo
You're assuming that your special case of 'classical liberal' outweighs centuries of common usage to the point that it's incorrect to use the word in any other way.
The first entry in Merriam Webster for 'classical' is "of or relating to the ancient Greek and Roman world and especially to its literature, art, architecture, or ideals" so it's more than a little dodgy to say that it would be wrong to group Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Homer, Virgil, etc. under the heading 'classically liberal education' especially as 'liberal', in the context of education, means "based on the liberal arts and intended to bring about the improvement, discipline, or free development of the mind or spirit." It needn't be restricted to the political ideology of the same name.
I'm not saying it would be wrong to categorize things your way, just that it wouldn't be wrong to do it the way you imply is wrong, either.
In general “classic” is used to mean “a work of enduring value.” However, as you indicate classic works, such as Antigone, are products of the Classical Period (more broadly, of the Axial Age). Such works constitute the classics, meaning not only that their value endures but that they are fundamental to how we understand ourselves.
Sep 1, 2023·edited Sep 2, 2023Liked by Janice Fiamengo
OMG, Gender Studies cancelled! Where's my magnifying glass? I need it to find my little violin.
The perpetually offended Genderites have posted a great advert for the Florida College, which I think will suddenly flourish with new students from all over the country.
I spelt Christopher Rufo's name wrong throughout! Thanks to Dave Swindle for pointing it out. Argh ...
His friends call him 'Roofie', I believe.
Cheeky.
Janice, thanks for another outstanding piece. You write:
"In response, 36 professors opposed to the plan have either left the college on their own initiative or been dismissed...".
Well, it's a welcome start. Hopefully these parasites on society will in future do something more valuable for their country. Flipping burgers at McDonald's comes to mind.
Mike Buchanan
JUSTICE FOR MEN & BOYS
http://j4mb.org.uk
College professors flipping burgers? How long will it be before a customer breaks a tooth on a nose ring gone missing?
Haha indeed!
Well said.
"Gender Studies" has never been about really understanding men and women; it has been about demonizing men, trivializing their problems, and screeching this false message out into the world.
Well said, Mark. I didn't get into that aspect of it so much in this article, but the institutionalized hatred is extraordinary.
And also intimidating women out of critiquing or criticizing feminist ideology.
One of the purposes of rebranding women's studies programs as gender studies was to avert the possible creation of men's studies programs since, as so boldly stated by feminists when it suits them, the concept of gender covers both men and women. And in this regard, it's fair to say that the gender studies department faculty have been successful in their mission
May this be the first in a Tsunami of closures of gender studies programs! That would do my heart good.
Great stuff Janice. My favorite sentence was this beauty! "All she can do is fire off rhetorical bullets from an arsenal of passive-voice obfuscation, graceless abstraction, and mind-numbing logical circularity." Perfect. Captured them in one sentence!
Thank you!
You always spy out the sentences I was particularly proud of, Tom.
Great stuff Janice. I love the way you write.
I've always considered a Gender studies degree to be useless. It only seeks to infiltrate science, mathematics, and engineering with the nebulous thought form of language arts. A person with a gender studies degree can't run a business, can't start a business, can't write a meaningful article or book, and only seem to be useful in Human resources to destroy a successful company.
Can you answer a question for me? Why do women support trans-identifying men who think they are women? Why do they participate in their own downfall?
Not all women do, of course, and this has precipitated a massive split within the women's movement itself. Those who do support transgender identity have usually accepted the argument made by feminists like Judith Butler that destroying the category 'woman' (or at least deeply unsettling it to the point of incoherence) is actually key to women's alleged liberation. These women do not accept that women have any privileges as women; they see only oppression in what they term an 'identity category,' which they define as part of a 'regulatory regime.'
Other women (gender critical/TERF/women's right advocates) accept that women do have some privielges and protections in our society, but do not always allow that recognition to soften their feminism, seeing the transgender phenomenon as a male plot to erase and colonize womanhood.
Not all women who oppose transgenderism are feminists, of course.
