FEMINISM BACKFIRES

The excerpt below is from an article that made my day (I know that's bad of me!). It notes that feminist-inclined admissions officers at elite colleges now feel obliged to discriminate AGAINST women! Read on:

The fat acceptance envelope is simply more elusive for today's accomplished young women. I know this well. At my own college these days, we have three applicants for every one we can admit. Just three years ago, it was two to one. Though Kenyon was a men's college until 1969, more than 55 percent of our applicants are female, a proportion that is steadily increasing. My staff and I carefully read these young women's essays about their passion for poetry, their desire to discover vaccines and their conviction that they can make the world a better place....

Rest assured that admissions officers are not cavalier in making their decisions. Last week, the 10 officers at my college sat around a table, 12 hours every day, deliberating the applications of hundreds of talented young men and women.... The reality is that because young men are rarer, they're more valued applicants. Today, two-thirds of colleges and universities report that they get more female than male applicants, and more than 56 percent of undergraduates nationwide are women. Demographers predict that by 2009, only 42 percent of all baccalaureate degrees awarded in the United States will be given to men. We have told today's young women that the world is their oyster; the problem is, so many of them believed us that the standards for admission to today's most selective colleges are stiffer for women than men. How's that for an unintended consequence of the women's liberation movement?

The elephant that looms large in the middle of the room is the importance of gender balance. Should it trump the qualifications of talented young female applicants? At those colleges that have reached what the experts call a "tipping point," where 60 percent or more of their enrolled students are female, you'll hear a hint of desperation in the voices of admissions officers. Beyond the availability of dance partners for the winter formal, gender balance matters in ways both large and small on a residential college campus. Once you become decidedly female in enrollment, fewer males and, as it turns out, fewer females find your campus attractive.

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ELSEWHERE



UK: Peers inflict fourth ID card defeat on government : "The government suffered another defeat in the Lords today over its plans for identity cards. Peers voted by a majority of 36 to keep the scheme voluntary until 2011, after the next general election. It is the fourth time the government has been overruled by the Lords on the issue of linking ID cards with passport applications from 2008."

UK: ID cards a "present" to terrorists: "A national identity card scheme will be a 'present' to terrorists, criminal gangs and foreign spies, one of Britain's most respected former intelligence agents has told ministers. The warning from Daphne Park, who served for 30 years as a senior controller for MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, came as the parliamentary power struggle over the identity cards bill dragged on. ... The House of Lords once again defeated the government last night. Peers backed a joint Conservative and Liberal Democrat amendment that would prevent ministers making identity cards compulsory until at least 2011. ... At issue is the 'voluntary' nature of the proposed card. Labour ministers insist that the cards will be optional, but also want to create a rule meaning that anyone renewing a passport after 2008 must also buy an identity card. Opponents argue that is 'compulsion by stealth' and question Labour's mandate for the scheme. The Labour manifesto at last year's election promised the cards would be 'voluntary at first.' ... While ministers have hinted at using the Parliament Act to force the ID cards bill through the Lords, peers insist they will continue to resist. The former MI6 agent will be a key part of that resistance."

Sounds like Spitzer is right for once: "New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has filed a lawsuit accusing a company of selling email addresses in what he described as the largest deliberate breach of privacy in internet history. The suit against web site operator Gratis Internet alleges that the company sold personal information obtained from millions of consumers under a strict promise of confidentiality. "Unless checked now, companies that collect and sell information on consumers will continue to find ways to erode the basic standards that protect privacy in the internet age," Mr Spitzer said. Gratis internet is best known for promising free iPods, televisions and DVDs to users willing to sign up for promotions offered by partners such as Citibank and Blockbuster. The promotions required a registrant to sign up five others into the program - a process which drew criticism for being nothing more than a glorified pyramid scheme. While many did receive a free iPod, they also ended up with inboxes stuffed full of junk marketing mail. Contrary to the company's assurances of privacy, Spitzer's lawsuit accused Gratis owners Peter Martin and Robert Jewell with selling access to lists of millions of Gratis customers to three independent email marketers".

Nutty Frog: "President Chirac stormed out of the first session of a European Union summit dominated by a row over French nationalism because a fellow Frenchman insisted on speaking English. President Chirac and three of his ministers walked out of the room when Ernest-Antoine SeilliŠre, the leader of the European business lobby UNICE, punctured Gallic pride by insisting on speaking the language of Shakespeare rather than that of MoliŠre. When M SeilliŠre, who is an English-educated steel baron, started a presentation to all 25 EU leaders, President Chirac interrupted to ask why he was speaking in English. M SeilliŠre explained: "I'm going to speak in English because that is the language of business." Without saying another word, President Chirac, who lived in the US as a student and speaks fluent English, walked out, followed by his Foreign, Finance and Europe ministers, leaving the 24 other European leaders stunned. They returned only after M SeiliŠre had finished speaking. The meeting was furnished with full interpretation services, and anyone in the room could speak or listen in any of the 20 official EU languages. Embarrassed French diplomats tried to explain away the walk-out, saying that their ministers all needed a toilet break at the same time.

Lying Leftists again: "A new study by Harvard professor Stephen Walt and University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer charges that the "Israel lobby" has distorted the foreign policy of the United States to the point of serious damage to U.S. interests. Perhaps anticipating that their claims might be controversial, the authors attempt to reassure any who might doubt them: "Some readers will find this analysis disturbing, but the facts recounted here are not in serious dispute among scholars". In fact, even a cursory examination of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy reveals that it is riddled with errors of fact, logic and omission, has inaccurate citations, displays extremely poor judgement regarding sources, and, contrary to basic scholarly standards, ignores previous serious work on the subject. The bottom line: virtually every word and argument is, or ought to be, in "serious dispute." In other words, a student who submitted such a paper would flunk.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here). I also post several times a week on "Tongue-Tied". There is an archive of my "Tongue-Tied" posts here or here

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

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