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Female-only School Accused of Sexism against Women Who Think They’re Men
“That’s a man, baby!”
Famously liberal Wellesley College has a serious problem on its hands. The female-only alma mater of Hillary Clinton has long been on the bleeding edge of feminist theory, but recent developments in the gender wars threaten their PC cred.
Recently, a matriculating young woman decided to define herself as a man. Technically “Timothy Boatwright” calls herself a “masculine-of-center genderqueer” (whatever that means) but insists that everyone on campus treat her like a dude. Wellesley’s staff and student body sheepishly complied as they have with other similarly confused undergrads.
Of course, if Boatwright really thought of herself as a guy she wouldn’t have chosen a school that forbids them, but Wellesley doesn’t award any points for logical consistency. I suspect a kid can self-identify as a chicken quesadilla as long as her parents fork over the private school’s exorbitant tuition.
Problems arose when Boatwright decided to run for student government. She vied for the position of Multicultural Affairs Coordinator (MAC), which enforces a “culture of diversity” on campus. The other candidates dropped out of the race, making Boatright a shoo-in. Until…
An anonymous lobbying effort began on Facebook, pushing students to vote “abstain.” Enough “abstains” would deny Timothy the minimum number of votes Wellesley required, forcing a new election for the seat and providing an opportunity for other candidates to come forward. The “Campaign to Abstain” argument was simple: Of all the people at a multiethnic women’s college who could hold the school’s “diversity” seat, the least fitting one was a white man.
“It wasn’t about Timothy,” the student behind the Abstain campaign told me. “I thought he’d do a perfectly fine job, but it just felt inappropriate to have a white man there. It’s not just about that position either. Having men in elected leadership positions undermines the idea of this being a place where women are the leaders.”
I asked Timothy what he thought about that argument, as we sat on a bench overlooking the tranquil lake on campus during orientation. He pointed out that he has important contributions to make to the MAC position. After all, at Wellesley, masculine-of-center students are cultural minorities; by numbers alone, they’re about as minor as a minority can be. And yet Timothy said he felt conflicted about taking a leadership spot. “The patriarchy is alive and well,” he said. “I don’t want to perpetuate it.”
As I’ve often noted, the 21st Century is exhausting. At least Wellesley’s latest moral panic illustrates the Oppression Index I posted yesterday. I’d recommend that Boatright and her detractors compare scores, but she eventually assumed the mantle of MAC without my help.
However, the recent acceptance of trans students has created a new problem at Wellesley:
Another difficult conversation about trans students touches on the disproportionate attention they receive on campus. “The female-identified students somehow place more value on those students,” said Rose Layton, a lesbian who said she views trans students as competitors in the campus dating scene. “They flirt with them, hook up with them. And it’s not just the hetero women, but even people in the queer community. The trans men are always getting this extra bit of acknowledgment. Even though we’re in a women’s college, the fact is men and masculinity get more attention and more value in this social dynamic than women do.”
Down with the transpatriarchy!
Kaden Mohamed said he felt downright objectified when he returned from summer break last year, after five months of testosterone had lowered his voice, defined his arm muscles and reshaped his torso. It was attention that he had never experienced before he transitioned. But as his body changed, students he didn’t even know would run their hands over his biceps. Once at the school pub, an intoxicated Wellesley woman even grabbed his crotch and that of another trans man.
“It’s this very bizarre reversal of what happens in the real world,” Kaden said. “In the real world, it’s women who get fetishized, catcalled, sexually harassed, grabbed. At Wellesley, it’s trans men who do. If I were to go up to someone I just met and touch her body, I’d get grief from the entire Wellesley community, because they’d say it’s assault — and it is. But for some reason, when it’s done to trans men here, it doesn’t get read the same way. It’s like a free pass, that suddenly it’s O.K. to talk about or touch someone’s body as long as they’re not a woman.”
Please note that a bachelor(ette)’s degree from this certifiably insane institution will set you back about a quarter million dollars. Perhaps Professor Rahe can include a pitch for Hillsdale College in the comments.
Published in General
The politically correct war on reality as a whole is depressing, but the resulting progressive dilemmas are fun to watch, in a Monty-Python-at-its-most-absurd come-to-life sort of way.
