Gender Theory: Beyond Parody

Posted on | July 4, 2014 | 75 Comments

Breanna Fahs is a feminist, but you probably already guessed that, right?

Breanne Fahs is an associate professor of women and gender studies at Arizona State University, where she specializes in studying women’s sexuality, critical embodiment studies, radical feminism, and political activism. She has a B.A. in women’s studies/gender studies and psychology from Occidental College and a Ph.D. in women’s studies and clinical psychology from the University of Michigan. . . . She is the director of the Feminist Research on Gender and Sexuality Group at Arizona State University, a group that engages students and faculty to fuse activism and rabble-rousing scholarship . . .

Professor Fahs is the author of a new biography of Valerie Solanas, the radical lesbian feminist and paranoid schizophrenic who shot Andy Warhol in 1968. But it is her teaching at Arizona State that has now landed Professor Fahs in the headlines:

Female students at an Arizona university have been offered the chance to earn extra credit by not shaving their armpit hair for a whole semester.
The unconventional offer was made by women and gender studies professor Breanne Fahs as a way to get her students to challenge social norms.
Male students on the Arizona State University course are also able to apply for extra credit, but to qualify they have to shave all their hair from the neck down.
Fahs . . . encourages her students to document their experiences in a journal for the 10-week semester.
She said the social experiment helps students analyze society’s attitude to genders, with female students facing ridicule for having hairy armpits, and the men gaining insight into how much pressure is put on women to stay hair free.
‘There’s no better way to learn about societal norms than to violate them and see how people react,’ Fahs told ASU News.
‘There’s really no reason why the choice to shave, or not, should be a big deal. But it is, as the students tend to find out quickly.’

You want to see pictures of this “social experiment,” just to prove I’m not making this up? Maybe I should go back to school, get a Ph.D., and become a Women’s Studies professor. The girls in my classes would get extra credit for making sandwiches, and the boys would get extra credit for eating them — the sandwiches, I mean.

Category: Education, Feminism

Comments

75 Responses to “Gender Theory: Beyond Parody”

M. Thompson
July 4th, 2014 @ 6:06 pm

Not really.

Part of being a Gender Studies PhD is you actually have to get people to think you BELIEVE that crud.

I’m not sure anyone sane could do that long enough to complete a thesis.
Nerditude
July 4th, 2014 @ 6:17 pm

You patriarchal bastard, you misppelled “womyn’s.”
GadsdenJazz
July 4th, 2014 @ 6:18 pm

Wow – Fahs is a credentialed expert in “Useless Fecking Bullsh!t.” She’d be a red shirt on Star Trek, the first to be eaten in the Donner Party, and tripped if she were in a group being chased by a lion. She appears to bring nothing to the table of knowledge other than her own corpulence.
Jeanette Victoria
July 4th, 2014 @ 6:32 pm

Remember when we were young and we used too joke about getting a degree in basket weaving I thing Genders Studies is a fancy name for basket weaving
Quartermaster
July 4th, 2014 @ 6:42 pm

In my circles in the Navy the parody degree was in “Underwater Basket Weaving.” In Army flight school it is was “Manure Spreading.” The manure spreading degree might actually have some real application as an Army Officer however.
Jeanette Victoria
July 4th, 2014 @ 6:52 pm

I dropped out of grad school I was trying to get a degree in education. OMG it was padded with useless fell good classes. Gender studies has to be even worse
Evi L. Bloggerlady
July 4th, 2014 @ 7:00 pm

A higher education bubble? I hear another professor wrote a book on the topic.
Evi L. Bloggerlady
July 4th, 2014 @ 7:01 pm

Sometimes manure spreading is a good thing!
ChandlersGhost
July 4th, 2014 @ 7:03 pm

So men have to do extra work for the credit while women have to do nothing. Sounds about right.
Katie Scarlet
July 4th, 2014 @ 7:14 pm

I suppose she has tenure too. Nice work, getting kids to make fools of themselves. Chuck Berry would be impressed.
Julie Pascal
July 4th, 2014 @ 7:35 pm

There’s a lot of pressure on guys to be less hairy, too. I think it’s pretty stupid, myself. But LOTS of guys wax their backs and butts and stuff, some even wax arms and chests. I’m all.. but… they’re *guys* and guys are supposed to be bears (if they can manage it).
RS
July 4th, 2014 @ 7:47 pm

Years from now, when the history of the political blogiverse is written, the Summer of 2014 will be known as “TOM’s Fat Chick Period.” Kind of like Picasso’s “Blue Period.”

