Gender Study Ban

This is not a cause for celebration. Orban is a fascist, he is against gender studies because he believes in good old fashioned sex based stereotypes, therefore, a subject that serves as a means of studying the the causes and effects of those stereotypes along with the power imbalance they create is the antithesis of his ideology

Absolutely. There is some good work being done by scholars at the CEU on women and labour and women and health, etc. Yes there are also some 'woke' scholars rabbiting on about queer theory - but there is some good, solid women's studies being done too and integrated into the teaching programs.

The Social "sciences" are essentially a bunch of people talking about their feels. Fact are inconvenient, hypotheses are generated to support ideology, and journals will publish any old shit so long as it supports the doctrines of the moment

Oh fuck off. I was waiting for the first anti social sciences post. There is always one. Need I bother to say that the comment above is asinine, untrue and deeply offensive?

Or does he mean 'studies about gender'?

I thought Gender Studies was the archetypal feminist degree choice?

State funded learning can at least be accountable to public scrutiny.

Paging Mr Lysenko...paging Mr Lysenko...

they do not consider it acceptable to talk about socially constructed genders

This is in no way a good thing. The analysis of socially constructed gender is absolutely central to feminism.

Just because the idea of innate gender identity is regressive bullshit, doesn't mean the entire concept of gender is bullshit. Gender is a tool of oppression that we really need to be able to name and discuss.

Otherwise we're left with only sex and all the differences between men and women in society are just sex - biological, innate and unchangeable. Which is traditional anti-feminism in a nutshell.

Perhaps sex roles was a better term but I think gender is a really useful word when applied correctly.

Yeah, not sure. Big Private money does bring problems, but I would see the primary problem in censoring. US uni administrations have kicked out professors for ‚wrong‘ positions on middle eastern conflicts, even though colleagues and students were happy with them - cause donors. On balance I‘d give freedom of thought and research preference and expect silly esoteric crap to collapse on its own weight. (Don’t think it takes outside intervention to see Gender studies collapse). What the state can always do is not validate the degree from some private education path that does not qualifY as being ‚state of the art‘ or so.

State funded learning can at least be accountable to public scrutiny. I'd be concerned that a privatley funded course would be able to get away with peddling anything they liked.

so the choice is between fascism (a form of totalitarianism) and what Sheldon Wolin called inverted totalitarianism then. (Difference: in the former the corporations are in service of the state, in the latter the state is in service of corporations). Why is there never a genuine social democratic option these days?

... and, yes, Orban is a fascist. The definition of fascism works perfectly well without concentration camps.

If you think that anything Viktor Orban does is grounded in progressive, feministic, liberal thinking, you're insane. He's a fascist.

This!

And, yes, it does matter. Because my enemy's enemy is not always my friend. Orban's vile government is not doing this due to put an end to the excesses of postmodernism. They're doing it because, like any pretty much any populist far right movement, they're rabid lying anti-intellectual. And that would be because intellectuals might have the brains to dissect their ideology and therefore are a threat.

You know who else is a threat in the eyes of these people? Uppity women!

First they came for the socialists, and I stood by the side of the road and cheered them on because, as a communist, I knew what bleeding idiots socialists are, anyone?

It is somewhat pathetic that our choices pretty much across the Western world are between the postmodernist, globalist crazies, who think societies can and need to be engineered top down. and patriarchal strongmen who want to reinforce traditional gender roles. None of the two sides stands for democracy, social responsibility and solidarity within a society. The Left is pretty much dead.

Orban is simply saying that people are born as men or women, and that they do not consider it acceptable to talk about socially constructed genders, rather than biological sexes, and that people can live their lives as they see fit, but that beyond this, the Hungarian state will not use public funds on education in this area.
It is George Soros who is funding a lot of these gender studies, plus "Open Society Foundations" who advocate the use of puberty blockers on children.

4thwavenow.com/2018/05/25/the-open-society-foundations-the-transgender-movement/

sputniknews.com/europe/201810191069043445-hungary-men-women-gender-studies-ban/

Whilst I don't agree with Orban on a lot of matters, I think the word "fascist" is a bit strong.

Saskia - I did my first degree in English too, but am in another discipline now. The problem I’m finding is that most academics are gender critical, but not “out”. My colleagues were studiously avoiding talking about trans activism until I stuck my head above the parapet. At that point they all told me they agreed with me, but they won’t say so publicly.

