A Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies professor, actually. I know. I can’t stop giggling at “gender and sexuality studies professor” either. Can you imagine paying, say, $200,000 to get a degree in something called gender and sexuality studies? I must meet the people who do that, because I’ve got a nice bridge to sell them. In fact, I’m willing to teach a seminar on “gender and sexuality studies” for them at $100 a pop. The syllabus: “Some people have fancy wombs. Some people do not. Sometimes they find each other attractive. The end.”
Anyway, this illustrious professor, Ellen Lewin, was highly offended by the fact that there are – gasp – those evil beings known as Republicans at her campus. This does not suit. So, she sent an email, from her official University of Iowa email account, saying “F*** YOU REPUBLICANS”. Only she didn’t use the classy asterisks. She did use the all caps; that’s how you know she’s super serious. She failed to use the “!!!!1111111eleventy” for extra emphasis, though. For shame. What kind of gender studies professor are you, for cripes sake? What do you do when you need to screech about The Patriarchy!!!!11111eleventy?
A University of Iowa professor who studies same-sex relationships was so upset by a mass email from a campus Republican group promoting “Conservative Coming Out Week” that she fired off a vulgarity aimed at all Republicans.
Ellen Lewin, a professor of Anthropology and Gender, Women’s & Sexuality Studies in the Department of Gender, Women’s & Sexuality Studies, responded to the email by writing, “F*** YOU, REPUBLICANS” from her official University of Iowa email account.
Okay, I’m giggling at the “Gender, Women’s & Sexuality Studies” again. An entire Department, even.
The ever putrid Gawker called her a “hero professor” (she’ll probably get ticked at that. Hello? Heroine! What, only males can be heroic? Oppressors!) for her oh-so-excellent example of ‘civility’ (screen shot here; NSFW language).
The horrific crimes – existing only in Ellen’s little head – perpetrated by the College Republicans?
They dared use the phrase “come out of the closet”. Those monsters. Also, they like to eat meat, which is offensive to people who are more into “animal rights” than the right to life for humans. Or something. Personally, I find the idea of an Animal Rights BBQ hilarious. And I think I’ll host one myself next weekend, for my birthday.
I should note that several things in the original message were extremely offensive, nearly rising to the level of obscenity. Despite the Republicans’ general disdain for LGBT rights you called your upcoming event “conservative coming out day,” appropriating the language of the LGBT right movement. Your reference to the Wisconsin protests suggested that they were frivolous attempts to avoid work. And the “Animal Rights BBQ” is extremely insensitive to those who consider animal rights an important cause. Then, in the email that Ms. Ginty sent complaining about my language, she referred to me as Ellen, not Professor Lewin, which is the correct way for a student to address a faculty member, or indeed, for anyone to refer to an adult with whom they are not acquainted. I do apologize for my intemperate language, but the message you all sent out was extremely disturbing and offensive.
Rising to the level of obscenity! Oh, my tummy. This is what happens when you spend your entire adult life clad in Birkenstocks, sipping soy lattes, ensconced in an ivory tower. Get out a little, Ellen. Try smiling instead of furrowed brow scowling, all bitter like. Maybe try going barefoot, in the kitchen even.
And instead of your usual jackassery, try to practice some of that new tone you expect everyone else to adapt. There. I just spoke a little truth to power to you. We’re stealing that phrase, too. You’re welcome.
(the oh-so-offensive – obscene, even – announcement from the College Republicans follows below. Hide your children, hide your wives before casting your eyes upon such a horror)
From: UI College Republicans
Subject: [NonAcadStudorg] Conservative Coming Out Week
Conservatives in Iowa City it is now time to come out of the closet!
I know at times it feels like you are the only person that disagrees with this liberal town, but you are not alone! We are asking all Republicans, Independents leaning right, or just anyone slightly frustrated with the current one party controlling every level of Johnson County, and some levels of Iowa and U.S. government to STAND UP!
Conservative Coming Out Week will be April 18th – April 22nd. Here is the schedule of events that will be going on throughout the week:
Monday: Whose Conservative Anyway? Guess which athletes, movie stars, and performing artists are Republican. 11-1 on Kautz Plaza off of the T. Anne Cleary Walkway.
Tuesday: Red vs. Blue Blood Drive from 2 to 6pm at the Carnival Room in Burge. Competition between the Republicans and Democrats for a good cause!
