What is feminism?

[WriterDom]

I don't know what the numbers are but 46 female fighter pilots sounds like a lot to me. Considering all the academic requirements and the willingness to drop 500 pound bombs on the head of Abdul and Kaashif as they speed away from their IED planting in their 1194 Toyota pick up truck. I don't see many Vassar College chicks wanting to stand in line to apply for that job.

 

[JMohegan]

Absolutely. One of the Iraq War's first casualties was Lori Piestewa, a member of the 507th AMC - a unit that provided cooks, clerks, and mechanics. Her colleagues Shoshana Johnson and Jessica Lynch were injured in the same attack that killed her. Cooks aren't supposed to be on the "front lines" in battle. But there are no more "front lines" - just war zones.

It's all one big war zone. Exactly.

The most recent data I can find is from May. 108 female American military deaths to date in Iraq; 20 in Afghanistan.

https://hsdl.org/?view&doc=72824&coll=limited



Homburg & Netzach - I'm pretty sure that Tammy Duckworth, the double-amputee who spoke at the '08 Democratic Convention, was shot down while piloting a Black Hawk helicopter in combat. Not Air Force, though. I think she was Army.

 

[Kojote]

It would help if my sentences were more coherent. I know we studied German law in a privacy class, and I remember there were some major conceptual differences, but for the life of me it's all sort of fuzzy. I thought this came up in the context of sexual harassment lawsuits, but I can't find anything on the internet. This is driving me nuts. I may have to bug an old classmate of mine.

At any rate, privacy and freedom of speech are two rights that sometimes are in conflict. The right to free speech is pretty sacred in the US -- again, you could never ban content related to Nazis or anything else. I guess what I'm saying is US law and German law are probably guided by slightly different principles, due to differences in history, constitutional law, etc. I'll try and come back later with more.

I think so, too.
There are differences.
Not being overly into law things I can only guess (and ask the german part of the net for specific questions) but freedom of speech is not that sacred over here. At least as I view it.
Whenever you openly tell any kind of opinion in Germany that doesn’t come down to ‘Hitler was a son of satan and everything that happened back then was utterly devilish’ you may find yourself accused of 'incitement of the people'.
This comes prior to the freedom of speech. But of course not everybody goes to jail for it. But the media acts like a bunch of sharks in frenzy about it.

Privacy on the other hand can be considered nearly sacred over here, too.
We had our share of outrage regarding censorship of the internet for fighting child pornography recently. Eavesdropping is also an issue.

What about freedom of assembly in the US?
And am I going to get lapidated for carrying on with this totally off topic one?



Privacy is another thing.

 

[Netzach]

It's all one big war zone. Exactly.

The most recent data I can find is from May. 108 female American military deaths to date in Iraq; 20 in Afghanistan.

https://hsdl.org/?view&doc=72824&coll=limited



Homburg & Netzach - I'm pretty sure that Tammy Duckworth, the double-amputee who spoke at the '08 Democratic Convention, was shot down while piloting a Black Hawk helicopter in combat. Not Air Force, though. I think she was Army.

The whole "good enough to get blown up, not good enough to shoot back" thing is bullshit. Complete bullshit.

 

[Kojote]

So let me get this straight.

Someone punches you in the head. For about as long as written history. You swing back at them as of 1910.

You're just making them angry and you should stop and invite them in for coffee and it's your fault when they continue to try and punch you in the head with renewed vigor. Perhaps in the form of a modesty patrol that throws bleach in your face instead of acid, because you're in a civilized industrial country. (as in Israel)

I'm assuming you are a pacifist altogether.

Okeehh...
I don't get this one.
Really.
I think I understand a part of it, but...
No.
I don't get it.

 

[Netzach]

I don't know what the numbers are but 46 female fighter pilots sounds like a lot to me. Considering all the academic requirements and the willingness to drop 500 pound bombs on the head of Abdul and Kaashif as they speed away from their IED planting in their 1194 Toyota pick up truck. I don't see many Vassar College chicks wanting to stand in line to apply for that job.

I don't think they're yanking the average male fighter pilot out of Haverford or Swarthmore either, duh. If you didn't notice, there are women at West Point these days.

 

[Etoile]

I don't know what the numbers are but 46 female fighter pilots sounds like a lot to me. Considering all the academic requirements and the willingness to drop 500 pound bombs on the head of Abdul and Kaashif as they speed away from their IED planting in their 1194 Toyota pick up truck. I don't see many Vassar College chicks wanting to stand in line to apply for that job.

