by Margot Heffernan

“Only men could oppress women for thousands of years, then turn around, put on a dress, and complain that they are the most marginalized group in society.” — Kara Dansky

Remember the Seven Sisters – the original prestigious and renowned women’s colleges that dot the Northeast? Mount Holyoke College, Vassar College, Wellesley College, Smith College, Radcliffe College, Bryn Mawr College, and Barnard College were designed to replicate the elite educational experience that the Ivies provided for men. By the 1960’s there were 200 all-women’s colleges, many having evolved out of the abolitionist cause.

Women’s colleges have, in fact, shaped generations of females, including Katherine Hepburn, Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath, Martha Stewart, Joan Rivers and Meryl Streep.

Over time, the number of women’s colleges dwindled – there are fewer than 40 in the US now – and the concept seems quaint; antiquated. An anachronism, some say, or an unnecessary hold-off from a bygone era. Fewer and fewer of these colleges are now dedicated solely to the education of women.

But the major assault on historically women’s colleges was yet to come with the seeming arrival of another species of woman, one so put upon and marginalized by a cruel society that an entire civil rights movement was required to level the playing field for “her.”

And indeed, that is just what happened. Over the course of the last twenty years “transgender” people, and most particularly “trans women” have been highlighted as exquisitely vulnerable. And heaven and earth has been moved to accommodate those who fall under the “LBGTQIA” umbrella.

Soon enough the definition of woman became a controversial topic as men who imagined they could change sex were allowed to identify as female. For this they were lauded, and large swathes of society bowed down to them. All the while, many people had no idea that gender self ID laws were promulgated and continue to be passed in various states. Yes, even in Virginia, where the Virginia Values Act allows males to legally pose as women and gain entry to our private spaces.  A doctor’s visit followed by the self-proclamation “I am a woman” will suffice.

And colleges, especially women’s institutions like Sweet Briar, quickly became breeding grounds for the spread of “transgender” ideology.

But not all agree with the bunk that is served up as a human rights issue. Certainly not Mary Pope Hutson, Sweet Briar’s President. She understands that colleges like Sweet Briar have clearly punctuated a pivotal era in history, a time when women and girls hit their stride, became prominent, active, and scholarly members of their communities.  And let’s face it: Recognizing and admitting a fictitious category of humans – “transwomen” – is a clear slap in the face to womanhood. A sleight of hand, a marketing ploy that appeals to the “inclusive.”

Sweet Briar had been admitting “transwomen” on a case by-case basis when Hutson reversed this policy last August. By 2020, though, the acceptance of “transwomen” had already been normalized when Erica Smith, first out “transwomen” was admitted. Smith was lauded and extolled as a new kind of heroine, and his status followed him to the sports arena, where he was considered a popular player on both the hockey and lacrosse teams, sports that require strength and physical contact. News stories proliferated about the popularity of Smith amongst his female teammates.

Smith became a symbol for Sweet Briar’s movement, promoting the “LGBTQIA” agenda and downplaying the absolute harm done to women by this charade.

Hutson’s bold new policy, though, ends this madness. It is based on the founder’s will which states that the college was established for the education of “girls and young women.” The phrase “girls and women,” Sweet Briar maintains, must be defined as it was understood at the time the will was written. That time was the year 1901. 

So, Hutson not only bucked an academic trend: She knocked up against a grand corporate behemoth, its marketing campaign blanketing the senses of seemingly rational people like a pall.

And make no mistake about it: Despite all the progressive wholesaling around it, gender ideology is misogynistic at its core. Perhaps the most regressive woman-hating platform that we have seen in a very long time. And that is because it allows men, whether delusional, disordered, violent, or simply transvestite, to take on the mantle of womanhood.

In many places, via statute, as imbedded in law.

And for Hutson’s stubborn refusal to cede reality, her stalwart defense of womanhood, she faces continuing blowback, a blitzkrieg.

A most aggressive political storm.

Her offense is a familiar one. She riled the gender hucksters, that overarching faction of society that has bought into, and promotes the nonsensical idea that men can be women and women can be men; that children can be “born in the wrong body.” That girls should sacrifice their body parts at the altar of gender ideology because of discomfort in their own female skin. That “becoming” a male via the ingestion of toxic male hormones and puberty blockers, and the extraction of women’s organs is a better alternative to recognizing womanhood. That “gender dysphoria” is a diagnosis that afflicts so many men we are called on to pity, men who must “transition” to female to save their tortured souls.

When Hutson rolled out the new policy, her detractors went wild. The faculty called an urgent meeting and subsequently voted 48-4 to call on the board to rescind the policy. Students claimed that many of their peers would not have been admitted under the new policy, peers who are presumably men posing as women.

Georgene Vairo, former chair of Sweet Briar’s board of directors stated that, although she wants the school “to thrive,” she does not believe that the latest policy helps it. “Born as a female and has lived constantly as woman. That language is very troubling because I just don’t know what it means,” Vairo said.

That language is very troubling because I just don’t know what it means.

Huh?

What a bizarre and offensive message for a woman, an attorney, an advocate of the college to convey to strong young females, presumptively the type who are drawn to Sweet Briar as an educational institution.

And how troubling is it to know that, though our foremothers fought for suffrage, independence, equal rights, some are now telegraphing a profoundly disturbing message to a new generation of women: That they are an amorphous and undefined group, a fluid space for men to fill. Caricatures and figures that males can interpret and bend to their own will. A woman is whoever a man says she is. Why, a woman can even be a man.

Does it seem counterintuitive that some of Hutson’s most exercised critics are women? Women who are suddenly perplexed over their rightful place as sole members of the adult human female category? Women who are riled and offended over the notion that men who don stereotypical female garb in order to claim womanhood should be slapped down and told to go away? Is it rational to accept that women and girls who are fighting for their very souls and bodies should be viciously attacked as “transphobic,” another meaningless word used to cudgel them with?

But women and girls have been boondoggled into accepting the preposterous idea that if a man feels that he is a woman, we must respect him, give in, and pander to his ridiculous fetishist claim that womanhood is his to own. We must consume and digest the toxic hokum that men have a right to emotionally and physically injure women through a new form of takeover – a literal “becoming” of womanhood through legal means.

We must welcome him, we are told, play along, pretend that he is one of us even though we evolved to defend against such predatory males. And just as women were once given to obey their husbands in the bonds of marriage, so too is modern woman to submit to the age-old claim of men’s collective dominance. No matter how outrageous. No matter how depraved.

And so yes, Virginia, it is still a man’s world.

It’s an old story, isn’t it?  We’ve been down this road too many times before.

The subsummation of womanhood by fiat. Once again. A proprietary right over the female estate.

Believe or be compelled to do so, we are told, because transwomen are women. And Sweet Briar College, like most women’s colleges, has certainly been steeped in the thick of the trans fog.

But the haze is lifting. We see the reality of solid ground.  And Sweet Briar College may well be ground zero for positive change this time around, a harbinger of strength for womanhood going forward.

A flat-out rejection of the hokum and codswallop that equals the trans scam.

Margot Heffernan is board vice president at the Women’s Liberation Front.