Sign the petition to remove Bahar Mustafa here.
I remember what it was like to work construction, back before my teaching days when I was trying to offset my college costs. A friend of mine named Daniel, whom I was working with at the time, prided himself on being a smartass.
One day he told me – with his classic mischievous grin – “Isn’t it amazing how you can be a total ass to some people, and then simply say ‘just kidding’ and everything’s ok? I mean, you can walk up to a guy and say ‘Hey man, your girlfriend and I had a great time in bed yesterday…just kidding!’ Or ‘dude, I just want to let you know I’ve always thought you were an idiot…just kidding!’”
Of course, he was making fun of people who basically walk around verbally sucker punching people and then trying to excuse themselves from well-merited retaliation by saying “just kidding.”
Something similar could be said of the “ironic misandry” (as feminist Amanda Hess at Slate puts it) of Bahar Mustafa. What is ironic misandry? According to Hess it is:
a tongue-in-cheek form of discourse favored by the young feminist internet natives. You may have spied them on Twitter or Tumblr, working on their “KILL ALL MEN” cross-stitch or sipping from a mug labeled ‘MALE TEARS.’ Ironic misandrists say they’re poking fun at long-standing stereotypes about militant feminist man-haters.
Feminist Amanda Hess is giving us this definition of “ironic” misandry because she is defending the statements of feminist Bahar Mustafa (pictured above), the recently-elected welfare and diversity officer for Goldsmith University’s student union. To kick off a “diversity” event, Mustafa said on Facebook “if you’re a man and/or white PLEASE DON’T COME. Don’t worry lads we will give you and allies things to do” and posted the above picture of herself next to a picture of a cup that said “male tears.”
Mustafa also had an “ironic” feminist tendency of tweeting with the hashtag #killallwhitemen.
We are supposed to believe it “ironic” that a feminist would do such a thing. I must confess, folks, I’m shocked – shocked I tell you – that a feminist would even consider it. If by “consider it” you mean “do it all the time. In case you’ve forgotten:
The proportion of men must be reduced to and maintained at approximately 10% of the human race.
That quote comes from feminist professor Sally Gearhart in her article “The Future – If There Is One – Is Female.” Quite “ironically,” this violence-promoting quote was featured in a later book promoting nonviolence which was titled Reweaving the Web of Life: Feminism and Nonviolence (page 266, if you need it).
Another “ironic” quote:
I think it’s not a bad idea at all. If life is to survive on this planet, there must be a decontamination of the Earth. I think this will be accompanied by an evolutionary process that will result in a drastic reduction of the population of males.
This one comes from Dr. Mary Daly, the professor who segregated and excluded males from her classroom (funny how much of a recurring theme that is lately). This was her response when asked what she thought of the above quote by Dr. Gearhart in an interview by EnlightenNext Magazine.
And isn’t it “ironic” that the magazine is called EnglightenNext? Does Dr. Daly seem enlightened to you? She did to a lot of her colleagues.
These are just a sample of statements we have compiled on our compilation page “The Language of Misandry in Academia.” We must ask: is it ironic to see such statements coming from feminists? I mean, it’s not like they have acquired a reputation for that kind of thing, right?
Where else have we seen the “ironic” misandry of excluding men on the basis of sex? Oh yes – very recently, we saw the poster below at the University of Queensland, courtesy of the “ironic” feminists there:
Yes, the practice of excluding men here follows the same spirit as that of Bahar Mustafa. “Coincidentally,” of course.
Here’s another Ironic Feminist™ burning copies of Dr. Christina Hoff-Sommers’s The War Against Boys:
More Ironic Feminism™ can be seen here, courtesy of the UCLA student group Bruin Feminists for Equality:
This is totally not sexist. In much the same way that it is not racist to walk around asking random black people not to steal.
The below brand of Ironic Feminism™ has been featured at over sixty colleges and universities during mandatory anti-rape orientation for first-year students (in some cases only males were required to attend these):
What a coincidence – Dr. Keith Edwards (the man above) is a feminist! Here is his article “Why Feminism is in my best interest as a man.” How ironic that he would say that!
Did anyone truly find it ironic that feminists presumed the guilt of the men accused of rape during the 2006 Duke lacrosse rape hoax, the 2013 Ohio U rape hoax, and hundreds of others? Did anyone find it “ironic” that, after the UVA / Rolling Stone rape hoax unraveled, feminist Zerlina Maxwell wrote an article for The Washington Post saying that “no matter what” we should automatically believe rape accusers? Here it is:
Did anyone think it “unexpected” and “out of character” for feminist and mainstream media writer (The Guardian) Jessica Valenti, commenting on that same hoax, to tweet:
Did anyone seriously not see these kinds of things coming from a feminist? Did it hit anyone out of the blue? Was anyone never informed that feminists have an unfortunate tendency to behave in this way?
No, Amanda Hess – I’m afraid we have seen much “ironic” feminism around here. So much that we have become very well acquainted with it.
Ah, but I must add the disclaimer that no, not all feminists are like that. No, not all feminists are narrow-minded, sexist, humorless troglodytes. In much the same way that not all the grass is green and not all the sky is blue.
Here’s what’s ironic: today, many advocates of “diversity” in academia have transitioned from a spirit of moral indignation to unvarnished bigotry, justifying their corruption with the notion of “two wrongs make a right…but only when I’m the one doing it.” They then rationalize their stranglehold over the conversation on equity and diversity by claiming continuity with a value system that they – more than simply abandoning – have betrayed.
Bahar Mustafa is such a person. And so are the many people that we catalog and call out on this platform.
Over twenty thousand people have signed a petition for Bahar Mustafa to be called to account. It is quite obvious that she lacks the proper fit for her position as welfare and diversity officer. I am not sure if even this many signatures will unseat her, but one thing we can credit this petition with doing is raising the public profile of Mustafa’s bigotry.
So what’s the takeaway? As I’ve said before, misandry in academia is not merely a collection of infrequent and disassociated anomalies arising from individuals uninfluenced by supportive or acquiescent peer groups. On the contrary, it is culturally pervasive in academia in a way that cannot be reasonably characterized as incidental or coincidental.
And as I said last time, it’s long past time we start opposing it.
[Ed. note: this post originally appeared at A Voice for Male Students and is reprinted here with permission.]