Blatant attempt to rile up the board WIN

 

[Netzach]

Okeehh...
I don't get this one.
Really.
I think I understand a part of it, but...
No.
I don't get it.

You're blaming feminism for the fact that some men are threatened by it.

I'm saying you should be blaming the situation that lead to a need for or a question of feminism in the first place.

You're saying it's "going too far" if women swing back at a system that still maims and kills every day worldwide. Because it might make the boys uncomfortable that their problems are not given attention in this particular moment.

Men's problems are *always* given attention in every other moment. You're pissed because some women are saying "I am not interested in pacifying male desires at this moment, but in my own." How often have men forgone ANYthing in the interest of women? You're saying that women have to shift focus onto you and what you want as a price for you to care about them, in the form of "making feminism about everyone equally." This is not a burden other groups have been encouraged to take on.

 

[Kojote]

You're blaming feminism for the fact that some men are threatened by it.

I'm saying you should be blaming the situation that lead to a need for or a question of feminism in the first place.

You're saying it's "going too far" if women swing back at a system that still maims and kills every day worldwide. Because it might make the boys uncomfortable that their problems are not given attention in this particular moment.

Men's problems are *always* given attention in every other moment. You're pissed because some women are saying "I am not interested in pacifying male desires at this moment, but in my own." How often have men forgone ANYthing in the interest of women? You're saying that women have to shift focus onto you and what you want as a price for you to care about them, in the form of "making feminism about everyone equally." This is not a burden other groups have been encouraged to take on.

No. I don’t.
I try to point out where this could lead to.
And please excuse that, but your reaction reinforces my concern.

I never blame situations or systems.
What is that good for?
If somebody would hurt my lady I would take care of that before calling the police.
I did that before and will do it in the future.
Not the system is bad (actually the system could be much better and maybe it is bad, but the point is: ) the individual is bad.
Every conscious human can decide whether to do something wrong or let alone.

A rapist seldom will rape a woman because he knows he will get away with. He rapes because he wants to do that and because he doesn’t respect the integrity and personal rights of the woman in question (or any woman).
He is to blame.

A company owner pays a woman less than a man because he wants to save money. He may know that he is likely to get away with it. Partially because the system is not good enough in obviation but even if the penalty for doing so is really painful a lot of people will try not to get caught.
He is to blame.


I am not asking for ‘making feminism about everyone equally’. I am asking people like you to stop fighting me an allow me to help you fighting the asshole who is to blame.
Is it that difficult to understand?
Is it so important to get your revenge for the oppression of you, your mother, your grandmother and so on?
Because it feels like it is nothing else than vengefulness, when I read your answer.

 

[intothewoods]

I don't know what the numbers are but 46 female fighter pilots sounds like a lot to me. Considering all the academic requirements and the willingness to drop 500 pound bombs on the head of Abdul and Kaashif as they speed away from their IED planting in their 1194 Toyota pick up truck. I don't see many Vassar College chicks wanting to stand in line to apply for that job.

Blatant attempt to rile up the board WIN

Oh oh oh - funny Homer Simpson quote - to Lisa - I've had just about enough of your Vassar bashing young lady!

I think so, too.
There are differences.
Not being overly into law things I can only guess (and ask the german part of the net for specific questions) but freedom of speech is not that sacred over here. At least as I view it.
Whenever you openly tell any kind of opinion in Germany that doesn’t come down to ‘Hitler was a son of satan and everything that happened back then was utterly devilish’ you may find yourself accused of 'incitement of the people'.
This comes prior to the freedom of speech. But of course not everybody goes to jail for it. But the media acts like a bunch of sharks in frenzy about it.

Privacy on the other hand can be considered nearly sacred over here, too.
We had our share of outrage regarding censorship of the internet for fighting child pornography recently. Eavesdropping is also an issue.

What about freedom of assembly in the US?
And am I going to get lapidated for carrying on with this totally off topic one?



Privacy is another thing.

Interesting stuff.

On the topic of what Americans view as sacred - the right to litigate is right up there! European business people are sometimes perplexed by the way lawsuits go here.

 

[intothewoods]

No. I don’t.
I try to point out where this could lead to.
And please excuse that, but your reaction reinforces my concern.

I never blame situations or systems.
What is that good for?
If somebody would hurt my lady I would take care of that before calling the police.
I did that before and will do it in the future.
Not the system is bad (actually the system could be much better and maybe it is bad, but the point is: ) the individual is bad.
Every conscious human can decide whether to do something wrong or let alone.

