It is the question on everyone's lips in philanthropy: Who is the mysterious donor giving away millions of dollars to at least a dozen universities nationwide?A circle of successful businesswomen? A publicity-shy billionaire? Oprah?
What is so unusual is that not even the universities know the answer. But the parlor game is afoot, with only one real clue: So far, all the universities are led by women.
Coincidence? Unlikely. Women lead about 23 percent of U.S. colleges. The odds of a dozen randomly selected institutions all having female leaders are 1 in 50 million.
The article goes on to postulate about the motivation of this woman or group of women donors. Essentially, it seems, someone wants to support female leaders in the academy. After years of a leadership imbalance, women college presidents are slowly moving toward parity and it looks like someone wants to continue to see that happen (college presidents, in part, are judged based on their capacity to bring in money to the school and innovate and develop new programs, all of which requires the benjamins.)
But everyone seems flummoxed about why this donor or group of donors wants to stay cloaked in mystery. Why make us connect the dots with regard to motivation? If this donor or donors really want female college presidents to thrive, why not be out and proud about that desire so other women could contribute resources in that direction? It seems to me that we need more visible female philanthropists, not less.
Thanks to Molly May for the heads up.
Check out community blogger juliap for another perspective.
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Lots of donors want to remain anonymous because once you give to one organization, every other one out there keeps hitting you up. It's especially difficult to donate anonymously to colleges and universities because they have so many departments and scholarships that can find out who you are and keep trying to get to you. As someone who donates to multiple organizations every year, I have to say that I would do the same thing these donors (or donor) did if I had the money to go through lawyers.
And who knows, if it is women, they may be big philanthropists in their own circles. They maybe wanted to keep this one under wraps so that their own alma maters didn't start with the guilt trips (because they do.... believe me, they do.)
I dig that this person (or group of people) are doing these kickass Scarlet Pimpernelesque donations. My alma mater (Michigan State University) has benefited from this generosity at a time when the state could really use it and there is a stipulation that the majority of the money goes directly towards scholarships (7 million of the 10 million).
To address your point about making the donor(s) public: I am a nonprofit management student right now and we have discussed this issue in some of my courses. Many women do give large sums of money to philanthropic pursuits. However, they are also much less likely than men to demand that their name be slapped on buildings, faculty chairs, etc. Personally, if I were to come into large sums of money (haha, I bet with my major :P) I would be inclined to make it anonymous. For whatever reason, many women do not feel that their legacy has to accompanied by a statue in the quad or whathaveyou. This is probably somewhat based on stupid ideas of womanly modesty, but personally I feel that the essence of true charity should be caring about a cause, not having your name plastered on shit.
As a completely unrelated aside, is this is a bodice-ripper novel being advertised next to this post? Some of your advertisers either have a sense of humor or are really misguided...
I'm surprised that you think advertising romance novels on this site is misguided. Romance novels are read and written by feminists too.
uh yes... it was ME. I gave away all those millions of dollars to those schools ;-)
I kid, I kid. I wish I had that much money to donate to higher educational programs and to charity groups. But I think I would also want to remain anonymous, too.
Why do you assume the donor/s are women? Is it really that unlikely that a man would make such a donation?
Oh, and I realize the original article does the same thing, but it gives no justification for doing so other than unsupported speculation.
I noticed the same thing. It seems really unprofessional for the author of this article to assume that a man (or group of men) couldn't possibly have any motivation to donate to women-led schools. Is it more likely that the donor is female? Sure. But to completely shut down the possibility of the donor being male is absurd.
Of course it's impossible for men to care about supporting women and women-led institutions. Just like its impossible for men to be feminists or to remain anonymous when large sums of money are involved...
So ... who cares.
Don't worry. We're not going to forget TEH all-powerful MENZ! How could we forget about them!
It's just nice to think it is indeed a woman. It says something for progress that women are able to accumulate such wealth at all. Check out how many wealthy business/industry and government leaders are women ... so that's less than 5%. And who holds most of the world's wealth. Just take a guess.
