So let me get this straight. You can point out that men and women are different and have different proclivities when making a point about how violence against men is most often perpetrated by men, but if you point out those differences in other contexts then you're a misogynist?
Apparently it's fine to assert that we don't need International Men's Day because "men" cause most of men's problems (due to these differences), yet if you argue that we aren't helping women as much as we can because we're assuming that they're identical to men... you get fired.
I know that the discrepancy is caused by the "social constructionist" views that these people have. But this is evidence for how widespread, mainstream, and accepted these terrible views are, and evidence for how dangerous it is to let these ideas go unchallenged in academia.
You'd think that we'd be beyond this sort of thing so many years after Steven Pinker wrote The Blank Slate, but here we are. The blank slateist, social constructionist, postmodernist view of human nature only persists because it operates as an ideology, similar to a religion.
There is no evidence that would convince the acolytes that they might be wrong. The current evidence can't do the trick, because "evidence" is just another construction to them. Their "academia" is no more than self-justified activism, dressed up in the veneer scholarship.
I recently saw a Facebook post that chastised academics for confusing their scholarship for activism, with the implication that they should engage in more activism. I sat there, horrified at the notion that these people believe that their "academia" is insufficiently activist.
Academia has transformed into activism and dogma. No longer is it about honest inquiry, asking questions, and seeking the truth. It has transformed into a vehicle by which activists try to mold the world as they see fit, and vigorously punish all viewpoints but the accepted one.
In their quest to seek the ultimate diversity, they've enforced the ultimate homogeneity of thought and expression. In their quest to achieve progress in the world and their disciplines, they've achieved astonishing intellectual stagnation and cultural stasis.
We're all locked in a culture war, and the ivory towers (for all of their faults) have been turned into just another weapon. The towers have been conscripted into fortresses, built of stones and foundations much more valuable than anything they've now been tasked with protecting.
The guiding light at the top of towers is quickly being extinguished, yet the edifice is treated as though the fire burns brighter than ever. Anyone who dares bring attention to the dying flames is unceremoniously defenestrated, strengthening the dogma at the highest levels.
You can't fix it from within, but from the outside is even more tenuous. It requires sieging the towers-turned-garrisons (which appears anti-intellectual to the uninitiated) and attacking the very stones and foundations that you wish to protect above all else.
I fear the the only way to win this battle is to paradoxically diminish the outside culture war, to the point where those who converted the towers into ramparts, and the school of thought that they're defending, appear irremediably foolish to all but the most devoted ideologues.
Yet culture isn't so easy to change, otherwise there would be no reason to challenge postmodernism on its assertion to the contrary. So what do we do, beyond wishing that our institutions were more robust from the outset? I don't have the slightest clue.
Of course, that aside, we know how important it is to be able to say "I don't know."
