Laura Kipnis On How Campus Feminism Infantilizes Women

The Northwestern professor discusses her Title IX "inquisition" and the sexual paranoia that has overtaken universities.

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Laura Kipnis On How Campus Feminism Infantilizes Women

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"What now gets labeled feminism on [college] campuses," says Northwestern University Professor Laura Kipnis, "has to do with dialing back a lot the progress women have made establishing ourselves as consenting adults."

That was the main argument of an essay Kipnis published this past February in The Chronicle of Higher Education, titled, "Sexual Paranoia Strikes Academe." After the article appeared, the Northwestern campus erupted in protest. Students demonstrated by carrying mattresses and pillows and wrote a public letter accusing Kipnis of "[spitting] in the face of survivors of rape and sexual assault everywhere."

Then two students filed complaints with the university, and Northwestern brought Kipnis up on charges under Title IX of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which outlaws discrimination on college campuses that receive federal support. The charges were later dismissed, but not before Kipnis wrote a follow up essay in Chronicle, "My Title IX Inquisition."

Last week, Kipnis sat down with Reason's Matt Welch to talk about how campus feminism infantilizes women, Title IX, why Hustler's Larry Flynt and anti-porn activist Andrea Dworkin have a lot in common, and her recent book, Men: Notes from an Ongoing Investigation.

Shot and edited by Jim Epstein, with help from Anthony L. Fisher.

Nineteen minutes and 22 seconds.

Scroll down for downloadable versions and subscribe to Reason TV's YouTube Channel to receive automatic notifications when new material goes live.

Comments

[Dark Lord of the wood chipper]

Didn't watch, did the phrase " hoisted on your own petard" come up?

[Hey Nikki!]

Was there some reason it should have?

[Dark Lord of the wood chipper]

As was pointed out in an earlier thread academia, especially left wing feminists academia, has been cheering and enabling this shot for years.

[Dark Lord of the wood chipper]

Shit, not shot. New phone needs to learn my vocabulary.

[Quixote]

Dark Lord, your typo has a triggering impact. Speaking of which, the content of this interview should be rapidly excised from this website and from Youtube as well, on account of the emotional trauma it has the potential of triggering in students and professors around the country. She describes a distinguished editor as a "scavenger" with a "roving identity," and describes a "secret tribunal" in her university, all of which cannot fail to remind us that words are actions, as prosecutors in New York have decisively demonstrated in a remarkable, precedent-setting case dealing with plagiarism, criminal satire, and the secret processes that take place in our universities. See the documentation at:

http://raphaelgolbtrial.wordpress.com/

[Hey Nikki!]

Except that Kipnis herself has not. I am not responsible for the advocacy of Cass Sunstein. Other waves of feminists are not responsible for the way children are acting now. Do you blame Pankhurst for trigger warnings and safe spaces?

[John Titor]

Yeah I'm not really enjoying today's blanket 'fuck all academics they got what's coming to 'em' attitude. Particularly for ones who have never vigorously supported political correctness. Apparently, despite being against those policies, if I'm ever terminated for an idiotic university policy its my own fault for being a filthy academic.

[Hey Nikki!]

Well, John, at least you have a penis, so you can't be all bad amirite?

[John Titor]

I have several. In jars.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Those are called 'pickles'.

[John Titor]

That there is one ugly ass pickle.

[mpercy]

What's an "ass pickle"?

[kinghiram91]

It's called purging zealots. I get that the crazy campus feminists are an extremely vocal minority, but the silent majority needs to raise their voices. They are letting the radicals do the speaking for them, and instead of fighting that, they let them speak, for fear of othering them.

[Res ipsa loquitur]

Meh, can't make a progressive omelette without cracking I few fellow progressive eggs, who might not be quite as radical as the others.

Tough shit. I enjoy watching it and if the whole rotten structure inside the "soft" sciences comes tumbling down I won't shed a tear. Only when some "regular" proggies are culled will there perhaps be a change. The evil libertarians and conservatives long ago left major parts of academia, while progressives cheered.

