Fox News Host Megyn Kelly To Feminists: ‘Toughen Up, Buttercups!’
Megyn Kelly has a message for feminists: Toughen up, Buttercups.
Kelly, host of Fox News’ The Kelly File, invited Christina Hoff Sommers onto her show Wednesday night in order to discuss the demands made by students at the University of North Texas, who decided they wanted a commencement speaker who “better aligned with their values” than Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
Although Sommers is known as the “Factual Feminist,” many scholars and feminists view her title as misleading and claim she is a critic of feminism rather than an actual feminist. Sommers coined the term “equity feminist” to describe her views, and argues that modern feminism contains “irrational hostility to men” as well as an “inability to take seriously the possibility that the sexes are equal but different.”
Sommers had a similar incident happen to her last week at Georgetown University, when students wanted to provide trigger warnings to other students who attended Sommers’ talk “so people could get prepared to deal with their upset.”
Before Kelly allowed Sommers to speak, she explained to her viewers that Sommers is a different kind of feminist — one who isn’t offensive to conservatives. Kelly also blasted those who protested against Sommers during her recent Georgetown lecture.
“You’re not the kind of feminist [that college students] believe in, and you don’t say the stuff they want you to say, and therefore they want you to shut your mouth, and if you don’t shut your mouth, then everyone needs to be held before you come on to campus and be told that they can go to their ‘safe space’ if you have the nerve to show up.”
Sommers described the “safe spaces” provided to students at Georgetown, claiming that the spaces contained Play-Doh, bubbles, and videos of puppies, expressing her disbelief over the furor her appearance created.
“It’s so shocking to me as a philosophy professor that campuses have become such a hostile environment for free expression.”
Some critics of the “Factual Feminist” view Sommers as a “rape apologist” because, although she states that sexual assualt is a problem, she openly contends that studies inaccurately and grossly overstate the number of rape victims, despite the fact that studies show that rape is a crime that goes “severely under reported.”
Fox News host Megyn Kelly agrees with Sommers on the idea that rapes are actually over-reported, particularly those that occur on college campuses.
“You don’t buy the whole dogma,” Kelly said to Sommers. “You don’t buy the numbers on the campus assaults, and neither does Britt Hume, and a lot of other people who aren’t sexist or misogynist.”
Kelly had nothing but scorn for the college students who protested against Sommers’ appearance at Georgetown, focusing on the idea that their protests were attempts to silence people with whom they disagree.
“It’s like we’re ruining the upcoming generation. Life doesn’t involve only people who think the way you think, college students! You have to get used to people with opposing views!”
Kelly concluded her segment about college students protesting against speakers on their campus with words from her old trainer: “Toughen up, Buttercup!”
Watch the entire video segment below and tell us what you think. Do college students have a right to demand a different speaker if the one chosen doesn’t align with their own views, such as the case with Governor Abbot and the University of North Texas? Or should they, as Megyn Kelly says, toughen up?
[Image via The Kelly File]
