Where conservatism leads


Scott Yenor is a professor who gave speech at a National Conservatism conference that said the quiet parts out loud. Women don’t belong in engineering or medical careers, we have to have strong manly leadership to convince them to stay home and have babies. Our independent women are more medicated, meddlesome, and quarrelsome than women need to be, don’t you know — the significant word in there might be our. Also, women are at their peak fertility in their late teens and early 20s, and to be a great nation, they must be quickly impregnated. And here I thought Dr Strangelove was satire!

…a computer could be set and programmed to accept factors from youth, health, sexual fertility, intelligence, and a cross-section of necessary skills. Of course, it would be absolutely vital that our top government and military men be included to foster and impart the required principles of leadership and tradition. Naturally, they would breed prodigiously, eh? There would be much time, and little to do. Ha, ha. But ah, with the proper breeding techniques and a ratio of say, ten females to each male, I would guess that they could then work their way back to the present Gross National Product within say, twenty years.

That’s this guy.

Young men must be respectable and responsible to inspire young women to be secure with feminine goals of homemaking and having children. Every effort must be made not to recruit women into engineering, but rather to recruit and demand more of men who become engineers. Ditto for med school, and the law, and every trade.

Fortunately, Yenor is not a professor of engineering, medicine, or law. He’s a professor of political science, a field that seems to have much lower standards. Or at least, lower standards at schools in Idaho.

Comments

  1. Erp says

    I think he has political connections in Idaho which gives him some protection above even being tenured.
    Poli Sci at Boise does seem to have some women (and, horrors!, non American born women) coming up through the ranks (assistant and associate professors). Another news source quotes a tenured poli sci professor, Stephen Utych,

    I’ve heard things from that people have noticed that women are treated differently in his class, right? I’ve heard suggestions, small things but still kind of offensive things like he calls women sweetie in class and things like that.

    it also quotes a former student

    “He was just awful as a professor,” she recalled. “I remember the very first day of class and he went around the room and he purposefully called all the women Mrs. whatever and he’d pick a last name, but he wouldn’t say your last name. So my last name is Jackson, so instead of calling me Mrs. Jackson, he would call me Mrs. Johnson, and if I corrected him, he would tell me it didn’t matter because it wasn’t really my last name anyway, it was my husband’s.”
    Jackson explained that Yenor would always call male students by their first name and would call female students “sweetie” or “honey.” She went on to add that he made it clear women and mothers would have a difficult time in his course.

    She then goes on to describe how he told all the mothers (but not the dads) in the class they were going to fail.
    https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/local/208/boise-state-students-professors-react-scott-yenor-controversial-statements/277-4d53a6bb-d473-4c13-9f9e-900247073046 (Holmes, Brian, Boise State alumna and a tenured professor react to Scott Yenor’s controversial statements, 2 December 2021, KTVB)
    Women btw make up 57% of Boise State’s student population. Note these allegations of classroom behavior are directly discriminatory.

  2. raven says

    Or at least, lower standards at schools in Idaho.

    That is part of the problem right there. Idaho.

    In most places, this guy would be on his way out, tenure or no tenure.
    He has just stated he is a woman hater, on the far extremes of misogyny.
    There is no way any female could take his classes and believe they will be graded fairly.
    There is no way any female could even feel safe near a guy like this.

    He apparently does have tenure or even in Idaho, he would be looking for a new job somewhere.
    That isn’t a problem though.
    Universities know how to sideline professors who go around the bend, down the rabbit hole, or just stop doing their jobs. You end up teaching a few noncredit courses, get a partial salary, and a small office somewhere out of the way while the university waits for you to retire or die.
    I’ve seen many such over the years. At my undergraduate university, there were at least three.

    At one research university, one professor had a young life crisis and disappeared in the middle of the term. The department got a call from him from India, where he had joined a Buddhist seminary and wanted to go on sabbatical. He came back a year later, changed his name to something Indian, and never did another experiment in his life, a big deal since this was a research department.
    The department had him teach a basic chemistry for nonmajors course that no one else wanted to teach. Strangely enough, he was a actually a good teacher.

  3. raven says

    FWIW, this hater professor is wrong on his facts.
    No surprise.

    Women make up a majority of medical school students (50.4%) and law school students (52.4%).
    Most college students in the USA are women at 59.5%.

    wsj.

    At the close of the 2020-21 academic year, women made up 59.5% of college students, an all-time high, and men 40.5%, according to enrollment data from the National Student Clearinghouse, a nonprofit research group.Sep 6, 2021

    A Generation of American Men Give Up on College – Wall …

    The majority of college graduates are also women.