[mad.casual]

Yeah, I stopped when she said "What gets labelled as feminism..." and then it turned into an ad for her book about what men want.

[Illocust]

That's an improvement, though. The feminist in my sector of the world still refuse to admit that the crazies even exist, much less that they are associated with feminism. Publicly admitting their existences and arguing how their views are contrary to feminism is the first step in getting rid of their power.

[mad.casual]

Publicly admitting their existences and arguing how their views are contrary to feminism is the first step in getting rid of their power.

She does the former and then goes very limp on the latter.

Token improvement at best.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

*******LAZY INTERN ALERT*******

[Marshal]

Before we start supporting Kipnis we need to understand if she's all in against the campus hysterics or is she solely interested in carving out a safe harbor exception for in-group professors.

[Hey Nikki!]

Maybe reading her columns on the subject would help you out.

[Marshal]

Since she's never made any comments other than about her specific circumstance we'd have to conclude she's only interested in tenure protection. But I thought we should give her the benefit of the doubt for a while at least.

[Hey Nikki!]

That's not true at all. What touched off this whole issue was her rejection of sexual harassment policies that she thought were infantilizing.

[Dark Lord of the wood chipper]

What touched off this whole issue was that professors were added to the list of possible targets. She rails against trigger warnings and student-teacher relationships, but is perfectly fine with chemically castrating any man found guilty of sexual assault by some kangaroo court.

[Hey Nikki!]

Perfectly fine, like we're perfectly fine with woodchippers?

[Hamster of Doom]

No kidding, Dark Lord Preet, we all know how sensitive to badfeelz you are.

[Dark Lord of the wood chipper]

1. What's a Preet?

2. Ive been accused of lots of things. Sensitivity isn't one of them. All I'm saying is don't ask me to cry for Dr. Fronkensteen when the monster he created breaks his legs.

[ImanAzol]

I wonder if MadMikeIn2016.com knows how far his woodchipper policy has spread?

[MarkLastname]

Has she said anything about the treatment of male students, anything at all? If not, I'd be pretty suspicious of her sincerity; it's the students who are getting fucked over by the Title IX bullshit the worst. Professors should be of secondary concern.

[Marshal]

What touched off this whole issue was her rejection of sexual harassment policies that she thought were infantilizing.

That's what I said. She spoke on her very narrow interest objecting to professors being subject to harassment rules that effectively define anything a single woman or gay male dislikes as harassment. But has she ever taken a broader stance noting that this same attitude permeates campus sexual assault adjudication?

Or is her solution to ensure professors are left out of it?

[sjl2112]

Probably the latter, but the latter is a necessary predicate for the former. What's kind of sad listening to Kipnis and Paglia is that they're intellectuals "of a certain age" watching their field get hijacked by a younger generation of mindless Stalinists who have no intellectual agenda, just a political agenda.

There's a certain pathos to all this. You would think that professors would have more solidarity. But the administrators have neutered them with adjuncts, regulations etc. so they are now engaged in an orgy of professional cannibalism. Academic freedom is the last thing our Masters want. Like the Party purges of old, schismatics are more hated than non-believers

[Marshal]

If her goal is tenure protection then she's going to drop out as soon as it's offered. Which means people concerned with more than that cannot allow her to become a leader of the opposition to campus hysterics. If we allow that then her dropping out will be seen as "success" and people who want more will be painted as extremists.

[Hey Nikki!]

She already has tenure.

[Kristen?s Vermeer]

(Guessing Marshaldidn't actually watch the video or listen to anything she said, because she did clearly state she has tenure, and stated that she was fortunate to have had it while fighting this ridiculous battle)

[Marshal]

Which contradicts nothing I write. She was at risk of being fired despite her tenure (as was the male subject of her original article). Her public writings object only to that.

[Marshal]

What I mean by that is ensuring tenure includes protection from the sort of witchhunt she was subjected to.