-College Republican meeting that night at 8pm in 71 Schaeffer Hall with showing of “Journey’s with George” in honor of President George W. Bush.
Wednesday: Come pick up your Doctors’ Notice to miss class for “sick of being stress”, just like the Wisconsin public employees during the union protests from 11 to 1 on the Pentacrest.
Thursday: Red vs Blue games! Beat the UDems in kickball and flag football from 4-6 in Hubbard Park. Wear your respective political parties color!
Stick around for a Animal Rights BBQ at 6 p.m.
Friday: Wear RED Day! Come out of the closet and show your true colors!
Should be a great week! Lets come out!
——–
cross-posted from That’s What She Said
Steve Maley
Caleb Howe
Jeff Emanuel
Saw a pic of her at one of the sites you linked to.
Jake Walker (Diary) Friday, April 22nd at 12:08AM EDT (link)First thing that went through my head was “she LOOKS like a feminist type”.
Anyways, my university (Georgia Southern) has a Women’s Studies Center, but we haven’t yet gone as far as a department. It’s a load of crap, if you ask me.
I don’t think she understands sarcasm….or satire.
Keep writing about this stuff, Lori. The right NEEDS voices like this.
A bull of truth in a china shop of falsehoods.
“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.”
–Bertrand Russell
“I will not stand by and watch this great country destroy itself under mediocre leadership that drifts from one crisis to the next, eroding our national will and purpose.”
–Ronald Reagan
Unlikely Voter.
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Hi, Jake.
Flagstaff (Diary) Friday, April 22nd at 2:35AM EDT (link)I figure she must be the even-more-evil twin of –>Ms.<–(note PC title) Kloppenberg, who just lost (LOST, I TELL YOU!) a race for supreme court justice in Wisconsin. Does that make her also-evil-twin a losing racist?
It’s interesting to me, pedant that I am (if that seems shocking to you, please look it up, it doesn’t mean what you think), that she missed all those errors in punctuation in the Republicans’ email, and even the bad choice of the homophone “whose” instead of “who’s”. Given her own choice of academic specialization, one would think she’d get right on her own homophone and complain about those errors, too.
Buffett Rule #1: “Tax rates don’t matter if you don’t pay your taxes”
– Unnamed tax adviser to Warren Buffett, Leavenworth, KS, 2011
Buffett Rule #2: “A parrot in every pot and two Volts in every garage”– Jimmy Buffett, at a seance in Margaritaville, 1977
How does she mean those words?
grandma Friday, April 22nd at 1:00AM EDT (link)Does she mean “F*** You in the classic sex text book meaning?
To really hear about these types going off the wall, I suggest reading Mike Adams funny books about the idiocy at Chapel Hill.
Hilarious!
Adjoran (Diary) Friday, April 22nd at 2:12AM EDT (link)She never noticed the send-up in the announcement at all – even after the “Animal Rights BBQ” which was a dead giveaway it was a tweak – and finds them “offensive . . . insensitive . . .” to the groups involved.
Now it’s not PC to offend the sensitivities of PETA nuts? Sheesh!
While I’m no psychiatrist, I sometimes play one on the internet, and I detect in her bitter hostility a defensive reaction to some past trauma – possibly when they beat her with an ugly stick.
But it is altogether possible to see her reaction as entirely rational, as well. If she realizes that her tenured 6-figure salary scam for “professing” about some bogus made-up academic “discipline” is endangered, the rise of any group promoting common sense in any form is a direct threat to her livelihood. And so, she lashes out, flailing at phantoms and imagined demons come to devour her, to ravish her.
In either case, I prescribe inpatient confinement for an indefinite period, but the prognosis is positive: with years of therapy, psychotropic drugs, and electroshock treatments, she might one day recover sufficiently to perform menial tasks with minimal supervision. I don’t want to get hopes inflated, though.
Comments about what she may have been beaten with early in life
Flagstaff (Diary) Friday, April 22nd at 3:20AM EDT (link)do nothing to advance her therapy. I’m sure she was the recipient of many compliments at one time, even before the surgery to correct her Neumann-ears problem, bless her heart.
As a non-certified internet psychiatrist, you have a responsibility to phrase your diagnosis in the politically correct way specified by the BCPIP*. Remember, friends don’t let friends blog sober on Thursday before Good Friday.
