To be frank, the 'Vision 2000' people are simply not interested in ideas, intellectual advancement, debate or greater equality and fairness in academic departments. Instead, the entire aim of the project has been to establish heavily funded talk-shops and therapy groups which allow campus feminists to pursue their own interests and recruitment campaigns at the financial and personal expense of others. These groups are not particularly concerned about promoting equity and fairness, rather they are making an extremely conspicuous bid to increase their political power for the purposes of personal advancement. This is clearly evidenced by their desire to "utilise institutional research capacity (ie. cash) to produce the data necessary to raise consciousness, instigate action and monitor progress". What this means is that university funds must be diverted from potentially useful research projects to fund what amount to political campaigns.

Do not believe that the 'Vision 2000' takeover at the University of Massachusetts is an isolated incident either. 'Vision 2000's' in various shapes and guises are currently being spawned at universities throughout the world. Money is being pumped into the most hopeless of exploits in a manner which is wasteful at best and criminally irresponsible at worst. And this is a process likely to continue unless the upper echelons of the university bureaucracy concede that there are huge financial and practical differences between what is sensible and what is politically sensible. Take for example the establishment of the world's first Foundation for Androgynous Studies which receives strong support from our very own UWA. A recent article in the UWA Leader claims that FAS "has been established to advance the health, well-being, basic-rights, social equality and self determination of those who are physically and/or psychologically androgynous (sexually amorphous or ambivalent". Kai Chris Somers, a masters student in the Graduate School of Education is apparently the "lynchpin" of the Foundation and, "although presenting as a male, Kai (a Greek honorific denoting neither sex) prefers to be referred to a s/he". S/he argues that the FAS "hopes to enquire further into matters of gender, attempting to redress too rigid a dichotomy between male and female and re-examine accepted criteria for gender status". After all, as Tarquam McKenna (another enthusiastic supporter of FAS) tell us, even Inuit Eskimos recognised up to nine different genders in their language and society. Eskimos also had roughly 500 different ways of saying 'snow' but, conservative as we are, we still call it snow. Establish a well financed foundation for me and my friends however and I'm sure we could come up with plenty of ways to redress the rigid interpretation of slushy ice.

Dr. Geoff Gallop has assured continued support for the FAS which goes to show that it's just as hard to keep politics out of sex as it is to keep sex out of politics. Presumably, Dr. Gallop also laments the fact that there has been so little research conducted in the area of androgyny. The reason for the dearth of androgynous literature is simple. Only now, in the era of trendy intellectual pursuits financed by groups eager to score political points with equally trendy minorities could we possibly get away with it. Perhaps it will not be long before quality research institutions become nothing more than political mouthpieces for organisations such as the FAS.

Universities are supposed to educate people so that they can form their own opinions on life, the universe and everything. I do not want to be told that the answer is forty-two because that is what the university demands for the sake of political expedience. Nor should we blame Vision 2000 or politically correct lobby groups who have capitalised on the growing culture of complaint. Rather we should perhaps blame ourselves for not having had the courage nor the common sense to know when to draw the line.

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A point made also by Norman Mailer on the ABC's Uncensored programme. Mailer, in his inimitable style, asked what the hell trendy East coast feminists had ever done to improve the lot of women living in the Southern United States. The answer: not much. While these crusaders for a Brave New World were delivering their lectures in the halls of power the familiar social and domestic problems they so 'bravely' spoke out against remained thoroughly entrenched. In real terms, what have they achieved? Mailer concluded by musing over whether these feminists had ever even visited the Southern US to witness these problems first hand.