Wrong. It's sexist to by default think that it's a woman. It implies that only a woman would be interested in feminism-related issues, and more largely, that all feminists are women. It supports incorrect and sexist views about feminism in general, and male involvement in the feminist movement.
It might be marginally more likely that it was a woman, but even that is a specious claim without evidence.
1. Nobody except Courtney ever suggested it wasn't a man, and who cares that she did. She was making an entirely different point. (Sigh.) In fact, you apparently didn't read the AP article, because the single most noticeable gendered pronoun to be found is a "his" ("As for whether the donor is someone scandalous trying to hide his identity ... "). Huh. That's interesting. How simply unheard of for authors to use the male pronoun as universal. Otherwise the article's pretty careful to refer to the donor using the gender-neutral "the donor" and "the person."
2. Thank you for marching into a feminist space and explaining to us all, in your infinite wisdom, what sexism is, because it's not as though we've experienced it or anything, or discuss it here on a daily basis, or ever consider how it affects men.
3. Your tone sucks. I am not "wrong." None of what I wrote was wrong.
4. If this makes you mad, perhaps read some texts involving police and security guards and count how many times they're referred to as "he" and/or "men." I have some example articles to start, if you'd like.
Your tone kind of sucks too. You're being kind of mean for no reason.
There is no reason to assume that the donor is female and no excuse for doing so. There's also nothing wrong with pointing out the sexism involved in assuming that the donor must be female.
I can understand why someone might make this mistake. But that doesn't change the fact that it's a mistake. The salient point, in my opinion, is the very fact that the donor is anonymous so we don't know their gender and we shouldn't assume.
For Courtney (and anyone else) to go ahead and use female pronouns is revealing about the way we Feminists tend to think of men - as enemies or at least not allies. I think it's pretty cynical and sad to assume that a man or group of men couldn't possibly be responsible for this amazing generosity and progressive action.
The bottom line is that this donor is doing a great thing, regardless of gender. That's what Feminism is all about. Gender has nothing to do with what we're capable of or what we choose to do.
"Thank you for marching into a feminist space and explaining to us all, in your infinite wisdom, what sexism is, because it's not as though we've experienced it or anything, or discuss it here on a daily basis, or ever consider how it affects men."
I'm sorry you take so much offense at someone discussing sexism. You seem to think that because we all call ourselves Feminists we automatically know everything about Feminism, gender, and power etc. and have nothing left to learn by discussing our myriad perspectives and understandings.
I really don't think your reaction to this person is fair and I don't think it is helpful or relevant to the discussion. It is, quite simply, reactionary. Maybe you're right about this person's tone, but it is extremely problematic to answer an upsetting tone with an equally, if not more, upsetting one. I just wish we could all be friends and empathetic toward one another while still maintaining a thoughtful discussion.
And what point was Courtney trying to make that Hoyaguy and myself seem to have missed out on?
I love this link. Perhaps it needs to be posted on every entry on this blog as a disclaimer. HoyaGuy and yourself will love it, too.
http://www.derailingfordummies.com/
Let's see. Check out ... "You're Being Hostile"; "You've Lost Your Temper ... "; "You Are Damaging Your Cause By Being Angry." They forgot to add some called, "You Are Simply Wrong About the History of Your Own Group's Social-Justice Movement In So Many Ways" and "Why Can't We All Be Friends?"
kthanxbai.
that is a great link in certain contexts, allegra, but perhaps not so applicable here. Had Hoya come barging in screeching about how "menz need teh monies, too!" we might have a troll/MRA thing going on. I read Hoya's comment very differently from a "what about teh menz" war cry--rather, as a quick reminder that even though we all do good work here, none of us are immune from slipping into sexist (or other -ist) assumptions. We're all casualties of the patri-/kyriarchy. And I, for one, appreciate it when someone's there to call me back from it.
Yes, that's exactly what I was trying to say. Thank you.
I'm not suggesting that the authors are horrible horrible sexists making men's lives a living hell. And A+ to the donor for a great cause, in my opinion.