A rapist seldom will rape a woman because he knows he will get away with. He rapes because he wants to do that and because he doesn’t respect the integrity and personal rights of the woman in question (or any woman).
He is to blame.

A company owner pays a woman less than a man because he wants to save money. He may know that he is likely to get away with it. Partially because the system is not good enough in obviation but even if the penalty for doing so is really painful a lot of people will try not to get caught.
He is to blame.


I am not asking for ‘making feminism about everyone equally’. I am asking people like you to stop fighting me an allow me to help you fighting the asshole who is to blame.
Is it that difficult to understand?
Is it so important to get your revenge for the oppression of you, your mother, your grandmother and so on?
Because it feels like it is nothing else than vengefulness, when I read your answer.

Most people -- no matter who they are -- will not voluntarily give up power and supremacy.

 

[where]

Ha.

It's interesting that WD gave an exception for Israeli women, due to their alleged "warrior spirit." Wish we had an Israeli on the board to comment on that.

But speaking of Israel and women's rights, this crap is so disgusting.

I think a 'warrior spirit' can be socialised into anyone irrespective of gender (though I think the likelihood of my little she-devil taking up arms as opposed to nail polish is zero) and given that Israel is incredibly militaristic as a society, that shouldn't be a surprise.

6 months?
Pretty useless, but very bureaucratic...
Call it german.
As I said I expect the draft to get abandoned soon.

It is, however, fact that a german male has to attend and a female has not.
I would call that a privilege and that was what we were talking about.
The networking doesn’t take place. Trust me. In civilian service they smoke joints together and in military service they learn how to dodge working too hard. But actually keeping in touch after service doesn’t happen more often than it does with somebody you meet on a vacation.
I think you have this ‘old boy network’ stuff in mind, but that doesn’t happen in the german military on this level.
We are not very good at this kind of stuff…
ok, so unlike during the UK draft there is no networking. I have to say you don't exactly make the german draft sound too bad!

What happens is, that you get your job education or university-entrance diploma and have to attend to military or civilian service instead of getting a job or starting university.
but only by 6 months and given that half the population is doing it, it cannot be argued that it puts you at a disadvantage in terms of university application or career.


You are right in this. Can’t deny.
I think the whole thing slowly drifts out of the context it was meant to be understood in.




I do not find it horrible. It’s okay with me.
But aren’t we talking about recent things? We seem to agree that we don’t want to talk about history except for the recent history of feminism needed to let this discussion make sense…
So for this one think the odds are balanced.

but the history is important! History puts stuff into context and makes it easier for us to see where we are going.


Come on.
If I am not allowed to generalize you should not do it, too…
I never said you couldn't generalise and actually, I'm not. I'm not saying all men are rapists or bastards or shits. I'm actually saying the opposite (ok, so yes, i'm generalising there, but positively, right?
What I’m saying is that I don’t want to be blamed for oppressing women and that instead of feminism we all together should try to fight for everybody’s rights.
You don’t want to blame me for every man’s rape of a woman but you tell me that I actually have the ultimate privilege of getting away with raping one everywhere?
because we are talking about SOCIETY! it's a big picture. no, you individually are not to blame if a woman gets raped, but if you, as a man support the status quo of your legal system, then in a way you are responsible if men continue to get off legally.
Every minute somebody is getting away with taking advantage of somebody on every continent, because of a position of power or enough money.
and on the whole for every poor mexican/african/chinese/whatever man, there is a woman much more poor and much more oppressed
All I say is that rape or gender discrimination is not the whole problem and the focusing on only feminism is wrong.
I am asking to stop arguing that only women are on disadvantage. Everybody without money is on disadvantage.

no, rape and gender discrimination aren't the whole problem, they are symptoms of the underlying cause which is an andro-centric society and the tokenistic anti-discrimination laws are merely sticking plasters. The people who have no money are disadvantaged. The most powerful group on the planet as a whole are white, western men and as a group they do their best to keep hold of that power.

But back to topic:
Basically I don't even want to argue for men’s rights.
I think all people have enough 'rights'.
The laws are not perfect, but they are okay in most places of the first world. And equalized due to the efforts of feminists.
(That's why I said feminism was a good idea when it started.)

Of course in reality the laws often cannot or will not get applied. And discrimination takes place.

But fighting against this under the label of feminism bears danger in my opinion.
Feminism is the fight for female rights. Equal rights in small ‘f’ and maybe more than a fair share in big ‘F’.
But how likely is a fight to be stopped exactly when equal rights are established?
When did a struggle of this scale stop when the initial goal was achieved?
Isn’t it tempting to put on the fight after reaching equality for squeezing a bit more out of it?

