In reference to last Monday's Conservative Union at Dartmouth forum on "Feminism in Today's Society," Jen Parkinson ["No Substitute for an Open Mind," Jan. 16, 1997, The Dartmouth] rightfully emphasizes that "the formation of strong, founded opinions, political and otherwise ... can only be achieved through the analysis and understanding of a wide range of differing ideas." This belief is shared not only by members of the Conservative Union, but also by most, if not all, members of the College community, whether they be liberal, moderate or conservative. But Parkinson, in portraying the forum as a closed-minded battle, while at the same time portraying CUAD with a negative tone, appears to have misunderstood the purpose of the discussion and the motives of the participants.
Parkinson referred to "several members of the audience, armed with statistics and an alarming skepticism," who, in her opinion, pursued a course of "barely civil hostility" during the forum. I am afraid that Parkinson may have misinterpreted the actual intentions of the "several members," and I would like to clarify their actions. Audience members, whether liberal, moderate or conservative, may recall that a significant portion of the discussion was devoted to a set of Census Bureau statistics, which showed that, on average, women earn about 60% that of men. This set of statistics was then flatly interpreted as representing an enormous "gender gap" in America. In reference to Parkinson's belief in open-mindedness, certain members of the audience saw this assumption about the gender gap as one-sided in its entirety, and compared statistics of their own, which happened to conflict with and elaborate on those of Ms. Munafo, in order to allow open-minded audience members to fully understand perspectives on both sides of this issue.
Though the several members did not mean to be hostile, they were nonetheless skeptical of the derivation of the "gender gap" from such wide-ranging statistics. It is an understatement to say that liberals nationwide, not just here at Dartmouth, hold statistics with such ambiguous gaps to be true and absolutely unquestionable, which certainly would not appear to be open-minded thinking to the average person. Thus, these members of CUAD sought to discuss possible inaccuracies and explain the huge gap, within Munafo's statistics with her and the audience in an honest and straightforward fashion. For example, it is known that the government counts part-time jobs as full-time jobs and the effect of overtime hours is often ignored in such statistics. The CUAD members then emphasized that income parity would be reached between women and men if the wide-ranging Census Bureau statistics were to be narrowed into more comparable categories.
It is certainly an open-minded process by which we conservatives consider liberal stances; of course, we do question the assumptions that lead to such stances, but we also weigh the merits behind such assumptions as well. Unfortunately, in a society that is dominated, if not held hostage, by liberal viewpoints, which are manifested through the national media and through all levels of the educational system, it is a common reaction to denounce conservatives as closed-minded and hostile when they try to explain liberal ideas, as Americans are effectively brainwashed, day-by-day, by these powerful yet subtle liberal influences. At the forum, CUAD's intent by bringing up possible fallacies within the closed-minded "gender gap" argument was to provoke the "analysis and understanding of a wide range of differing ideas" between both sides of the argument. Though they may have seemed otherwise, the CUAD members at the forum were simply applying the "open-minded process" described above, and did not intend to be hostile.
On a side note, as a proud CUAD member, I am even more proud to admit the fact that, until about 18 months ago, I had been an extreme liberal all my life. No matter how passionately voiced my opinions were, when I was a liberal, I always weighed conservative and liberal ideas equally, and I continue to do so now. One of the reasons I switched my political philosophy was that it became evident to me that the liberal agenda, no matter how well-intended, only served to exploit and worsen our divisions and problems. Furthermore, it became evident to me that the only liberal reaction to anything conservative would be to denounce it as "extremist" and "closed-minded," and then denounce it even more. My fellow conservatives and I believe that the only way to solve our problems, gender inequality being one of them, is to celebrate and thrive in our similarities instead of feuding over and exploiting our differences.