*Blogospheric Community to Promote Internet Psychiatry
Buffett Rule #1: “Tax rates don’t matter if you don’t pay your taxes”
– Unnamed tax adviser to Warren Buffett, Leavenworth, KS, 2011
Buffett Rule #2: “A parrot in every pot and two Volts in every garage”– Jimmy Buffett, at a seance in Margaritaville, 1977
I can't decide which is more hilarious
vendoc Friday, April 22nd at 8:56AM EDT (link)“While I’m no psychiatrist, I sometimes play one on the internet”
“possibly when they beat her with an ugly stick”
Unfortunately I think she also received some blows to the head too.
I'd like to attend the event....
jiminga Friday, April 22nd at 6:53AM EDT (link)I didn’t know there were gays in flyover country.
Her Stupid Degree IS Paying Off
Spartan4Life (Diary) Friday, April 22nd at 7:51AM EDT (link)She is probably into the taxpayers of Iowa for $100K/Year. Add a fat benefits and pension package and she’s got it made. Probably retire at 55 and spend her “golden” years following the LPGA around.
Just a thought....
unclespidey Friday, April 22nd at 9:03AM EDT (link)Perhaps we’re all misinterpreting the poor woman. F-you from a sexuality professor may simply be a salutation, or perhaps an invitation to attend her class. We must all strive to be more sensitive to the variances of regional dialect among the intelligensia, who are clearly downtrodden by the likes of these heathen republicans.
What an unbelievable putz!
Good for the College Republicans!
shaitra (Diary) Friday, April 22nd at 9:27AM EDT (link)My first thought after reading their events list was I want to go. I hope they get a great turn out. That would really tweak the professor.
Is it still called "Higher" Education?
johnt Friday, April 22nd at 10:23AM EDT (link)And this is what we are asked to spend billions more on.
The incident, and the pig Lewin herself, are just another marker in the devolution of our culture, another small step into the abyss of ignorance and brute stupidity.
Liberals[?] of course love it.
“a man’s admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him”. Tocqueville
To summarize what we have learned this week
mustango (Diary) Friday, April 22nd at 10:37AM EDT (link)Saying that Down’s Syndrome babies don’t dream = funny, lighten up!
Borrowing the phrase “coming out of the closet” as a way of noting that conservatives are subject to a lot more hate on college campuses these days than gays are = offensive, how dare you!
“I just miss — I miss being anonymous.” — Barack Obama
I fully sympathize, Mr. President. I miss you being anonymous too.
5! nt
randy streu (Diary) Friday, April 22nd at 10:44AM EDT (link)nt
Blogging also at
SLC Republitarian
The Minority Report
Gender Studies !!!
sundesy Friday, April 22nd at 3:34PM EDT (link)Gender studies. Enough said. Please spend money and time for this.
Correction
sundesy Friday, April 22nd at 3:41PM EDT (link)People spend money and time on this!!!!!
Study this gender
sundesy Friday, April 22nd at 3:40PM EDT (link)http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ec0_1303444048
Step 1 to fixing what ails colleges and universities...
mbecker908 (Diary) Friday, April 22nd at 4:02PM EDT (link)Eliminate all programs, departments, majors and all of the current employees involved in same in:
That would be a good start to setting schools actually back on the track of producing graduates who are qualified to do something other than work at Taco Bell or teach college (similar careers in above noted majors).
Eh, I'd keep Economics
aesthete (Diary) Friday, April 22nd at 4:27PM EDT (link)and maybe a vastly reduced in scope history/social sciences general degree.
“It is a popular delusion that the government wastes vast amounts of money through inefficiency and sloth. Enormous effort and elaborate planning are required to waste this much money.”
-P.J. O’Rourke
I have no problem with Economics as a major.
mbecker908 (Diary) Friday, April 22nd at 5:11PM EDT (link)I also think “History” is a fantastic major as long as it’s not taught as victimology.
“Social Science” == gone. Maybe one 100 level class as an elective.
From Charles Murray:
aesthete (Diary) Friday, April 22nd at 6:21PM EDT (link)“The proposition that I hereby lay before the house is that the BA degree is the work of the devil. It wreaks harm on a majority of young people, is grotesquely inefficient as a source of information for employers, and is implicated in the emergence of a class-riven America.”
“It is a popular delusion that the government wastes vast amounts of money through inefficiency and sloth. Enormous effort and elaborate planning are required to waste this much money.”
