The College Fix

A women’s history class frequently offered at Chapman University glorifies Margaret Sanger while it avoids her racist beliefs, highlights the feminist revolution while sidesteps the suffrage movement’s family values, and heralds Roe v. Wade and the advent of birth control, all while failing to cite the feminist counter-culture movement.

That’s not only not surprising, it’s expected, as classrooms in colleges across America are used to recruit young women into the feminists ranks, says Carrie Lukas, managing director of the conservative Independent Women’s Forum.

“The purpose here is to advance the feminist movement,” Lukas says. “The college classroom is a recruitment tool.”

Lukas, author of “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex, and Feminism,” says the vast majority of women studies classes do not offer fair and balanced approaches to the subject. It’s not unheard of for professors to skip relevant information, slant lesson plans, or skew lectures.

The course at Chapman University, a small liberal arts college in California, is a prime example of that.

When the course was taught in the spring, one student questioned its professor about Margaret Sanger’s widely reported racist beliefs after the professor finished praising the feminist for her work with birth control.

“Yes,” the professor admitted. “But a lot of people were at that time.”

In effect, the professor rendered Sanger’s background as a geneticist who supported the use of birth control and abortion to reduce minority populations moot.

The suffragettes’ pro-family values were also never broached in the class. Meanwhile, a disproportionate amount of of time was spent on the feminist revolution and the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion.

The fact that Norma McCorvey, the original Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade, has since recanted her claim that she was raped and needed an abortion, and is now a spokeswoman for the prolife movement, also was not raised during the class.

The class at Chapman follows a formula feminists use to garner support, Lukas says.

Take, for example, the left-leaning National Women’s Studies Association, which states in the preamble to its Constitution that it is“committed to being a forum conducive to a dialogue and collective action among women dedicated to feminist education and change.”

The association is not shy about its connection with and dependence on the feminist movement, declaring that “women’s studies owes its existence to the movement for the liberation of women.” And in turn, female professors help feed into that “feminist education and change.”

But this promotion of only one perspective is a disservice to women, Lukas says.

“College is a time when you should be learning to evaluate things on your own,” she says. “This is where we should have the opportunity to learn the benefits and weaknesses to both sides.”

And with all the recent talk about the war on women, perhaps the real war on women is the fact that they are not really learning their own history.

“The study of women and society should be robust and fascinating,” Lukas says. “It’s a shame to push one agenda. Truly a lost opportunity.”

Fix contributor N S is a student at Chapman University.

IMAGE: RRHO/Flickr

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