Hilarious and don't let anybody tell you otherwise. Thanks for the laugh and the reminders.

Prof. B, for what it's worth, I laughed out loud at points in this one ("Hey Ralphie, are the LEATHERMAN IRONGRIP TWEEZERS IN THIS HERE LADY'S LUGGAGE permitted on the flight?"). Fantastic.

But if I may make the assumption that this defense of tweezing and feminism (or tweezing-as-feminism?) has to do with calls to add your thoughts on one of your student's sexist comments about female profs with lip fuzz, I have to say:

Surely all kinds of self-maintenence practiced by women, and all kinds of dressing up (and dressing down) should no longer be considered anti-feminist. I don't think that was ever a point of contestation in the 5-things discussions. The problem, as I see it, is the attitude that women should have to be watching their appearance all the time, lest the men who have to be in their presences should have to look upon a woman who isn't exactly a portrait of femininity (and I'm not talking Mona Lisa). Alongside this, it remains a valid question why issues of appearance are so often flagged up when we're talking about women (objectification works both ways: an object can be pleasing or displeasing as such), yet when we talk about displeasing male appearances, the comb-overs and hand hair would seem not to 'piss off' any of your students so much. It's not that women should be protected or exceptional entities in this regard; but getting 'pissed off' about a woman's unattractiveness is not exactly a healthy attitude.

I gather that willful obliviousness will allow Professor B to outlast the rest of us. She knows (doesn't she?) that we have not been raising facial hair or one silly's young man's weird-assed fixation on it as the "big issue." Rather, it's what that fixation stands for: both what suomynona gets at--metonymy for objectification--and a customer service model that turns academe into a here-we-are-now-entertain-us party for well-to-do kids and voc-ed for the rest.

Aka anonymous backwards--ridicule and pissedoffedness are probably not sex specific. I suggest you read the CHE article about audience members twittered a speaker to shreds during a conference.

Thanks for making me laugh, too, on this otherwise dreary day. Now I will smile instead of grimace when I catch myself looking in the 5x mirror. The three student essays were also amusing, if uneven, but if they are learning from you no doubt they'll be fine. Brava!

Yes, the critics of your students' essays were really arguing that one cannot tend to one's appearance and still be a feminist. You zeroed in brilliantly on that subtle and unspoken -- completely, absolutely, unspoken -- point at issue.

It's good to know that even though there are "very few rules when joining the feminist club," there apparently is nevertheless still an ironclad one: What one *soi-disant* feminist asserts are the "real" matters of concern (salary gap, child care, retirement plan [!]) can be elevated over others (say, the equation of a woman's efficacy in her job with a distractingly unpleasant personal appearance) that suddenly don't matter much anymore. And not only can they be identified as the "real" criteria, but also can then be used to impugn those objecting to an actual incident of the now-unimportant thing as frivolous, or overreactors, or having misplaced priorities.

So I suppose I have the answer to my earlier question: When my male colleague tells me he's glad that I'm still at the age at which I care about how I look, I just need to remember that he supports my affordable health insurance.

I'm coming to the inevitable conclusion that Prof. Barreca simply cannot think straight. Clever headline ("Tweeze the Day" is very good), a couple of laughs, but a totally contradictory post which runs something like this:

1. "Feminists have bigger fish to fry than to protect women from people who criticize their having hair on their upper lips and chins."

2. "A lot of women, myself included, have hair on their upper lips and chins, and have to tweeze it off."

3. "Therefore, it's perfectly all right for a male of student of mine to number among his criticisms of the faculty the fact that some of his female professors have hair on their upper lips and chins."

Brilliant.

When I watched, via the link that Prof. Barreca provided, her embarrass herself on the Dr. Phil show by reflexively taking untenable positions that, while getting laughs (astonished laughs, though) from the audience, popped the eyes of Dr. Phil and the other guest, I thought it might be simply a case of overreach caused by the jitters of being on-camera. Nope, that's the way she thinks...if you want to call it thinking. Prof. Barreca oblivious supporters can call up that post and check it out for themselves.

