I’ve made no secret of the fact that I don’t think well of the Ann Bartow brand of hyper-feminism. She not only finds sexism under every rock, but attacks it with a viciousness that raises an image of a rabid dog, foaming at the mouth, who will rip out the throat of every offender. And enjoy it.
The problem is that Bartow, wielding the club of sexism in the hallways of the Academy, is the keeper of the feminist orthodoxy. It would be a crime against scholarship to be branded sexist, so the rest of the law professors put their head down and scurry past Bartow when they pass her in the hall, hoping to avoid her harsh gaze. A sigh is emitted as they escape unscathed. This power to evoke deathly fear allows Bartow to be as brazen as she wants. While the rest of the academics resort to a painful civility, beyond a fault to the point of abject unclarity, Bartow will have none of it. She can call out anyone.
UCLA law held a Symposium on Heller, and Bartow attacked. The flaw was that it included 14 men and 2 women lawprofs. Then came this exchange:
So we have a vulgar insult of a perfectly reasonable commenter. We have what strikes me as either an incorrect summary of the credentials of those who participated, or at best an unreasonably blinkered sense of what credentials conference organizers might look for (that’s if Prof. Bartow’s view is that Cook’s and Kleck’s stature as gun control policy scholars, and Alan Gura’s role in the case, don’t count as relevant credentials). And we have an unsupported generalization about how there were other equally qualified women whom we could have included. All in all, not a particularly persuasive criticism, it seems to me.
One commenter at Volokh made a point that’s worth repeating. What Ann Bartow indulges in is scholarly narcissism, where she is so “absorbed in their own identity and victimization to make it their focus of scholarship” that there can be no scholarship that doesn’t encompass her neo-feminism. What use would a symposium on Heller be if it included women, with neither interest nor background in 2nd Amendment issues, simply because of their gender? Yet Bartow counts the numbers, no matter what.
Eugene took a huge risk in challenging the keeper of the feminist orthodoxy, facing being branded as sexist for being so bold as to challenge Bartow. He demonstrated both the guts to stand up to her, as well as the fortitude to protect his UCLA student from her abuse. Many other male counterparts have folded like a cheap suit in the face of Bartow’s venom, at most trying to weasel out from under her gaze in the hallway. Not Eugene Volokh.
My hat’s off to Eugene Volokh.
Update: And there’s more fun and games abrewing over at Feminist Law Profs, where Eugene calls Bartow on another of her red-herrings:
Two points:
One, the slating of the Symposium Issue of the UCLA Law Review is done not by the Law Review staff but by the faculty.
Two, this symposium was on the Second Amendment. It’s my understanding that this topic tends to be dominated by a small group of legal scholars. I would not blame the Law Review or the faculty for any gender imbalances here.
Two, this symposium was on the Second Amendment.
Really? I had no idea! Asshole.
Many of the articles listed in the ToC are written by people who do NOT have any particularly notable record of previous Second Amendment scholarship. So the field was pretty open, and more women could have easily, and without any quality dilution, have been included.