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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Diversity course at University of Kent

210 replies

andyoldlabour · 28/09/2021 14:35

The university of Kent is introducing a mandatory 4 hour diversity course for students where it will be concentrating on topics such as White Privilege, Microaggressions and Pronouns.
Apparently seconhand clothes could be seen as an example of "white privilege".
"The course, titled Expect Respect and seen by The Telegraph, includes a white privilege quiz where participants are asked to pick which of 13 options are societal benefits allegedly enjoyed by white people in the UK.
If the student ticks all 13, a gold star is awarded, and if not, a button appears directing them to retry.
Staff have also been emailed by faculty managers to consider adding trigger warnings to exam papers, and carry out “pronoun checks, make a note of them and use them correctly” when meeting new students, such as they/them or ze/zir."

www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/wearing-second-hand-clothes-an-example-of-white-privilege-students-told/ar-AAOSULh?ocid=mailsignout&li=AAnZ9Ug

OP posts:
AlfonsoTheDinosaur · 01/10/2021 12:53

However, a previous poster had stated that your sticking plaster should match your skin tone as closely as possible.

The previous poster is full of nonsense. There is no reason that a sticking plaster has to match your skin tone as closely as possible.

I have never heard of humans with blue skin tone though, so I was just pointing out to the poster that there are people who must be very traumatised based on their plaster colour.

Good grief. If people are "very traumatised" based on the colour of a sticking plaster they are in serious need of getting a grip.

EdmontinaDonsAutumnalHues · 30/09/2021 19:30

@YetAnotherSpartacus

I don't actually like the food that matches my heritage.
Grin Grin Grin

Thank you!

(Though I do. All of them.)

Deliriumoftheendless · 30/09/2021 19:07

John not Hohn

Deliriumoftheendless · 30/09/2021 19:07

All my daughter’s uniform is second hand from Hohn Lewis and M&S with some Next because first hand Primark looks and wears worse and costs more.

Deliriumoftheendless · 30/09/2021 19:06

Second hand clothes are not scruffy.

They’re as good as new.

Cailleach1 · 30/09/2021 18:53

@NewMutiny , your friend's experience sounds absolutely horrendous. Awful in any event, but imagine if you had children with you to witness this?

This regression to people engaging in racist chants and attacks is unbelievable and the viciousness directed the footballers was beyond belief.

Cailleach1 · 30/09/2021 18:36

@AlfonsoTheDinosaur

Think of the poor sods who have to wear blue plasters so that they don't come off and end up in food or other inappropriate places.

Eh? I wear blue sticking plasters because I like the colour blue and the beige ones show dirt quickly. And it's good health and safety practice to wear brightly coloured plasters so that they can easily be spotted.

I agree that it is a very good idea to wear blue plasters when you want to spot them more easily. However, a previous poster had stated that your sticking plaster should match your skin tone as closely as possible.

I have never heard of humans with blue skin tone though, so I was just pointing out to the poster that there are people who must be very traumatised based on their plaster colour.

I have never come across a sticking plaster with freckles. Don't think my offspring would have appreciated that very much though; certainly not when we could have exciting and cheerful ones instead.

Poster is wrong anyway. Even just a quick google on amazon.

www.amazon.co.uk/Elastoplast-Sensitive-Hypoallergenic-Plasters-Breathable/dp/B08QX78HCR/ref=pd_lpo_2?psc=1&pd_rd_i=B08QX78HCR&tag=mumsnetforu03-21

www.amazon.co.uk/Fortuna-Plaster-Assorted-Toned-Plasters/dp/B00ENF075Q?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

ThatGirl82 · 30/09/2021 15:48

@HandsOffMyRights

One more to strike off DS' university lists.
Is it not his choice which Universities to consider?
Jaysmith71 · 30/09/2021 15:45

Findus cheesy pancakes...

Kings size Bender & Chips with a Rum Baba and a Coke float at the Wimpy Bar.

YetAnotherSpartacus · 30/09/2021 15:42

I remember at DSs little school the plasters were hideous terracotta colour and stuck like flipping superglue.

The plasters of my childhood were a puce colour and stuck like superglue (which I don't think had been invented then). These days they are a more realistic colour I suppose but peel off if you look at them funny.

Give me the ones of my childhood any day.

Jaysmith71 · 30/09/2021 15:36

And now I'm thinking that the second-hand clothes thing may also be American in origin. To quote Billy Joel

Aint you heard about the new fashion, honey? To dress trashy you got to spend a lot of money.

In US higher ed, you have scholarship kids and trust fund kids, and the distinction is reinforced via their vile fraternity/sorority systems.

KittenKong · 30/09/2021 15:34

@AlfonsoTheDinosaur

"Food to match my heritage...."

They'd better have oysters, lobster and roast beef, because that's what I was raised on and they didn't I'd be sueing for discrimination.

I’m a 70s kid . If they don’t have Findus cheesy pancakes...
KittenKong · 30/09/2021 15:33

I remember at DSs little school the plasters were hideous terracotta colour and stuck like flipping superglue.

