Medieval scholar attacks feminism

[molecule]

The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article up today about a medieval scholar who has attacked feminism and is making some points fairly typical of men's rights activists: http://chronicle.com/article/Prominent-Medieval-Scholar-s/235014.

The blog post in which is makes this attack is here: http://www.allenjfrantzen.com/Men/femfog.html.

[Firiel]

I was very excited that my main man* Jeffrey Jerome Cohen was interviewed in this article!

*And by "main man," I of course mean the scholar whose works first helped me collect my thoughts on what would (years later) become my masters thesis and who very politely e-mailed me back when I sent him a question as an undergrad.

[sawasdee]

Wow - that's some article. A mixture of prejudice, seeming scholarship and plain misinformation.

Quote

As you develop your points, remember that 90-95% of workers who die or are injured on the job are men, family men mostly, who take dangerous jobs because they pay well. The professions not penetrated by women include the dangerous ones. Women fly jumbo jets, lead Fortune 500 companies, enforce the law, and become Rangers in the US Army. Why aren’t they in construction, mining, garbage collection, and other professions?

End Quote.

Professor Franzen, please make it clear whether you are speaking globally, or only of the 'Western' societies. Because in most developing countries, women do all of these jobs.And the last time I looked, they were women miners and garbage collectors in the US. In the UK there are women working as carpenters, electricians and plumbers in the construction industry - I would be surprised if this is not also true of the US.

I'm glad to see the almost universal condemnation from his colleagues. I am surprised he was a professor at Loyola - Jesuits are not usually very patient with ill informed, badly sourced material such as this.

 

[ShepherdontheRock]

Wow, Franzen's thing is so bizarre. It's like he's trying to make the vice versa of radical feminism when there is none.

Also "well they can't make good arguments against me..." this isn't even worth arguing with. He's, ironically, not even using any legitimate logic; his reasoning is so shoddy that there is literally no point to even argue with it as if it were.

This got me like...

Spoiler

 

 

 

[EyeQueue]

On 1/21/2016 at 11:27 AM, Firiel said:

I was very excited that my main man* Jeffrey Jerome Cohen was interviewed in this article!

*And by "main man," I of course mean the scholar whose works first helped me collect my thoughts on what would (years later) become my masters thesis and who very politely e-mailed me back when I sent him a question as an undergrad.

WORD! I love me some Jeffrey Jerome Cohen. His ideas helped me in a similar way when I was working on my dissertation, and I've met him a couple of times at conferences and he's just super nice and genuine.

And I agree with the article re: women being the future of medieval studies. There sure do seem to be more women going into the field than men (just going by what I've seen coming up through our department, and the balance of males to females when I've been at various conferences).

[sockinshoe]

On 1/22/2016 at 4:13 AM, sawasdee said:

Wow - that's some article. A mixture of prejudice, seeming scholarship and plain misinformation.

Quote

As you develop your points, remember that 90-95% of workers who die or are injured on the job are men, family men mostly, who take dangerous jobs because they pay well. The professions not penetrated by women include the dangerous ones. Women fly jumbo jets, lead Fortune 500 companies, enforce the law, and become Rangers in the US Army. Why aren’t they in construction, mining, garbage collection, and other professions?

End Quote.

Professor Franzen, please make it clear whether you are speaking globally, or only of the 'Western' societies. Because in most developing countries, women do all of these jobs.And the last time I looked, they were women miners and garbage collectors in the US. In the UK there are women working as carpenters, electricians and plumbers in the construction industry - I would be surprised if this is not also true of the US.

I'm glad to see the almost universal condemnation from his colleagues. I am surprised he was a professor at Loyola - Jesuits are not usually very patient with ill informed, badly sourced material such as this.

 

I always ask why it is that women don't get really dangerous jobs like construction and mining. Most of the responses, from men who have never done any sort of manual labour, are along the lines of

Them: Women are just inherently weaker than men.

Me: Do you think that maybe women are driven away from applying to manual labour jobs because of attitudes like that?

Them: Well, women don't want those jobs anyway. They only want cushy jobs.

Me: What about women who do want those jobs? I know that many homeless women would love to be considered for day labour in construction.

Them: Well, those women might want the jobs, but they're weaker. And this isn't about homeless women. It's about women who are too picky to take manual labour jobs.

Me: You're arguing in circles. Declaring women are weaker without any proof creates a situation where women aren't hired because employers think they're weaker.

Them: Well, like I said, women don't want good honest labouring jobs because they only want cushy fancy paperpushing jobs. And with all these quotas and affirmative action measures, men are being driven out of the office building and into the coal mine.

Me: So there's an organized conspiracy of women to drive men into labouring jobs while women work ordinary desk jobs?

Them: It sounds crazy when you say it like that, but let's look at the reality: Those are potential CEOs labouring down there in the dark!

Me: Aren't the women in the office building potential CEOs? 

Them: BUT TEH MENZ!

Me: *pours self very stiff drink*