Identity-politcs cultural rot at the University of Wyoming

Today's entry into the universities-have-turned-into-preschools-devoid-of-any-mirth file:

“The World Needs More Cowboys.” 

This proposed new slogan for the University of Wyoming was meant to be “inclusive, by design,” according to the marketing campaign flier that was obtained by The Chronicle of Higher Education. 

“This is not a campaign to reinforce regressive stereotypes of Cowboys from the pop-cultural past,” the flier states. “This is a campaign to rewrite them.”

Read more here: https://www.star-telegram.com/news/nation-world/national/article214680825.html#storylink=cpy

The flier goes on to explain how this campaign is an opportunity to “celebrate people in every corner” because “Cowboys come in every sex, shape, color and creed” at the University of Wyoming. 

But despite the attempt to use “Cowboy” — the school’s mascot — as an inclusive term, some people who work for the university found the proposed slogan and campaign to be sexist and racist, the Laramie Boomerang reported. 

“This is a sexist slogan,” Faculty Senate president Donal O’Toole told The Chronicle of Higher Education. 

Associate professor Christine Porter told the Boomerang that the word “cowboy” makes “almost everybody” picture a white, heterosexual male. The school’s sports mascot, “Pistol Pete,” is a white man in a cowboy hat. Other colleges, including Oklahoma State Universityand New Mexico State, also have cowboy mascots named Pistol Pete. 

Porter also said the slogan is “unacceptable” because the word “boy” excludes anyone who identifies as a woman.

“In 2018 — and really for the past 20 years — it’s not been acceptable to use the generic male to pretend that includes female,” she told the newspaper.
Many women disagree. 

After the proposed slogan drew criticism, women took to Twitter to express their frustrations with those who found the slogan sexist.

“Among all the reasons I can’t take extreme feminism seriously, the University of Wyoming is in hot water for the use of ‘cowboys’ in their new slogan but not ‘cowgirls,’ Twitter user Dalle Rutledge posted. “As the schools mascot ‘cowboy’ is all inclusive term. This is Wyoming folks, get tough or get gone.” 

Rutledge’s Twitter bio says she’s a cattlewoman in Wyoming.

There's more negative feedback, a hopeful sign that a swath of normal Americans is flying under the cultural radar:

This whole thing makes me mad, I’m a proud UW alumni and have no problem saying I’m a Wyoming Cowboy it’s just the name people will be saying “go pokes” is wrong next...and I agree “the world needs more cowboys”

and

Anyone who understands what the cowboy way of life means would know it's not a gender label. As a parent of a Cowgirl (UW athlete), I love the slogan! Maybe UW should offer classes, taught by Wyoming's ranching women, to those who don't get the symbolism of the American Cowboy. 

Exit question: How many decades has it been since Christine Porter had one microsecond of fun?