#4, katiebeautifulkatie (aka katie beautiful katie spoken backwards),

Pissedoffedness is certainly not sex-specific (let's put aside that I never argued that it was). What IS sex-specific, historically, is the objectification of women, and the judging of women in professional settings based on their looks. If the genderedness of your pseudonym is any indication of your living gender, I'm ashamed for you for your attempt to defend, on principle, the ethos of 1950s ass-slapping workplace gender discrimination.

Perhaps you're closer to a generation (mine) in which feminists fight very different battles than the ones fought by Prof. B's generation (as a Dartmouth alum I have much admiration for the women of the '70s classes, the early years of admission of female students at Dartmouth); but it's taken quite a lot for women today to be judged *less* by physical appearance in the workplace.

Mind you, these comments of mine are all in the context of comments made by Tim Whatever in his essay, comments that directly judged the professional competence of a woman based on an aspect of her physical appearance that has nothing whatsoever to do with her professional responsibilities and/or the decorum of her profession.

Rah rah rah. I read the Twitter article; lots of people do lots of stupid things; but I don't defend stupid things just because they occur.

Apparently nobody's ever told Prof. Barreca about the First Rule of Holes.

#9--PF: and apparently nobody's ever told you about the First Rule of A-Holes.

( Lord, I apologize for making fun of sleep deprived PF and on the Thanksgiving holiday. But Thou made it too easy and could not expect me to resist.)

#10:

Typical of Prof. Barreca and her defenders: cracking wise as argument.

Post_functional's "First Rule of Holes" had a point: By posting again and again on these godawful student essays, Prof. Barreca digs herself ever deeper. Not only did she concoct the bad assignment, not only is she obliviously proud of at least two of results, but she reveals over and over that she can't get through her head even the most incontrovertible of the criticisms, namely that it's sexist/rude/obnoxious/jejeune, etc., for a young male student to list as a significant professional flaw the fact that one his female professors has facial hairl and that it's absolutely condemning of a putatively "feminist" professor to try to defend it.

But katiebeautifulkatie did break new ground, introducing the sports-blog-manners term "A-holes" into the discussion. What's next, that post_functional "sucks"?

On the other hand, she apologized and admitted she was wrong...or at least that she couldn't resist a cheap shot. Would that Prof. Barreca would do the same concerning Timmy Potter and the Unacceptable Hairy Lip.

I really recommend watching Prof. Barreca's appearance on Dr. Phil. (Correction: She didn't actually link to it. Her post noted the air date, which was the day following the post.) She says quite untenable things about revenge and gets laughs doing it. Getting laughs is apparently her No. 1 priority outside the classroom, too. Which would be one thing if she were a yuk-it-up comedienne guest. But she was billed as some kind of academic expert on women's issues. This, and the student papers she posted are really sad. Prof. Barreca is becoming to academic discourse the mirror image of what Sarah Palin is to political discourse: "Please disregard the lack of sense in what I say; notice only that I'm a regular gal among all the stuffed shirts."

I have watched this play out and now need to respond. I will not respond to the objectification of women that has dominated the posts.

I am actually still more concerned that Prof. B still calls herself a "feminist" when there is such blatant abuse of power over her students. What student in an upper division course would refuse a full professor when she/he says that "I want to post your essay assignment on the internet for others to read and comment on." As a student, I would, subconsciously, understand the consequences of refusing a full professor's request. The abuse of power has not been adequately addressed by Prof. B. She has not more right to call herself a "feminist" than the Pope.

Actually, katiekatiekatiekatiekatiekatie, the Lord expects us to resist a lot of stuff. Or, if not the Lord, somebody. Like maybe your Mom and Dad, who were supposed to have brung you up right. Or your favorite professor, who in the name of _in loco parentis_ took it upon himself or herself to teach you manners and/or wit.

Thus, while mature people do not normally read the word "hole" and instantly think "ass," some others, not so mature, just can't resist the urge to blurt out their awesome randomosity.

But that is not the point: What about it, Professor B? Can you understand that obliviousness is NOT the way to go--that you have to address the questions that serious readers have raised re: sexism and (I'll agree with flavorrocks1) power differential?