    PS Strangely enough, the lieutenant governor of Idaho is a far right extremist just like Yenor except for one thing. Her name is Janice McGeachin. She isn’t his direct boss but she outranks him by a long ways in the Idaho political hierarchy.
    I suppose she thinks all women should be home pregnant and baking cookies except for her.

  4. Akira MacKenzie says

    The last century of civil rights are openly and brazenly being rolled back, yet like some parent in denial of their child’s delinquency, Democrats/liberals keep acting like our civilizations slide into fascism is “just a phase.”

  5. PaulBC says

    Fortunately, Yenor is not a professor of engineering, medicine, or law. He’s a professor of political science

    I’m not going to opine on the standards of his field, but it takes some chutzpah to be telling engineers and doctors what to do.

  6. PaulBC says

    raven@4

    Women make up a majority of medical school students (50.4%) and law school students (52.4%).
    Most college students in the USA are women at 59.5%.

    That may be exactly what’s frightening him. Anyway, nobody is turning back the clock. What an idiot.

    I can only guess that his mental picture of “engineer” is a 60s-era NASA mission control specialist with a short-sleeve white shirt and tie. What rock has he been living under?

  7. Doc Bill says

    In a interview, Yenor expressed his gratitude and appreciation at being selected for the B Ark due to be launched soon to colonize another planet before our Sun was eaten by a Star Goat.

  8. robro says

    PaulBC @ #11 — “Anyway, nobody is turning back the clock.” But lots of people are trying really, really hard to do just that. It’s frankly disheartening how much power regressive people have in this country.

  9. ethicsgradient says

    “National Conservatism” is National Socialism but without the pretence of caring about the average members of the in-group.

  10. birgerjohansson says

    Every time a conservative says the quiet part aloud we should collect money through Internet to buy ads in TV and newspapers to shout it out from the roofs! Let no one say “I did not know”.

    I bet a lot of the wankers joke about jews and n*ggers all the time, but as long as it is not a celebrity or senator, it is not perceived to be newsworthy.

  11. birgerjohansson says

    ” A 60s NASA mission control specialist”
    The 1960s Republicans were not the kind of knuckle-draggers that are in charge today.

  12. kome says

    And the school keeps him on staff, despite the clear pattern of discrimination, harassment, and creating a climate where his students are not given equal education.

    Because administrations have no backbone and no motivation to create an academic environment that comes anywhere near close to the values they endlessly drone on about in mission statements and campus-wide e-mail after e-mail.

  13. birgerjohansson says

    Ethicsgradient @ 15
    We can expect the trumpists to eventually start NCDAP …National Christian Democratic American Patriots.
    And since they have recycled everything else, I expect they will put an English text to CoughHorstCoughWesselCough
    Lots of neoclassical monuments…for Southern patriots. Mere statues are not good enough.

  14. PaulBC says

    robro@14

    But lots of people are trying really, really hard to do just that.

    True, but they don’t really have the power to reverse massive culture trends. They may well succeed in fucking things up for everyone, but they’ll certainly fail in their stated goals.

    It wouldn’t surprise me at all if the US looks like mid-90s former Yugoslavia in a few years. It won’t look like The Handmaid’s Tale, not for lack of trying, just because it’s impossible. People like Yenor don’t have a clue. They are windbags with a laughably archaic understanding of the modern world, but ironically abetted by the latest technology, developed by engineers (including women) as they actually exist and not as Yenor fantasizes them to be.

  15. drewl, Mental Toss Flycoon says

    @20
    When I read the OP, I was thinking “please don’t be from U of I” .
    You are half right. Idaho is gorgeous, but most people are shit. Still though, Latah county is probably the bluest in the state (which seems weird if you’ve ever been to Deary or Troy).

  16. Akira MacKenzie says

    @ 22

    True, but they don’t really have the power to reverse massive culture trends.

    Sure they do. They got the courts, they got the cops and the military, they got the churches, and they got millions of well armed rednecks chomping at the bit to kill us and “take America back.” After the Democrats inevitably roll over like the craven dogs they are and they take over, the culture will be the Right’s to control.

  17. PaulBC says

    Akira MacKenzie@24 I don’t think culture can be enforced top down. My main fear is the number of people they are going to kill in the attempt, so I’m not exactly an optimist.

  18. birgerjohansson says

    Happy birthday Noam Chomsky, 93 today.
    Not related to the topic, I just like the reminder that not all humans are monsters.

