A NeW Education

NeW is dedicated to educating women on issues that affect us today.  One way we strive to do this is by dispelling myths that dominate college campuses.  This webpage is updated with articles for our visitors so they too can become educated about what is really happening on college campuses.  (Please let us know if there is a specific issue that you would like to learn more about.)

The issues addressed below include:
Women's History Month
The Vagina Monologues
Diversity on College Campuses
Feminist Victim Mentality

Women's History Month

This March, No Need for Women to March
By Leah Kieff( Member of NeW at Mary Washington University)
March, 2008, The Bullet

March is Women’s history month and our University has a series of lectures and exhibits planned to supposedly celebrate this. While there are several lectures dealing with some historical issues of interest relating to women, the events seem to mainly be an excuse to push the feminist agenda onto our campus. The keynote speaker in the lineup is a blogger for National Abortion Rights Action League’s Pro Choice America (NARAL), there is also a film highlighting the challenges of women running for public office.

Is this what we should be focusing on? Should we be highlighting the victimization of women?

While the movement may have been begun, with the 19th amendment, to gain legal equality for women, something we all agree on; the movement quickly became perverted by other aspects.  This new feminism, what we think of today when we hear the word, is rooted in Betty Friedan’s book, The Feminine Mystique which many view as the manifesto for the movement. This book however is directed against femininity. This new wave, what is the basis of today’s feminist movement encourages the victim mentality, androgyny, as well as the link between the sexual revolution and feminism.

“Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent,” Eleanor Roosevelt famously stated. When we place ourselves in the role of a victim we see that we end up there.

By bemoaning our plights and being angry about our supposed history of inferiority we focus on these negative feelings. We are encouraged to think of motherhood, and being a stay at home mother as somehow lower than the life of a career woman. What if the two can both be first priority?

The goal is then to balance the skills it takes to be successful in the working world, such as focus with the skills of being a mother, where distraction to new tasks or to children who believe they ought to be the center of your attention. This should be the goal to be able to do both and yes, that means arguing for more of certain rights.

There is a desire to be treated like men and reject fully or belittle the sex differences.  In another of the exalted books of the feminist movement, Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, Beauvior implies that men are better than women and speaks of masculinity as somehow above femininity.  She asserts that women are capable of manliness, and attempts to create a gender neutral society.

Women however have not been liberated by this gender neutral environment, but have in fact been trapped by it. Instead of being held back from careers they may have aspired to, they are now pushed further than they may want to go.

In their fight against the ‘double standard,’ there is the mistaken idea that autonomy is linked to being just as sexually promiscuous as men. While earlier feminist movements in the 19th and early 20th century argued for men’s sexual behavior to be raised to that of women’s, the new wave argued to lower the standard of women to that of men.

While we may acknowledge the double standard, we need to be wary of throwing it away too haphazardly. Women have three main disadvantages when we attempt to play this game of promiscuity; there is the issue of pregnancy, the fact that women contact STD’s much easier and the generally more heartache prone nature of women.

By women’s view of empowerment being linked to sexual promiscuity we in fact undermine the very foundations of femininity. This promiscuity devalues women by men seeing them as something that can be used for their own ends and women accepting this status as the tools of men.

Feminists threw away the moral superiority of women, a beautiful counteraction to the physical superiority of men. There is an obvious void in what we call the feminist movement today and a need for a new movement that can do justice not only to the similarities between the sexes but also to the differences.

While the state should continue to be gender neutral, it is important that society recognize gender differences. The slogan of the personal as political need to be revamped, because wouldn’t it be better for all of us if the personal wasn’t political?

The Vagina Monologues
Have you heard of The Vagina Monologues?  This play objectifies women but is sponsored and praised by radical feminists.  The pictures below are of advertisements for the The Vagina Monologues when performed at the University of Virginia. 

Feminists have become their own worst enemy
By Karin Agness (NeW Founder)
Feb 16, 2006 at Townhall.com

While most people were celebrating or searching for love on Valentine’s Day, groups of women throughout the country decided to forego this lovely holiday to talk about their vaginas.

Women have the choice to do this. I am thankful for that choice. But this choice to participate in The Vagina Monologues is the latest manifestation of feminism gone wrong in America. These “Vagina Warriors” have become those monsters, men, who they feared and hated for so long for exploiting women. They are their own worst enemy, objectifying and abusing themselves and other women.

Feminists have long complained that they are only valued for their physical and sexual attributes. In The Vagina Monologues, the feminists objectify women worse than the way they claimed men did. Feminists argued that men oppressed them in the home and did not treat women as full humans, through patriarchal institutions such as marriage. This is shown in the 1966 Statement of Purpose of the National Organization for Women, “If it is necessary to mobilize the votes of men and women who believe in our cause, in order to win for women the final right to be fully free and equal human beings, we so commit ourselves.”

