This is so the worst thing you're going to read today

[Trigger warning for sexual assault]

I was just reminiscing with Liss about the heady pre-9/11 days when I was a student volunteer for my local ACLU chapter. The highlight was clearly getting to briefly meet Molly Ivins.

This brings me to two of the earth-shatteringly novel arguments Wendy Kaminer makes in her Atlantic column, "Sexual Harassment and the Loneliness of the Civil Libertarian Feminist":

1) Why do feminists hate civil liberties?
2) Why don't you bitches lighten up already?

You may have heard that Yale has a wee problem with sexual assault. You may have also heard that a group of women have filed a Title IX complaint against Yale's failure to do anything about sexual harassment and assault.

[Spoiler alert] Kaminer is against these meek feminists' insistence that Yale do something. Because free speech. Because scare quotes. (Seriously, is there a section in the Chicago Manual of Style I can refer her to? That shit is out of hand in this article. "Bullying"? Really?)

Anyhow, there is a serious discussion to be had about the extent of our First Amendment rights, but not only is this not necessarily an appropriate context, it's also not actually what Kaminer appears to be going on about. Mostly she's pissed at feminists. Also: Kaminer is a "feminist".

Like, there's this:

Reviewing the charges of sexual harassment underlying the Title IX complaint by a group of Yale students and alumnae, I can't find feminism -- at least not if feminism includes independence, liberty, and power for women. Instead I find femininity -- the assumption that women are incapable of fending for themselves in the marketplace of epithets or ideas, the belief that women are rendered helpless by misogynist speech and the sexist tantrums of their male peers.

Fucking third-wave feminists being all feminine with their gingham and their heels, and, oh wait, what? Sexist tantrums, rape, whichever. Speaking of meek, feminine, and helpless: Fucking Title IX complaint to the fucking Department of Education. It's like whoa ladies, why don't you put down the lipstick and start standing up for yourself? I mean,

what accounts for such feminine timidity, this instinctive unwillingness or inability to talk or taunt back, without seeking the protection of university or government bureaucrats?

Remember ladies: next time a would-be rapist harasses you, say something unkind. The problem solves itself, really. Let's not built a movement that involves society writ large-- that shit's feminine.

Here's the thing. I'm willing to cede that people have the right to say bigoted things. You know, civil liberties! However, people don't have the right to make threats. Also, Yale? Is not some dude standing on a street corner. In fact, Yale's kinda a big deal. At least I've heard it's big back East.

Yale has women employees. (Inorite? Feminism FTW!) Yale is responsible for their safety, as well as the safety of an entire community of folks, including students-- some of whom are women. Yale even has a police department, which, you know, could take women's complaints about sexual harassment and rape seriously.

Regardless of whether or not "rape culture" is real [Spoiler alert: it is], Yale administrators have the right to speak up, and a responsibility to not foster an environment where women are intimated with threats of violence, and um, the actual physical violence that's actually happened at Yale. So, this whole Title IX business is not really about men saying and doing "stuff", but rather about Yale refusing to say and do stuff. You wouldn't know that from Kaminer's piece, though.

Via: @KateHarding