It's sophistry in front of self-centered foregone conclusions. It damages relationships broadly and specifically. It downplays and destroys women's best attributes.
I hope that if something good comes from mutilating kids, it's the destruction of this gender ideology from both a legal and political perspective. Competent women shouldn't have to account for it. Decent men should no longer be harassed for it. Innocent kids shouldn't be mutilated for it.
It's a cult, and will be exposed in courts of law. It's going to take a lot of academia and bureaucracies with it.
I certainly hope so.
Very interesting. I've seen a combination of these at work:
Definitely #1. Feminists were hired in the 1970s because the liberal humanists who dominated disciplines like English and Art History were open-minded, said things like "Well, it's not my cup of tea at all, but it's an interesting perspective and shouldn't be shut out of academia." In time, of course, feminists insisted that anyone who was NOT a feminist should be shut out of academia.
#2 is absolutely the case. In the literature departments I worked in, I found that many literary specialists, especially in the younger cohorts, were not very interested in literature. But they were definitely interested in using literature to promote their pet social theories, which made them seem far more dedicated, more serious, and more socially conscious (not to mention hipper) than their dull colleagues who worked on Milton's color symbolism for 10 years (I did know a marvelous scholar who pursued this angle).
#3 in spades. There are a lot of power-hungry weirdos, smart in school but hopeless in life, hungry for a theory that allows them to persecute others in the name of social justice.
I would add to you list of things gender studies grads can't do is that they don't make very good employees. I recently listened to a podcast that was discussing how inclusivity hires make life hell for fellow workers in writers' rooms for TV shows & movies.
"Why do women support trans-identifying men who think they are women?"
Feelings. Any affluent liberal woman knows she can do "anything a man can do", despite the fact that we're not all the same person, and some men are almost superhuman in their physical or cognitive gifts. No matter. It's all just society's fault. AWFLs could totes be building the next SpaceX rocket if it weren't for "math is hard" Barbie.
Taken to it's (logical?) conclusion, men in drag are women. It's like science, but better. It's affirmation.
I propose that for a significant number of woman, a trans identifying man fulfills the same role as a gay best friend serves them. I anticipate a primetime series that parrots the plot of Will & Grace but with a straight lawyer roommate who moonlights as a sassy dragqueen struggling with gender dysphoria. Will the kiss of a hardworking interior designer with her own 'body issues' save this off-key crooner in sequins and a boa? Thursdays at 9:00 central
I saw a Netflix show last year (can't remember the name) in which the main character, a woman, was still close friends as well as had a working relationship with a trans woman who had previously been her husband. The transgender woman ultimately died heroically.
Killing off the male lead love inerest, but in a respectfully dramatic manner, so that the female protagonist is free to pursue other relationships tabula rasa is a key narrative feature that insures success with female audiences. #expendability
This, I would watch. It already sounds better than everything on TV this season.
If you look about, you can see the Pendulum beginning to travel back towards the Right.
North American Gays and Lesbians would be well advised to leave the alphabet association to the delusional and psychotic and lay claim to their own philosophical and experiential acreage before the backlash occurs and they lose the patronage of the middle class they’ve strived so hard to win over. A good place to start is to really show they have no interest in recruiting children.
Gender studies as currently taught need to go in the same trash bin of educational effluvia as phrenology and astrology.
Good riddance!
I'd say gender studies is closer to yogic flying! Though I am not versed in either phrenology or astrology, I suspect they do have something to teach!
What they should have taught us was that we are easily fooled and not to fall for gender theory.
Maybe then we can talk about taking back control of the World from the Sociology Dept!
> A good place to start is to really show they have no interest in recruiting children.
The problem is that they do have an interest in recruiting children.
The evidence unfortunately points that way, that’s why I used ‘really’ in that sentence.
The evidence and reality are what they are, nothing unfortunate about the evidence.
A backhanded 'thank you' for the Judith Butler quotation. I have been forced to hack through acres of similar verbiage in the course of proof-reading tasks. At no point did my eyes glaze over and I concede nobody would notice the odd missed apostrophe or absent conjunction amongst the overgrowth of pseudoanalysis. Honest.