Following an investigation into this paper, triggered by the Publisher and Editor shortly after publication, we have undertaken a number of checks to confirm the author’s identity. These checks have shown this to be a hoax paper, submitted under false pretences, and as such we are retracting it from the scholarly record.

If I remember correctly, the investigation only came about because the author of the paper admitted that it was written as part of an attempt to highlight the lack of oversight on the part of academic journals.

kesstrel it was a mistake! I can understand why the term was adopted, but it has led to ambiguity and some very dubious scholarship.

I also think it's coming from social sciences

One of the characteristics of science is that it attempts, however imperfectly, to discern facts about reality. Yes, it's nothing like as objective or dispassionate as it pretends, and over the years science has allowed itself to be used to support ideologies (and has a pretty bad track record on racism, in particular), but at least it knows that it should try to do better and generally improves over time.

The Social "sciences" are essentially a bunch of people talking about their feels. Fact are inconvenient, hypotheses are generated to support ideology, and journals will publish any old shit so long as it supports the doctrines of the moment.

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0966369X.2018.1475346 ("incredibly innovative, rich in analysis, and extremely well-written and organized")

Before "gender" became used in its current feminist definition, women's studies got along perfectly well using the terms "sex roles" and "sex stereotyping". Those terms had the advantage of being very clear and not at all ambiguous. IMO it was a mistake to adopt the term gender for sex roles, because according to the OED (full length version) gender and sex have been used fairly interchangeably for centuries. Academics using a 'specialist' version of a common term especially one linked to dodgy psychoanalytic ideas) run the strong risk of that term being misunderstood and misappropriated - which is what has happened.

GCAcademic I'm studying history, but my first degree was in english - I do have an interest in the history of art, hence my username.

I also think it's coming from social sciences. I can see that it could be an issue in some branches of the humanities, but nature of the evidence historical study is based on means you'd struggle to be taken seriously if you formulated an argument based on perceived feelings in other peoples' heads.

Maybe I should try it - the Romans all wore dresses so clearly they were ladies, even the ones with dicks. The Barbarians kept fighting to stop them invading their spaces - obviously massive TERFs! Therefore, I am arguing that the takeover of the western Roman empire by the Barbarian, Odoacer was actually an act of egregious transphobia.

In this case, the enemy of my enemy is NOT my friend.

SaskiaRembrandtWasFramed - can I ask which subject you study? Is it the one suggested by your username? I ask because I’m interested to know which disciplines are currently able to maintain gender critical discussion. For all the grief that the humanities get on these boards, my impression is that there is a large number of gender critIcal academics in the humanities (most of them, like my colleagues, not speaking out) and it’s the social sciences which are pushing the trans agenda.

Well, quite Saskia - a decent university will promote critical thinking and protect its academics if they come under fire for this. We should not be celebrating critical thought being closed down.

This is not a cause for celebration. Orban is a fascist, he is against gender studies because he believes in good old fashioned sex based stereotypes, therefore, a subject that serves as a means of studying the the causes and effects of those stereotypes along with the power imbalance they create is the antithesis of his ideology.

Are people working in what is now gender studies able to be openly GC these days in this country?

I don't work in gender studies but the subject of gender does come up a lot in my studies, and yes, I am able to be gender critical, and so are my lecturers.

Socially created hierarchies are imposed on men’s bodies as well, though. Women’s studies became gender studies because men began to write about masculinity/masculinities using the insights of feminist scholarship. It is one of my bugbears that masculinity studies are now shelved in the library before feminism. However, I don’t think we should throw the baby out with the bath water - the way in which gender is inscribed through text, culture, institutions is important to understanding both male and female experiences.

I'm sure that what is now called gender stereotyping was once called sex stereotyping - certainly in the late 70s and early 80s.

The learning that Katara describes - how socially created hierarchies are imposed on biological bodies - was formerly taught in courses called women's studies.

I see your point Katara. It's a shame that the concepts of sex and gender are being twisted and conflated by TRAS to the detriment of such work. I don't know the content of the courses, I only worry the trans ideology seems to be infiltrating everywhere. Where and why did women's studies disappear or be renamed and is it to do with this? Are people working in what is now gender studies able to be openly GC these days in this country?

Backlash, people. This isn't a good thing, but this is what happens when utter lunacy parasites on progressive ideas.