Feminism is is starting to trigger a response on the male side.
I can’t remember anybody to think about some kind of ‘male rights Organization’ back in the 80s. But I met men who actually think about it nowadays.
Out of fear of getting overwhelmed.
Maybe the fear is absurd. But on the other hand history shows that struggles between ‘ethnic groups’ tend to get out of hand. And I do see parallels between those struggles and this one.

That’s why I say: Yes. Feminism has gone too far.
Stop it now and reunite with the males who deserve it (by treating women equal) and let them fight by your side against the remaining chauvinists and all those other problems yet to be solved.

Clearer now?

I think Netzach nails it right here....

You're blaming feminism for the fact that some men are threatened by it.

 

[WriterDom]

I don't think they're yanking the average male fighter pilot out of Haverford or Swarthmore either, duh. If you didn't notice, there are women at West Point these days.

West Point would be the army. United States Air Force Academy has women, yes, 20%. Or about 200 a year. The Air Force has a lot more needs than just pilots so you are looking at a very limited number of flying slots and out of those only a tiny majority will even get the chance to strap into a fighter jet. The best of the best.

 

[Netzach]

No. I don’t.
I try to point out where this could lead to.
And please excuse that, but your reaction reinforces my concern.

I never blame situations or systems.
What is that good for?
If somebody would hurt my lady I would take care of that before calling the police.
I did that before and will do it in the future.
Not the system is bad (actually the system could be much better and maybe it is bad, but the point is: ) the individual is bad.
Every conscious human can decide whether to do something wrong or let alone.

A rapist seldom will rape a woman because he knows he will get away with. He rapes because he wants to do that and because he doesn’t respect the integrity and personal rights of the woman in question (or any woman).
He is to blame.

A company owner pays a woman less than a man because he wants to save money. He may know that he is likely to get away with it. Partially because the system is not good enough in obviation but even if the penalty for doing so is really painful a lot of people will try not to get caught.
He is to blame.


I am not asking for ‘making feminism about everyone equally’. I am asking people like you to stop fighting me an allow me to help you fighting the asshole who is to blame.
Is it that difficult to understand?
Is it so important to get your revenge for the oppression of you, your mother, your grandmother and so on?
Because it feels like it is nothing else than vengefulness, when I read your answer.

Every man I've ever met is completely 100 percent absolutely "blameless" because he's not a rapist and an abuser, in that case, and all problems are "that guy."

It's simply not the job of women to make you comfortable all the time. It's your job to know what's right and care about it , because it's right, because you would not want to be treated like me, my mother and my grandmother.

Jusr as it's not up to people of color to make me feel sufficiently patted on the head and excluded from all resentment for me to want to end racism in myself and in the world.

 

[Netzach]

West Point would be the army. United States Air Force Academy has women, yes, 20%. Or about 200 a year. The Air Force has a lot more needs than just pilots so you are looking at a very limited number of flying slots and out of those only a tiny majority will even get the chance to strap into a fighter jet. The best of the best.

When I look at fighter pilot bios there's a lot of West Point in the resumes. I'd say that it won't take much time for women to show up proportionally in fighter pilot slots, at around 10-12 percent of them factoring that in.

 

[JMohegan]

Most people -- no matter who they are -- will not voluntarily give up power and supremacy.

The Triumphant Decline of the WASP


FIVE years ago, the Supreme Court, like the United States, had a plurality of white Protestants. If Elena Kagan — whose confirmation hearings begin today — is confirmed, that number will be reduced to zero, and the court will consist of six Catholics and three Jews.

It is cause for celebration that no one much cares about the nominee’s religion. We are fortunate to have left behind the days when there was a so-called “Catholic seat” on the court, or when prominent Jews (including the publisher of this newspaper) urged President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939 not to nominate Felix Frankfurter because they worried that having “too many” Jews on the court might fuel anti-Semitism.

But satisfaction with our national progress should not make us forget its authors: the very Protestant elite that founded and long dominated our nation’s institutions of higher education and government, including the Supreme Court. Unlike almost every other dominant ethnic, racial or religious group in world history, white Protestants have ceded their socioeconomic power by hewing voluntarily to the values of merit and inclusion, values now shared broadly by Americans of different backgrounds. The decline of the Protestant elite is actually its greatest triumph.