I'm just suggesting that there's certain subtle but nevertheless sexist behaviors that we often slip into. And yes, we, including myself. I'm sure I've been more guilty than the article countless times. Consciously, probably not so much. But it's easy to make these sorts of assumptions unconsciously.
However, it's in our best interest to attempt to be cognizant of such behavior, and to try to change it where we see it.
No one likes the tone police.
And just to be clear, I'm not suggesting that it isn't a woman. Just that one shouldn't automatically assume this to be the case based on the donations alone.
To ignore the possibility that the donor is a man or group of men limits our understanding of humanity and feminists. It implies that it's not even worth considering that a man or group of men might be interested in supporting women's advancement. We know that is not true. Feministing does not subscribe to the theory that men are trollish boors, incapable of feminism. I'm surprised to see the assumption that the donor is a women/group of women, too.
if the donors goal was to attract media attention towards the fact that so few women run colleges, but when they do run colleges they seem to do a great job- then they sure succeeded. All these anonymous donor murmurings have generated more publicity for the cause then an announced donation might.
I really like that the donor(s) is(are) remaining anonymous. With her/him/them anonymous, everybody just has to focus on "wow, somebody is giving these colleges a ton of money, we don't know why, but it's awesome." I feel like if we knew who the person(s) was, everybody would be analyzing their character and history and try to find some reason that the schools shouldn't be accepting the money, or why this person isn't so altruistic/philanthropic after all. With the donor anonymous, we can just keep focused on the fact that somebody, during a recession, is giving away millions of dollars to female-headed universities, without worrying too much about the motivation.
Meh. If it is indeed a woman donor, she probably can already hear the anti-intellectual conservative whining about "affirmative action" and "teh wimenz taking over and throuing arond all teh monee" if she was to be open about feminist motivations. Then we'd have some white men and Glenn Sacks come in and start whining about how men aren't even ATTENDING or graduating from college anymore!
There was a segment about the donations on NPR where one "expert" suggested that "the donor must have lived in a time when it was unseemly and unladylike for a woman to flaunt her money." I was like ... ya think? That's 'cause that "strange time" you speak of has actually been FOREVER - up til about 40 years ago.
I initially thought it was kind of speculation to claim the woman presidents had something to do with it, too, but now that I see the actual 23% statistic (I thought there were *more* woman university presidents than this, but heck, why should I be surprised), perhaps it was intentional to donate to woman-led institutions after all.
from the lists I have seen, they are all state schools as well. my guess is a working-class feminist, male or female.
from a publicity standpoint, this is getting a lot more attention because of the mystery. if we knew who it was, it would be the lead story for about a day before falling into "and so-and-so gave money to another school". as it is, every time there's another donation, the whole media is paying attention. it's a brilliant strategy for not just getting the money into the hands of these women, but also getting attention on their schools and what might make someone WANT to donate to a school run by a woman.
The final word in the post should "fewer", not "less".
Wow.
Actually, I'm pretty sure the last word in the post should be whatever the author wants it be: "fewer," "less," "asparagus," "cocaine," "autodidacts"--all these words would have been possibilities.
I think all posts should end with asparagus.
I think it's great that the donations are being made anonymously. Others here have already pointed out a number of possible reasons for making it anonymous, but I don't think anyone has touched on this one yet: an anonymous donor makes it harder to "write off" the importance of donating to woman-run institutions.
Right now, the donor is bigger than life; s/he is some mysterious person behind the curtain -- it could be Oprah! It could be Superman! No one knows! If the donor reveals him/herself, the donations become much less exciting and interesting. Even worse, you then get media pundits speculating about that donor's *specific* -- i.e., non-generalizable -- reasons for making the specific donations s/he did. The subtle effect of this is, in turn, to marginalize these same institutions. An anonymous donor is a blank slate. It's a universal. It could be any one of us -- you, me, family, a friend, a leader, someone we admire, someone we hate -- and because of that universalizability, the donations themselves are universalizable. ANYONE could donate specifically to woman-run institutions.