[John C. Randolph]

They seem more Maoist than Stalinist to me, what with the rampaging mobs of kids denouncing ideological deviation from the party line.

-jcr

[Marshal]

That's a feature of radicals generally not any particular ideology. See: Reign of Terror.

[Osama bin Pimpin]

I don't care if she's mostly motivated by a secret desire to bang her undergraduate students. Same reason I don't care if frat boys are against all the campus hysterics because of the way it oppresses fraternities. You can support a principle in a principled fashion while mostly focusing on how it affects you in particular.

Just as long as you don't oppose the same principle when applied to other people in other situations (e.g. free speech for me but not for thee). Sure she made some hyperbolic statements about punishing real harassers with castration, but that is the obligatory hyperbole about being supervigilant over real sex crimes made by anyone (including authors here) who attack the politically correct consensus (much like saying "some of my best friends are black" before expressing politically incorrect views on race, annoying really).

[Vapourwear]

Exactly.

People generally don't notice ANYTHING until it screws with their own bottom line.

I don't think we can fault people for being rationally self-interested about their time, though.

Just be glad people come over, no matter how they got there.

[Zaytsev damns the squirrels]

Reason has an obligation to provide safe spaces for those triggered when they interview a blatant rape culture apologist.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

Step right into Warty's basement.

[Mr Lizard]

STEVE SMITH ENDORSE THIS STATEMENT...MORE THE MERRIER

[John Titor]

I might disagree with anarcho-feminists on their philosophy or arguments, but I can at least recognize their discussions on 'oppression' are somewhat consistent. Statist feminists, however, floor me with their lack of self awareness. The position many hold, where government acts as protector and provider (healthcare, birth control, 'equal pay', etc.) are completely inconsistent with their claims of creating 'strong/independent/whatever' women. How is this not an example of feminists encouraging dependency on the government as a surrogate replacement for the traditional roles of fathers or husbands? How is that not the exact kind of 'patriarchy' they claim to be against? It's moronic.

[Kristen?s Vermeer]

I think you've analyzed it correctly. There is a huge, glaring contradiction in statist feminists' reasoning (or complete lack thereof, I guess). Statists feminists are all about the whole "damsel in distress" point of view.

I think it's important to note that because someone identifies themselves as a feminist (I definitely do!) doesn't necessarily mean what people think it means.

[John Titor]

I tend to throw qualifiers like statist/anarcho/third wave/whatever in front of the term 'feminist' for that reason. Because there's glaring differences between someone like McElroy or Paglia and say, Butler or the more infamous Daly/Dwokin types.

[tarran]

I wouldn't say that that's a quality of 'statist' feminists.

I break down feminists into several broad groups. I list the major ones below (obviously not comprehensive):

1) Equality types: want a gender blind society

2) Matriarchial chauvinists: want women to be in charge

3) Utilitarian: want a society that accomodates women's needs for assistance in certain spheres in hopes of maximizing everyone's happiness.

4) Man haters: Once sperm can be artificially generated, to the camps with the violent ape-men!

5) Timorous: They fear male domination and want women protected from it.

The timorous feminists basically agree with the male chauvinists about women being weaker/less able/easily subordinated to men. They are the ones who think purdah is a wonderful thing, rhapsodizing about the safe space free of men that is created there.

The timorous feminists are allied with the man-haters and on certain issues with the matriarchial chauvinists. They also tend to rely more on the sorts of emotional appeal that make for lurid headlines and attention grabbing CNN segments of shouting pundits that can be cobbled together quickly.

And, yes, the timorous feminists tend to be statist to the core, since the state acts as the ersatz husband protecting them from the outside world.

[bacon-magic]

"Broad groups." I see what you did there...

[Fist of Etiquette]

Is that a fauxhawk?

[Matt Welch]

This haircut has been...problematic.

[sjl2112]

Go with it. It's all about attitude.

