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Roy Den Hollander (he of litigious demeanor at right), a proud business school alum (’97) and self-proclaimed “antifeminist,” is suing the University Trustees and the Institute for Research on Women & Gender for using federal aid to promote a “religionist belief system called feminism.”
Women’s Studies programs, he claims, are “spreading prejudice and fostering animosity and distrust towards men with the result of the wholesale violation of men’s rights.” And while the College Bulletin claims the major is “intended to introduce students to the long arc of feminist discourse about the cultural and historical representation of nature, power, and the social construction of difference,” the super-secret version explicitly states that the purpose is to “demonize men and exalt women in order to justify discrimination against men based on collective guilt.”
Interestingly, Den Hollander has no apparent ill will towards the veritable army of misandric feminists Barnard is working hard to create, and he would be mollified if Columbia took the simple and reasoned step of creating a men’s studies curriculum.
More about the case, his “trilogy of antifeminist lawsuits” (which is, regrettably, not as exciting as it sounds), and why he continues to heroically fight for the downtrodden can be found at City Room.
— Sara Horvath
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44 Comments
@Just Admit It Women’s studies is very similar to history and sociology. That does not change the fact that they too are bullshit majors.
Not saying everyone has to major in engineering or economics, but come on, deep down you knew you were picking a useless major.
@Poster #34 I would actually disagree with that. History and sociology have a long record of intellectual achievement and a distinct academic (and societal) purpose. Whether they are easy or difficult is inconsequential – unlike the “studies” majors and the epitome of BS majors, the so-called “Human Rights,” graduates of those majors at least have tools, specific to those majors, that contribute directly to society in tangible ways. They also at least foster some real class discussion because the disciplines themselves are a product of differing viewpoints. Does anyone expect to hear some anti-feminist arguments presented in a Women’s Studies class? Or some anti-reparations arguments in African American Studies? Having taken neither history or sociology courses at Columbia (something I regret, a bit,) I can at least recognize the importance of those majors. As for some of the others, it seems like just a bit of appeasement to 60s radicals to me…
@you can't call history a bullshit major. if you’re prelaw and you don’t want to sit through the agony that is comparative politics, history is a perfect major.
and as for sociology, it’s more of a broad background than bullshit. i mean, the specific applications of it are all over the place, but you get the best out of history, psychology, and even politics out of sociology classes.
and with either, you can go on to be a teacher, whether at the grammar/high school level, or the collegiate.
i think art history is the epitome of a bullshit major though, more so than women’s studies or ethnic based studies. i mean, wtf can you do with that? give tours to kindergardeners at the Met? find a better way to spend $120K
@women's history, up until the last century or two, consisted of a frying pan and a mop.
@clg “…he would be mollified if Columbia took the simple and reasoned step of creating a men’s studies curriculum.”
Hmmm…I think that already exists. It’s called HISTORY.
@Anonymous that one shouldn’t assume what happens in women’s studies classes before taking one. I took an intro class and the last thing the professor encouraged was “spreading prejudice and fostering animosity and distrust towards men with the result of the wholesale violation of men’s rights.”
I think gender studies are less about attacking men and more about learning the history of women, which is generally left out of other history courses. I see it as adding another dimension to history, similar to something like a religion class. The sad truth is that men have done terrible things to women, but rational people don’t hold their fellow male classmates responsible for the past.
mr. lawyer comes off as a nervous misogynist from a hundred years ago that is scared women will take over the world if they learn too much.
@Lion Lover Important rule: Never take any courses with the word “studies” in the title.
Women’s studies is just Sociology and History. Making a separate department out of it is a political ploy and a great way to give bigger salaries to the otherwise unemployable.
The only reason to major in Women’s Studies, Black Studies, Latino Studies, etc. is if you’re eventually interested in becoming a professor in one of those “disciplines.” I doubt too many people in those courses have those aspirations, but cool.
Give the lawyer guy credit for starting this discussion, which was probably his goal all along.
@the ignorance of this dude kind of makes sense… i feel like its glaring out from his face, no? ooh the self righteous ones. is it bad to assume mommy issues?
@Hey now, everyone! Let’s please tone down the sexism, and take a moment out of our lives to appreciate the truth of the matter:
http://explosm.net/comics/1377/
Our social roles were established long ago, before any feminazis decided that testicles are the devil’s work. If you can’t agree that men and women are fundamentally different, you sir are blind, deaf, and god-willing, mute. If you CAN agree that this is the case, then you must also agree that men and women ought to be treated differently, precisely because they are not the same.
@doesn't this guy have anything better to do with his time than attack ladies night at bars?
doesn’t he realize ladies night is for the benefit of the male population, not the female?
come on, basic principles. get girls in for free, give them free cheap liquor, get them wasted, thereby giving men better advantage for their one-night stand advantage.
i mean really, he’s just harming himself with this one. i guess he got turned down by one two many drunk girls and wanted to take revenge.
@... http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=93824748
@geez all i can say is ‘wow’.
also, why am i not surprised that he’s divorced?
@A thought If, in theory, political science prepares one for a career in politics, economics major for finance/economics, and music for musicians, then what exactly do women’s studies and all the other ethnic “studies” prepare one for, in terms of careers, anyway? being a woman?
I think the heart of the problem is that these are bs majors in general.
@yoyoyo Life’s not lived in theory, jackass. Use the google!
https://www.msu.edu/~wmstdy/wsmjr1.htm
Curious to know what you’re majoring in.