-P.J. O’Rourke
I wouldn't argue against that thesis... nt
mbecker908 (Diary) Friday, April 22nd at 6:47PM EDT (link)Math req
sundesy Friday, April 22nd at 4:49PM EDT (link)I agree. Education bubble is the next
http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/10/peter-thiel-were-in-a-bubble-and-its-not-the-internet-its-higher-education/
Spending money on useless subjects has both direct cost as well as indirect cost like these stupid person having access to impressionable students and make them stupid for good.
I endorse mbecker908 for Chancellor
GregInFla (Diary) Saturday, April 23rd at 12:08AM EDT (link)You are hereby supported for the Chancellor of Missouri University of Science and Technology.
– A true evolutionist would let endangered species die off. Think about it.
– The sign outside the courthouse said no signs allowed. So I took it down.
– Atlas Shrugged is now on the non-fiction aisle at Amazon.
I 'preciate your support...
mbecker908 (Diary) Saturday, April 23rd at 12:21AM EDT (link)Somehow I’m guessing I prolly wouldn’t make the cut.
Typical...
macbookben (Diary) Friday, April 22nd at 4:09PM EDT (link)these heretofore “queer folk,” or the other usual suspects who sympathize with them in solidarity against “the man” (environmentalists, pro-abortionists, anti-capitalists, ethno/gender inequality social constructionists, etc.), hard-wired to capitalize on the leverage they have as university professors with captive audiences who are dripping wet from all the self-absorption that informs the uber-leftist professors’ worldview. They want their revenge against “400 years of white, male, western expansion,” while trumpeting equal rights and justice. They are working for “world peace.” Right, ‘their’ kind of world peace.
BTW, check out her student evaluations on this site: http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=470429
Proud reformed liberal, born-again conservative (since 1999)
Hey, Ellen!
Frederick (Diary) Friday, April 22nd at 6:14PM EDT (link)Sorry, but I refuse to call anyone “Doctor” or “Professor” simply because they completed a dissertation in something that is entirely useless to anyone outside of academia.
Anyway, El, baby. Your entire diatribe seems to be focused around how “offensive” the content of the e-mail was. My word, what nobility!
Except… You kinda’ dropped the F-Bomb and said a bunch of other stuff that wasn’t nearly so high-spirited as your later comments.
Congratulations! Like so many among the “tolerant” Left, you’re a hypocrite! Kudos! Thanks for proving it to all of us.
By the by, El, while I’m no LGBT rights activist, I certainly don’t match what is clearly your stereotype of Republicans and conservatives (pardon my language!). I have many LGBT friends and I don’t treat them as second-class citizens or demean them in any way. In my view, it’s a sin, we’re all sinners, no sin is greater than any other and so we’re all equal in God’s eyes. “Let he who has no sin” and all that.
Oh, my! I mentioned God! You were probably offended by that with all your modern, rationalist sensibilities!
Yeah, well. Welcome to America, where you have the right to be offended.
And offensive.
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“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.”
– - Thomas Jefferson, to Archibald Stuart, 1791
"Gender studies" is a joke
renny (Diary) Friday, April 22nd at 6:58PM EDT (link)for “students” who couldn’t pass a course or get a degree in anything resembling classical liberal arts and sciences.
This reminds of a Dave Ramsey Show
GregInFla (Diary) Saturday, April 23rd at 12:12AM EDT (link)Where someone took out $200K in loans to get a Ph.D. in Polka History. Sure, a great investment, rivaling those made by the current WH administration in windmills on car rooftops to store energy. (If you know Dave Ramsey, you know Dave’s reaction to this.) And if you think it was valuable, you likely have a degree in Studies.
– A true evolutionist would let endangered species die off. Think about it.
– The sign outside the courthouse said no signs allowed. So I took it down.
– Atlas Shrugged is now on the non-fiction aisle at Amazon.
Why pick on this major?
schteve Sunday, April 24th at 2:58AM EDT (link)Heck, I would say pretty much all humanities majors are just as laughable.
A discussion on the controversy:
talkingwith Sunday, May 1st at 11:54AM EDT (link)Here’s my interview with Tim Hagle, the University of Iowa College Republicans faculty advisor, about Lewin’s “F— You, Republicans!” email response to the group’s invite for people to participate in “Conservative Coming Out Week,” and what it’s like being a conservative on a college campus.
http://patv.tv/blog/2011/04/27/talking-with-yale-cohn-discussing-professor-ellen-lewins-f-you-email-response-to-the-university-of-iowa-college-republicans/