Seldom have I seen so many chauvinistic statements in one place as I have in an essay found at Guardian News.com written by an author whose work has appeared in "Time, Cosmopolitan, The Huffington Post and The Daily Beast." I post it as a media bias item because I believe that the views stated therein explicitly and implicitly affect how the press covers so-called "women's issues."
Here is just one sample: "I do consider any Harvard Law School degree obtained by a woman who then chooses not to use it in any sort of professional capacity throughout most of her life a wasted opportunity. That degree could have gone to a woman who does want to spend her entire life using it to advance the cause of women – or others in need of advancement – not simply advancing the lives of her own family at home, which is a noble cause, but not one requiring an elite degree." Other quotes, plus the identity of the author and a link to the essay, follow the jump:
... do the best-educated women in America have a responsibility to use the tools they acquire at top educational institutions to stay in the workplace and shatter glass ceilings? (the author says "yes")
While most sane and fair people can agree that any woman has the right to make whatever choice she believes is best for her family – whether that is choosing to stay home full-time or work outside of the home – there is far less consensus on whether women have a definite responsibility to make choices for the good of all women, such as putting an elite degree to use outside of the home. (Translation: I want it both ways)
[I]n the long run, degrees from competitive institutions should serve as more than modern day charm school or debutante diplomas.
Perhaps instead of bickering over whether or not colleges and universities should ask us to check boxes declaring our racial identity, the next frontier of the admissions should revolve around asking people to declare what they actually plan to do with their degrees.
There's nothing wrong with someone saying that her dream is to become a full-time mother by 30. That is an admirable goal. What is not admirable is for her to take a slot at Yale Law School that could have gone to a young woman whose dream is to be in the Senate by age 40 and in the White House by age 50.
This starkly utllitarian, privacy-invading and ultimately (despite the authors' protests; who is going to force applicnts to answer questions about their life plans, and keep them out of Ivy League schools if they don't?) statist critique was brought to you by Ms. Keli Goff, "a special correspondent for TheRoot.com." Yes, she considers herself a feminist. Among other questionable points, since when do women work primarily to advance the cause of women, which Ms. Goff's appears to believe should be a female worker's most important motivation?
Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds had an interesting response today to the guff Ms. Goff administered to female Ivy undergrads considering devoting themselves to full-time motherhood:
WAIT, WHAT HAPPENED TO “MY BODY, MY CHOICE?”
It’s worth pointing out that this is precisely the argument that used to be employed for excluding women entirely from jobs and educational opportunities — she’ll just go have kids, whereas a man with that credential would be using it to support a family. Ah, how feminism has turned. . . .
Indeed. It has taken us from "a woman's place is in the home" to "an educated woman's place is in the workplace, or she is betraying the cause."
In late October of last year, as noted by Noel Sheppard at NewsBusters, Ms. Goff wrote a Huffington Post item with the following title: "Why Some Women Don't Vote With Their Vaginas" -- in which she wondered why there are any women left"who have not been scared away from conservatives." You see, to Ms. Goff, it's feminists who vote with their vaginas, and it's ignorant women who don't.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