Hey, I just thought of something clever, too! I should have said that Gina B. "can't see the forest for the tweeze."

Haha!! Now can I be on Dr. Phil?

I'm quite confused why Prof. Barreca has a blog on this site and why she's even at UConn, a rather good school (or so I thought). I think she should stick to the Dr. Phil/Oprah crowd?

P.S. I am not a woman but I admit that I do have a moustache and beard.

A great irony of the millenial generation is that despite the massive influence of the Internet in our lives, many things Internet still carry a stigma (Internet dating is still kinda creepy; Internet arguments still kinda lame; people who spend the time on the Internet to be precise or serious are still big losers with 'nothing better to do'). This is largely what enables the kind of drive-by worthlessness we get from many students in this thread (katiebeautifulkatie, I'm looking at you). One-liners are used in place of substantive responses, and the rationale is that so long as you're not expected to stick around, you can pretend like your problem isn't that you don't have a legitimate argument, but simply that you don't have the time to make one.

If I tried to go about saving the world, my method wouldn't exactly be one anonymous Internet post at a time; but the opposition showing showing in these threads (relative to those who have been critical of the essays and the assignment) has been plainly pathetic.

Since my full post is being blocked. Here is the first sentence:

Post #10: KBK, so where did you get the first rule on “A-Holes”?

To read the full post, link to:

http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,64532.60.html

Wow, thank you for a very nice demonstration of power differential.

"Which would be one thing if she were a yuk-it-up comedienne guest."

Actually, it occurred to me that many of us critics of Prof. B are all assuming that Tim Whatshisface and the other two essayists aspire to some sort of future in academia, and that their poorly wrought attempts at wit would eventually hurt them at job interviews. I recently spent Thanksgiving with a distant relative whose daughter is an intern on The Colbert Report. She could not be more proud. That's when it hit me.

Academics are hopelessly out of touch. We think that intellectual rigor, convincing and well-reasoned rhetoric, and talent finely honed through years of dedicated practice of one's craft matter. And well they would, if today's students aspired to be academics like we are.

Instead, they aspire to be gag writers for hip cable comedies taped in New York, writers of confessionals for so-called women's magazines, and showrunners for hour-long seriodramas in Hollywood. So all the time spent in our classrooms honing the snark, txting, tweeting, and updating facebook is perhaps the very best preparation for their ambitions. There's just as much chance that Jon Stewart will stumble upon these snarky essays as the dean of the English department at some ivy league university, and say "Sign that kid up!" Is it the students' fault that society at large has hopelessly conflated the pursuits and aspirations of academia with pre-professional pursuits and aspirations that could be described as anything but academic? You might not need a college education to hone the snark--- your more astute snarktastic practitioners master their craft by the exit of junior high--- but I bet Mr. Stewart's highly competitive applications for interns have a listing for what college the applicant currently attends or most recently attended.

And, actually, katie's cheap shot made me chuckle. I doff my chapeau.

You look good with your hat in your hand.You should always have it there.

#24:

This is what the defenders of Prof. Barreca have been reduced to: Irrelevant wisecracks. "You look good with your hat in your hand" has nothing to do with the general topic of the thread, the issue of the student essays over several threads, or even Prof. Barreca.

The defenders of Prof. Barreca conclude, in effect, not with a bang, but a whimper. And a well-deserved one.

Katie's wisecrack is entirely, if meta-, pertinent to the discussion. She (or maybe he?) can't simply accept PF's tentative gesture in the direction of conciliation but must push forward with the gratuitous insult of sentence 2. Of course, since she (or he) posted at around 1:30 a.m., maybe she (or he) was sleep deprived. I.e., entirely of an obnoxiously hilarious piece with "peach fuzz."

Mark Edundson, more than ten years ago. "On the Uses of a Liberal Education: As Lite Enyertainment for College Kids":

http://www.student.virginia.edu/~decweb/lite/

Oh lighten up people

"See how many women you can catch staring at their chins in the rear view mirror when stopped at a light. There's always one hair you can only see when you're in the car. "

I am just happy to learn that I am not the only one who does this. I have been suffering in silence for years. That car mirror is my worst nightmare.