That's incredibly difficult work.
I once went through an entire chapter capitalising bell hooks name. They really hate men.
Literary scholars, like Butler, have no way of asserting that they understand the human condition in any way other than analysis of literary texts. Since we don’t actually live in novels, and have to deal with material realities that are actually measurable, they resort to obfuscatory language both to sound profound, and to disguise the fact that they have not the least fucking idea about reality.
How do you proofread people who routinely redefine the entire lexicon on the fly?
You'd be surprised. Postmodernist academics have an astonishingly limited vocabulary.
You're forgetting that any word they use can mean anything they want it to. Functionally, their lexicon is infinite. They can, and do, express things far exceeding their comprehension.
I didn't know that!
It seems, at least at first blush, hard to believe. I've known many brilliant people in literary studies--huge vocabularies--who are on the Left. Perhaps becoming a committed left-winger, though, tends to reduce fluency by mandating the repetition of key phrases. But even that seems a stretch, I must admit. Still, fascinating tidbit.
Perhaps I ought to have said 'self-limiting'. The repetition of phrases and jargon from the Lacan/Derrida/Foucault/Butler Approved Lexicon is indeed the core of the issue. There is probably also a list of words once used by C.S. Lewis or G.K. Chesterton which are forbidden by academic publishers.
I'm sure that's the case.
In Australia it took years before a course on Western Civilization was introduced to a PRIVATE University. Coz, like Western Civ eeeeoooowww, you're standing on it 🤗
Western civilization is the collectivity of the greatest achievements of our species. But it’s largely the product of White men. It must , therefore, be denounced as no better than he superstitions of illiterate farm laborers.
Exactly! Only illiterate black, NON Christian child soldiers need apply for Emigration to Australia. Why it would be EVIL & RACIST to invite 250,000 hard working, Christian South African WHITE FARMERS & their imperiled families into Australia! Heavens forbid we stop the black government of the new South Africa MURDERING & THEIVING all life and possessions of these horrid, horrid White People...
Indeed. Don't break my heart.
Excellent article. Gender studies relies on white liberal middle class guilt to suspend critical evaluation of its concepts. It has also benefited from using these sensitivities to gain influence and authority in academic politics. The New College episode manifests what happens when skilled politicians move into the campus fray to implement public policy aims, and when men and women sans guilt clearly evaluate goofy arguments. Mitch Daniel’s administration of Purdue has also produced impressive results. Leaders of the feminist movement have not calculated how they will contend with efforts to contain their antics. I doubt they will learn from this episode.
Eventually, there will definitely be concerted resistance to their nonsense. I'm not sure the time has come, but I hope it has.
What I have noticed is that the conversations that in my opinion we need to have, and I would have liked to have had 4 decades ago are now happening.
I'm glad you are seeing that, my friend.
But I grieve for what I want.
Unfortunately, even in more rational disciplines like science, true change often must wait for the elites in charge, who are wedded to their notions, to die and not be replaced by their followers.
Very True. However, with tightening budgets and students increasingly dissatisfied with returns on their educational investment, pressure is there for change. The economic rents graduates enjoyed in the past, are being eroded. I would argue that it is not because of an over supply of graduates but because they offer very little to the bottom line. Reading, writing, numeracy and critical thinking are fundamental to taking action to build businesses and value in capitalism. When people do have this they find themselves locked in process and meaningless work and not earning returns on their education. However, when they can change businesses processes, strategies and value creation and lead others in the process, returns abound. It is an unhappy lesson I am seeing many people learn.
I do hope so. One of the unfortunate effects of this huge gender studies industry in the USA (and Canada) is that we British have a great tendency to copy things from North America, usually with a time delay of about 5 years. Which often means we are well into the swing of some fad or other just at the point its fading in North America. This process seems to take even longer in non English speaking European countries. With Spain's recent storm in a teacup, the "non consensual" kiss, revealing the same notions of Toxic masculinity, rape culture , micro-aggressions and so on, that are so familiar after a couple of decades here. One hopes we'll be equally impressionable if there is a pulling back in the USA and Canada.