Don't discount the powerfulness of this. Let's say tomorrow Oprah comes out and says, "okay guys, you got me -- it's me!" Suddenly everyone can relax and shrug and say, "oh, okay, well of course OPRAH would support colleges with female presidents/deans/leaders. Now I can get on with real life." It makes it easier to shrug off the donation and not think about it. But if it's ANYONE, then you're forced to confront the fact that, for all you know, Richard Branson is a closet feminist.
HA! I rather like that theory.
Who are these anonymous donors? Whoever they are, what they are doing is supporting gender parity. Just as Gloria Feldt says in her article "To Run the World, Power Up Feminism," supporting women in power and continuing to fight the fight is the only way to
achieve feminist goals.
http://www.ontheissuesmagazine.com/2009spring/2009spring_8.php
We have a female president and are in need of money... Maybe we're next?
My college received one, and there's a huge rumor going around that it's Oprah...
Am I the only one confused by the Oprah rumor? Oprah is pretty open about her charity work and donations, so it seems highly unlikely to me that she's giving anonymous donations. These donations are great and Oprah is pretty great too, but I really doubt that the two are connected.
I think the idea is that there are relatively few individual women (presuming it's a woman. See above) who can afford to donate $100 million or more to these universities, and Oprah is one of the few names on that list who is a household name.
That said, i think it's more likely to be a group than an individual.
Does anyone else think it's sexist, essentialist, and stupid to donate money to colleges just because they have female presidents?
Should feminist philathropists have helped bankroll the United Kingdom's 1980s invasion of the Falkland Islands, during which hundreds of people were killed, because --oh boy!-- it was being orchestrated by the British Prime Minister at the time, Margaret Thatcher (woman).
Do these universities have gender parity in terms of faculty tenure? Good Woman's Studies programs? A history of adequate protections for the victim's of sexual assault? Cuz there's a chick in charge, everything MUST be hunky-dory, huh?
And there's no way this money could be better spent elsewhere. Female-led universities in the richest country on earth are way more in need of cash then say, the millions of impoverished women who are dying of AIDS worldwide, or the billions who don't access to sufficient birth control, or all the women who CAN'T EVEN READ, let alone become president of a university.
Yep, God Bless Oprah! (or whoever)
Get out of here with your "other places have it worse" crap. That argument has been used for years to dismiss the concerns of women. There is plenty of need to go around and any giving is good giving.
I don't see how I'm dismissing the concerns of women. I'm criticizing the concerns of some unknown rich philathropist (who may be a woman or not).
In fact, I specifically ADDRESSED the concerns of women in my post (women's studies programs, preventing sexual assault, etc.)
And any giving is good giving? In a way, yes. I'm glad that this person decided to give to woman-led universities if the alternative was, say, investing in Halliburton or buying another mansion in the Florida Keyes. But I fail to see how it's a more worthy cause than the others I outlined, which affect the most oppressed women. Money is a finite resource, and in today's global economy one can spend it in pretty much any way one wishes. I think the spending behaviors of multimillionaires are fair game for honest criticism.
And even if giving to American universities is ACTUALLY a worthy cause, it seems like a feminist should be giving to the colleges with the best overall stance on women's rights, not the ones that just happen to have female presidents.
Presumably you are familiar with the expression "Letting the perfect be the enemy of the good."
Of course. I agree pragmatism is important and any progress is good progress. But for a while, I've had my doubts about the "women leaders are good" viewpoint. I mean look at Margaret Thatcher, like I mentioned in a previous post. She was a terrible setback for social justice, in general, and feminism, specifically.
More feminist leaders is good. But a lot of women in power have already assimilated into patriarchal values. I think by focusing too much on women leaders, people buy into a authoritarian, oppressive ideology that idolizes the current power structure and the power who are running it. In my opinion, our current capitalistic, patriarchal leadership should be opposed. And a few token women just gives it credibility while the vast majority of women around the world continue to suffer massive hardships.