Thank you Prof Barreca for letting me know I am not alone.

Loathe though I am to defend KBK, I think the time signatures on comments are standardized to EST. 1:27am could be, if it's posted from the West Coast, only 10:27pm. If it wasn't, even a geez like me knows that 1:27am is hardly conspicuously late on a Saturday night.

Re #28:

The "Oh lighten up people" business was dismissed a long time ago. But for those who need remedial help: The issue ISN'T female facial hair per se. It's the proud posting on the Internet, by a putatively feminist professor, of an essay by one of her male undergraduate creative writing students who thinks that female facial hair is something that should be criticized in his female professors.

So I tried following the argument in the comments section to this post. It's surprising that a light hearted reflection on feminism has somehow sparked one of the most pretentious squabbling matches I've read in a long time. But I am still young so maybe I just need to cut my teeth here more often in order to appreciate the nuances of this debate.

That being said, can you still be feminine and a feminist? Since I am a guy (no longer a boy, not yet a man) I'm not really in a position to answer that question with any sort of authority. However, as a guy, and a hairy guy at that, I can definitely say that tweezing the middle of the eyebrow(s) is necessary for people to even look at you as a "guy" instead of a Neanderthal. Some of my other friends do this as well, although I discovered this fact years later, since it isn't something you talk about with guys. Girls tweeze, guys are just manly. But we are manly while having two eyebrows.

How and what defines gender is pretty funny, especially considering that both men and women share 98% of our DNA with a banana. Does it mean we can't pause and reflect on that fact every once in awhile during the great battle against the vestiges of ignorance and stupidity while still being considered a viable and "serious" member of the fight? I think we can, and beyond that, I think we should.

And I just wanted to thank Goxewu in advance for his next post taking quotes from this post and parroting them back out of context.

Sorry but, absolutely nothing in the garbled, self-lacerating #30 is worth quoting, in or out of context.

Thank you for posting to the forum and thereby leading me into its Ivy-covered precincts, flav. I just had the most delightful time there with the tenured posters. Like certain professors I could name (hints: hairy; Sicilian; feminist; Dr. Phil), they wear obliviousness as a badge of honor and turn angry not-getting-it-ness into an ethos. (Timmy et al: Get a load of THIS if you really want to see weird asses on parade.)

Goxewu: "Sleep-deprived" = callback to a katie post re: PF's posting at around the same time of day she did.

Fsdave: Are you saying something about a banana having peach fuzz on it? This is going a little too fast for me.

#30, FYI, please see #29 on #28. To follow the debate in this threat you'd have to have followed the posts and comments in Prof. B's previous '5 things' installments.

But to save you the trouble, this debate is about whether it's OK to discriminate against women in the workplace by judging them as professionals based on their appearance, and subsequently whether any self-respecting person, feminist-identified or not, would endorse or excuse or ignore such behavior.

This debate is *not* about whether it's OK to make jokes and/or quips (of course these things are great and welcome--just not when you're guilty of aiding and abetting misogyny), nor is it about whether we're to the point where femininity is no longer a disqualifier for feminist identity.

Oh, but what I meant to say was

I believe in a woman's right to shoes.

Actually, Dr. G, there was nothing conciliatory about my post at all. It's just an observation. Many of today's students place a premium on snark because they're aspiring to a place in a mass media machinery that rewards a talent for snark.

I like our friends on Comedy Central as much as the next person, and generally see political satire as a necessary sociological component of our body politic that keeps the people in power relatively honest. However, anyone who missed that my (admittedly highly generalized) depiction of snarky students and their ambitions was not completely flattering, if not actually somewhat pejorative, missed it because the comment had something that Dr. Barreca's essayists lack: subtlety.

Re #29

And yet what I got out of this article was that I really am not the only one who sees that one hair in the rear view mirror. Once again, I thank Prof Barreca for letting me know that I am not really suffering from trichotillosis. My behavior is normal.

Some of us see a chance for a great debate. Some of us see a humorous article that hit close to home. This time around I see the humor. I will leave the heavy debate to the rest of you. I will keep things light. The article was funny. It gave me a nice laugh. I hope it a few others had a good laugh as well. Not everything needs to be deep.