  19. PaulBC says

    birgerjohansson@26 True, though my shortlist is weighted towards the deceased. In no particular order: Kurt Vonnegut, Pete Seeger, Ursula K. Le Guin. I can’t think of anything bad to say about any of them, even if I had an urge to establish my “contrarian” street creds. I should start working on a list that includes people living and likely to continue to be living for a few more decades.

  20. davidc1 says

    @19 There already is one .A long time ago ,I thought Dr Strangelove was based on henry kissinger .

  21. PaulBC says

    davidc1@28 Another possible model is John von Neumann. Towards the end of his life, he was disabled by cancer, and he was a celebrity scientist during the early Cold War. It could be an amalgam. Lots of speculation, no definitive answer that I’m aware of. According to wikipedia:

    [Peter Sellers:] “Strangelove was never modeled after Kissinger—that’s a popular misconception. It was always Wernher von Braun.” Furthermore, Henry Kissinger points out in his memoirs that at the time of the writing of Dr. Strangelove, he was a little-known academic.

    Strangelove indicates in several ways that he was on the German side in WWII, which fits von Braun the best. I agree that Kissinger didn’t have the celebrity status at that time.

    So I would say mostly von Braun, possibly a composite. Kissinger seems like a long shot.

  22. unclefrogy says

    the politics and the culture are different aspects and influence each other but I suspect that the culture leads in many aspects of the society as a whole.
    looking at what goes on in the culture as a whole you do not see expressed the ideas of the conservative mind as expressed here by that professor. Even business is changing with the current attitudes, business wants to make money and sees that fighting change is not the most profitable. Culture is changing more looking at popular culture in particular most if not all the attitudes that the conservatives find offensive are not offensive at all to more and more of the younger people, Attitudes about race, sexual relations marriages work place attitudes all have changed from the 1940’s which seems to be where this professor’s mind stopped and is bemoaning we should still be like that. We ain’t nor are we likely to be going back that way any time soon without the use of considerable self-destructive force
    the question in my mind is how severe will this backlash be and how long will it last ? if we are going to continue to move forward it will have to end or we all will fail together we can not continue in this conflict as a successful country.

  23. raven says

    I always thought Dr. Strangelove was modeled on Herman Kahn.

    Wikipedia

    He became known for analyzing the likely consequences of nuclear war and recommending ways to improve survivability, making him one of the historical inspirations for the title character of Stanley Kubrick’s classic black comedy film satire Dr. Strangelove.[1]

    His theories contributed heavily to the development of the nuclear strategy of the United States.

    He wrote a prominent book on nuclear war strategy called, On Thermonuclear War. He was one of the inventors of MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction.

    The other archtype for Dr. Strangelove was…Edward Teller, one of the inventors of the hydrogen bomb.

  24. PaulBC says

    submoron@32 It wasn’t intended as a complete list, just some names that popped into my head. I’m also not that familiar with Attenborough. I’m sure I saw a little of Life on Earth on public TV a long time time, and he might well “qualify.”

    raven@31 Yes, he’s included in the composite, at least according to the wikipedia page. I don’t know enough about Kahn to have thought of him.

    unclefrogy@30 I think we are in agreement. Culture is too big to follow the lead of politics. However, politics can make life terrible for everyone. I doubt we’ll wind up in a centralized totalitarian state in the US because our current “leaders” can’t even agree to spend money to keep bridges from collapsing. We may wind up as a failed state with pockets of distinct cultural elements and regional campaigns of genocide rather than anything as organized as Nazi Germany.

  25. Pierce R. Butler says

    Once you see the words “Claremont Institute” you can safely categorize the person in question as a wingnut and move on.

    (Unless you prefer to maintain a list of the types and proximity of wingnuts – recommended for self-defense, but not for serenity…)

  26. karmacat says

    There are more women than men going to med school. Yenor is not getting any younger, and he is going to need one of those women doctors eventually

  27. davidc1 says

    I didn’t know about other people thinking Strangelove was based on Kissinger ,I thought it was just me .
    And I was just going on Love and Kissing .If you se what I mean .

  28. birgerjohansson says

    I Always assumed strangelove was a combo of von Braun and wossname Teller? hydrogen bomb guy.

  29. snarkrates says

    Suffice to say that there was no shortage of potential models upon which Kubrick could have based the iconic ex(?)-Nazi doctor. It is not surprising that such a time of scientific optimism would have also been a time of scientific hubris–to the point of saying the quiet parts out loud.