I don't quite get your argument. Even the richest person in the world has a finite amount of money to spend, and s/he must pick and choose whom to give it to. Try as I will, I really can't work up any indignation because Anonymous Donor chose to give money to state universities headed by women rather than some other good cause. Perhaps, like me, A.D. grew up in a family that considered a university education a wonderful thing in itself. I agree that simply having a woman in charge doesn't mean everything about a particular university is as it should be, but you have to start somewhere!
You make some good points. I wasn't exactly trying to insult or demean the Anonymous Donor. I'm sure s/he's doing what she thinks is right (and if she stays anonymous than you have to admire the apparent dedication to the principle alone).
Many people will benefit from this measure. A university education, correctly applied, can indeed be beneficial and empowering, like you said.
I was just trying to question some assumptions most people have. Like philanthropy=automatic good and more women leaders=automatic good. These ideas prevent people from looking at deeper issues that are always in play. Why are there all these rich people to begin with who are in a position to give money to their pet projects? Is this fair? When an alumni donates money to Harvard University or a conservative donates money to the Southern Bapist Convention, does this improve the world? Probably not.
In a time of great change, radical action is required. You're right, everyone has to make choices. Do rich, privledged women who run universities, women who may or may not care about social justice, really need our support at a time when millions of women around the world are slipping into deeper poverty and oppression? I think these questions need to be asked.
Whoa. Whoa whoa whoa.
"Why are there all these rich people to begin with who are in a position to give money to their pet projects? Is this fair?"
I agree that the distribution of wealth throughout the world is very, very uneven, but what you're saying is starting to sound downright socialist.
Are you? Honest, no-emotions question. Because if so I'll move onto the next thread (I am a capitalist, and I definitely respect your viewpoint. I just want to know what that sentence was about...)
Sorry to go off topic.
Hmmm. . .well I don't usually self-identify as socialist, as I have no formal affliation with any socialist organization. But I've definitely been influenced by people who are/were socialists. And it's true I don't think our current economic setup is fair or sustainable.
But yeah, if you think the current distribution of wealth and power in society is OK, or in need of a little work, but close to OK, then we probably have a fundamental disagreement.
By that particular sentence you quote I meant that I think there are too many rich people (mainly men), and they have too much wealth, and that this harms the majority of women. There's a lot of potential remedies for that including drastically increasing income taxes on the rich and strengthening labor unions (and getting more women into labor unions).
On the more radical side, I'd probably support expanding Social Security (I'm in the US) to provide a guaranteed minimum income for all people, which would especially good from a feminist view since women do so much work that is unpaid now (childrearing, housework). I could go on but I fear this isn't terribly relevant to the thread. . .
Oops, pressed 'liked.'
...what? I identify as socialist (ok, more trotskyist right now). But what does that have to do with this? You said it as if the poster was a murderer or into child porn. At least that's how it came off to me. As well as moving to the next thread. You completely dismiss someone because of a differing view? That's quite ridiculous. I've been written off before for being a radical feminist, so the last damn thing I want to see is someone being cut off for a certain belief (that isn't even sexist!) I mean-I could say the same thing to you about capitalism, Would you feel ok if people saw that and went "yeah, ok, NEXT!" I don't agree with capitalism and think many negative things about it, but that in no way even gives the slightest excuse not to discuss something with someone just because they identify as a capitalist.
I appreciate you defending me Danielle. Us lefties have to stick together. :-)
But I didn't really feel offended. Alessa said she meant it as an honest question, and I believe her. And also, I'm hardly getting cut off; I've hogged most of the second half of this thread.
Trotskyist radical feminist huh? You sound like a Mccain voter. . .
"Cuz there's a chick in charge, everything MUST be hunky-dory, huh?"
I don't think anyone is arguing that any individual woman being in charge is inherently good.
But having a society where all the money and power isn't concentrated amongst men is inherently good. And the only way to work towards such a society is for individual women to get more money and power.