Like any ethno-racial or religious group, the population of white Protestants is internally diverse. It would be foolish to conflate the descendants of New England smallholders with the offspring of Scandinavian sod farmers in the Middle West, just as it would be a mistake to confuse the Milanese with the Sicilians, or the children of Havana doctors with the grandchildren of dirt farmers from Chiapas, Mexico.

So, when discussing the white elite that exercised such disproportionate power in American history, we are talking about a subgroup, mostly of English or Scots-Irish origin, whose ancestors came to this land in the 17th and 18th centuries. Their forebears fought the American Revolution and wrote the Constitution, embedding in it a distinctive set of beliefs of Protestant origin, including inalienable rights and the separation of church and state.

It is not as though white Protestants relinquished power quickly or without reservation. Catholic immigrants, whether from Ireland or Southern Europe, faced a century of organized discrimination and were regularly denounced as slavish devotees of the pope unsuited to democratic participation.

And, although anti-Semitism in America never had anything like the purchase it had in Europe, it was a persistent barrier. Protestants like Abbott Lawrence Lowell, a great president of Harvard in the early 20th century, tried to impose formal quotas to limit Jewish admissions to the university. The Protestant governing elite must also bear its own share of responsibility for slavery and racial discrimination.

Yet, after the ideals of meritocratic inclusion gained a foothold, progress was remarkably steady and smooth. Take Princeton University, a longtime bastion of the Southern Protestant elite in particular. The Princeton of F. Scott Fitzgerald was segregated and exclusive. When Hemingway described Robert Cohn in the opening of “The Sun Also Rises” as a Jew who had been “the middleweight boxing champion of Princeton,” he was using shorthand for a character at once isolated, insecure and pugnacious. As late as 1958, the year of the “dirty bicker” in which Jews were conspicuously excluded from its eating clubs, Princeton could fairly have been seen as a redoubt of all-male Protestant privilege.

In the 1960s, however, Princeton made a conscious decision to change, eventually opening its admissions to urban ethnic minorities and women. That decision has now borne fruit. Astonishingly, the last three Supreme Court nominees — Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — are Princeton graduates, from the Classes of 1972, ’76, and ’81, respectively. The appointments of these three justices to replace Protestant predecessors turned the demographic balance of the court.

Why did the Protestant elite open its institutions to all comers? The answer can be traced in large part to the anti-aristocratic ideals of the Constitution, which banned titles of nobility and thus encouraged success based on merit. For many years, the Protestant elite was itself open to rising white Protestants not from old-family backgrounds.

Money certainly granted entrée into governing circles, but education was probably more important to the way the Protestant elite defined itself, which is why the opening of the great American universities has had such an epochal effect in changing the demographics of American elites. Another key source was the ideal of fair play, imported from the ideology of the English public schools, but practiced far more widely in the United States than in the class-ridden mother country.

Together, these social beliefs in equality undercut the impulse toward exclusive privilege that every successful group indulges on occasion. A handful of exceptions for admission to societies, clubs and colleges — trivial in and of themselves — helped break down barriers more broadly. This was not just a case of an elite looking outside itself for rejuvenation: the inclusiveness of the last 50 years has been the product of sincerely held ideals put into action.

Interestingly, this era of inclusion was accompanied by a corresponding diffusion of the distinctive fashion (or rather anti-fashion) of the Protestant elite class. The style now generically called “prep,” originally known as “Ivy League,” was long purveyed by Jewish and immigrant haberdashers (the “J.” in the New Haven store J. Press stands for Jacobi) and then taken global by Ralph Lauren, né Lifshitz. But until the Protestant-dominated Ivy League began to open up, the wearers of the style were restricted to that elite subculture.

The spread of Ivy League style is therefore not a frivolous matter. Today the wearing of the tweed is not anachronism or assimilation, but a mark of respect for the distinctive ethnic group that opened its doors to all — an accomplishment that must be remembered, acknowledged and emulated.

 

[WriterDom]

I don't have a problem with women being pilots. Put them on alert five on aircraft carriers when they are PMSing.

 

[Netzach]

The Triumphant Decline of the WASP


FIVE years ago, the Supreme Court, like the United States, had a plurality of white Protestants. If Elena Kagan — whose confirmation hearings begin today — is confirmed, that number will be reduced to zero, and the court will consist of six Catholics and three Jews.

It is cause for celebration that no one much cares about the nominee’s religion. We are fortunate to have left behind the days when there was a so-called “Catholic seat” on the court, or when prominent Jews (including the publisher of this newspaper) urged President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939 not to nominate Felix Frankfurter because they worried that having “too many” Jews on the court might fuel anti-Semitism.