Sometimes you just have to sit back and enjoy humorous writing.

mystery345 is sure willing to overlook a lot of sexism on Tim S.'s part and a lot of obliviousness from Prof. Barreca (a putative feminist) about Tim S.'s attitude in order get a little chuckle about seeing chinny hairs in the rear-view mirror.

Maybe Tim S.'s followup essay can point out that some faculty members having kinky hair also bothers him. He can write about their refusal to straighten it a little. Prof. Barreca can then chime in that she's always had trouble with too much curliness in her hair, too. And mystery345 can get another chuckle when Prof. Barreca lets her know that she's not the only one who....

Professors with a lot of facial wrinkles, stooped posture, Coke-bottle-bottom eyeglasses, unfashionable clothes, toupees, liver spots on their hands, and other matters of appearance irrelevant to classroom efficacy, are also potential fodder for Tim S. He's got a whole career as an essayist ahead of him, Prof. Barreca has a whole bunch of blogs rationalizing Tim S.'s essays to write, and mystery345 has a lifetime of laughs to look forward to.

PF: Check out that Mark Edmundson essay. About fifteen years ago, he was arguing that kids are snarky (or "cool" and sarastic) because they think they live in Letterman's world. Now, as you say, they think they are on Comedy Central. But they weren't David Letterman, and they're not Jon Stewart.

I just am amazed that people have enough time to argue about this. Really when do you get work done? How many minutes, hours, days have been spend commenting on these posts and others?

The holidays are over and it is time to get back to work.

No more than mystery345. By the way, what's she doing here instead of being at work?

"Some of us see a chance for a great debate. Some of us see a humorous article that hit close to home."

Those of us in group one are taking the opportunity. You brought up the variousness of these pieces--why contradict yourself?

mystery in #36,

I preempted that silly argument in #17. This post is taking me less than 30 seconds to write, as all I have to do is refer you to a prior post that also took seconds of my time. I'm working right now; that's why I'm at the computer. If I'm posting, you can be sure that I'm working. When I'm not working, I don't spend time around computers.

The anti-Barreca posts have officially jumped the shark. Or should I say jumped the hairy ape?

bookgirl is the official official in this?

"Jumped the shark" jumped the shark in 2007. Telling people that "jumped the shark" "jumped the shark" jumped the shark in 2008.

In any event, this post is incredibly baffling (who is the hairy ape? who in God's name is the hairy ape?!), but thanks anyhow for re-lighting a candle that had begun to sputter out.

If Professor Barreca gave her students permission to tell us what they see and what they feel--she should not be punished for giving them a public forum for their point of view. She applauds their honesty, but that doesn't mean she thinks that female professors should adhere to different standards than men. She listens to her students--that's a good thing.

She reserves judgment--and offers edifying instruction-- for their reading, writing and analytical skills--not for their opinions. That's also a good thing.

Her point is this last post is only that we all worry about our looks--not least if we stand up in front of an audience of any kind--men and women are equal when it comes to tweezing, as it were. So anyone who believes a comment about chin hair is sexist, is refusing to realize what most people think, feel, do, and most important, admit. People--men and women--care about their looks. People--even students--especially students?--NOTICE how other people, even their professors, look. This is news? This is reprehensible?

If there's something missing from Barreca's incisive piece about tweezing--it's the role of waxing in removing unwanted hair. I'm pretty much willing to bet that it's only women who are willing to endure the pain of hot wax in order to meet their aesthetic standards--if all the tweezers in the world suddenly disappeared and waxing was the only way, men would most certainly live with hair on their hands, back and neck.

Yes, when it comes to beauty, women will endure more physical pain than men.

Is that sexist?

What is the "jump the shark" status for the phrase "flame bait"?

#43: THANK YOU!! This is funny enough to be its own post. Are you GB in drag? or in a monkey suit?

Forget Sharks. WHO IS the APE? I LOVE THIS.

Re #43:

Talk about not getting it!

