Bruin Republicans has stated in its mission statement that it is dedicated to promoting “calm debate on campus and constructive dialogue.”
So, they hosted Milo Yiannopoulos for a talk entitled “Feminism is Cancer.” Yiannopoulos, a reporter for Breitbart, is notorious for comments he has made, including his claim that women want men to commit more rapes because women want “more to complain about.”
We, at Bruin Democrats, were understandably confused as to how “calm debate” and “constructive dialogue” would result from such an event. Nonetheless, we respected Bruin Republicans’ discretion regarding what types of events it holds as well as Yiannopoulos’ First Amendment right. We chose to not organize protests or boycotts surrounding this event and, instead, attended and listened, hoping to see Bruin Republicans stay true to its self-ascribed duty.
We saw nothing of that sort.
Instead, we were left bewildered as to what constructive contribution was made when Yiannopoulos used the phrase “left-wing c—-” to refer to women who are feminists and a “cuck” to refer to their male counterparts and when an audience member screamed that a female protester “needs to get laid.”
We were left confused as to how an event that was meant to promote “thoughtful debate” laid host to comments such as “no one is trans; it’s a brain disease,” “[a female protester] needs some dick in [her] life,” the Black Lives Matter movement is “basically a sort of militaristic, lesbian cult,” “gay culture is at its best when it’s oppressed,” liberals are “so f—— self-involved and stupid and lazy,” “being black is [black people’s] only marketable skill,” “[transexual people] are all crazy” and need “to go to a treatment facility,” and plenty more.
Although it was difficult to wade through these myriad absurdities, we managed to discern several arguments made by Mr. Yiannopoulos on Tuesday night, all of which we believe to be harmfully out of touch with reality. He argued since women have been extended the basic rights of citizenship, “feminism [has] won” and is now, therefore, irrelevant. However, when women working more than 60 hours per week earn 78.3 percent of what men working similar hours earn, when misdiagnoses of women pervade emergency rooms because female pain tends to be “perceived as constructed or exaggerated,” when a female student at UCLA faced “a barrage of cruel and sexist taunts” simply for arguing that women should be given tampons for free, it is difficult to see how the extension of basic civil rights to women has brought the end of sexism.
What is not difficult to see is that Yiannopoulos is himself a counterexample to his claim that sexism is dead, especially when he explains the relegated status of women in the workplace by stating that “the number of really smart girls is miniscule.”
He argued that rape and sexual assault is not endemic to college campuses. However, when “17.7 million American women and 2.78 million American men will be the victim of rape or attempted rape at least once in their lifetime,” when a study conducted by the American Association of Universities found that 23 percent of undergraduate women “experienced unwanted sexual contact since enrolling at the school, either through physical force or because they were incapacitated,” when “only 13 percent of those who were incapacitated by drugs or alcohol” at the time of their sexual assault reported it and when “more than one-third of rape victims [on college campuses] didn’t report the attacks” because “they were ashamed,” it is difficult to see how this claim would be any different from the rest of his claims in that it amounts to anything substantive.
Yiannopoulos argued at the University of Oregon that the notion of a rape culture makes women more likely to get raped and is, therefore, dangerous. We, quite frankly, disagree. We believe that Yiannopoulos’ beliefs – that sexual assault is not prevalent on college campuses and that rape victims are to blame for what their clothes were at the time of their attack – are the dangerous notions here in that they foster a vitriolic environment for our fellow students who have been victims.
In sum, Tuesday night’s talk, “Feminism is Cancer,” laid host to a cesspool of unsubstantiated and dangerous claims delivered by someone who amounts to little more than a self-promoting provocateur. The fashion in which these claims were delivered gives us heavy doubt that any reasonable person would conclude that “calm debate” or “constructive dialogue” resulted from this event.
While, as we have stated, we believe that Bruin Republicans has the right to hold this event and have these opinions, we also agree with Bruin Republicans’ mission statement that the club has a duty to “the pursuit of a healthy and open marketplace of ideas on campus.”
On Tuesday night, the concerns of many women, progressives, minorities and sexual assault victims were met not with substantial disagreements but with denigration and insults, calling into question how Bruin Republicans defines “healthy” and “open.”
Nima Ostowari is a first-year mathematics and economics student and the Bruin Democrats policy director.
It is difficult for me to see that any constructive discussion can be had if the writer insists on stating that somehow women are paid less than men for the same work. That has been illegal in the United States since federal laws were passed against this practice in 1963. Any woman who is paid less than a man for the same work has the ability to sue the violating company for millions of dollars in damages, not to mention the publicity. It would be absurd to pay a woman less for the same work because of the downside of such a practice. Yet the writer here insists on stating that somehow women in this country are paid less because of discrimination. This is a canard used to build imagined grievance, divisiveness, and diversion from the very real economic issues faced by women and men.
Your argument is flawed because it implies that if a certain practice has disadvantages that outweigh its advantages or is absurd, then that practice does not occur. In fact, there are many cases in which some practice is either disadvantageous, absurd, or both, and that practice definitely occurs.
You’ve managed to misquote and paraphrase from Milos talk to make your very flawed arguments. Fantastic that you didn’t organize a protest however many of you comrades managed to block the entrance. What’s great is how much your protests help prove the opposite of your argument and bolster the altright. If you were in attendance you should’ve asked Milo a question. I’m positive he’d have embarrassed you like he always manages to against your ilk. Next time you get the chance ask him about the fake wage gap. Sad!
Isn’t that the point though? That he’d have attempted to embarrass rather than answer the question?
Never once has Milo said that a victim of sexual assault should be blamed for what they are wearing. This essay is riddled with lies. Breitbart are gonna have fun with this.
I hope the author now sees how free speech can work, Milo had his say and now the author can counter. Those of us watching can judge for ourselves. Free speech is a powerful thing.
The only real difference is that no one blocked the readers of this article from seeing it. When you support freedom of speech, people want to hear what you have to say. If you don’t support freedom of speech by blocking, your words are drowned out by your actions.
First, support free speech, then make your speech!
When looking at how prevalent rape is (or isn’t), keep in mind that “unwanted sexual contact” can mean anything from rape down to and including a kiss without a notarized permission slip first.
The Department of Justice has estimated that maybe 1 in 40 college women are raped or sexually assaulted. A serious problem to be sure…let’s cut it down to size.
As for the wage gap — it’s there but it’s smaller than many people think. According to this:
Across all fields, after controlling for major, occupation and grade-point average, the report found women still earned 7 percent less than men. [Emphasis mine.]
Not even accounting for total hours worked, it bears noting.
For that matter, as Claudia Goldin — the first woman to get tenure in Harvard’s Economics department, and in 2014 the president of the American Economic Association — has pointed out that much, if not most, of the wage differences between men and women come down to different workplace and lifestyle choices.
Last but not least, the Washington Post’s Fact Checker twice reviewed the supposed 22ยข wage gap and gave it two Pinocchios, meaning it’s a half truth. Yes, the median woman’s total annual wages, divided by ~0.78, equal the median man’s total annual wages…but when you compare apples to apples, that gap shrinks dramatically.
My understanding is that the wage gap varies by industry and other factors. Of course a male and female individual who are each working retail for minimum wage (or close to it) are going to earn the same amount. The pay rates for those positions are tied to the job descriptions and are not generally negotiated on an individual basis. As you begin to explore higher-paying career paths though, it becomes incredibly opaque and often male and female individuals are treated differently in the contract negotiations. I’m not advocating for cutting men’s wages or imposing any sort of regulation into the system on which those negotiations pivot, but some transparency could do a lot to steer the ship.