But satisfaction with our national progress should not make us forget its authors: the very Protestant elite that founded and long dominated our nation’s institutions of higher education and government, including the Supreme Court. Unlike almost every other dominant ethnic, racial or religious group in world history, white Protestants have ceded their socioeconomic power by hewing voluntarily to the values of merit and inclusion, values now shared broadly by Americans of different backgrounds. The decline of the Protestant elite is actually its greatest triumph.

Like any ethno-racial or religious group, the population of white Protestants is internally diverse. It would be foolish to conflate the descendants of New England smallholders with the offspring of Scandinavian sod farmers in the Middle West, just as it would be a mistake to confuse the Milanese with the Sicilians, or the children of Havana doctors with the grandchildren of dirt farmers from Chiapas, Mexico.

So, when discussing the white elite that exercised such disproportionate power in American history, we are talking about a subgroup, mostly of English or Scots-Irish origin, whose ancestors came to this land in the 17th and 18th centuries. Their forebears fought the American Revolution and wrote the Constitution, embedding in it a distinctive set of beliefs of Protestant origin, including inalienable rights and the separation of church and state.

It is not as though white Protestants relinquished power quickly or without reservation. Catholic immigrants, whether from Ireland or Southern Europe, faced a century of organized discrimination and were regularly denounced as slavish devotees of the pope unsuited to democratic participation.

And, although anti-Semitism in America never had anything like the purchase it had in Europe, it was a persistent barrier. Protestants like Abbott Lawrence Lowell, a great president of Harvard in the early 20th century, tried to impose formal quotas to limit Jewish admissions to the university. The Protestant governing elite must also bear its own share of responsibility for slavery and racial discrimination.

Yet, after the ideals of meritocratic inclusion gained a foothold, progress was remarkably steady and smooth. Take Princeton University, a longtime bastion of the Southern Protestant elite in particular. The Princeton of F. Scott Fitzgerald was segregated and exclusive. When Hemingway described Robert Cohn in the opening of “The Sun Also Rises” as a Jew who had been “the middleweight boxing champion of Princeton,” he was using shorthand for a character at once isolated, insecure and pugnacious. As late as 1958, the year of the “dirty bicker” in which Jews were conspicuously excluded from its eating clubs, Princeton could fairly have been seen as a redoubt of all-male Protestant privilege.

In the 1960s, however, Princeton made a conscious decision to change, eventually opening its admissions to urban ethnic minorities and women. That decision has now borne fruit. Astonishingly, the last three Supreme Court nominees — Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — are Princeton graduates, from the Classes of 1972, ’76, and ’81, respectively. The appointments of these three justices to replace Protestant predecessors turned the demographic balance of the court.

Why did the Protestant elite open its institutions to all comers? The answer can be traced in large part to the anti-aristocratic ideals of the Constitution, which banned titles of nobility and thus encouraged success based on merit. For many years, the Protestant elite was itself open to rising white Protestants not from old-family backgrounds.

Money certainly granted entrée into governing circles, but education was probably more important to the way the Protestant elite defined itself, which is why the opening of the great American universities has had such an epochal effect in changing the demographics of American elites. Another key source was the ideal of fair play, imported from the ideology of the English public schools, but practiced far more widely in the United States than in the class-ridden mother country.

Together, these social beliefs in equality undercut the impulse toward exclusive privilege that every successful group indulges on occasion. A handful of exceptions for admission to societies, clubs and colleges — trivial in and of themselves — helped break down barriers more broadly. This was not just a case of an elite looking outside itself for rejuvenation: the inclusiveness of the last 50 years has been the product of sincerely held ideals put into action.

Interestingly, this era of inclusion was accompanied by a corresponding diffusion of the distinctive fashion (or rather anti-fashion) of the Protestant elite class. The style now generically called “prep,” originally known as “Ivy League,” was long purveyed by Jewish and immigrant haberdashers (the “J.” in the New Haven store J. Press stands for Jacobi) and then taken global by Ralph Lauren, né Lifshitz. But until the Protestant-dominated Ivy League began to open up, the wearers of the style were restricted to that elite subculture.

The spread of Ivy League style is therefore not a frivolous matter. Today the wearing of the tweed is not anachronism or assimilation, but a mark of respect for the distinctive ethnic group that opened its doors to all — an accomplishment that must be remembered, acknowledged and emulated.

