It was over 10 years ago that feminist man and professor of gender studies Hugo Schwyzer revealed his true colors, admitting that he’d had sex with his students, and worse. It was a dramatic and abrupt fall from grace, and even as he was plummeting to his doom, he was trying to schmooze his way back into leftist circles.
My behavior with students from 1996-98 was unacceptable for a male feminist and, for that matter, an ethical person. The question is whether the penalty for that ought to be a lifetime ban from teaching gender studies, or writing about the subjects I write about. Some feminists feel yes, it should be. I disagree, but only because so many wonderful feminist mentors of mine have encouraged me to stay in this work.
Ick. Ooze all the slime you want, we can see right through you.
He did not fall wailing all the way into Hell, but he came close. He’s writing for The Federalist now. He’s defending Lauren Boebert and arguing that women have historically been happy to marry young and get pregnant right away, and that abortion is wrong, and that leftists are all hedonistic degenerates. It is virtuous to get married at 16 and to be a grandmother in your 30s, he thinks…and it may very well be a good and satisfying thing for some women, but not all women. Lauren Boebert just made a mistake, and wasn’t at all acting like his imaginary left-wing self-indulgent sex fiends.
At that Denver theater, Boebert had a foolish human moment. She has rightly apologized. That should be the end of it. But because she is a conservative, and because her life and her politics give witness to her pro-life convictions, her apology is insufficient.
Rather, she must be shamed over and over again. We must see that surveillance video of her fumblings a hundred times a day. And her ordinary human frailties must somehow be connected to her deepest convictions so her embarrassment becomes an occasion to smear those who share the congresswoman’s commitment to the unborn.
As cruel and dishonest as the mockery of Boebert is, it is even worse that the left uses this incident to peddle a basic lie about human happiness. Someone is indeed robbing people of their youth, but it isn’t conservatives doing the robbing. The thieves are those who preach the lie that self-indulgence and experimentation are pathways to fulfillment rather than despair.
First of all, nobody needs to see that video a hundred times a day
. I saw it once, and that was enough. It says something about Hugo that he’s watching it that many times.
Secondly, the Left isn’t preaching lies about self-indulgence and experimentation. The idea is that, instead, women should have the same freedoms men have, the same opportunities to pursue a fulfilling life that isn’t necessarily just having lots of babies as soon as they can. I have classes full of young women (that I’m not abusing sexually, so maybe Schwyzer can’t identify) who are thinking about careers in science, who are doing science, and who are aware that a pregnancy would derail all those plans. Fortunately, they are also smart enough to know about birth control and abortion, not because they want to live frivolously, but because they are hoping for the opposite, a serious and productive life that isn’t controlled by men.
On a happier note, the article closes with a brief biography.
Hugo Schwyzer was a professor of history and gender studies at Pasadena City College from 1993-2013. He is now a ghostwriter living in Los Angeles.
Buh-bye, Hugo. I hope you too are living a fruitful and fulfilling life, but the fact that you are reduced to writing for the Federalist suggests otherwise.
If you really have no idea who Schwyzer is, his Wikipedia entry is informative and horrifying.
If he is a far-right loon instead of just a common sexual predator he should have few problems getting a cushy job at some right-wing think thank.
Newt Gingrich is pretty sleazy and the far right has not turned him away.
In fact, serial sexual assaulter Trump (SSAT) has been president and may be nominated again.
BDW, we had a bona fide nazi at Umeå University, but that did not last long.
Also, we had a couple of forestry biologists who faked data…
Boebert didn’t ‘rightly apologize’. It took multiple rounds before she grudgingly admitted to the truth. So even if her actions were a youthful mistake (which being under 40 and in Congress does make her youthful), the gaslighting of her constituents made everything worse. Also, I don’t think she has truly owned the impact of her actions on the folks in the theater and the hypocrisy regarding her lies with respect to LGBTQ folks.
As I understand it one of the people behind Boebert in the theater and bothered by her vaping was a pregnant woman. If that’s the case, so much for the sanctity of motherhood and all that.
PZ: FYI the first link in the post opens the post, not something about this guy admitting to having sex with students…which is OK. I’m not really interested in reading about his admission.
It’s funny how creepy lefties pivot to the hard right when their creepiness is exposed.