[Hamster of Doom]

What he said, Welch. No such thing as a respectable fauxhawk. Own it. Be all, "I'm Matt fucking Welch."

I think you can pull it off.

[Hey Nikki!]

Rock it, Matt!

[Kristen?s Vermeer]

At least you weren't recently sporting a bowl cut.

[Mr Lizard]

You know who else....left one hanging over the plate?...

[Crusty Juggler]

Dennis Eckersley?

[Kristen?s Vermeer]

She's sounds a little like the cognitive dissonance of her lefty politics and her desire for open speech and non-victimization is starting to crack.

She even talks about over-regulation of human relations (not just sexual, but business relationships as well).

[Swiss Servator, Holzhacker]

"She even talks about over-regulation of human relations (not just sexual, but business relationships as well)."

Whoa...if she hadn't been kicked out of the club before, that sure would do it!

[adolphowisner]

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[Swiss Servator, Holzhacker]

DON'T TALK ABOUT LUCILLE!

[Harvard]

Lucille is gone, man. Along with the thrill, Lucille is gone.

[AlmightyJB]

She picked a fine time to leave

[BuSab Agent]

I used to hear the lyrics as "four hundred children and a crop in the field" and I thought "Well, of course she left you. That's way too many children."

[BearOdinson]

While Ricky is working his ass off at the club, Fred is giving it to Lucy from behind while she rakes in the dough off the computer for her shopping habits.

[ant1sthenes]

Like many other movements, the Reds hijacked feminism to serve their own purposes. Necessarily, at some point the actual interests of women and the interests of CPUSA are going to be in conflict, and that conflict will delineate the border between feminism and "feminism". After all, who is easier for a totalitarian state to control, an independent, confident person who might second-guess the idiotic dictates of their betters, or someone who is terrified of the world and the prospect of surviving on their own (ie, an adult or a child?).

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[Paul.]

Kipnis asks what happens to these students after graduation, when they don't have administrators protecting them from injury and being triggered.

I have an answer to that: they'll turn to government and thus the state increasingly becomes that administrative body.

These kids don't just go away after graduation, they're very much with us, they'll vote in elections and I suspect the most active voices in this campus movement will in fact be drawn to the public and political sector where they'll have an outsized impact on the social and legislative fabric.

[rpullman]

In the 60's the term "nonstudent" came into use, meaning graduates and drop-outs who stayed in town, hung out with the same crowd, and somehow got by. Probably most of these moved on after a couple of years.

Administrative jobs with kindred spirits, in academia and government bureaucracies, are perfect opportunities to spend one's entire career in the safe space echo chamber.

[C. S. P. Schofield]

Welcome, Dr. Kipnis, to the teality of Liberal Progressvism that the rest of us have been living with for most of a Cemtury; that Progressivism is, at base, a religious sect, and intolerant at that. It used to be that you had to really deviate from the Orthodoxy tomget the Stalinist Star Chamber treatment, but as the failure of Communism is undermining the whole Progressive dream, they are going mental and attacking anything and anybody they think they can tear down (and never, EVER, anyone likely to hit back). These are the vermin you threw in with when you embraced Progressivism.

Good luck.

[Mike M.]

I can't improve on this.

[mkreitler]

I thought she sounded pretty reasonable until:

"...and if women are earning 72% or whatever of what men are, it's because male wages have decreased."

And then I knew she was operating "fact free," and I shouldn't take anything she said seriously...

[Paul.]

Just because she's swallowed the run-of-the-mill economic talking points that... pretty much everyone in the media spouts doesn't mean her views on the state of feminism on campus are entirely without merit.

I don't know a lot about Kipnis, but when she said that modern feminism wants to explicitly roll back the progress women have made in being treated as consenting adults, I felt she summed up the entire controversy quite nicely.

