Even for Western women, higher education (as well as suffrage) was so vehemently opposed by so many white men for so long because any attempts to transgress the man/woman binary was considered not only a threat to white patriarchy but to Western civilization. The binary permitted white men to ruthlessly abuse women of color with no consequence: as civilized men, they were spared any burden of guilt or remorse since it was literally regarded as their rightful role not to feel sympathetic or sentimental. The refrains of “facts, not feelings” and “civility” that dominate our contemporary public
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