There is something cartoonish about them that would be funny If they weren’t so goddamn destructive.
If Hugo and Lauren paint themselves blue, they can hang out with the new baddie in the coming Star Wars films (aka “blue Elon Musk”).
Awwwww… Why NOT!?
Cthulhu, this is stupid.
It isn’t even a logical fallacy, just wrong.
He is claiming that because something happened in our history that it is right and desirable.
It’s wrong. A few examples.
.1. Historically many societies kept slaves, including our own up until 1865 when they were (nominally) freed after a bloody Civil War.
The slaves disagree.
.2. Historically up until the 20th century, humans often died of communicable diseases and average lifespans were the 30s and 40s.
.3. Historically, we all lived under autocratic forms of government, mostly kings.
Who got to be king was often decided by civil wars or conquest.
4. Historically women were second class citizens with few legal or social rights.
Women only got the right to vote in the USA in 1920.
No, women weren’t happy to marry young and get pregnant.
They were forced into it by biology and society.
Proof.
Given a choice here in the 21st century, most women don’t do that any more. In fact, in developed countries the fertility rates are falling and usualy below replacement.
Strange fact. Men given the same choice, don’t do that any more either.
One of the many mistakes, cuckoo mind Schwyzer makes is assuming that free and educated people in the 21st century aren’t capable of making their own decisions about how to live their lives.
They are and it has zero to do with what this sociopath thinks.
If you commit extreme malpractice within your field, yes- you should be banned from that field for life. While everyone is entitled to trade their productive labor, no one is entitled to a specific career- you have to earn your way into it by establishing your track record. And “sleeping with students” qualifies as extreme malpractice for an academic. Throw on “attempted murder” (Jesus Christ, I was wondering what the “and worse” could possibly be, and my imagination clearly failed me), and yes, you should be banned from that field for life.
Boebert isn’t pro-life.
She is just careless and stupid.
So is her 17 year old son, who has already gotten a girl pregnant who is 15 years old.
So, how are these 15 and 17 year old high school kids going to support themselves and their kid? They aren’t in our society.
The chances of them splitting or divorcing is around 90%.
Teen age pregnancy is not a good way to start a marriage and they rarely last long.
Schwyzer is just a failed academic and failed human selling lies and hate for money in the right wingnut lunatic fringes.
And not a very good ghost writer.
I wouldn’t hire him for anything.
The link opens to the search results for every time I mentioned Schwyzer — just scroll down to get past the latest entry.
Another dead strawperson.
The left doesn’t do that at all.
We/they preach consent, responsibility, choice, freedom, and equal opportunity.
All things the right wingnuts and Schwyzer hate and oppose.
Not “just” that. He was (and probably still is) a predator and if he’s not an actual psychopath, he does a pretty good impression of one.
Back when I heard of him, he was a professor at Pasadena College, and was claiming to be the very model of a “male feminist”,[*] while at the same time having sex with his female students. (Do I need to mention that this is not consensual sex, due to the power imbalance?) He had also boasted on-line about how he tried to get one of his girlfriends to commit suicide because, he claimed, she was so miserable she would be happier dead. Evidently someone got it across to him that this was more or less a confession of a felony, because he later pulled the post down, but I’m sure that it’s still out there on some Internet archive. We were never sure if it was actually true or just another one of his lies.
I knew of him from about 10 years ago, when he was claiming to be a “male feminist” and was a topic on the feminist site
feministe.us. We were advised to avoid actually mentioning his name in a post, because whenever anyone did so, flocks of his rabid fans would descend upon whatever blog he was mentioned in to insist that all accusations were damned lies and to praise him to the skies. (The downside of web search engines.)[*] Unfortunately, he is not the only self-anointed “male feminist” who has turned out to be a sexist slimeball, to the point that the term itself has a bad reputation.
@ PZ: Doh! Thanks for the correction. I’ve probably read all I care to read about Schwyzer.
Yeah, right, because Boebert had never done or said anything to hurt or offend anyone before that “foolish human moment.” And no one was ever criticizing her for anything before that incident either, poor girl… eyeroll
Why do I get the feeling Schwyzer is sympathetic to Boebert because she’s youngish, female, kinda good-looking, sexually active, and willing to let a man grope her at will? Would he be saying this about a woman closer to Hillary Clinton’s age?
