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    Natasha Vargas-CooperNatasha Vargas-Cooper
    5/29/15 5:54pm

    What part of this current iteration of feminism do you most identify with? The policing? The intolerance to differing views? The clinging to victimhood? I see none of myself in it.

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      benjaminalloverNatasha Vargas-Cooper
      5/29/15 5:57pm

      I’m a life-long feminist who at 34 is starting to feel very much on the outside of this tent. What the fuck are these student’s going for here?

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      BlessedAreTheHedas. Our fight is not over.benjaminallover
      5/29/15 6:07pm

      I'm feeling the exact same way.

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    Lady YuckNatasha Vargas-Cooper
    5/29/15 5:46pm

    With the risk of doxxing myself, I go to NU and am a grad student. I think her essay is in extremely poor taste since the “great prohibition” came out of a professor being a complete fucking creep (Peter Ludlow). Yes, it’s messed up to prohibit people from loving each other, but it hasn’t been socially acceptable for a very long time. It’s a fucked up power dynamic, and I can’t think of an appropriate activity a professor/student would be doing in order for them to develop a serious relationship.

    I’ll get off my soapbox now.

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      MissouriBenLady Yuck
      5/29/15 5:54pm

      The Patriot Act came out of some people being creeps too. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t a terrible idea.

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      Tejón FaceLady Yuck
      5/29/15 5:55pm

      When you do get off it give it to these students! So they can maybe also try responding to ideas with.....other ideas! Like the little scholars they aren’t. Instead of bringing frivolous lawsuits. More soapboxes for everyone, i’m srsly.

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    Tejón FaceNatasha Vargas-Cooper
    5/29/15 5:40pm

    “symbolically incoherent” is a phrase that a lot of college students need to have in their head when they plan their activism, just saying.

    What bums me out most about this is that the question of consent laws, “spheres of victimhood” and the worry about infantilization is SUCH an important and interesting one (and not on that seems, to me, to be inherently dismissive or disrespectful. At all). They could have engaged, they could have been intellectually productive. What is the academy for, guys, if it’s not for that.

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      Mitch ConnorTejón Face
      5/29/15 7:01pm

      I think that phrase would have been very helpful to the students at my undergrad institution who went on a hunger strike to protest our western-centric core curriculum. Was their concern valid? Yes. Did the hunger strike make them look like damn fools? Absolutely.

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      QwynTejón Face
      5/29/15 8:42pm

      “symbolically incoherent” is a phrase college students should learn the meaning of, and incorporate in to their vocabulary in general. This shit is fucking killing me though.

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    MonCOguyNatasha Vargas-Cooper
    5/29/15 5:34pm

    Once again proving that college students have WAY too much time on their hands.

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      ErgatesMonCOguy
      5/29/15 5:39pm

      And are, as a group, idiots.

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      OnlyPosersDieBobMonCOguy
      5/29/15 8:13pm

      Agreed-this really validates all the time in college I spent drinking and developing a mildly serious cocaine addiction. At least I wasn’t, ya know, destroying feminism from the inside.

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    The6thZombieNatasha Vargas-Cooper
    5/29/15 5:37pm

    Sigh...this is why we can’t have “nice” things. Agree or disagree, fine. But really, this kind of thing just adds more fuel to the Rush Limblah army—”Feminazis!” he’ll cry, while sitting on his mountain of money. And the real issues will be swept under the rug as usual.

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      burnedoneanddoneThe6thZombie
      5/29/15 5:56pm

      Spot on.

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      Used2BGOPThe6thZombie
      5/29/15 7:16pm

      Feminism has found its Tea Party

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    Joseph FinnNatasha Vargas-Cooper
    5/29/15 5:54pm

    Jesus, such a dumb ass thing to do. I just don’t see any reason to make a Title IX complaint just because Kipnis wrote a hilariously bone-headed essay. (Yes, Kipnis, schools are cracking down on such relationships and it’s a good thing.)

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      C.A. PinkhamJoseph Finn
      5/30/15 1:45am

      Yeah, the essay is some stupid, out-of-touch shit, but unless the students have evidence that isn’t being presented here regarding its violation of Title IX, the most the essay is worth is an eyeroll.

