Men and women are different. Why? Because our culture socially distinguishes between the two common sexes: male and female. And males and females are biologically different in many ways you can research on your own time.

This dose of reality is brought to you by a feminist.

Better medical research and higher standards of living for people coping with everything from heart disease to cancer can be attributed to (gasp) feminism. Don’t believe me?

Take an excerpt from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy page on “Feminist Perspectives in Science.” This particular excerpt cites the work of Stanford professor and researcher Londa Schiebinger:

“[Feminist activism] put pressure on the medical establishment to take account of ways in which women’s health and disease profiles diverge from models based on studies of male subjects … Heart disease is one especially prominent example of a well studied condition the understanding of which was based, until the late 1980s, almost entirely on samples of men, even when it concerned the effects of hormones like estrogen … Feminist activism was directly responsible for federally enforced reforms of medical research…that required the inclusion of female subjects in clinical trials, given findings that FDA-approved drugs were … tested exclusively on men and that publicly funded research on women was largely limited to reproductive health issues.”

The real issue here is not one of sexual difference, but academic integrity. In an era ruled by connectivity, where anyone can think himself or herself an expert upon reading a Wikipedia page, we are susceptible to listen to quacks who think “60 Minutes” is a credible source for anything.

As adults, it is our responsibility to think critically about claims that are not backed up with credible sources.

With an amazing Gender and Women’s Studies department on campus, why not ask actual feminist researchers their views on medical research? Why not email medical researchers at UK and ask them if feminism has held back their research?

Ask any doctor who is a woman and she will likely tell you that feminism made her career possible in the first place.

Why is the definition of feminism left to someone so blatantly against it without citing any evidence of research on the subject? Would I, a graduate of the UK Gender and Women’s Studies department, claim to be well versed in foreign policy after watching a few hours of CNN?

I am horrified that a man like Matt Young, who chooses not to use the extensive research sources available to him, who chooses not to utilize the critical thinking skills his tuition is paid to sharpen and who publishes a piece with cherry-picked (mis)information, will hold a degree from our institution.

My advice as both an alumni of UK and a feminist: never make claims unless you can back it up with published, peer-reviewed research.

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