Did ‘gender studies’ lose Afghanistan?

by Cockburn, Spectaor World, 19 August 2021

 

Twenty years of war in Afghanistan are over. What comes next is twenty years, or even more, of recriminations and blame for why the war ended as it did. Scholars and partisans still argue over the reasons America lost in Vietnam, so why should Afghanistan be any different?

On the plus side, the debate promises to be far more interesting. When it comes to Vietnam, partisans debate rules of engagement, bombing strategies, funding levels, and the Tet Offensive. With Afghanistan, the question could be: did gender studies cause America to suffer its most humiliating defeat ever? Cockburn wishes he was joking.

Traditionally, nations have waged war by mustering armies, defeating their enemies in battle, and despoiling their lands and cities. Only after total victory is the process of remaking a society feasible.

But America in Afghanistan sought a shortcut, and by “shortcut” Cockburn means “something that takes ten times as long but doesn’t look as nasty for TV cameras.” America hoped that with enough half-baked social engineering in the half of Afghanistan it controlled, it would eventually be rewarded with victory, and Afghanistan would become the Holland of the Hindu Kush. On Ivy League campuses, students are taught to decry “colonialism,” but the Ivy League diplomats who sought to remake Afghanistan in Harvard’s image were among the most ambitious practitioners of it in world history.

So, alongside the billions for bombs went hundreds of millions for gender studies in Afghanistan. According to U.S. government reports, $787 million was spent on gender programs in Afghanistan, but that substantially understates the actual total, since gender goals were folded into practically every undertaking America made in the country.

A recent report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) broke down the difficulties of the project. For starters, in both Dari and Pastho there are no words for “gender.” That makes sense, since the distinction between “sex” and “gender” was only invented by a sexually-abusive child psychiatrist in the 1960s, but evidently Americans were caught off-guard. Things didn’t improve from there. ... Continue reading >>>

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The #MeToo movement, though feminist, anti-racist, anti-homophobic and anti - conservative by nature has exposed little that intelligent people were not aware of, rich powerful men sometimes use their position to exploit females sexually, attractive, sexually alluring women sometimes use their allure to sexually exploit men, and homosexuals are often whining, self pitying exploiters of identity politics. The one surprise that has emerged from the whole farrago is that like Harvey Weinstein whose misdemeanours started it all, most of the men so far accused of harassment or exploitation are what the luvvieocracy refer to as 'liberals'. Weinstein is or was a supporter and friend of Hillbillary Clinton, Kevin Spacey, Dustin Hoffman, Louis C K, and many more.

People whose sympathies lie to the right of the political spectrum are well represented on the linked page of course, but this article focuses on the liberals because of the obsessive virtue signalling that comes from supporters of their political persuasion. Already there has been a pushback against the feminist campaign, with more level headed women agreeing that some things being called harassment were pathetically trivial, a man putting his hand on a woman's shoulder or arm for example. These people like to give the impression that their side has a monopoly on goodness, virtue and truth. Thus it is amusing to see that for all their preachy self righteousness when discussing politically correct causes have feet of clay. One of the crucibles of cultural Marxism in which politically correct authoritarianism was form is America's oldest and most prestigious university, Harvard, hallowed halls of. Within the hallowed halls of this august institution we would expect levels of moral rectitude not achievable by us ordinary mortals. how disappointing then to learn that the foremost among the preachers of fairness, equality and human rights are just as flawed as you or I, or perhaps more flawed because power corrupts and people who use their position to trade high grades for sexual favours are very corrupt.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reported Monday that Harvard has suspended a senior professor after the Chronicle published the results of an investigation into allegations against him of sexual harassment and groping going back to the 1970s. The professor's name is Jorge Dominguez. At the time of his suspension, he was a vice provost for international affairs at the school, and also the Antonio Madero Professor for the Study of Mexico at Harvard University.

So far, 18 women have accused Dominguez of inappropriate behavior. The women all tell similar stories. In a pattern that's no doubt familiar to anybody who's followed the #MeToo movement, Dominguez first presented himself as a mentor to these women, before eventually escalating his behavior to cross borders into sexual harassment territory. The problem here is that the #MeToo gang like to denigrate 'white men', portraying that much maligned group as the authors of all evil, yet look through the list of alleged abusers linked above and you will finf black and 'hispanic' men well represented.

One woman named Rebekah said Dominguez made a pass at her after inviting her for an after-work drink, a meeting that culminated with Dominguez "cupping my ass."

In 2006, Domínguez was named vice provost for international affairs, a wide-ranging position that included promoting the university's research programs abroad as well as meeting with donors and alumni. Rebekah said when she applied to Harvard’s Graduate School of Education to join a master's degree course, he wrote her a glowing recommendation. “If there was a Jorge Domínguez fan club, I would have been president from 2012 to 2015,” Rebekah said.

When she graduated from the master’s program in May of 2015, Domínguez suggested over a glass of wine that he was worried about her: She’d gained weight, he said, and he thought successful fund raisers should be beautiful and thin. When he noticed she was angry, he apologized profusely and reached in for a hug. "I was trying to pull away and then he cupped my ass," she wrote soon afterward in an online chat with a Harvard colleague.

Other women who had uncomfortable interactions with Domínguez made similar allegations. One former student, who spoke with The Chronicle on the condition of anonymity, said that knowing Domínguez was still widely celebrated at the university, she decided against reporting his behavior. "There would have been tremendous career repercussions for me," she said. “I’d be perceived as a troublemaker within the department.” Yes, these shits stick together and cover each others' backs.

Sexual harassment allegations have roiled industries from media, to entertainment to food service. But the walled-off worlds of prestigious universities have been conspicuously free of major scandals, despite what many believe to be a culture with and male-female power imbalances that is prime territory for sexual predators. But of course it is unreasonable to suspect professors and lecturers, after all they are liberals and as such theit all round goodness places them above suspicion.

The story is yet another example of how purportedly progressive environments are just as rife with sexual misconduct as anywhere else. There are of course many reported incidents of university and college tutors abusing their position, but as Harvard has taken such a leading role in demonising blue collar workers as ignorant, uncouth and ineducable, an oppostunity to stick a steel ties boot in their collective scholastic groin is too good to miss.

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