An article in my alma mater’s (Brandeis University) newspaper, The Justice explains that two Brandeis Women’s Studies professors argue that (surprise!) what most of us think of as gender (or, some would say, “sex”) differences are actually mere stereotypes. Maybe it’s unfair for me to comment without reading the professors’ entire book, not to mention the numerous studies on which they claim to rely. But I was struck by this: “Barnett said their findings revealed that men and women value kindness, understanding and intelligence other [sic? rather?] than financial prospects. She said this counters stereotypes that men prefer young females who are good looking and women prefer men with good financial prospects.” I know people are likely to say they prefer kindess, etc. to looks (for men) and financial success (for women), but (1) surely there is no contradiction between wanting a kind, understanding, and intelligent mate and wanting that mate to also be either “good looking” or “financially sucess[ful]”–factors which may become less important once you get to know someone but may strongly influence who one is willing to date to begin with; and (2) I do wonder whether the authers considered the revealed preferences that seem blatantly obvious to those of us who merely observe human behavior (and maybe even look at the statistics, e.g., on which sex the Mays and Decembers tend to be in May-December relationships).
As an important aside, Professor Shulamit Reinharz, director of Brandeis’s Women’s Studies Center (and wife of university president Jehuda Reinharz) told the reporter that “Brandeis stands for excellence and social justice. [Gender equality] is a question of social justice.” Brandeis “stands for social justce”???? Maybe I’m a little old-fashioned, but aren’t universities supposed to stand for the pursuit of truth, “even unto its
innermost parts” (Brandeis’s motto). What if the truth conflicts with Professor Reinharz’s notions of “social justice?” Will a faculty member who pursues such truth get hired to teach Women’s Studies? Will a student who pursues such truth get a good grade?
I recently received some alumni communications that also stressed Brandeis as an institution committed to “social justice.” I had attributed this slogan to an overzealous (and overly ideological) alumni office employee, but apparently this is a meme being encouraged at the highest levels of Brandeis. Brandeis has always been a lefty place, but it never in my experience (I graduated in 1988) had the chutzpah to suggest as official policy that only politically correct views are acceptable, or that the encouragement of left-wing activism, rather than scholarship, was the school’s mission.
UPDATE: Ted Frank of Overlawyered.com sends me this link to Brandeis’ mission statement, which is about as I remember it and says nothing about “social justice” (which, I should point out, is something conservatives may believe in, despite Hayek’s claim that there is no such thing, but which in practical terms is a code phrase for the left-wing political goals). However, the powers-that-be at Brandeis apparently think that this mission statement is no longer sufficient, and the web page with the mission statement is headlined by a quote in VERY LARGE letters from President Reinharz stating: “Brandeis has a clear and unambiguous identity that rests on four solid pillars: dedication to academic excellence, non sectarianism, a commitment to social action, and continuous sponsorship by the Jewish community.” Nothing about the pursuit of truth, much less to its innermost parts. How sad. (Update: Contrary to an email I just received, the statement by President Reinharz is quite clearly from his inaugural address, and is not a part of the mission statement, though the relevant web page seems to have been set up to intentially cause precisely that confusion.)
Saddened (or outraged) members of the greater Brandeis community may contact Professor Reinharz [update: I mean, President Reinharz, who seems to be the ultimate guilty party with regard to defining Brandeis’s mission as including politics] at jreinhar at sign brandeis.edu.
Further UPDATE: Kieran Healy shows his commitment to the pursuit of truth by intentionally cutting off a quotation from my post exactly at a point where doing so makes me look bad, implying that I was critiquing an entire book based on one quotation from the authors. It’s clear from my entire post, however, that I was critiquing the substance of the quotation itself (that certain readily observable sex/gender differences are mere stereotypes, and the implication that e.g., if men are more likely than women to value youth and beauty that means they don’t value anything else) while acknowledging that in their book the authors may make a more subtle point not reflected the quotation. Kieran, how about lowering the volume on the snarkiness and actually commenting on the substance of my post?
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