The rest of your post is really good Patrick, but I think the domains you chose for illustrative purposes is kind of unfortunate:

> This is largely because people don't come from China to major in Women's Studies, Philosophy, or Anthropology.

These are extremely different disciplines. First, anthropology has actually a lot of practical value, skilled anthropologists are decent at making predictions, or at the very least, raising interesting questions. The CIA's precusor, the Office of War Information had a lot of anthropologists on its staff and has roots in that sort of study, surveying, and analysis from different objective and subjective sources.

Philosophy is more of an an art, but a bit of training in philosophy can help a person resolve some important practical questions, and can help build character.

So those two are fields valid for different reasons. Anthropology can be watered down and yucky due to its subjective nature at times, but can be very valuable when trying to draw conclusions from a mix of objective and subjective data. For instance, trying to synergize census data and diary accounts to figure out what the quality of life was like in 1850's Prussia. And then making predictions about how a change in water supply, or military conscription could have ripple effects in a modern society based on Prussian data from 1850, Greek data from way back when, and so on.

Philosophy is what it is, and it's a legitimate field. People who are only philosophers and don't have training in other fields can sometimes ignore obvious practical considerations, but I think it's an incredibly good second or third field of study in concurrence with something else.

Which brings us to women's studies - which, from all of my experience, seems to be formalized, institutionalized political activism and not a legitimate field of study. They don't submit their views to review or analysis from anyone outside their field, and intentionally create so much lingo and jargon that it becomes very hard to discuss in practical language. It's kind of the opposite of physics - physicists are always trying to explain very complex systems as straightforwardly as possible, are open to hearing anyone's view who can provide falsifiable evidence, and it's a cause for celebration when the old view of physics is falsified and a new paradigm takes over. Women's studies is the opposite - they're trying to take fairly common situations and give them complex and obfuscating terminology, they're insulated and very poorly receive anyone's opinion that doesn't support their current worldview, and fight tooth and nail against anything that disputes their canon.

So, I fully agree with your comment, except that I think the three fields you chose were a little unfortunate. Philosophy can be valuable for people even when not directly relevant to careers. Anthropology has some bullshit involved with it at times, but can definitely be a solid field of study. Women's studies, though... I don't know, I don't want to see philosophy or anthropology get associated with that at all.

Maybe the most damning thing is that women's studies directly contradicts itself frequently and gets indignant when someone tries to reconcile it. Most egregiously - one of the major justifications and arguments for sexual reassignment surgery is that transgendered people have "the other gender's brain pattern" - something like that, you can look it up in greater detail. So that's taught in Gender Studies 317 or whatever, but in Gender Studies 201 they're saying gender is all a social construct and all gender roles are created by the media.

They don't want to get at correct worldviews, they want political power. If innate gender differences lends them political power - funding, access to services, favorable laws, new members of their political voting bloc - then there's innate gender differences. If "gender is a social construct" is good for political power - because it demonstrates oppression, justifies favorable laws, funding, and attracts new members to their political voting bloc - then gender is a social construct. And they let these two irreconcilable points of view live in the same building, and use whichever is convenient for the current argument!

So, I guess you could say "one of these three is not like the other" - Anthropology has some practical career applications even though it can be abstract. Philosophy is definitely a legitimate field of study, and can be very good for developing a person's character even if there isn't immediate career opportunities involved. Women's studies? Well, it's not politically correct to say, but a thorough examination makes it look like it's not particularly a valid or good field of study, that's shameful that universities allow it into the same halls where legitimate disciplines are taught and learned.