Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Institutionalizing inequality: admissions, activism, law


In the news today:

The YDN reports on how the recent School of Architecture scandal brings to light gender inequalities in the school, and why students are voicing complaints. There's a lot of familiar rhetoric there (think back to our discussion of gender statistics on Yale's faculty).

Loren argues for the value of an extra-institutional form of activism:
However, activism contained within the parameters of an influential institution such as Yale and directed towards improving the status of individuals within that institution without challenging its foundations is arguably doomed to reinforce the authority of the institution.
And please check out tonight's event, which addresses an important and underdiscussed distinction:

Drunk Sex or Rape?
An interactive jury exercise by Brett A. Sokolow, J.D.

FEBRUARY 28, 2006
7:00PM
SSS 114

SEXUAL HEALTH AWARENESS WEEK
Sponsored by:
Peer Health Educators, Safety Net, & YUHS Student Health Education

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

How does it feel to be thrashed in the WSJ and blogosphere? This site has been an ad hominem landfill since the beginning whose only dependable characteristics are sloppy thinking and stupidity. Enjoy the abuse--you earned it.

Anonymous said...

i have been wanting to leave this post for a while and the above comment motivated me to finally do so. it's less of a response to the post than just a general comment--which i suppose follows in the vein of a lot of the posts (i have particularly noticed some people's pickiness about spelling that seems a little unneccessary.) Anyway, to get to the point, I simply wanted to say that I enjoy this blog immensely and look forward to reading it every week. In my opinion, your evaluations of yale media and events are some of the first intelligent and uplifting writing around campus that i have read in my time here. Della, your editorial in the herald was the only editorial I have ever clipped out and saved because it really spoke to the way I see and feel about feminism. For those of us who are not great writers (i.e. myself) but who feel the daily influence of misogyny around campus (thank you, mr. gillum), it is so incredibly refreshing to read well-written, thoughful analyses from two intelligent Yalies. In a time when we have the president (former, that is) of the most famous educational institution making comments about women's academic abilities (especially when the field of interest happens to be your own major--cough), your blog is the one space (that i know of) that Yale women can turn to for reassurance that masogyny isnt omnipresent. i hope that you will keep writing in spite of the best efforts of a bunch of anonymous men like the one above (now they are all going to claim to be women) who apparantly feel threatened (else, why the insults?). thank you!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

As a (different) member of the group of "anonymous men" you speak of, I must confirm something you said: I do indeed feel threatened by Broad Recognition. The bloggers' sharp criticisms of the immense misogynist undercurrent at Yale, as evident on this website, really knock me off my feet day in and day out. If these girls are the future of the feminist movement in the United States, we men had better watch out. Their take-no-prisoners attitude, combined with arguments that are just inpentrably sound, is simply incredible.

Anonymous said...

if you are hung up on whether the arguments presented in this blog are impenetrably sound or not why comment on them (maybe you need to read them first?) instead of revelling in your own desperate attempts to create amusing sarcasm. constructive criticism is important for all writers on the internet or otherwise.

Anonymous said...

oh i meant "why not comment on them"

Anonymous said...

Criticism is only constructive when someone is listening.

Anonymous said...

good call katherine... revelling in my desperate sarcastic attempts. desperate indeed, katherine. think before you speak, you silly goose.