Bye Bernie, You Hope

Still More Politically Correct Indoctrination at Marquette

There are always a few of these in every e-mail we get from Marquette: opportunities to bask in the glow of political correctness by being told you are more woke and virtuous than those clods who voted for Trump.  From today’s e-mail:

‘Unpacking Whiteness’ group to host first meeting, Feb. 19 

FEBRUARY 13, 2020 

A new group titled “Unpacking Whiteness” will host a first meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 19, from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. in the 707 Building, Room 322. 

The mission of the group is to build white racial literacy in white-identifying students to support the holistic inclusion of students and faculty of color at Marquette. This group focuses on authentic reflection of personal racial discomfort, conflict management in conversations about race, white shame/guilt, family privilege and deconstructing white supremacy culture.

Conducted by Hannah Uitenbroek, a master’s student studying history, the group will convene biweekly for the first five meetings (group members’ schedules will dictate future meetings). Interested students must commit to all meetings, and group size will be capped at 12 students. Snacks will be provided at each meeting.

The assumption here is that the more you talk about “inclusion” the more inclusion you will have. In fact, real inclusion is not the result of workshops about “white supremacy culture,” but of not talking about it, and doing things together. We doubt that Nick Saban, Dabo Swinney, Kirby Smart, or Lincoln Riley ever lecture their teams about “inclusion.” They talk about winning football games. That, of course, requires working together. Not airing racial grievances.

An Event for “Womxn”

What in the world are “womxn?” According to Wikipedia:

The word womyn is one of several alternative spellings of the English word women used by some feminists. There are other spellings, including womban (a reference to the womb) or womon (singular), and wimmin (plural). Some writers who use such alternative spellings, avoiding the suffix “-man” or “-men,” see them as an expression of female independence and a repudiation of traditions that define women by reference to a male norm. Recently, womxn has been used by intersectional feminists to indicate the same ideas, with explicit inclusion of transgender women and women of color.

We can think of a lot of much better ways to help women and girls than adding ridiculous words to the English language.

But yes, the web page of the Marquette Women’s Innovation Network advertises the 2nd Annual Lift Up MKE Womxn and Non-Binary Hackathon.

And yes, as explained on the FAQ page, “Participation is open to anyone who identifies as a woman or a non-binary individual.” No men allowed.

Also: “All participants are asked to include their preferred pronouns on their name tags and use the preferred pronouns of others.”

In spite of this, there is an elaborate set of rules about harassment.  You can call or text a report of harassment, enter it on a web page, or contact a Hack a Pipeline team member, this latter group identified by t-shirts.

We thought men were the evil harassers and women could feel safe around each other — and presumably around “non binary” types.

There is nothing terribly wrong with a tech hen party. But in a world where women in tech will have to (often) compete with men, and (often) cooperate with men, this might not be the best experience to prepare women for a career.

But if the purpose is to stick it to the patriarchy, we suppose events like this make sense.