Via Ryerson’s Centre for Free Expression:
“Something very wrong has happened at the University of Alberta. A professor has been fired from part of her academic job for views on sex and gender that break with current orthodoxy.
“In late March, Kathleen Lowrey … was asked to resign … on the basis that one or more students had complain[ed] about her without filing formal complaints. All Professor Lowrey has been told is that she is somehow making the learning environment “unsafe” for these students because she is a feminist who holds “gender critical” views.”
I have yet to read anything a feminist has written or said, that makes any sense to me. I don’t like feminism myself and sure, peope can be a feminists all they want, but they should not try to shove it down my throat.
How would Professor Lowrey feel if a male professor would hold “gender critical views” in a class she is studying at?
Feminism is mostly hysteria, paranoia, and a pathological and childish sense of victimization, at least in the West. Sure, many women in bad countries are being harmed. But I still have to see a Western feminist who really cares about them: it’s mostly about her own selfishness and vanity.
I don’t believe that women are any worse off than men, children, or old people, at least in first world countries. In a while, no one will take feminism seriously anymore, anyways. People get tired of mindless pap. Feminism is more of a dogma, almost like religion.
I respect men and women in equal value, i.e. I judge them for their actions. All else is to me a triviality. “Freedom of speech” is more of an ideal than a right, and “self-expression” is a can of worms: for if you have a right to be a feminist, I also have one for not wanting to have anything to do with feminism.
I detest statements like “Believe women!” (if so, why not children, men, etc?) or “We should all be feminists!”.
Only half-cooked and unintelligent people make such statements.
(with genuine regards to Mr Hicks)
re your comments Arthur:
As I understand it, gender-critical can mean querying whether transexuals *are* the sex they feel themselves to be.
On the basis of learning (involving being open to understanding/ hearing viewpoints of all sides before making one’s mind up), I can’t see how feminists or non-feminists (whether gender-critical or not) would necessarily *not* want to attend/allow lectures by a male gender-critical academic.
Please kindly explain. Thank you and Mr Hicks.
Hello (whoever you are)
“As I understand it, gender-critical can mean querying whether transexuals *are* the sex they feel themselves to be”
Are you trying to impress me with your deep knowledge about the subject, and its very specific areas? I don’t know who Professor Lowrey is, what she has said, and what her “critical views” are, and frankly I am not interested either. I was speaking about feminism, for this is how Mr Hicks said Professor Lowrey is. He didn’t mention anything about transsexuals. Nor did I.
“On the basis of learning (involving being open to understanding/ hearing viewpoints of all sides before making one’s mind up), I can’t see how feminists or non-feminists (whether gender-critical or not) would necessarily *not* want to attend/allow lectures by a male gender-critical academic.”
Your argument implies that one should automatically “be open to understanding” to these “issues” and that should they do not, they are automatically “closed minded”, or that “they are not learning”. If you don’t mind, I am the only one who decides what I should learn about, and I can assure you I am always learning. Just….not about “gender critical issues”.
Further, if I would necessarily NOT want to attend such a “lecture” as that you indicate, then can – you -explain to me why I do also NOT necessarily attend lectures about black holes, the history of the Great Depression, Japanese cuisine, the art of drawing, how to fix Harley Davidson motorcycles, and another million things under the sun?
And the answers are:
1. I am simply not interested, and just because I am not, does not implies I am a bad person, or that it gives you the right to think I am “not learning”. To the contrary, I only learn from where is much to learn, which rules out about 90 per cent of everything that anyone says or writes today, because I think most of it is not up to code, in the best of cases. Most of it is just trash, written or said by simpletons. Not impressed.
2. Life is too short to learn everything under the sun, and I don’t want to be a jack of all trades and master of none. Your field of expertise is X ? Mine is Z. By the same token, I could say that “on the basis of learning” (I wonder what THAT really means?), you failed to do so if you have not learned about Z. Do you think that would be reasonable? I don’t think so. Reverse this, and you will see it applies to me, you, and everyone else.
And that is why I steer clear of people who are highly interested in “gender related issues”: they seem to think the universe revolves around them, which is a delusion.
3. I think there are innumerable more urgent and more grave problems than “gender critical issues”. Homelessness, disease, disability, world hunger, bereavement, social isolation (sure, that can apply to transsexuals, as well as anyone who has some forms of life changing problems), isolation of the elderly, premature death, and other innumerable sorrows and problems.
I do not have a problem with any “gender related issues”, for I see none. True, I don’t live in the mind of a person who has or sees these issues, but to me, anyone who whines and moans too much about their present condition, is applying a false standard: if they understood that expecting the world to conform to their wishes is a delusion, they would not expect people to understand anything. To me, you can do whatever you like, provided that, as I said before, do not try to shove it down my throat, for I am the sole person who decides what I am going to be interested about, what to learn, and what kind of lectures I’d like to attend.
I wish everybody else much success in resolving their “gender related issues”. But before that, I wish other more urgent things. The world has never been a fair place. To expect it to be so, is just a delusion. I have my own, serious, issues. But as a famous philosopher said: “Never expect much from other people”. I rely on myself.
It’s a waste of time to expect the world to conform to your wishes, and I pity the people who expect this to happen. Sure, someone has to talk about “gender critical issues”.
Just don’t expect, even less pretend, that I will be interested in such a lecture. I have to skip enough things I’d like to learn about, but can’t, because of 2. above. Regards.
Arthur …
Thanks for responding but I think you have taken what I said as the opposite of what I meant.
I have taken ‘gender-critical’ to be not agreeing 100 per cent a person’s claim that they *are* the sex they would prefer to be. I thought that was the issue for Prof Lowrey at Alberta.
The word is confusing – as is the word ‘feminism’ And yes there are very obviously other issues to worry about and yes the world is unfair.
…. and life is indeed too short for unproductive fussing n fighting.
Regards.