Or, maybe not.
concern00
July 4th, 2014 @ 8:01 pm

I picked her as a feminist when I saw her chubby little cheeks. As an expert on women’s sexuality I dare say she would be lacking any sort of personal experience with the opposite sex.
Julie Pascal
July 4th, 2014 @ 8:43 pm

Her chubby cheeks look happy and nice… waaaaay better than the gaunt vegan look.
Mm
July 4th, 2014 @ 8:45 pm

Her book bio says she’s a practicing clinical psychologist.
I don’t know what to say.
On another note, I do think that the hair thing is pretty clever and I like that it is optional.
Adjoran
July 4th, 2014 @ 10:00 pm

When I was in college in the early ’70s, I had a few especially tough courses with lots of reading, research, and other outside requirements one semester, and needed one more course that wasn’t too demanding. Any “gut” (as we called them) would do, I was ahead in all my required hours.

I was told to take a class in the Education Department. I asked which were the best/easiest, and the reply was, “It doesn’t matter.”

That guy was right, too. Easiest A I ever got, no outside work, entertaining classes that had nothing to do with the subject of the course. One book to buy, by the professor, never needed to read it.

Ed curricula haven’t gotten any tougher.
Adjoran
July 4th, 2014 @ 10:02 pm

If it’s going to do any good. If you leave it in a big pile, you might as well keep Obama.
Adjoran
July 4th, 2014 @ 10:04 pm

Well, this is ASU.

The waxing comes out of “student activity” fees.
Adjoran
July 4th, 2014 @ 10:30 pm

So now they have phony Ph.D.s in “women’s studies” too?

Hell, why not? It isn’t as if a degree in any non-STEM field is worth the paper it is lithographed upon these days. The Humanities have been hopelessly corrupted by leftists at every turn, from infusing their putrid ideology into every subject to “postmodernism,” “deconstructionism,” and other pseudo-intellectual inanities.

ASU stands as a pretty good example of an institution that might better serve society if it converted to an agricultural research center, and put all those fat Ph.D.s to work tending some crops.
Adjoran
July 4th, 2014 @ 10:34 pm

I’d have nice, happy, cherubic cheeks, too, if they gave me tenure in “Men’s Studies.”

I’d have popular classes, too. No shaving, maybe some Jello wrestling. Lots of tips on grilling, emergency repairs, watching sports, avoiding the oppression of the Matriarchy, all the good stuff.

Just don’t come by the faculty lounge on Bean Soup Wednesdays. And No Smoking on Bean Soup Wednesdays, either.
cmdr358
July 4th, 2014 @ 11:18 pm

Reading about and mocking this crap is amusing but will somebody please explain to me just what in the hell “Women’s and Gender Studies” really is? This is a serious question.

I have it figured that this degree is absolutely useless outside of building a career teaching this crap to others who aspire to teach this crap.
I have it figured that universities will happily allow the teaching of anything as long as there are enough suckers willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars per year to earn a degree no matter how useless it may be outside of academia.
But what the hell do they actually spend their time doing? Is it just listening to whacked out lesbians espouse their nonsensical interpretations about why they are misfits in the most open society in the world ( outside of Scandinavia of course)?
RS
July 4th, 2014 @ 11:43 pm

Very true. My experience was the same, though I did have to write a 10 page paper in lieu of a final. It was composed and written in two hours with no citations but with the assistance of a six-pack of Budweiser and a deck of Marlboro Lights. I got an “A” with–I crap you not–a flippin’ smiley face.
Bob Belvedere
July 5th, 2014 @ 1:03 am

Yup.
Matt_SE
July 5th, 2014 @ 3:01 am

I’ll be attending ASU come fall, 2015. I would almost be afraid, except that I’m majoring in engineering.
I hope to see these people, and laugh at them.
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July 5th, 2014 @ 3:28 am

[…] TOM: Gender Theory: Beyond Parody […]
Phil_McG
July 5th, 2014 @ 4:23 am

And in a couple of years her victims–I mean, students, will be crying about how they can’t find high paying jobs and are saddled with student debt.

Who knew employers wouldn’t line up to hire people with degrees in rabblerousing, Marxist agitprop, and armpit hair cultivation?
Phil_McG
July 5th, 2014 @ 4:25 am

My wife says my knuckle sweaters are adorable.
William_Teach
July 5th, 2014 @ 7:52 am

And, surprisingly, so many of these youths who graduate with these types of degrees wonder why no one will hire them. It boggles the mind.
marew
July 5th, 2014 @ 9:05 am

“Breanna Fahs is a feminist, but you probably already guessed that, right?”