@Except... nowhere is it stated how women’s studies, or any other supposedly disadvantage fill-in-the-blank minority/ethnic group, actually prepares one for any of those myriad fields. I particularly like “Employment at Motorola,” “Denver Police Department,” et al. Now, I am sure that a Women’s Studies major could get, in fact, any job – it is, in fact, dependent on the person. But, is there any actual tangible evidence that anything learned in a women’s studies program makes one particularly qualified for anything other than lobbying for NARAL and decrying fictional male dominance? I would think that, with someone’s parents paying $160,000 for four years of education, the student would respect their parents’ investment in their education more than engaging themselves in a discipline with little true intellectual validity. And while you are indeed correct that life is not lived in theory, it’s also not lived in the delusional world of entitlement and perceived intellectual equality.
@Fielding Mellish I majored in Black Studies…I could have been Black!
@whoops A little faster on the color entering and I WOULDN’T have sounded like an idiot.
I haven’t taken many courses in the area, but my experience has been that the “balance” is the same there that it is in the rest of the university: say smart things.
@Hey boys and girls! I just had this great idea! Why don’t we spend decades debating this exact topic, write brilliant articles and books, produce famous scholars, and call the field gender studies!
God, I’m a genius!
Of course some people, men and women, will hate the idea of taking a hard, honest look at power dynamics, but do we really need to give them a second thought?
@one thing power dynamics inherently deal with the interplay of the different genders and of different groups
there’s something to be said about taking a specific look at different genders in isolation or not viewing in the context of power hierarchies–not only because power hierarchies are a naturally subjective lens through which one would view gender (and other differences) but also because such a concentrated study would probably in turn reveal more about the interplay of different groups
@... i think this might just be the first case study that concretely demonstrates why mail order brides should be banned.
@well there have been guys in cc who have majored in gender studies — i’ve heard that one was valedictorian or salutatorian a few years ago.
this alum should be ashamed of himself — doesn’t he have better things to do?
@yeah i mean as long as gender studies isn’t a misnomer and treats the areas comprehensively i don’t think the anti-feminists of the world will be able to make such claims
that said, the jury is still out as to whether gender studies programs are currently balanced and thorough
@lol Watch the College Republicans to join in the suit.
@... Yay! go college republicans fight those femanazis over at barnard
@Max I agree with Jill.
@I'm a girl, but... In his defense, I have often thought about the boundaries of feminism, and when it becomes more socially acceptable to bash men as a collective group (see first two comments on this post) and discriminatory to bash women because of the historical “guilt factor” as he so calls it.
I suppose it is the same line as between the Civil Rights movement of the 50s and the black power movement: the latter stretched it too far when they claimed dominance over the other race.
@Anonymous Be quiet when the boys are talking missy.
@I'm from Barnard... And I, too, often question the boundaries of feminism…
@Anonymous honestly, news like this almost makes me ashamed to be a student at columbia. is this man using his degree from the CU business school to mask the sheer arrogance, absurdity, and tedious lack of analysis of his assertions?
“Women’s Studies programs, he claims, are ‘spreading prejudice and fostering animosity and distrust towards men with the result of the wholesale violation of men’s rights.'”
while I really cannot begin to address how far this man’s head must be up his own ass to have said something as asinine as this, I really must ask: did it ever occur to this individual that, perhaps, women’s studies program exist not to promote any type of feeling (whether it be “animosity” or otherwise) towards men, but rather, to empower women to be THEMSELVES? as in…that, perhaps, negative feelings towards men might not even be a motivating factor in such programs at all?
i guess that african studies programs should also be eliminated (since it promotes prejudice and animosity against whites), along with jewish studies (since it promotes prejudice and animosity towards christians), and, while we’re at it, how about all science courses (since it promotes prejudice and animosity towards religion and creationism).
@... i have to disagree with something in post 13…creationism of the literalist kind deserves animosity.
it actually hurts science.
@... haha, the sad thing is that I bet you can find people to eliminate those subjects based on those exact reasons…
@... ps. no wonder the undergraduate curriculum at columbia is a mess. it appears that it’s basically determined by those who either:
a) sue the university
or
b) protest
@... i always thought that men’s studies was all of the humanities minus woman’s studies.
that said, i bet this is just some lame pr ploy for that michael moore of the right dude’s movie.
@um no i always wonder why people suggest that–i understand most societies are patriarchal and that men have been the most advantaged group out of any in human history
that said, there is never actually an area of study which strictly concentrates on masculinity in the context of history/sociology/psychology—philosophy/history/sociology/psychology/etc are not inherently about ‘men’ just because they have been dominated by men for so long (for a variety of reasons) and its intellectually lazy to say so
it seems logical to suggest that all forms of gender are examined–regardless of whether some particular forms have been disadvantaged in the past or whether they have been favored
@this made my day. I’m so happy this guy is pushing back against our red headed step child of Barnard.
@question do the carpets match the drapes?
@didn't the article just state that he’s not attacking barnard?
pay attention.
@Jesus I hate lawyers, and lawyer-like people.
@where'd he get that bit on demonizing men and collective guilt? That’s interesting if true
Duh men’s studies would obviously make several awesome classes.
@Men's studies? Chapter 1: Beer
Chapter 2: Football
Chapter 3: Boobs
And if your GPA is anything less than a 4.0, you surely must be a nerd.
@women's studies chapter 1. makeup
chapter 2. shopping
chapter 3. gossip
not so funny when the joke is reversed. maybe hollander has a point about what’s happened to the perception of men, thanks to the slanted perspective of “gender studies”?
@man nah, its still funny
@actually that was probably just not funny because it…wasn’t funny. face it, as far as funny goes, boobs trumps gossip.
@admittedly this lawsuit and guy are a farce..but the men’s studies idea is intriguing
the simplistic expressions of machismo you listed are indicative of a subculture amongst men which encourages those things–and that’s been true since the beginning of time–i think at the very least you could get an interesting class out of it