The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Transgender Rage: You Can’t Have a Women’s Symbol at a Women’s College

Posted on | December 24, 2018 | 1 Comment

Mount Holyoke College is a “prestigious” women’s college, in the sense that “prestigious” is a synonym for expensive ($64,658 a year, including room and board). It’s one of the so-called “Seven Sisters” colleges of New England, so if you’re rich and your daughter is a radical lesbian with a mania for social justice, Mount Holyoke is the place to send her. (When I jokingly called it the “Western Massachusetts Marxist Lesbian Indoctrination Camp,” some students at Mount Holyoke adopted this as an unofficial slogan and actually printed it on T-shirts.)

Recently, Mount Holyoke commissioned a design firm to create a new logo for the school, and one of the designs offered was this:

 

Very clever — when turned on its side, you see, the logo displays the female Venus symbol associated with the feminist movement. You might think this would be popular at a women’s college, but Third Wave “social justice” is all about inclusion, and this logo would not do:

A prestigious women’s college in Massachusetts has pulled the plug on a plan to include the Venus symbol, a traditional icon of feminism and women’s empowerment, on its new logo design.
According to a Tuesday press release, Mount Holyoke College recently commissioned an outside firm to design a new logo for the school. On December 14, officials released nine draft logos to the student body and encouraged students to provide their feedback.
While the majority of public comments on the proposed logos urged the school to “keep the old one,” the school marketing office was apparently also deluged with concern about the use of the Venus symbol in the new design.
Just two business days later, MCH officials issued a public apology.
“It is now evident to us that this symbol has a long history of exclusion connected to movements that, while trailblazing for some groups, represents the erasure of others,” wrote Charles L. Green, MCH’s VP of Mmarketing.
“The College cannot move forward with a word mark that references this symbol.… While it is always disappointing to realize that our creative work has not achieved its goals, it is deeply upsetting to realize that the work is seen as offensive and damaging.”
One alumna, Tessa Ann Schwartz, wrote on Twitter that the Venus symbol marginalizes LGBTQ individuals.
“Speaking as one of those trans alums, you all will not be getting my money until this is changed, and I am not alone,” tweeted Schwartz.
Historically, the Venus symbol has been used as shorthand to reference women’s issues, feminism, and female empowerment. While it may seem fine to use at a women’s college, MCH officials remind us that the school is a “gender-diverse women’s college.”
The school now accepts students of all genders, as so long as they are not men who were born men. As such, the school has a sizeable transgender and gender non-binary population, and offers a variety of services to support them.
[Mount Holyoke] professors are now warned against calling students “women,” “referencing the two genders,” and saying things like “we’re all women here.” Avoiding these terms and phrases is crucial to avoid perpetuating “various types of disrespect,” according to school officials.

(Hat-tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.) The women’s college has insulted its “gender-diverse” students and transgender alumna (or alumni, as the case may be), and you see how the minority tail always wags the majority dog wherever the identity politics of “social justice” operates.

Years ago, I found myself discussing affirmative action with a long-time critic of such policies who explained why racial quotas are always a source of friction. When white people think of “equality,” my acquaintance informed me, they think in terms of equality of opportunity — everybody judged by the same standard — whereas many black people believe any standard is unfair if it does not produce “equality” in terms of outcomes. Furthermore, even if this were possible, the fact that black people are 14% of the U.S. population means that even in such a regime of “equality,” they would still be a minority in the student body of a “diverse” college, and yet some black activist types believe that “equality” should entitle them to a 50% share of everything. It is this 50-50 attitude toward “equality,” my acquaintance said, that is the real root of racial resentment among black college students.

We see a similar pattern has been replicated in other situations where the rhetoric of “diversity” fuels identity-politics demands. What percentage of Mount Holyoke students are “non-binary” or transgender? Even in such a “prestigious” hotbed of Third Wave craziness, the numbers are probably quite small, but whenever this vocal minority expresses their “concerns,” everyone is expected to genuflect in obeisance to their every whim. So the tail always wags the dog and, drunk on their own power, the transgender minority develop the attitude of a conquering army, accustomed to dictating the terms of their antagonists’ surrender.

So the all-women’s college becomes “gender-inclusive,” and guess who gets to define what “inclusive” means? Not the women, that’s who.



 

Category: Education, The Transgender Cult

Comments

One Response to “Transgender Rage: You Can’t Have a Women’s Symbol at a Women’s College”

  1. News of the Week (December 31st, 2018) | The Political Hat
    December 31st, 2018 @ 5:48 pm

    […] Transgender Rage: You Can’t Have a Women’s Symbol at a Women’s College Mount Holyoke College is a “prestigious” women’s college, in the sense that “prestigious” is a synonym for expensive ($64,658 a year, including room and board). It’s one of the so-called “Seven Sisters” colleges of New England, so if you’re rich and your daughter is a radical lesbian with a mania for social justice, Mount Holyoke is the place to send her. (When I jokingly called it the “Western Massachusetts Marxist Lesbian Indoctrination Camp,” some students at Mount Holyoke adopted this as an unofficial slogan and actually printed it on T-shirts.) […]