Pretty obvious. As a feminist she doesn’t want fitness, make-up or rational thought to interfere with her fight against “societal norms.”

I often wonder if these “women” had good relationships with boys when they were growing up if all this nonsense would never have happened?
DaTechGuy on DaRadio
July 5th, 2014 @ 10:02 am

If women want to not shave that’s totally up to them it’s their choice

Of course if the pool of men (and women) seeking women decide that said women are less desirable and instead seek women who have decided to shave that’s of course their choice too.

One must decide if the annoyance of shaving (and let’s face it, It IS an annoyance) is worth the rewards/benefits thereof, and the opposite is true.as well.

Everything costs something
ErikEssig
July 5th, 2014 @ 10:25 am

If I had the financial wherewithal I’d pay for McCain to be a Women’s (sorry, Womyns) Studies professor.
JeffS
July 5th, 2014 @ 11:08 am

Actually, us Army pukes called it “Underwater Basket Weaving” as well. At least in the Engineers.

I don’t speak for the other branches, of course. Especially tankers and rotor heads.
jakee308
July 5th, 2014 @ 11:38 am

Well, typically the man is expected to endure more and be humiliated and discomforted for his troubles.

Shaving one’s balls is a “hairy” experience (not counting the itch when it starts to grow back) and since men usually are larger than women, they’d have more to shave off. (and who are the sicko males that are taking this course?)

Plus there’s some sexual harassment, assault, hostile environment and privacy issues here as I assume one would have to strip before the “teacher” to show proof to get the credit.

So once again we see the craziness of creating gender or race specific microsubjects for sociopathic sexual deviants to “teach” and likewise to get “degrees”.

I can’t see how a degree in Women’s Studies nets the world any positive rise in intellect and knowledge.
Quartermaster
July 5th, 2014 @ 11:46 am

You, sir, are truly a troublemaker. OTOH, the mere thought of such a thing is quite amusing.
M. Thompson
July 5th, 2014 @ 12:27 pm

Would you teach a seminars on Cigar handling?
Kansas
July 5th, 2014 @ 12:36 pm

Major in Women’s Studies and minor in African Studies. That way you will be guaranteed to not do jack squat.
Evi L. Bloggerlady
July 5th, 2014 @ 12:52 pm

http://batshitcrazynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/hairy.jpg Excuse: I did it for extra credit?

http://www.oddee.com/item_97199.aspx Here are some more funny ones
M. Thompson
July 5th, 2014 @ 1:03 pm

Would you mark that as a food risk here?

But then, I should have known better…
Federale
July 5th, 2014 @ 3:04 pm

The fatty should probably make someone else a sandwich instead of chowing down herself.
richard mcenroe
July 5th, 2014 @ 3:35 pm

I think rotor heads practice flight line braiding.
Adjoran
July 5th, 2014 @ 4:12 pm

I don’t even think there is a real market for these phony disciplines.

It was just easier to create the departments and postgraduate programs than to listen to the feminists bitch and whine about it.
Adjoran
July 5th, 2014 @ 4:12 pm

So, real school instead of the Klown Kollege part, congratulations!
Adjoran
July 5th, 2014 @ 4:13 pm

Yes – but they will all know WHO TO BLAME for their unemployable condition, won’t they?
Adjoran
July 5th, 2014 @ 4:14 pm

But you will always know who to blame!
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July 5th, 2014 @ 4:56 pm

[…] Gender Theory: Beyond Parody […]
ChandlersGhost
July 5th, 2014 @ 5:02 pm

Free markets are racist.
Mr. B
July 5th, 2014 @ 5:06 pm

Maybe next semester she’ll offer extra credit for not washing your ass. After all, you should only teach about subjects you’re an authority on.
Evi L. Bloggerlady
July 5th, 2014 @ 6:16 pm

You should see what patterns Professor Fahs can make in her chest hair!
GoneWithTheWind
July 5th, 2014 @ 6:54 pm

It is amazing that hate studies even exist. One would think that the colleges would be too ashamed to take part in the hate fest. Then there is the issue of the fact that most of their curriculum is pure lies and bigotry.
Daniel O'Brien
July 5th, 2014 @ 8:35 pm

What job exactly is a Wymyn’s Study degree supposed to quality someone for? I’m sorry. I’m a hard core BS and MS in Computer Science. Just a nerd so I don’t get these “soft” degrees.