[RWR]

As a former student of hers (late 80's), I have followed her situation a bit. But yes..that reflexive use of the wage gap meme made me cringe.
http://www.washingtonexaminer......le/2557200
Unfortunately, regarding figures in academia...probably better not throw baby out with the bathwater and embrace broader thinking when it occurs.
She also comments about tenure as a protection that allows here to stand up to this. However, the path to tenure tends to weed out those who would ever do so. I just mean that if the approval system itself favors conformity, that's what you will likely get.
She's just in the unfortunate position of the terms being redefined...which when tied to institutional funding/$$, subject her to a "secret tribunal".
It would be fun to see if she feels any sympathy for WI state workers subjected to "jon doe" investigations. At least she didn't have thugs at her door in the middle of the night.

[ImanAzol]

I weep for all the unmade sandwiches.

[RWR]

There is still time to make a few. Do your part.

[Grumpy Old Timer]

US Coeds = Eloi

[Vapourwear]

So who are the Morlocks in this allegory?

[nohukowuci]

Google pay 97$ per hour my last pay check was $8500 working 1o hours a week online. My younger brother friend has been averaging 12k for months now and he works about 22 hours a week. I cant believe how easy it was once I tried it out.
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[AD-RtR/OS!]

As if the poor little dears needed any help.

[julenochoa]

What is it with the crap about men, Matt? A bunch of women talk sexist crap about men not doing what they want men to do and you just supinely regurgitate it?

[julenochoa]

Also note that the only reason she is getting this kind of attention is because of her sex. You ought to pay more attention to the Barnett case at Colorado.

[Mike M.]

Yep, it seems like only yesterday that the far left said that America is a bunch of prudes who should be more sexually liberated like Europe.

Now, these same assholes tell us that it's practically a crime to say that a woman is good-looking (like soccer player Alex Morgan for example).

[MindWithAView]

I think we should think long and hard before valorizing Kipnis. In her Chronicle essay, she openly brags about seducing her professors when she was in school, and encourages students today to do the same today. Sex, in her estimation, is the great equalizer which allows students to feel their own power. She also objects to warning professors to avoid engaging in "unwanted advances" because, as she quips, how do you know whether they are unwanted unless you try? The very idea that professors should not cross that line is incomprehensible to her. She rails against feminism for "infantilizing" female students such that they are emotionally traumatized by professors who come on to them. I am no fan of gender feminists, but it is hardly the pinnacle of female adulthood and empowerment to sleep your way to power.

Contrast the professoriate's rallying around these sexual predators with the outrage leveled at Bill Cosby for preying on young actresses. And no, it isn't all about the quaaludes. It's about feeling betrayed and used by someone considered a role model.

[MindWithAView]

And yes, the "long and hard" was meant as a pun. Seemed apropos given the topic.

[Nelly Gutcher]

Surely, when woman's rights are violated, we should speak up. But when everything is pretty normal, why make the big deal out of it? I am a woman myself but I just don't get those active (well, really really active) feminists trying to prove they are right though they might be wrong. Of course, I'm not saying we should be silent. There are guys that believe a woman was born to cook, clean and look after children. And if you think this is wrong, you can try changing their way of thinking (which most probably won't be changed..well you'll just have one more enemy). Still, there are women who are pretty fine with cooking, cleaning and looking after children. Personally I am for equality among women and men. As to the word 'feminism', now to me it associates with women ruling over men and nothing about equality among two genders. I guess that's because of all those feminists movements. Anyways, as an essay proofreader - onlineessayeditor.net once I edited a research that states only 18 percent of Americans consider themselves feminists.

[Nelly Gutcher]

Besides, I personally think the majority of feminists are who they are because they were either (almost) abused or saw a close friend or relative being abused. I haven't experienced either. And I'm pretty satisfied with where I am. And probably that's why I don't get involved in feminists movements. Well, you can say I'm passive and don't care about important issues, but will protests or other movements have change the minds of those men who believe women are inferior to them? Why not just leave those men alone and spend some quality time doing what you really want? Still, if being a feminist is what you really want, then go ahead and do it!