Jaysmith71 · 30/09/2021 15:32

"I can arrange to be in the company of my own race most of the time..."

Doesn't that one just scream America?

Potentially illegal if you post stuff like that online or put it in invitations.

AlfonsoTheDinosaur · 30/09/2021 15:30

Think of the poor sods who have to wear blue plasters so that they don't come off and end up in food or other inappropriate places.

Eh? I wear blue sticking plasters because I like the colour blue and the beige ones show dirt quickly. And it's good health and safety practice to wear brightly coloured plasters so that they can easily be spotted.

HouseOfFire · 30/09/2021 15:30

No I'm not being disingenuous its an example, obviously to some people it doesnt matter - well bully for you, other people its another thing that can make people feel inferior. I'm not here to help you work it out.

I know there are blue plasters, and superheros etc

Its the hair dye, the plasters, its a death by a thousand cuts, its not 1 thing - if it was 1 thing, then that wouldn't be a problem.

IsThePopeCatholic · 30/09/2021 15:27

@SoManyQuestionsHere

Okay, so: I'm white! A white, professionally successful, functionally very upper-middle-class but from a very rural working class family woman, actually (and, yes, this all sort of matters):

Here's the thing about the diversity markers situation: SOME of this stuff is actually very valid. Such as, frivolous as it may seem, the "wearing 2nd hand and swearing" thing. You see, I don't sound rural working-class. That'll be because I won a scholarship to a naice school as a child and speak as though I could trace my family tree back to roughly around the 9th century. Which I most certainly can't. It's just that "oh, do fuck off, dear!" out of my mouth, spoken in clipped RP, comes across as a hard but surgical strike of a reprimand. This works neither for my British black working-class subordinate (taken as "uncultured") nor for my much more "cultured" (can actually trace his pedigree) but very German boss (taken as "2nd language speaker who hasn't quite grasped the nuances"). Same goes for dress codes, by the way: in the corporate world, you can turn up in basically anything, so long as you're the sort of person people will assume does it due to individuality or arrogance rather than not knowing any better. My "personal best" happens to be "yoga pants - for a contract negotiation". Underdressing is, genuinely, a way to posture and outwardly signal "power". If you are a person who already has significant power, that is! Nobody will invite you to a negotiation over millions without assuming you own plenty of suits - and you turning up looking casual is an effective way of saying "this is small-fry, I haven't even bothered to dress up for this" and hence: negotiating tactics.

Having said that, I generally tend to agree that it's all a bit silly - and I'm steadfastly refusing to do pronouns on the grounds that I happen to think it's all vapid virtue signalling. But, then again: privilege is real, I have it (except on sex) and that is precisely why I get away with it!

No harm in a little self-awareness here and there!

Agreed. Think Dominic Cummings: a (white) man with power. He could afford to look scruffy and not follow the rules because he was already in a position of power.
I think privilege has more to do with class than race.
NewMutiny · 30/09/2021 15:24

@Cailleach1

So it is the accessorising that is important! Think of the poor sods who have to wear blue plasters so that they don't come off and end up in food or other inappropriate places.

Are you being disingenuous 'House of Fire'? When my offspring was little (and not so little), fun coloured plasters with superhero and animation characters where the ones we used. Brightly coloured and cheerful.

I'll happily use them. Also, transparent plasters exist, you know, if you don't want to use the tan ones.

I do also think this focus by institutions - largely staffed by white middle class people - on micro-agressions and privilege obscures a lot of really overt racism which still exists for people in Britain right now.

My friend recently sat on a (London, Hackney) bus next to a woman who muttered the n-word continually at her throughout the journey. Those tweets people sent Marcus Rashford weren't telling him he was a great dancer or asking to touch his hair were they? There are people among us who would still be happy to do a monkey chant and throw bananas at football matches if they didn't think they would get kicked out. That's the reality for some people right here, right now. Not just being unable to find plantains in Tesco.

Jaysmith71 · 30/09/2021 15:12

@YetAnotherSpartacus

The history I studied in school was mostly about men.
It's His-story, after all.
YetAnotherSpartacus · 30/09/2021 15:10

The history I studied in school was mostly about men.

Jaysmith71 · 30/09/2021 15:09

The History I studied at school was very lacking in coverage of my anscestors and was mostly about Normans, Plantagenates, Tudors & Stuarts (none of them English) and assorted other ruling elites.

YetAnotherSpartacus · 30/09/2021 15:03

I don't actually like the food that matches my heritage.

AlfonsoTheDinosaur · 30/09/2021 15:01

"Food to match my heritage...."

They'd better have oysters, lobster and roast beef, because that's what I was raised on and they didn't I'd be sueing for discrimination.

Jaysmith71 · 30/09/2021 14:59

Iceland has square sausage.

AlfonsoTheDinosaur · 30/09/2021 14:56

I'm white, and plasters (almost) match my skin colour, so I dont need to think about it. But for someone who is not white, its a daily reminder that they are a minority and thats not right

I use bright blue sticking plasters. I don't know whether to cheer or mourn that they don't match my skin colour.

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