I'm sorry, this POV is deranged. The idea that change was due to protestant largesse and not outsider struggle backed by court rulings is an interesting bit of revisionism. Feldman, huh? We do self hate so well.

 

[JMohegan]

I think a 'warrior spirit' can be socialised into anyone irrespective of gender (though I think the likelihood of my little she-devil taking up arms as opposed to nail polish is zero) and given that Israel is incredibly militaristic as a society, that shouldn't be a surprise.

I am very aggressive in an athletic context.

I do not have a 'warrior spirit.'

For one thing, I would never fly over to Iraq and start shooting people, just because George Bush tells me to. Nor would I start pushing buttons to guide drones to drop bombs on Afghan targets in civilian locations per an Obama directive.

I refuse to subjugate my own judgment on right & wrong in life & death issues, even if my refusal to do so would get me locked up. For that reason alone, I would suck as a warrior. I think too much.

 

[WriterDom]

The Triumphant Decline of the WASP


FIVE years ago, the Supreme Court, like the United States, had a plurality of white Protestants. If Elena Kagan — whose confirmation hearings begin today — is confirmed, that number will be reduced to zero, and the court will consist of six Catholics and three Jews.

It is cause for celebration that no one much cares about the nominee’s religion. We are fortunate to have left behind the days when there was a so-called “Catholic seat” on the court, or when prominent Jews (including the publisher of this newspaper) urged President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939 not to nominate Felix Frankfurter because they worried that having “too many” Jews on the court might fuel anti-Semitism.

But satisfaction with our national progress should not make us forget its authors: the very Protestant elite that founded and long dominated our nation’s institutions of higher education and government, including the Supreme Court. Unlike almost every other dominant ethnic, racial or religious group in world history, white Protestants have ceded their socioeconomic power by hewing voluntarily to the values of merit and inclusion, values now shared broadly by Americans of different backgrounds. The decline of the Protestant elite is actually its greatest triumph.

Like any ethno-racial or religious group, the population of white Protestants is internally diverse. It would be foolish to conflate the descendants of New England smallholders with the offspring of Scandinavian sod farmers in the Middle West, just as it would be a mistake to confuse the Milanese with the Sicilians, or the children of Havana doctors with the grandchildren of dirt farmers from Chiapas, Mexico.

So, when discussing the white elite that exercised such disproportionate power in American history, we are talking about a subgroup, mostly of English or Scots-Irish origin, whose ancestors came to this land in the 17th and 18th centuries. Their forebears fought the American Revolution and wrote the Constitution, embedding in it a distinctive set of beliefs of Protestant origin, including inalienable rights and the separation of church and state.

It is not as though white Protestants relinquished power quickly or without reservation. Catholic immigrants, whether from Ireland or Southern Europe, faced a century of organized discrimination and were regularly denounced as slavish devotees of the pope unsuited to democratic participation.

And, although anti-Semitism in America never had anything like the purchase it had in Europe, it was a persistent barrier. Protestants like Abbott Lawrence Lowell, a great president of Harvard in the early 20th century, tried to impose formal quotas to limit Jewish admissions to the university. The Protestant governing elite must also bear its own share of responsibility for slavery and racial discrimination.

Yet, after the ideals of meritocratic inclusion gained a foothold, progress was remarkably steady and smooth. Take Princeton University, a longtime bastion of the Southern Protestant elite in particular. The Princeton of F. Scott Fitzgerald was segregated and exclusive. When Hemingway described Robert Cohn in the opening of “The Sun Also Rises” as a Jew who had been “the middleweight boxing champion of Princeton,” he was using shorthand for a character at once isolated, insecure and pugnacious. As late as 1958, the year of the “dirty bicker” in which Jews were conspicuously excluded from its eating clubs, Princeton could fairly have been seen as a redoubt of all-male Protestant privilege.

In the 1960s, however, Princeton made a conscious decision to change, eventually opening its admissions to urban ethnic minorities and women. That decision has now borne fruit. Astonishingly, the last three Supreme Court nominees — Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — are Princeton graduates, from the Classes of 1972, ’76, and ’81, respectively. The appointments of these three justices to replace Protestant predecessors turned the demographic balance of the court.

Why did the Protestant elite open its institutions to all comers? The answer can be traced in large part to the anti-aristocratic ideals of the Constitution, which banned titles of nobility and thus encouraged success based on merit. For many years, the Protestant elite was itself open to rising white Protestants not from old-family backgrounds.

