Posted on 06/08/2021 9:19:34 AM PDT by Heartlander
In the 1970s, Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson playfully warned mothers about the downsides of the cowboy business: “Mammas don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys / Don't let ‘em pick guitars and drive them old trucks / Make ‘em be doctors and lawyers and such.” That song was written before today's full-blooded assault on masculinity in American culture. It was a time when you could poke a little fun at traditional male identity while still honoring it.
I have been a professor at Bucknell University for twenty years, and alas, I find myself singing that tune with new lyrics: “Mammas don’t let your (male) babies grow up to attend a woke liberal arts college.” It is my considered view that a parent with the best interests of a male child at heart should be intensely concerned about what he is likely to experience at a school like the one in which I work.
Young men in institutions like mine are mercilessly stereotyped. They are compelled to unquestioningly acquiesce to fundamentally anti-male social justice doctrines that are in the process of becoming the raison d’être of such institutions. They are told throughout their four years at college that a male who unapologetically embraces his nature commits an eternal offense. Unless he agrees to fundamentally change himself to suit the desires of his moral betters, he is to be despised by the righteous and becomes a legitimate target for repression.
I have heard people in important positions in my university talk unguardedly (they believe that everyone shares their perspective) with disdain for white male students who are universally assumed to benefit from “privilege” and harbor racist sentiments. Those male students come from all over the country, from different ethnic backgrounds, from different social classes. They adhere to different religious faiths, and they have different political beliefs and make different intellectual and career plans. When they arrive on campus, they are told endlessly that difference and diversity are to be celebrated, recognized, praised in all their forms—except insofar as they might apply to them.
The increasingly dominant view at woke liberal arts schools is that all white heterosexual males are the same. They are faceless representatives of the supposed top spot in a hierarchical structure that illegitimately dominates others. They are regarded as potential rapists. A group of Bucknell faculty and administrators have for years perpetuated a disputed narrative that women on campus labor under a regime of constant male sexual violence and terror. White heterosexual males are racists simply by virtue of their whiteness. They are homophobes if they do not instantly and effusively agree with every radical claim about sexuality and gender identity made by advocates masquerading as scholars.
As at many other schools, at Bucknell some whole departments and large segments of others are dedicated to denouncing white heterosexual males as agents of oppression. Many professors here tirelessly advocate against “toxic masculinity” and “the patriarchy.” According to one of these educators, the following offer evidence of this malign dominance: that men raise their hands in class differently than women do, that the men’s national soccer team is paid more than the women’s national team, and that men tend to prefer hamburgers to salads while women more frequently have the inverse preference. The theology of systemic racism, a ghostly form of violence produced largely by white males and directed at non-whites, is a dogma on campuses like mine. Indeed, some professors here have stated that questioning it is itself an example of systemic racism. And as for white heterosexual male conservative students, some members of the faculty happily and publicly cheer the death of conservative men and admit their inability to “fathom” their “humanity.”
In my classes over the past few years, I have watched a particular scene play out again and again. During class discussion, the topic of sex difference comes up. (I teach on it routinely in a number of courses.) Some students evince unhappiness with my discussion of the biological facts that show that sex differences exist. They invoke “the patriarchy” to buttress their belief that women are an oppressed class at Bucknell and that men are their oppressors. One of them then argues that men dominate public space, including the classroom, talking aggressively and crowding out female voices. I indicate to the speaker that in the entirety of our discussion of this and nearly every other topic in the course, men have been largely silent in class, and that it is in fact women, and almost exclusively feminist women, such as the speaker, who talk constantly. This observation is never substantively challenged because everyone in the class knows it to be true. But it is always received with frustration by students who have invoked “the patriarchy.” Sometimes they lodge reports with my department chair or dean regarding how insensitive and probably misogynist I am to point out such inconvenient facts.
The men in the class sit quietly and look around the room uncomfortably, hoping no one will ask what they think about the matter. I often hear from them via email or in office hours, during which they are careful to ask me to close my door so their candid thoughts will not reach the ears of my colleagues in the hall.
I wonder, as I talk with these young men, how any loving parent can imagine that this kind of environment is best for their sons.
Yes.
This sort of behavior from the Left is out of control because we as a society tolerate it. We as a society are cowardly and will not confront it, let alone push back against it. Note that I am saying “as a society.” Obviously there are individuals who do confront and push back, but this will take far larger than individual actions to turn the tide.
Your assessment of the situation is exactly correct.
If you insist on sending your son to a “woke” college you better make sure he wears a GoPro every second of the day to record his interactions with everyone, for insurance.
“This sort of behavior from the Left is out of control because we as a society tolerate it.”
It really is as simple as that and it will stop as soon as society wakes up and reuses to tolerate it.
Seems to me that white males should have their own colleges and universities where their ‘inherent racism’ won’t pose a challenge for the perpetually offended she-bitches, race hustlers, and communists.
Wokism will die off, but its korporate sponsors must be remembered and held responsible.
yeah but they still wont pick up the check
Many sons have watched and learned for more than a year what a year of irrational fear, breathtaking ignorance and abject cowardice does to many men ... what it has done — and continues in many cases to do — to their fathers who are responsible for teaching their sons how to develop into productive, responsible men.
The STEM schools have largely been those separate colleges and universities. But even that has been changing.
I’m surprised this guy hasn’t been assassinated yet.
My son was born a week after 9-11. I made a vow to raise an American Man, proudly. I have done so. Yes he’s at a public university, but we found one that had less crap going on than some others, and plenty of other young men like him, so he can have strong friendships. But even his college is getting a bit more woke.
Yeah, it's not like landing with the Marines at Tarawa, but confronting the blue-haired crowd isn't easy. Just ask your favorite Christian baker from Colorado.
It’s hard to be much of an optimist when you realize how many of your associates and professional peers are ‘effing retarded.
Hillsdale College - Where the young men are gentlemen and the girls are young ladies.... Or as Dr. Arn once put it. Where the girls are all pretty and the boys are all interested :-) Was a great line in his native Arkansas drawl.
Perhaps no parent does think it’s the best environment for their sons.
But these are grown men making their own choices. Or they should be.
Hey men, if your college is racist and sexist against you, either fight or go elsewhere.
There are non woke colleges.
It would be good if groups of conservative college kids took classes together. They could have each others’ backs in woke discussions to shut the BS down. And as someone else said, wear a Go Pro everywhere.
I’m guessing BrokeBack Mountain will get a Academy award now.
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