Feminism in the universities is nothing new. The movement had its start among intellectuals outside universitiesโSimone de Beauvoir in Paris, Betty Friedan in Americaโbut soon made its way to academia. Feminism was able to change American society from the top down, but that did not prevent feminism from expressing, teaching, and even thriving on a contradiction. Put simply, feminism did not, and still does not, know whether to say that women are capable or vulnerable.
If women are capable, they deserve to be independent, particularly of men; if they are vulnerable, they need to be protected, particularly from men and yet, of course, by men. The most recent, also the most revealing, illustration of the contradiction can be found now in the movement on the campuses of universities to protect college women from sexual assault.
The movement has support from students, but once again it is led from the top, this time by a branch of the federal government, the Office of Civil Rights hereafter OCR in the Department of Education. In fact, the OCR does not merely propose a program or lead a movement, it lays down a set of regulations with which universities must comply.
To do so will require a brief summary of the theory of feminism, for feminism cannot be understood without examining its theory. One could even say that feminism is all about theory. It wants to reject all previous experience of relations between the sexes and substitute a new status for women in our society unknown in any previous society.
Feminists can be diverse but they are all living, practicing theorists leading a revolution of theory applied. A moderate feminist might regard herself as independent of men but freely choose to live with one on terms of equal independence.
