Goodbye to women only scholarships

I wonder if they scrapped it because they know anything aimed at women is a TRA-magnet and they just don’t want to have to deal with that?

This is exactly what I think has happened. Heading it off before they are forced to give it to a man.

Young women are more likely to go to university than young men so I imagine in the future universities will have affirmative action type policies to make it 50/50. How is this not what those demanding equality of outcome wanted?

An alternative approach to address issues which predominantly but not exclusively cause inequity for women in academia is something like the Dorothy Hodgkin fellowships:

royalsociety.org/grants-schemes-awards/grants/dorothy-hodgkin-fellowship/

I’d be happy to toss a considerable amount of tax dollars into maybe looking at providing women with assertive training.

No. This is not the correct way forward and it is telling women it is their fault because they have the wrong personality type. Do you realise how much fucking harder it is to be 'assertive' when your face doesn't fit and when you're in an environment where you know the perception is that you are not as good just because you happen to have certain genitalia? The purpose of feminism is not to make women act like entitled men (who act that way because their whole life they have been given dominance over another group), but to make the world fairer. I cannot see how that can be done other than through quotas and additional support for women. NOT by telling women they could have equality in the workplace if only they asked for it. Many women ARE assertive and DO ask, yet they don't get anywhere. Mr Prize Knobhead Peterson probably doesn't understand that because he has never ever been on the receiving end of misogyny.

I hate to bring him up as I know Jordan Peterson is persona non grata here, but I’ve seen him speak on precisely the topic that women on average are more agreeable than men, and less likely to put themselves foward for promotion. Like it or not assertiveness IS a crucial skill in most jobs if not all high status ones. I know he’s done a lot of work with professional women precisely to develop greater assertiveness. I’d be happy to toss a considerable amount of tax dollars into maybe looking at providing women with assertive training. I think it might move the needle in a more equitable direction than positive discrimination or all women short lists.

Bittermints and that’s so true even before you yourself have children!

My brother had an early paperround, I couldn’t (at 12) because I had to clean the fire out, help with breakfast, and getting the youngest ready for school.

It starts young, and it always felt unfair, but I’m not sure when I really started to question it.

Of the men I trained with in my field, one was in a top senior leadership position within 2 years of qualification. He was low average in terms of performance and skills in the group I trained with. Much higher ability women took ten plus years to get into even the lower levels of senior leadership

So much this. I’ve slogged for 10 years to get to a low senior position in my industry. Watching many deeply mediocre males get advancement over me. I assumed I was imagining it at first, just unlucky, maybe I wasn’t all that good.

Till a colleague leaned over and said ‚‘ you were better than the other candidates put together, if your name were Dave, you’d have got that job‘ and I knew I wasn’t imagining it.

No reason in principle why a woman shouldn't be a bin collector but of course historically jobs like that were kept for men, who got their sons, nephews, grandsons, neighbours' sons etc in by buying the foreman a pint any time somebody retired and needed to be replaced. Like so many other jobs, traditional men's jobs were on pay scales that were higher than jobs like dinner lady and home help. That shouldn't apply now as most public bodies and other big employers have consolidated all their payscales into one and tried to ensure that salaries are fixed by reference to competences to get rid of the sexist bias.

Of course, in practice a lot of women would be unable to take on a job that meant getting up in the small hours because of caring responsibilities. We can say till we're blue in the face that men should be taking an equal share of those but we all know it doesn't happen, especially in relation to childcare after the parents split up.

I’m still digesting the fact 75% of professorships are held by men, there is something that doesn’t sit quite right with me about that.

Ah, I see the 'bin collectors' argument has been rolled out! 😂

Re bias so much this ^

I once got a job interview only because of my female name and place of birth which pre-assumed the colour of my skin. Their not stated for preference was male, but they wanted to seem ‘fair’ in interview selection and I ticked two boxes, so I only got a look in because of my perceived higher ‘minority’ value.
They actually employed me because I was white, I interviewed well, and was high achieving academically.
Oh and I had to accept an extended probation and lower pay.

Yes they were racist, misogynistic pricks, but I was young and had no parents, so any job in a storm.

If women can’t win scholarships when competing with their male counterparts then it means that there is something wrong with the women.

If all appointments were made by computer looking only at qualifications and experience, you would have a point. However, the obvious other reason women are under-represented in senior roles is because of an anti-women bias in the people doing the recruiting. Exactly the same mechanism that goes on when fewer interviews, scholarships and jobs are offered to people with a name or CV that makes it obvious they're not white.

FFS
equality vs equity once again

I don't see many advocating for women to be 50% of bin collectors.

I don't see too many male CEOs desperate to do it either, so your point is ridiculous, old, boring and frankly irrelevant. Why do people like you not come up with new bullshit? This bullshit is dried up because it's been used so many times and for too long. It still stinks though.

If women can’t win scholarships when competing with their male counterparts then it means that there is something wrong with the women.

Rubbish. Sexism isn't a fairy, it doesn't vanish because you don't believe in it, there are decades of studies and facts underpinning this stuff it wasn't just dreamed up as a nice idea.

Of the men I trained with in my field, one was in a top senior leadership position within 2 years of qualification. He was low average in terms of performance and skills in the group I trained with. Much higher ability women took ten plus years to get into even the lower levels of senior leadership. People are conditioned to respond differently to people with penises. Ingrained sexism.

*arent equipped

Good. Positive discrimination only masks institutional inequalities. If women can’t win scholarships when competing with their male counterparts then it means that there is something wrong with the women. They were failed at some point before the scholarship application. This problem should be identified and dealt with instead of masking the inequality by giving these women pity scholarships and hoping that no one notices that they are equipped to compete with their male counterparts.

I don't see many advocating for women to be 50% of bin collectors.

I do. Our local refuse centre has made a concerted effort to employ more women and it’s made a positive change IMO.

Why do anti-feminists always use bin collectors as an example? Why not cleaners or toilet-attendants?

I don't see many advocating for women to be 50% of bin collectors.

Is your point that some jobs are only fit to be done by men, or that women only want to cherry pick the nice parts of equality and therefore shouldn't be allowed it?

Equality is the right person competent to do the job, with no sexist hangups about whether that job is better done by or better suited to a man or a woman. Unless providing intimate care to someone is part of the job, the person's sex is irrelevant.

It's been proven that when selections and job appointments are made and the panel don't know which applicants are men or women, significantly more women get appointed than if the panel have the person's biological sex biasing their opinions. Ingrained sexism is a thing. It is much, much harder for an outstanding woman applicant to get into some positions than it is for an average man to get the same position. That's what shortlists and WO positions are aimed to address. To redress that sexism.

There are plenty of women bin collectors.

There are still women’s Colleges at Cambridge so I can’t have breached the EA.

‘Women only’ is a mockery these days anyway. It’s usually a case of ‘spot the bio male’.

I think it's to do with employment status as a fellowship not a scholarship.

Do you think men and women should be 50% each of all jobs or just the high status ones?

I don't see many advocating for women to be 50% of bin collectors.

I wonder if they scrapped it because they know anything aimed at women is a TRA-magnet and they just don’t want to have to deal with that?