For what one hopes is the last time: In an essay assigned by Prof. Barreca, Tim S. said, in essence, that legitimate criticisms of faculty included that a female professor had facial hair. Prof. Barreca rather proudly (no comment, no disclaimer) posted the essay for all of "Brainstorm's" constituency to see.

The roof then fell in on Prof. Barreca and her protege in the form of dozens of critical comments, many of them from women in academe who rightly wondered how a professed feminist scholar could be so proud of such blatant (and adolescent) sexism. The defense of Prof. Barreca (who's most at fault because, unlike an undergraduate trying to be clever, she should have known better) has been pretty feckless and oblivious: "Lighten up"; "Kids will be kids"; "Lots of women have facial hair"; "I, too, have facial hair"; "Isn't it all real funny?"

A few commenters on this and related threads have asked Prof. Barreca to explain how she reconciles posting Tim S.'s essay with her professed feminism. Her answer has been an irrelevant post on tweezing, and then silence.

"She should not be punished for giving [her students] a public forum for their point of view." Really! I'll forego the obvious "What if their point of view had been [fill in the blank]?" and instead ask: It's OK for a professor to take the results of a class assignment and post them on the Internet regardless of the contents of the results?

Anyway, as far as we know, Prof. Barreca isn't being "punished"--no letter of censure in her personnel file, no demotion, no leave without pay, no being made to teach Friday evening classes, etc. She's just received a whole lot of criticism in the comments on her posts. And she deserves every bit of it.

Talk about not getting it is right!

Silence is an appropriate response to studied stupidity, so

And, #46, this was in response to you!

Maybe you didn't understand that? =You're the tedious and bloated one, GO XE.

Raise high the roof beam, carpenter, because somebody who never/no longer has a job in academe is making comments!! Is that what you want?

The "response to the contents of the results:" when posted by smug, bloated, self-congratulatory morons, will never result in "punishment" for the one writing the original selection. Who do you think you are, anyway?

Back to the original comment. Silence is an appropriate response to studied stupidity, so..................................................

The defenders of Prof. Barreca never, ever actually refute anything in the critcisms of Prof. Barreca's misguided posts of her proteges' jejeune (facial hair, "weird-ass mannerisms," etc.) snipes at faculty. deanette is the latest: insults ("smug, bloated, self-congratulatory morons"), empty generalities ("silence is an appropriate response to studied stupidity") and wisecracks (a jibe at post_functional on the thread concerning Prof. Barreca's latest evasive post, a weak and overlong satire of the "Twilight" series). Nowhere in sight is any reasonably argued justification for Tim S.'s facial-hair criticism, for Prof. Barreca's putting it on the Internet, for its fitting with Prof. Barreca's alleged feminism, or anything else actually having to do with the issues commenters--many more than me--have raised.

A couple of other commenters on related threads have said:

"I'm amazed that Gina Barreca can't tell the difference between 'I notice my professors' and 'my old-lady professor is ugly, and that pisses me off.' I also can't believe that a specialist in feminist theory, who pontificates about it regularly here, is not only going to bat for one of the most egregiously sexist remarks I've ever seen in the CHE, but also defending it as our misunderstanding, and as simply a student "noticing our physical selves."

"I'm still waiting for someone to comment fruitfully on the difference beteween making a series of bad jokes and attempting a serious argument to justify the premises of a set of bad jokes."

No one among Prof. Barreca's defenders has seriously addressed either of those matters, which lie at the heart of the dispute. deanette and the like can crack wise and deliver insults until the cows come home and Prof. Barreca's bad judgment and obliviousness to it will still all too evident to anyone who reads "Brainstorm."

Does anyone share my observation that many of those commenting negatively here (and about "5 Things" series) wish they had their own Brainstorm blogs?

On a related note, referencing old posts (do you print them out??!! do you save them? hoping you recycle at least) and writing self indulgent comments is transparent.

As for Barreca supporters addressing the other threads -- no need. You either get it or you don't.

This is great. We're going to hit seventy with this one AND ignore the wtf?! Twilight posting. Barreca-eans: As drgrieves says, just who is refusing to let this debacle die?

