#uni sa

[creative-underachiever-96]

Visual inquiry We had to incorporate various methods learned throughout the semester and this was my final result

[faithliesinashes]

The superiority complex and elitism that comes from the students at University of Adelaide really shouldn’t surprise me but here we are. 

[seanhigginsart225-blog]

UNI day one We made badges Worked together to collaboratively create a wall piece

[nodaudaboutitt]

Who else is going to mawson lakes or city west for o week? Would be nice to meet some new people

[jolieetmort-blog]

starting to think I should have gone into uni today for their o-week activities and stuff so I could've met people and now I'm stressed cause I didn't go and am now more stressed and nervous about starting uni oh god

[merinnan]

Here is the article, with my comments, so you don't have to risk accidentally reading the comments at the source:

LECTURERS in a "world-first" male studies course at the University of South Australia have been linked to extreme views on men's rights and websites that rail against feminism.

Oh, goody. Given the current government, why am I not finding it surprising that more and more of the US radical right-wing shit is making it's way over here?

The lecturers' backgrounds are likely to spark controversy, but organisers of the predominantly online course, promoted as the first of its type in the world, insist they are not anti-feminist and "it's very difficult for anybody who has opposing views to get a word in".

Uh-huh...'likely to spark controversy' = 'they're awful people and we know it, but we want the attention that they'll bring because any attention is good attention'.

Two lecturers have been published by prominent US anti-feminist site A Voice for Men, a site which regularly refers to women as "bitches" and "whores" and has been described as a hate site by the civil rights organisation Southern Poverty Law Centre.

It also promotes harassment of and violence against female activists, which is one of the many reasons SPLC lists it as a hate site. Great to see UniSA thinks that people who are active contributors to a hate site are suitable staff members, let alone lecturers.

The US site specifically welcomed the UniSA course as a milestone, editor Paul Elam saying it marked the end of feminists' control of the agenda.

Elam's also on the record as saying that if he's ever on the jury for a rape trial he'll give a not guilty verdict, regardless of how much evidence there is to say the guy's guilty. And he wrote an article about when men should beat their female partners. Among many other charming things.

One American US lecturer - US attorney and self-professed "anti-feminist lawyer" Roy Den Hollander - has written that the men's movement might struggle to exercise influence but that "there is one remaining source of power in which men still have a near monopoly - firearms".

Oh, good. But gun control is just a leftist conspiracy, right?

He also argues that feminists oppress men in today's world and refers to women's studies as "witches' studies".

Nice to see that he upholds the objectivity that most academics strive for.

Another, US psychology professor Miles Groth, says that date-rape awareness seminars might be deterring men from going to university.

Okay, I'll be honest here. If a guy's so against the idea of awareness seminars on HOW NOT TO RAPE SOMEONE that it deters him from going to uni, then GOOD. I don't want to go to uni with rapists and rape-apologists, and I'm sure most women don't. Those guys being deterred from university makes it a safer place for everyone else.

Mr Den Hollander has tried to sue ladies' nights for discrimination against men. He has likened the position of men today to black people in America's south in the 1950s "sitting in the back of the bus", and blames feminists for oppressing men.

...are we living in the same world? Because, y'know, I really can't remember the last time I got public transport and men were forced to sit at the back on pain of arrest and police brutality.

The course, which has no prerequisites, begins this year and will canvass subjects from men's health to gender bias.

See, in theory, a course covering that range of subjects could be really informative and useful. Men's health is a big problem given gender stereotyping and societal gender roles and expectations, and it would be good for men to have gender bias pointed out to them and related back to those roles and expectations...except that that's not what this course is about, sadly.

Course founder Gary Misan, from UniSA's Centre for Rural Health and Community Development, said they were "not anti-women" and that lecturers were associated with a range of groups. "I wouldn't say any of them are extreme or anti-feminist," Dr Misan said.

Of course not. That's why they're listed as hate groups, and they're members call for feminists to be raped and murdered. And make those threats to women, too.

"The aim of the courses are to present a balanced view and to counter some of the negative rhetoric that exists in society in general and in some areas of academe about men.

Except that it's not going to, it's just going to complain about Teh Ebil Feminazis and how they're Destroying Male Privilege.

"It's very difficult for anybody who has opposing views to get a word in. As soon as somebody mentions anything they perceive as being anti-feminist, they're pilloried, and in some cases almost persecuted."