I guess the dedication to fighting the patriarchy didn’t extend to remaining a womyn.
You have to wonder what will be the consequences twenty years hence from raising a cohort of people (if I may use that term) “educated” in this way.
This story really warms my heart.
What’s the term for situations when the novice true believers heighten their own creed’s contradictions thereby forcing their superiors to make embarrassing politically incorrect decisions? That’s a special type of schadenfreude.
I believe this is what the poets call irony. I love it.
Umm…a school that excludes men is concerned with a culture of diversity?
The trans-man should get used to it. That’s how sauced women behave. I have all manner been groped, and molested by strange drunk women on the prowl.. Maybe transguys have it worse who knows. Chicks high on E are also extra handsey
Our elite universities have become laughing stocks, These students’ parents are even bigger fools than they are; they are the ones footing the bill for this nonsense.
Except Timothy isn’t really a man, just says she identifies as a man? So, does that actually invalidate her aspirations for the job, or her legitimacy at an all woman’s college?
Right after Obama appoints GenderCzar, I expect Michelle will develop new gender information labels, based on what/who/whatever we identify as. Because it just isn’t right to grab someone’s crotch to gather data, as if that’s accurate anyway.
Imagine the FDA Food Pyramid gone Gender Diamond, with actually identifying and truly gendered men and women at the two opposite points…with all the 50+ shades of gray between them.
this. country. has. gone. bonkers.
I just finished this week’s Ricochet podcast and noticed that Peter Robinson mentioned this story in the closing moments. Great minds and all that jazz…
Hilarious on so many levels. Makes feminism seem so yesterday.
Sounds like a bunch of mentally ill people. And I’m not trying to be provocative.
In the future, forms and applications will have to leave sufficient room under the “sex” heading for a Venn diagram, or maybe an essay.
Here’s a tip:
If it requires more than the customary “Male/Female,” then don’t hire ’em. Save Ya the grief and lawsuit.
This is beyond parody. My befuddled facial expression as I read Jon’s rundown of the situation probably resembled George C Scott’s as he read aloud from Gen. Ripper’s crazed communique on his launching of the nuclear bombers in Dr. Strangelove.
The epitome of the hard-left mind:
Priceless.
It does to me too. Wow.
But it’s no surprise because the American Psychological Association is encouraging all this.
I had trouble following it. The new gender labels sound like the “Who’s on first” jokes.
Seriously, the left has taken the brightest of our youth, and driven them insane. This so close to being an argument over cigarettes in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
I am still curious as to how Wellesley can still be a female only college. The Citadel (and VMI) had to admit women, why isn’t the reverse true?
Maybe if Tim would spend quality time in the tanning booth than at least “he” wouldn’t be a “white man”.
Stupid, logic is a construct of patriarchal oppression. That’s how Wellesley can remain a nurturing spirit-center for empowered womyn.
I apologize for the word “stupid” in comment #7 – between the idiosyncrasies of auto-correct and the reluctance of Rico 2.0 to allow me to edit … the word is not appropriate in that place, but I can only apologize rather than actually *fixing* it. Boo.
You need to edit that to read “comment #20.”
The inmates are truly running the asylum.
And, by the way, the parents aren’t paying for their education, WE are. Feds now run the student loan industry, with your taxpayer dollars.
This is just beautiful. Lil Timmy better watch out, if heaven forbid he-she-it makes more money than the other girls who don’t realize gender is all in your imagination.
If Mitt had said his staff had “binders of masculine-of-center genderqueer” he might have gotten some votes from the Wellesley alum.
Except for the rare exception of people with chromosomal defects, the biology is always clear: human beings come in two varieties: male and female.
Those who insist they’re one of those other 56 varieties of gender can be called Science-Deniers.
As I said in another thread, in regard to this controversy, the only comfort I take is in knowing these people will eventually be food for the Morlocks.
As entertaining as they are, the problem with the Oppression Olympics is knowing how to score the competitors. Does black lesbianism get more or less points than a Hispanic genderqueer? Is a Jewish female simply left in the dust by an Asian transsexual? We need clear rules for these things, or the medals round is gonna be a mess.
Brightest?
I believe Jon has a handy scoring sheet already in development.
If I remember correctly, the issue was that the Citadel and VMI are state-sponsored and Wellesley isn’t.