Princeton’s Woman-Hating Women’s Center

O n June 24, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, prompting virtually every university to declare a day of mourning — for women’s autonomy, not for the millions of innocent children who have been aborted.

The Office of Diversity & Inclusion and the Gender + Sexuality Resource Center (GSRC) of Princeton University released a statement condemning the Dobbs decision. The decree stands as an informative exemplar of how universities advance a political agenda, even through non-academic units, by issuing a formal pronouncement on a divisive topic and framing any dissent as morally reprehensible.

The GSRC encompasses what was formerly known as the Women*s Center, yet the statement is wary of expressing support for women. The GSRC submits itself to the linguistic imperialism of inclusivity, perverting feminist discourse by framing abortion in gender-neutral terms such as “people” and “individuals.” The GSRC announces, “We, the staff at the Gender + Sexuality Resource Center, are dismayed that people who can get pregnant — and often those who are relegated to the margins of society — will no longer have that choice and may be actively criminalized.” When women are obscured as “people who can get pregnant,” we are indeed “relegated to the margins of society” because our sex is erased as a meaningful category.

The GSRC further warns that the Dobbs decision “will result in some being forced to remain pregnant” and explains that “forced pregnancy is the term used to describe the consequence of not allowing an individual to have an abortion.” But this term distorts self-determination and agency: The government would merely require someone to remain pregnant, as the center admits; the government would not require any woman to become pregnant. If the sexual intercourse was voluntary, then the pregnancy is not forced, only unintended. Alternatively understood, “forced pregnancy” is the state not permitting a woman to kill her child.

Instead of panicking about restricted access to abortion, it would be prudent to promote sexual ethics that preclude the circumstances in which an abortion is perceived as desirable. While rape and incest are often cited as justifications for expansive abortion access, such cases are rare: According to the Guttmacher Institute, a research institution founded by Planned Parenthood, less than 1 percent of abortions are procured by rape victims, and less than .5 percent of abortions are attributed to incest. It’s necessary to address the fact that undesired pregnancies, especially those ending via abortion, more often result from injudicious sexual activity. Unfortunately, Princeton normalizes casual sex and even published a “Hookup Bill of Rights” for “safe and respectful hookups.” The Gender + Sexuality Resource Center should refrain from facilitating erotic anarchy in which an “enthusiastic yes” is the only ethical precondition, thereby reducing sex to a transaction and desensitizing intimacy.

The statement concludes with a staunch commitment to social-justice activism, affirming that “The Gender + Sexuality Resource Center actively resists sexism, cissexism, heteronormativity, and other intersecting forms of oppression on campus and beyond. For this reason, we believe that abortion is an essential and fundamental right that needs to be protected for all those who need it.” The GSRC is resisting sexism yet won’t attribute pregnancy exclusively to women. The Women*s Center was founded to support women at Princeton, but the modern fight against “cissexism” demands condemning “woman” as a biological classification. The GSRC is resisting “heteronormativity” while advocating for access to abortion, but an abortion procedure presupposes a pregnancy, which is contingent on heterosexual intercourse.

The GSRC statement is absurd but unsurprising. Recent GSRC events have included “Drag Show Extravaganza,” “Black Queer Hoe Poetry Reading and Q&A,” “JK Rowling and the Dangers of TERF Rhetoric,” “Fat Positive Dinner,” and “Bad Fat Black Girl: Notes from a Trap Feminist.”

The liberal programming might register as disappointing, concerning, or even comical. Yet the cause for just outrage is that the GSRC has not sponsored one event that could be considered even slightly moderate and modest — let alone conservative. The GSRC does not merely privilege progressive understandings of sex and sexuality; it grants such perspectives a monopoly. The GSRC “Student Groups” website recognizes Princeton Students for Reproductive Justice and Princeton Students for Gender Equality, but not Princeton Pro-Life or the Network of Enlightened Women chapter. The Center hosted a “Trans* Day of Remembrance Vigil” but is apparently unbothered by the millions of children who died under the Roe regime. When various student organizations hosted Abigail Shrier, a journalist who has documented the dangers of gender transition, the GSRC did not offer any financial support or promote the event. Instead, the GSRC sponsored a protest, held concurrently with Shrier’s lecture.

The Gender + Sexuality Resource Center fetishizes inclusivity: It “fosters a supportive and inclusive campus community for women, femme, trans, and queer Princetonians through collaborative programming, education, advocacy, and mentorship.” The Center explains, “Our aim is to be inclusive of every student on our campus.” Evidently, that excludes the conservative students. There is no observable commitment to welcome pro-life (or even slightly conservative) women, leading one to suspect that the center is an “inclusive” space, not for women, but for those who subscribe to a certain ideology. Women who think differently — meaning they do not combat “heterosexism, patriarchy, misogynoir, misogyny, cissexism, ableism, and other forms of discrimination” — evidently don’t qualify as “women.” Ironically, progressive men who declare themselves female do qualify as women.

The feminist movement incessantly denounces “microaggressions” and the “patriarchy.” Why isn’t it considered a patriarchal assertion of male dominance when men disguised as women insist on the right to occupy women’s spaces? Isn’t this the male colonization of women’s spaces? Feminists are willing to abandon the biological qualifications for “woman” and concede the female identity to any man who claims it, thereby providing the opportunity to join the “oppressed” by fiat.

The Gender + Sexuality Resource Center is sexist, even misogynist: It frames women’s freedom as freedom from womanhood, and it prioritizes including men while excluding women.