Isn't it incredible? I've heard that Spain's family court system has become truly toxic for fathers. The kiss business is so astounding that I thought of writing about it but gave up because I literally don't know what I could say beyond the obvious.
Sometimes a short post stating the obvious is the best thing to do.
As in KISS, Keep It Simple, Stupid!
This is for the stupid of course, not the people who write simple things for the stupid.
Yes over the past few years Spain has passed draconian laws, starting with Domestic abuse of course. One of the problems in many European countries is the voting systems tend to produce coalition governments dependent on the support of small parties. This leverage often leads to quite niche ideas/policies/laws as the small partners are given their way. It used to be various forms of "greens" but in Spain and one or two others the feminist gender wars have come into vogue.
The gender studies "rot" you correctly identify as having infected most disciplines is a subset of the long-standing, leftist "long march" through the institutions.
For example, I remember the eugenicists' Malthusian-remix known as "The Club of Rome Report " being on the conservative Adelaide University Economics course reading list back in the early 70s. Of course the "Women's Lib" Hydra was beginning to sprout its late-20thC appendage at the same time.
I'm male. I read this literary beating by Janice and smile like a boy peaking out from behide the legs of his protective mother. A mature, logical, and intuitive writer. I'm envious and grateful.
Thank you!!
If gender is unconnected to biology, as the feminist and trans activists always claim, wouldn't that be true for culture/civilization as well? So, why is it the claims of the gender ideologues are always good and the fruit of western civilization is always bad?
This is precisely how they responded when Viktor Orban and the rest of the Hungarian government refused to fund the gender studies and similar programs at the Central European University in Budapest: https://www.academia.edu/38988699/Academic_Freedom_and_Central_European_University
When I was naive, I can remember wanting to sign up for a genders study course and was subsequently warned off, as the university held separate classes for any male due the hostility and intolerance of the female gender who were undertaking such a course.
Wow, really. Do you mind if I ask which university/college this was?
The University of Canberra. I should add one of their departments plagiarised me. Although I think the information I had was passed to them by a third party.
Just a minor note, a “classical liberal education” would involve reading Locke, Hume, Adam Smith, and Hobbes. A “classic liberal education” would involve Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Homer, Virgil...
That's debatable.
Plato, et al. are from the Classical Age, generally agreed to be the 4th and 5th centuries BCE. There was also a Classical Period from 1775 CE to 1825 CE characterized by a fascination with and emulation of the Greeks and Romans of the Classical Age.
To further the confusion, any work of literature from the Classical Age is called a 'classic' while modern works can also be called classics, but only if they're exceptional or unique in some way.
Ah, I hadn’t realized your mistake: “Classical liberal” means a person who believes in economic, and political, freedom. Specifically, the people who initially developed the discipline of political economy in the eighteenth century.
You're assuming that your special case of 'classical liberal' outweighs centuries of common usage to the point that it's incorrect to use the word in any other way.
The first entry in Merriam Webster for 'classical' is "of or relating to the ancient Greek and Roman world and especially to its literature, art, architecture, or ideals" so it's more than a little dodgy to say that it would be wrong to group Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Homer, Virgil, etc. under the heading 'classically liberal education' especially as 'liberal', in the context of education, means "based on the liberal arts and intended to bring about the improvement, discipline, or free development of the mind or spirit." It needn't be restricted to the political ideology of the same name.
I'm not saying it would be wrong to categorize things your way, just that it wouldn't be wrong to do it the way you imply is wrong, either.
In general “classic” is used to mean “a work of enduring value.” However, as you indicate classic works, such as Antigone, are products of the Classical Period (more broadly, of the Axial Age). Such works constitute the classics, meaning not only that their value endures but that they are fundamental to how we understand ourselves.
OMG, Gender Studies cancelled! Where's my magnifying glass? I need it to find my little violin.
The perpetually offended Genderites have posted a great advert for the Florida College, which I think will suddenly flourish with new students from all over the country.