These feminists sought education to correct this problem, “We believe that it is as essential for every girl to be educated to her full potential of human ability as it is for every boy...” 

They sought equality in economic opportunities. They sought freedom from men and male institutions that did not treat them as full human beings, but as property and objects to be admired, used and abused.

Now feminists have reversed the scenario, and women are exploiting themselves.  Throughout the play, women claim their body parts define them. In one monologue, a woman describes her experience at a Vagina Workshop. Her instructor told her to draw a picture of her own vagina and look at it with a hand mirror. This woman said, “She [the instructor] then told me my clitoris was not something I could lose. It was me, the essence of me....I didn’t have to find it. I had to be it.” She embraces and accepts this definition of herself.

The woman in this monologue has clearly reduced herself to a body part. This is way worse than the supposed objectifying that feminists claimed men did in the 1970s.  Can you imagine if a man then or today would say to a woman, “Your clitoris is you?”  No, only a leftist woman can get away with saying this. 

Unfortunately, these Vagina Warriors have chosen to focus on their body parts rather than their brains, talents or achievements. As such, they have effectively reduced themselves to the very thing they did not want to be defined by: their intimate anatomy.

Feminists also loudly complained in the 1970s that men used their structural power to abuse women. In a monologue titled, “The Little Coochi Snorcher That Could,” a 24-year-old woman invites a 16-year-old girl into her car. The 16-year-old says, “She asks me if I like to kiss boys, and I tell her I do not like that. Then she says she wants to show me something, and she leans over and kisses me so softly on the lips with her lips and then puts her tongue in my mouth. Wow.” 

It gets worse.

The 24-year-old asks her to spend the night, feeds her vodka, slides into lingerie and then teaches the young girl how to play with herself.

If this is not abuse, I don’t know what is.

Still, this is not condemned in the play. Rather, the young girl says, “I realized later she was my surprising, unexpected, politically incorrect salvation. She transformed my sorry-ass coochi snorcher and raised it up into a kind of heaven.” In The Vagina Monologues, then, a rapist is compared to “salvation” and as giving “heaven” to her victim. She is the heroine of the monologue. 

In turn, feminists have become the dominating, oppressive force, which they condemned in the 1970s when it was supposedly men acting this way, committing crimes and creating victims. These feminists are the monsters they once despised, abusing women and then celebrating it.

The feminist movement has always been quick to point out the objectification and abuse they felt men were committing against women. I think it’s time that the feminists realize that they have become their own greatest enemy.

Diversity on College Campuses

College Credit for Protesting?
By Karin Agness (NeW Founder)
October 8, 2007 at Townhall.com

While the effort to adopt a mandatory diversity course has been successfully defeated on many college campuses, this threat to academic integrity is reappearing in the form of a “Community Engagement” program on campuses.

Program proponents claim it will enhance the students’ academic experience. Program opponents, however, recognize the program for what it is—an attempt by liberals to control both the thoughts of students through the political bias of so many professors and the actions of students through rewarding them with credit for participation in specific community activities.

For example, the latest report by the Commission on Diversity and Equity at the University of Virginia (UVA) calls for a “Community Engagement” program. The Program would award “Community Engagement” points to students who enroll in certain classes, attend academic and cultural events, work within the local community or participate in organizations which focus on issues of diversity and equity. After earning a certain number of points and completing a final project, students would be awarded with six academic credits and a note, “successfully completed Community Engagement Program,” on their transcript.

“Community Engagement?” It sounds harmless. But when thinking about how a program like this would be implemented, the danger becomes apparent.

The Commission calls for a full-time faculty member to serve as the administrator, who would be responsible for creating the list of opportunities which are point-worthy. By selecting which classes are point-worthy and the number of points assigned to each, the administrator would be able to implement mandatory diversity courses through the backdoor.

This selection problem applies to activities as well. The administrator would have much discretion in determining which activities deal with diversity and equity. This week, for example, a student group at UVA held a workshop entitled the “Sexual Arts & Crafts Workshop.” The advertisement for the Workshop read, “Come learn about sexual health in a fun, creative way! Featured tables will include: Contraceptive Options table, How-to-put-on-a-condom table (with banana races), Condom crafts (how to make a dental dam), advocacy table, a lube tasting bar, and educational coloring books! We will also be making costumes for our Halloween ‘condom fairies’ night, decorating surprise-shaped cookies, and MUCH MORE.”

Is this a cultural event? Does this include work with the local community? Does this promote (gender) equity? A “Community Engagement” program administrator could easily make the argument that this Workshop qualifies. Participation in the “Sexual Arts and Crafts Workshop” is just the type of ridiculous left-wing community activity that students would earn credit for under a “Community Engagement” program.

Thus, by picking and choosing which activities are included in the “Community Engagement” program, universities are able to push their political agenda on students both inside and outside the classroom.