Hmmmm. . .I do agree with what you say. Individual women SHOULD have more money and power. But I would add not ALL individual women need more money and power.
I think most rich, white, female professionals DON'T need any more money or power. Especially if the money and power that goes to them could have instead gone to less privleged women.
But the vast majority of the money is actually going towards scholarships, so it isn't going to the women presidents. The fact of the donations are just giving them more prestige.
The money IS going to less privileged people, though yes, still Americans.
Oh, this post doesn't mention where the money is going. I'll find the numbers...
"In total, about $70 million has been given, with 50-80% of each donation earmarked for scholarship money. The remaining money can be spent at the discretion of the universities.
1. The scholarship money is designated specifically for women and minorities."
http://community.feministing.com/2009/04/anonymous-donor-contributes-to.html
Hmmm. . .OK. Well I guess it would be hard for me to argue against scholarships to public universities for women and minorities without feeling a bit like a jerk. Probably, I overreached. But most of my points still stand entirely intact--honest!! Err, or at least, some of them.
wtf? Did you just read the statistic here? TWENTY-THREE PERCENT. 23. More women are receiving BACHELOR'S DEGREES and MASTER'S DEGREES than men, but they still only comprise *23* percent of university presidents? There are really no more qualified women out there to take these positions? You've got to be f'n joking.
This is an excellent and a fine cause and will benefit students the most.
Yes, I read the statistic. And I definitely wasn't trying to say that there isn't discrimination in hiring for this. I'm almost positive that there are many qualified women who get stymied trying to climb the occupational ladder to become a university president.
Here's what I was saying. I don't necessarily think more women university presidents will really improve the world. I'm also unsure about whether the world needs more women CEOs. I'd rather that weren't ANY CEOs, period. I don't necessarily want a woman to be president of the United States. I'd prefer if the United States was no longer a centralized nation state.
Gender parity doesn't automatically improve things. Would the world improve with more female contract killers? Tobacco industry lobbyists? Cocaine importers? Global warming deniers?
Compared to the real problems women face worldwide, this is small potatoes.
Compared to the real problems women face worldwide, this is small potatoes.
http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/04/12/faq-why-are-you-concentrating-on-x-when-y-is-so-much-more-important/
I think you may be misinterpreting my posts. My point wasn't that this is an unimportant topic. Actually, I think this quite an important topic, which is my I'm expressing my views on it.
It is true that my opinion is in the minority on this thread, and maybe I've droned on too long about my views. But I defintely wasn't trying to hijack the discussion to some other, unrelated subject that I think is more important. I was trying to discuss the shortcomings of philanthropy and the shortcomings of advocacy for women elites, which (to me) is topical.
I think, in the end, it seems like the fundamental difference is that you seem to be presenting the idea of overall social change, whereas a lot of people are looking at this and thinking "How can this be criticized?".
Or maybe I'm oversimplifying? Or just completely missed the point?
Nope, you're right on the money. That's a good summary of my point. I mean, for example, I support scholarships to people who can't afford to go to college. But I'd also ask: Why do women need to go to college to get a good job in this country? Every women should have the right to a job that's interesting, fulfilling, and pays enough money that she can support herself (and any children she might have) financially. But most women (and men), even today, even in America, aren't college graduates. What about them? Do we really think we can end up in a society where every single individual is a lawyer or an MBA? And what about all the billions of people around the world who are struggling to meet basic needs of food, clean water, medicine, control over their reproduction, and a home?
So it's true a lot of people look at this and feel great about this. But I have mixed feelings. I think of these millionaires who have all these resources that could be spent on anything. And I see them spending it not on the people who need help the most, but on people who already have a lot going for them.
And I have misgivings about that.
"Trotskyist radical feminist huh? You sound like a Mccain voter. . ."
Sarcasm, yes? It's way to hard to tell over the internet.
If yes: teehee. I was panicking in the days leading up to the election over the possibility of that douchebag winning.
If no: wtf.
omg, that was meant in reply to NomadSpirit! Huh. That's what happens when you try to hastily post a comment during class.