Yep, extremely difficult. That's why there's huge websites dedicated to it, and why they're getting more and more mainstream media attention. And anti-feminism is so looked down on that there's literally thousands of jokes about stupid overreacting feminists, entire swathes of politics dedicated to unwinding the civil rights won by feminists over the years, rape is the most under-prosecuted crime, rape and death threats against feminists are regularly dismissed by both society and the police... ...but when feminists speak out against this and call out specific men for being shitty, they're 'pillorying' and 'persecuting' the poor men who've done nothing wrong, really, because they didn't really mean that they were going to rape and murder that woman, no matter how many messages they sent her telling her exactly that.

Dr Misan also said that writing something for a specific website did not necessarily suggest an affiliation.

Yeah, not even when you write multiple articles agreeing with pretty much everything else written on there!

Dr Michael Flood, from the University of Wollongong's Centre for Research on Men and Masculinity, said these types of male studies "really represents the margins".

If only, dude. If only.

"It comes out of a backlash to feminism and feminist scholarship. The new male studies is an effort to legitimise, to give academic authority, to anti-feminist perspectives," he said.

Ayup.

Flinders University School of Education senior lecturer Ben Wadham, who has a specific interest in men's rights, said there was a big difference between formal masculinity studies and "populist" male studies. He said there were groups that legitimately help men, and then the more extreme activists. "That tends to manifest in a more hostile movement which is about 'women have had their turn, feminism's gone too far, men are now the victims, white men are now disempowered'," he said. "I would argue that the kinds of masculinities which these populist movements represent are anathema to the vision of an equal and fair gendered world."

Exactly. And, unfortunately, the MRA ones tend to be far more vocal, so tend to drown out the groups that are actually trying to genuinely help men, rather than bash women.

Dr Wadham said that universities needed to uphold research based traditions instead of the populist, partisan approach driven by some.

*coughcough*UniSA*coughcough*

Men's Health Australia spokesman and Male Studies lecturer Greg Andresen is also the Australian correspondent for US-based site National Coalition For Men, which declares false rape accusations to be "psychological rape", argues that talking about violence against women makes men invisible.

Because guys, didn't you know that accusing someone of a crime is much worse than someone committing a crime?! In fact, accusing someone of a crime should be a crime in and of itself! And every time I see an article or comment about a women being the victim of violence, yet more men disappear from my field of vision! I gotta tell you, it makes going out anywhere really difficult since I never know if I'm going to accidentally walk into all these invisible men. It's a huge problem that really needs to be addressed.

Asked about his connection to NCFM, he said they were the longest-running organisation in the world to look at discrimination against men and boys.

And by 'discrimination against' we mean 'no longer having their every whim catered to' and 'having to share things with women and girls'.

"Certainly they don't shy away from touching issues like false rape allegations, domestic violence, some of those hot topics," he said.

Or 'should women be allowed to vote', or 'here's the personal details of women we disagree with', or 'when to hit your wife', or 'how taking advantage of someone unable to give consent isn't really rape'....

"We have had 20 if not 30 or 40 years where the only study on gender has been from a feminist perspective … that's why I think this course is so long overdue," he said.

20 - 40 years. As opposed to to the several thousand years before that (at least) when pretty much everything was from a male perspective. Yeah, 40 out of four thousand years is way too much, guys! Those women should stop being so greedy!

UniSA's Provost and Chief Academic Officer, Professor Allan Evans, said the courses covered important men's health issues and would equip allied health professionals who deal with men's health.

Those would be good courses. Unfortunately, those are not the courses being offered.

"All new courses are reviewed thoroughly prior to being offered to ensure they are suitable and beneficial to our students," he said.

ORLY? By whom? Cory Bernardi?

Also, shoutout to The Advertiser for managing to write an entire article about an anti-feminism course without speaking to one woman!

Edit: UniSA has put out a damage control statement, here, disavowing pretty much everything reported on in the article. Given that the statement contains at least one outright falsity, I plan to follow up with the named contact person.

[iseegreatdesign]

Amazingly eye catching design for the up and coming pub crawl for Uni SA architecture students. I know its just a skull for the sake of it being cool but there doesn't need to be a message for a poster to work, its what makes a poster eye catching and whether people want to read it or not.

[ilynor]

passed my first semester of uni holy man titties life is so nice