There are different forms of “Community Engagement” programs already in place across the country. The University of Texas at Austin has a Division of Diversity and Community Engagement. The University of Central Missouri has an Office of Community Engagement, which “engages surrounding communities to collaboratively address social justice and community issues.” In September, Amherst College even launched a Center for Community Engagement.

A greater prevalence of “Community Engagement” programs could easily fuel more left-wing activities on campuses. For example, campaigns to increase the minimum wage of university employees, living wage campaigns, swept colleges a few years ago. With a “Community Engagement” program on campuses throughout the country, students would not only receive encouragement from the faculty for participation in these campaigns as they often do now, but would receive college credit. As part of its campaign, the living wage campaign at UVA held protests, interrupted a meeting of the Board of Visitors, defaced University property, called the University President’s home at all hours of the night and staged a “sit-in,” during which the participants sat in the President’s Office until they were arrested.

Is this work with the local community? Arguably, yes. Is this participation in an organization that focuses on equity? Arguably, yes. Through “Community Engagement” programs, colleges would be encouraging this behavior. Colleges shouldn’t be giving students academic credit for protesting.

Feminist Victim Mentality

CBS Adopts Victim Mentality
By Karin Agness (NeW Founder)
June 18, 2007 at townhall.com

If a newly hired employee led his organization to a 20-year low in profits, Donald Trump’s famous phrase, “You’re Fired,” would most certainly be invoked. Well, for most people. Apparently, this general rule doesn’t apply to women because the public is actually to blame.

In June, Katie Couric brought the ratings for the CBS Evening News to a 20-year low. Rather than taking responsibility for the low ratings, CBS has decided to rely on an old favorite feminist argument—blame female failures on sexism.

There are many possible reasons to explain Couric’s failure, but CBS has chosen to reject many complicated arguments for simple sexism.

First, there is an argument to be made that people are turning more and more to the internet for their news. (This does not turn Couric’s failure into a success because she is still in last place standing behind ABC and NBC.) But this can be partially relied upon to explain the low numbers.

Second, viewers have permanently left CBS because of Rathergate and the station’s leftwing bias.

Third, Couric herself is not cut out for an evening news program. Couric was successful on a morning television program, but the evening news and morning news are like day and night. Success in one arena does not automatically translate into success in another arena. Would Matt Lauer, Al Roker or Regis Philbin be taken seriously as an evening newscaster? No. They are better fit for the morning shows.

Fourth, Couric is a victim of blatant sexism. Which argument did CBS choose? CBS picked the last argument. Leslie Moonves, CBS chief executive, said Tuesday, “I’m sort of surprised by the vitriol against her. The number of people who don’t want news from a woman was startling.” Not surprising, CBS does not blame Couric’s failure on different viewer habits or Couric herself, but instead attributes her failure to institutional societal sexism.

But this is only one side of the coin. The other side is that Couric has benefited more than anyone because of her gender. CBS specifically made Couric’s gender an issue and sought Couric in part because she is a woman, which it thought would draw in more female viewers and in turn, help the program. While CBS will be unlikely to admit that Couric would not have the job if she was not a woman in the first place, this is a fair assumption. CBS implicitly acknowledges this. The Financial Times reported on Tuesday that CBS was hoping to draw younger, female viewers and that Couric has received a 2 percent increase in women age 18 to 49.

Furthermore, CBS spent huge sums of money conducting a large-scale public relations campaign to sell the public on Couric. Why? CBS hoped that a female anchor could push CBS to the front of the pack. There are always risks involved in switching news anchors and the structure of the program. The extensive public relations campaign CBS conducted shows that CBS was aware of these risks. CBS should recognize that the program failed and change something—the format, the anchor or the type of news it covers.

Instead, CBS has adopted the typical radical feminist attitude that has been so destructive on our culture: They get put in the game without the proper qualifications and then claim victim status when they cannot compete. Feminists take advantage of their gender to get ahead and then cry sexism when they are no longer propped up, try to play the game and fail miserably.

Unfortunately, this is the attitude that dominates college campuses today. For example, the Equal Rights Amendment is still a highly discussed and supported topic among female professors, especially those in women’s studies departments. They claim it will equalize men and women before the law. Realistically, these women want to pick and chose when their gender will be a factor. For example, they want women to have the same access to promotions within the military. Yet, when asked if they support drafting women into the military, they resounding reply “no.”

If women want the same opportunity to succeed, we should have the same opportunity to fail.

Couric more than benefited from her gender by getting the CBS news anchor job and CBS gave it to her expecting to benefit as well. CBS shouldn’t expect to receive bonus points on the Nielsen’s ratings just because it hired a female anchor. Rather than claim sexism, CBS should take responsibility for the failure of the CBS Evening News.