Money certainly granted entrée into governing circles, but education was probably more important to the way the Protestant elite defined itself, which is why the opening of the great American universities has had such an epochal effect in changing the demographics of American elites. Another key source was the ideal of fair play, imported from the ideology of the English public schools, but practiced far more widely in the United States than in the class-ridden mother country.

Together, these social beliefs in equality undercut the impulse toward exclusive privilege that every successful group indulges on occasion. A handful of exceptions for admission to societies, clubs and colleges — trivial in and of themselves — helped break down barriers more broadly. This was not just a case of an elite looking outside itself for rejuvenation: the inclusiveness of the last 50 years has been the product of sincerely held ideals put into action.

Interestingly, this era of inclusion was accompanied by a corresponding diffusion of the distinctive fashion (or rather anti-fashion) of the Protestant elite class. The style now generically called “prep,” originally known as “Ivy League,” was long purveyed by Jewish and immigrant haberdashers (the “J.” in the New Haven store J. Press stands for Jacobi) and then taken global by Ralph Lauren, né Lifshitz. But until the Protestant-dominated Ivy League began to open up, the wearers of the style were restricted to that elite subculture.

The spread of Ivy League style is therefore not a frivolous matter. Today the wearing of the tweed is not anachronism or assimilation, but a mark of respect for the distinctive ethnic group that opened its doors to all — an accomplishment that must be remembered, acknowledged and emulated.

And the funny thing is there are only like 14 milllion Jews on the planet. Maybe 2% of the US population. So we should have one Jew about every 50 years on the court. Yet we have three?

If I were Buddhist or Hindu I'd be screaming "Affirmative Action!"

 

[Kojote]

Every man I've ever met is completely 100 percent absolutely "blameless" because he's not a rapist and an abuser, in that case, and all problems are "that guy."

So I'm a liar?
It's good I met you who could tell me that I am in fact a rapist and to blame. I wouldn't have known otherwise...

It's simply not the job of women to make you comfortable all the time. It's your job to know what's right and care about it , because it's right, because you would not want to be treated like me, my mother and my grandmother.

Jusr as it's not up to people of color to make me feel sufficiently patted on the head and excluded from all resentment for me to want to end racism in myself and in the world.

I didn't ask any woman to make me comfortable.
I did in the past and will do soon. In bed with the woman who will ask me to make her comfortable, too.
But otherwise I have somebody better suited to make me feel comfortable. And this one is always near, when I want to feel comfortable.
I call the guy 'me'. Know him? Cool dude...

I'm sorry for getting caustic, but reading your replies I cannot see the 'we want equal rights for women' thing. All I see is the 'this fucking basterds will get what they deserve now' thing.

You blame men for the whole problem. And you accept accusing the 'innocent' ones along with the guilty ones.
Do you really think that will solve the problem?
Then get a gun and 'solve' as many of the parts of the problem as you can...

 

[JMohegan]

I'm sorry, this POV is deranged. The idea that change was due to protestant largesse and not outsider struggle backed by court rulings is an interesting bit of revisionism. Feldman, huh? We do self hate so well.

I laughed out loud when I read it.

Have you ever met any white male Princeton grads? A more chauvinistic, elitist, exclusionary group you will never find. Generalizing, obviously, but in the old boy club I'd say they're the worst of the worst.

As for Feldman, he married a non-Jewish female and took heat for it from Jews themselves. Perhaps this is his revenge.

 

[Netzach]

And the funny thing is there are only like 14 milllion Jews on the planet. Maybe 2% of the US population. So we should have one Jew about every 50 years on the court. Yet we have three?

If I were Buddhist or Hindu I'd be screaming "Affirmative Action!"

It's what we tend to annoy our children to do, esp. C. 1940-70something. Indian families annoy their children to be doctors and engineers, and proportionally I'd say you'd see a similar reflection in those fields, of high representation. It'll change soon, enough kids are blowing off what their parents want.

 

[Netzach]

I laughed out loud when I read it.

Have you ever met any white male Princeton grads? A more chauvinistic, elitist, exclusionary group you will never find. Generalizing, obviously, but in the old boy club I'd say they're the worst of the worst.

As for Feldman, he married a non-Jewish female and took heat for it from Jews themselves. Perhaps this is his revenge.

I got a lot of Princeton applications in the mail and I laughed and laughed. Brown, MAYbe. Princeton? Ha. I agree it's the most old-skool of the Ivies. Was Feldman a grad? I can't see why else he'd pat them on the ass?

 

[satindesire]

I don't have a problem with women being pilots. Put them on alert five on aircraft carriers when they are PMSing.

OMG....really?!