Mireille Miller-Young of UC Santa Barbara.
Mireille Miller-Young, Ph.D. is an esteemed associate professor of feminist studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Miller-Young has specialties that include “race, gender and sexuality in visual culture and sex industries in the United States.” That means Mireille’s scholarly research focuses primarily on sex, and more specifically on blacks in pornography and sex work.
Dr. Miller-Young has spent years studying the inequities black sex workers face, enduring what she calls “multiple axes of discrimination and harm.” In her sphere of influence, Mireille works hard to expose “structural inequalities and social biases black women face in the adult industry.”
One would think that with those credentials, regardless of a woman’s political persuasion, Mireille’s advocacy of “women’s rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men” would embrace and advance those equalities for all women.
Wrong!
Seems that as a black woman who herself despises being discriminated against, Miller-Young, champion of Feminist & Queer Theory, has zero problem discriminating against and harming women, be they black or white, if those women’s beliefs oppose the professor’s radical view that supports destroying the unborn.
Based on Mireille’s recent aggressive outburst toward two sisters handing out pro-life literature on the campus of UCSB, the published researcher featured in C’Lick Me: A Netporn Studies Reader must define her brand of feminism as “women’s rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men” – as long as those political, social and economic views are liberal in nature.
Mireille bravely ventures into the world of sex workers to do research and analysis of the women who work in the sex trade and the obstacles they face when expressing themselves in a business that oftentimes objectifies and mistreats them. Yet when one 16-year-old, Thrin Short, and her 21-year-old sister Joan expressed their political and social views – in a designated “free speech zone,” no less – Miller-Young physically assaulted Thrin and begrudged the protestors the right that she’s built a career fighting for other women to have.
Standing on the campus of a public/taxpayer-funded university, Thrin and Joan handed out 1,000 pro-life pamphlets. That’s when Associate Professor Miller-Young approached the sisters, where several students had gathered around to listen.
Interestingly, Miller-Young has zero problem with pornography or sex worker magazines like $pread, but show up on a public campus with a picture of an aborted fetus, and the open-minded, sexually liberated feminist whose dissertation was entitled A Taste for Brown Sugar: Black Women, Sex Work and Pornography goes histrionic.
The professor will advocate on behalf of women working a pole in an adult night club, but pro-life female minors representing Riverside-based nonprofit Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust best beware! Mireille will steal from you in broad daylight, deny you your right to freedom of expression, and physically assault you.
Kristina Garza, director of campus outreach for the nonprofit pro-life group, said that at the outset of the campus event Miller-Young approached the area and attempted to lead a small group of feminist/pro-choice students to protest the Scott sisters.
Thrin said this about the nutty professor: “Before she grabbed the sign, she was mocking me and talking over me in front of the students, saying that she was twice as old as me and had three degrees, so they should listen to her and not me.”
Mireille loves to sound off about pornography and black diaspora, but disagree with her rigid opinions, and she will not hesitate to attack you. Dr. Miller-Young may be older than Thrin and technically more educated, but her behavior throughout the video is like a 13-year-old’s.
After swiping the sign, Miller-Young turned and called the 16-year-old pro-life teen “a terrorist.” Thrin followed Miller-Young as she dragged her wheeled backpack behind her and scurried with her group of mean girls through the buildings to the elevator, where Thrin tried to prevent the feminist porn professor from disappearing with her property.
Thinking the police were on the way, Thrin tried to keep the “elevator door open with [her] foot.” Instead of returning Thrin’s property, it was then that the editor of great works like The Feminist Porn Book: The Politics of Producing Pleasure tried to push the teen away from the door, grabbing and scratching Thrin’s wrists in the process.
Short caught Mireille on iPhone video exiting the elevator and trying to pull her away from the elevator doors so Miller-Young’s pro-choice posse could escape with the pro-life sign.
At Rate My Professor, one student who received an “A” in Mireille’s FEMST60 class had this to say about the professor: She is “usually unprepared for class, cannot stand it when you disagree with her… lacks basic communication skills… assigns shock value reading to make points that she could otherwise not validate.” And here’s the kicker: “When she feels she is losing a debate she resorts to insults and intimidation.”
That’s why it’s believable that Mireille deliberately provoked the ugly confrontation, shouted insults at the sisters, took the signs, and shut down the protest.
Nonetheless, Thrin remains undaunted by the bully porn professor with a radical feminist agenda. Despite being roughed up by a much larger woman, Thrin vows to continue speaking on campuses about the cruelty of abortion and the sanctity of life.
Thrin Scott said this: “Fortunately, in our country, we can speak out against abortion and other evils, and the law protects us. It would be cowardly to back off just because of what this one person did.” And as long as it advocates for the smut and porn she makes a living from, that’s precisely what Mireille Miller-Young, Ph.D. probably teaches about the protections provided under the law for women – as long as they agree with her.