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    mannequinNatasha Vargas-Cooper
    5/29/15 5:37pm

    This is really ridiculous. I’m all for college students speaking out against abuse or hate speak, but this was simply a critically thinking professor who has a different stance/opinion than some other campus feminists. Feminism is not a monolith! We are all allowed to have different feminist beliefs!!

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      deerlady83mannequin
      5/29/15 6:01pm

      I agree. She is not expresses abusive or hateful views. Just a different idea of the relationship between professors and students.

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      LOLOLWOWmannequin
      5/29/15 7:33pm

      Feminism is not a monolith!

      lmaoooo

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    pazuzuNatasha Vargas-Cooper
    5/29/15 6:27pm

    I’m not even sure what is the particular objection to her original essay. Is this a failing on the part of this Jez article or does this speak more to the “incoherent” nature of the students’ protest? I read the article, and I didn’t find it especially shocking or even pro-rape (a ludicrous position to take). Am I missing something here or is my reading comprehension skills poor?

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      Natasha Vargas-Cooperpazuzu
      5/29/15 7:09pm

      No! You're reading fine! Her essay was not shocking or out of line!!

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      septembergrrlpazuzu
      5/29/15 7:33pm

      No, I think people just got their feelings hurt because she described specific situations in ways not entirely sympathetic to the women involved. And, as we all know, being unsympathetic to a woman = being sexist = basically rape.

      I think her essay, while entertaining, was flip, snide and dismissive about certain issues, and can fairly be criticized on those grounds. But it’s ludicrous it got her brought up to a disciplinary board.

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    Ruin Tomaro IIINatasha Vargas-Cooper
    5/29/15 5:41pm

    Read this earlier, and just, wow.

    I mean, I was an idiot and a bad person in college too. But I never felt like I had the ability to try to ruin somebody’s life because... well, not because they didn’t agree with me, exactly, but because they agreed with me, but not on every exact thing.

    Title IX is one of the greatest achievements in civil rights this country has ever passed, and now it’s being screwed up because OF COURSE bureaucrats can’t be trusted with anything.

    At a personal level I’m amazed Kipnis had the class not to file a counterclaim. I’d probably be trying to destroy these students’ lives. Because I’m still a bad person.

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      apennilesspoetRuin Tomaro III
      5/29/15 6:31pm

      Bureaucrats are why we can't have nice things.

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      butus21Ruin Tomaro III
      5/29/15 7:32pm

      I really, really hope she decides to counter-sue. And wins.

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    story645Natasha Vargas-Cooper
    5/29/15 6:21pm

    While I’m not terribly supportive of the students outrage here, this woman doesn’t have any of my sympathy ‘cause she’s is basically lamenting that professors sleeping with students is no longer OK.

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      Natasha Vargas-Cooperstory645
      5/29/15 7:05pm

      That's not an accurate or fair depiction of her piece.

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      story645Natasha Vargas-Cooper
      5/29/15 7:20pm

      How? She basically waxes nostalgically about student/teacher relationships:

      When I was in college, hooking up with professors was more or less part of the curriculum.

      ...

      As Jane Gallop recalls in Feminist Accused of Sexual Harassment (1997), her own generational cri de coeur, sleeping with professors made her feel cocky, not taken advantage of.

      Spends a couple of paragraphs mocking the on campus sexual harassment training:

      Knowing my own propensity for unfunny jokes, and given that telling one could now land you, the unfunny prof, on the carpet or even the national news, I decided to put my name down for one of the voluntary harassment workshops on my campus, hoping that my good citizenship might be noticed and applauded by the relevant university powers.

      And says a student accusing a professor of rape is being melodramatic:

      But here’s the real problem with these charges: This is melodrama. I’m quite sure that professors can be sleazebags. I’m less sure that any professor can force an unwilling student to drink, especially to the point of passing out. With what power? What sorts of repercussions can there possibly be if the student refuses?

      Yes, she does have a valid point in there that all these new policies may be making students more vulnerable instead of protecting them by maybe preventing them from developing the tools they need to assert when they feel uncomfortable and the coping mechanisms to deal with unavoidable bad situations, but man does she seem blissfully oblivious to the power dynamics in academia. I dunno, maybe I was put off by the flippant tone of a lot of this piece; I think that deep down there’s a good discussion in it but man does it get obscured.

      And yes, I very possibly am being unfairly judgy about this ‘cause I’m a grad student adjunct and therefore simultaneously on both sides of the student/professor divide.

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