Is he really sympathizing with the young sexually-active woman here? Or with men like himself who want to have sex with such women?
He’s just busily proving his detractors correct. One who betrays their position of authority and trust can never be trusted again.
In this fine exhibit, by his unconditional support of immature, disruptive personal behavior is somehow never going to spill over into their professional leadership life.
Reminds me of a joke, far left, far right, wait long enough and you’ll see each coming back around from the other side again.
Raging Bee @ 16, what he’s subconsciously admitting to is, he wishes he could be the groper and do more.
But, no woman with any degree of self-respect will have anything to do with him.
The man really needs to visit a proctologist, so that his cranial-rectal inversion can be properly treated. It’s now obvious that it’s badly impacted.
Since he admitted IN HIS APOLOGY he’s unethical, he’d TOTS do it again if he could. This guy is a poster child for Consequence Culture, aka Cancel Culture.
Russell Brand may well have made this switch in anticipation of exposure: the investigation leading to the recent documentary in which several women accused him of rape or sexual assault began in 2019, while his YouTube channel began to focus on conspiracy narratives around Covid in 2021. Elon Musk among other conspiracists has supported his claim that the charges are false, and aimed at silencing Brand.
KG @ 19
F*cking hell, he was on Have I Got News For You and other pretty good programs.
And we never spot any signs. The guy sitting next to you might be goddamn Dexter Morgan.
Wait, caught in the act self declared “male feminist” turned full nazi once it was clear that his mea culpa wouldn’t lead to people taking him back with open arms? Colour me shocked!
Wow, that Wiki article shows him to be an absolute hot mess all around. OTOH, I kinda sympathize with him and hope he gets on the road to real recovery if he hasn’t done so already. OTOH, those multiple instances of bad behavior do reinforce a decision never to let him back into academics ever again. There’s the cover-your-six issue for administration, plus the danger of re-exposing him to the temptations and opportunities academic life gave him before.
Current Status:
In January 2014, Schwyzer began working as a tax accounting assistant in Los Angeles.[1][32] In March 2015, in the final entry on his blog, Schwyzer noted that he was not “coming back” nor planning any “grand return” to public life.[32]
As of October 2018, Schwyzer was reported to be working at a Trader Joe’s.[33]
In October 2020, Schwyzer returned to writing[34] with a subscription-based Substack newsletter.
From tax accountant to a grocery store? Sounds like something else happened that Wiki didn’t catch…
Speak for yourself! I wasn’t much aware of Brand before the 2008 so-called “prank calls controversy” (desribed more briefly at my #19 link). But that made quite clear that he was a piece of shit, with whom no-one should willingly associate. The calls, made during a pre-recorded radio show fronted by Brand involved, among other things, publicly revealing (without the other party’s consent) that he’d had a brief affair with a young woman*. Brand has also made a number of overtly misogynistic comments. I’m sorry to see that some people I respect (e.g. Caroline Lucas, the UK’s sole Green MP) have been willing to be publicly associated with him post-2008.
*It was actually Brand’s co-host, Jonathan Ross who first made a comment revealing this to the target of the calls, Andrew Sachs (and let no-one say there were no signs if Ross later turns out to be a rapist), but since the show was pre-recorded, Brand could easily have prevented the broadcast.
It’s a variant of the “what about” response. They don’t understand that while there may or may not be disdain for the particular behaviour in question, the bigger problem is the hypocrisy of the one engaged in it.
For example, Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton. Both of them had affairs. But only one of them was condemning the other of having an affair WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY HAVING ONE HIMSELF.
You will note that I am not referring to any specifics of the affair. We can figure out just how “bad” each affair is based upon those specifics, but there is a second, equally important aspect that one has which the other does not: The hypocrisy of railing against something that you are actively engaged in.
Reckless behaviour is (as a rule of thumb) bad.
Making yourself known as someone who publicly denounces reckless behaviour and then being caught engaging in it is worse.
To then complain that society seems to have sympathy for the first person but not the second shows a clear misunderstanding of the problem.
See Hugo’s back on the “anti-choice” side of the “anti-choice/ pro-choice” side of the argument. Back when I used to read his blog it was dizzying how much he flipped on that.
Don’t trust a “male feminist” who’s anti-choice.