Deanette: What? What?

What?!?

Referencing old posts/ "do you save them?"--No. The Internet does.

#51
Regarding your comment about the old posts:
You know as well as I do that it takes an effort to quote the old posts as well as refer back to all the "5 Things" comments. They are not all displayed on one page. I would bet good money that some folks are printing these out b/c they take their own opinions too seriously.

I LOVE the fact that so many are keeping this alive. Professor Barreca's posts are addictive -- we can't help but come back for more. And the Barreca supporters are the ones enjoying the last laugh.

You are funny, bookgirl. You make me laugh. I did not know till now, however, that you are satirizing the "Barreca supporters." (#51 is a giveaway.)

"Effort" required to consult previous posts: Open "Brainstorm" in 2 tabs, and cut 'n' paste what you want from one into comment on the other. Total "effort": about 30 seconds.

But leontrout is probably right: The oblivious persistence of that lil' "You go, girl!" kaffee klatsch up in Storrs will outlast us all. And there's probably a book in it for Prof. Barreca: "Going Rogue--The Class Assignment."

This weird dichotomy set up by some between Prof B. 'supporters' and not is totally ridiculous. I wish I had better words, but I don't. I'm a Prof. B fan and supporter, frankly. I think she's often funny and creative (if a little self-indulgent; but who isn't). But it happens that on this 5-things stuff I disagree with her on one very specific issue: as I see it, it's glaringly irresponsible on her part to post a student essay like Tim's, which had blatantly sexist remarks in it, and then just kind of shrug that off as if it's all a big joke and it's no big deal. This is what I think about the matter, but it doesn't mean I'm not a supporter, or that I'm anti-Barreca, in general.

The irony missed many of those (katiebeautifulkatie, bookgirl, deanette) who are rah-rahing (and now crudely insulting) without substantive contribution is that it's every bit as vacuous to put forth blanket and generalized support as it is (or would be, as I see it) for your opposition to be unsubstantively 'anti-Barreca' or 'negatively commenting' (bookgirl quotes). On the one hand you're accusing people of just being negative and not getting it, while you're rather straighforwardly just being postive and, from my standpoint, not getting it. What do you do with a bit of nuance, with those of us who are criticizing Prof. B without insulting her or diminishing her character, because we generally like her?

What is your actual argument--the actual substantive grounds on which you stand--to suggest that we're a bunch of not-getting-it-anti-Barecca-sourpusses?

By the way, 'just not getting [the joke],' is beyond a sophomoric accusation in this case; it's also what people say when they make offensive jokes without the intent of offending to people who have just been offended. Do I have to go into what happens when someone shows up in blackface at the halloween party and a certain population thinks it's insulting and not funny? But maybe they just aren't getting the joke? I mean, nobody would mean it THAT way, right?

And lastly, pkballhaus:


"She reserves judgment--and offers edifying instruction-- for their reading, writing and analytical skills--not for their opinions. That's also a good thing."

No, it's not always a good thing. If someone, anyone, comes up to me and expresses the opinion that, say, women shouldn't have the right to vote, I can promise I'll always judge them, vocally and immediately. In the case of Tim's essay, though, we have what's supposed to stand in for jokes, not actual serious opinion. You can't have it both ways: either it's a joke, and then we're not talking about reserving judment of student opionon; or it's a serious opinion, in which case we're talking about a student whose attitudes toward women are stuck in the 1950s.

suomynona has it exactickally right, and without my bad temper. (The Tim S. debacle is like Watergate: It's not the "third-rate burglary" that's so infuriating, it's the attempted coverup.) suomynona's comments, especially at this point, are much more effective than mine.

so suomynona henceforth has my proxy. (I'm also exhausted.)

I'm in this for the long haul. Seventy posts to this thread or bust. (I figure that the various Barreca students posting here will go away for Christmas and forget about these hijinks, and we will win! There: Now I feel all sparkly like a vampire!)

There are interesting turn in the discussion of this issue in the forums section re: "Five Things." Polly-mer, a longtime poster, has brought out the "lighten up, we're just teasing" counter-attack upon being called for meanness.

There is an ....