Biggus Titus of Oxford University

And then to top it off, have the Veh Veh Clever Deep-Thinking Intemallectually Sophistimacated Yet Also Supah-Kewl-n-Up-To-Date Propahly Educalated Tutorializers Who Truely Compremehand Safeguarding and Harassment be the ones to "assist" you if you even dare to express anything but adoring sycophantic agreement.

There's more than one way to prevent women from accessing education. There's the direct banning route (e.g the Taliban) and there's the way that excludes them by making it too uncomfortable and difficult, too fraught with anxiety and fear perhaps, to participate.

There's a reason that when women started to go to Oxford and Cambridge there were women's halls set up.

The least St Hilda's should do, given that they are employing this person, is to have his picture clearly visible on their website. Not an old picture with him dressed conventionally, but showing clearly what young students will be faced with and forced to navigate. Then prospective undergraduates - and their parents - will be able to make an informed choice as to which Oxford college not to put on their application.

Well, it's been less than 50 years that women have had (technically!) the same status as men at Oxford.

This is what I think younger women often forget (or don't even realise) when they defend behaviour that upholds age-old stereotypes reducing woman-to-body-not-mind, and other behaviours that make female access to tertiary education more challenging.

There could theoretically be posters on this thread right now who would have been excluded from Oxford because of their sex, in their lifetime.

That's how recent (and potentially vulnerable) our access to tertiary education is.

And that's the context in which we're judging this behaviour.

https://www.history.ox.ac.uk/article/a-short-history-of-womens-education-at-the-university-of-oxford

But is the fact that we are discussing it in an of itself gratifying to this individual? I wondered if it might be mortifying but I suspect all attention is good attention.

I have a trans colleague, an incredibly gentle soul who would I’m fairly sure never dream of asking to gain access to female changing space, and who wears conservative feminine clothing. One of my favourite colleagues for their wit, intelligence, and insight. Their female persona is not big or grand, if anything it’s the opposite of attention seeking and perhaps almost apologetic.

for me, the difference here is the brazen and overt provocation of the giant breasts on display (I don’t much enjoy that on anyone in a professional context), with enormous scraggly beard and male name and entitlement. It’s the living embodiment of ‘I dare you…’. And it’s not about finding a way to live in a way that is true to some inner semblance of self, it’s about reward, gratification, and entitlement. The very things that women have been fighting men over for ever. His presence at Oxf in a position of power shows how little Oxf value women, and tbh I’m not sure they ever have.

They know this won't fly with the very very wealthy foreign parents who pay tens of thousands to send their children to Oxford.

It's part of the coercive control, really. They know it's wrong, but they allow it then gaslight anyone who dares complains and employ DARVO.

Imagine if you'd spent 30k a year for your daughter to go to Oxford and then she's faced with this dude with comedy clearly porn-inspired fake breasts?

I hope they get sued by such a parent.

I wonder if it would be ok for a woman to go around with a massive dildo (fake penis) strapped to her head? Surely that's less obviously sexual / related to porn than if it's in the correct anatomical location. It's just a comedy fake penis then. Still offensive to very many students and staff I'd imagine but LESS offensive than Biggus Titus where it's very likely to be a fetish on public display.

I think he's enjoying asking why no-one engages with his lectures - because he knows that no-one can say 'it's the massive fake tits, Matt, they make us uncomfortable on many levels and you know that, that's why you do it'. Because they'd be threatened, bullied and ostracised if they were honest.

@TwoLoonsAndASprout Yes, that is a brilliant analysis. Thanks for posting it.

The irony is that Queer theory is supposed to provoke a critique of the power dynamics around gender and sexuality, yet that critique appears to be missing from one of the top-ranked universities in the world and is being explored on Mumsnet and X instead.

Makes it more likely that it is not a bold expression of queerness in a biochemistry class, just an everyday bloke with a fetish.

@oxfordfeminist

Asking you this time. If a trans man tutor decides to put a big phallus shaped item inside their trousers - noticeable enough that the first impression anyone would have was that their tutor had a massive erect penis - would the sheer discomfort of others justify a request to desist? Or does that person have to be sexually harrass someone expressly before this takes place? Just so that we can see whether standards are being applied consistently. I’m not saying, by the way, that having large breasts is the same as having a constant erection in daily life, but the lecturer with the big inflatable breasts has chosen an item that is intended to push the boundaries, and this would be the male equivalent.

This is an important point, and one that often gets missed in these discussions. Amy de Sousa (psychotherapist knownheretic on Insta and various other places) shared the following story, which I think is relevant here:

STORY: Principal in NC tells girls to "go somewhere else" if they don't like boys in their locker room.

This is the SAME OLD cultural playground script | grew up with: telling the girls that if they don't like what the boys are doing to ignore it, go away, or simply "boys will be boys."

What's actually happening in that playground (locker room) moment

A common scenario:

• One group (boys) escalates intensity-rough play, teasing, intrusion
• Another group (girls) signals discomfort
• Authority response: "If you don't like it, go somewhere else."

On the surface, that sounds like conflict avoidance. But underneath, it teaches two very different lessons at the same time:

To the ones crossing boundaries (boys):

• Your impulse doesn't need to be regulated-others will adapt around you
• External feedback (someone saying "stop") is optional, not meaningful

To the ones experiencing the boundary being crossed (girls):

• Your discomfort doesn't organize the environment—you must relocate yourself
• The solution is withdrawal, not response

So one side isn't required to develop internal brakes, and the other isn't supported in exercising external limits.

Why this matters (the deeper mechanism)

Healthy boundary development has two parts:

• Internal boundary: "I can feel my impulse and regulate it"
• External boundary: "I can respond when something crosses my line"

That playground message bypasses both:

• It removes the need for internal regulation in the initiator
• It removes the legitimacy of external response in the receiver

So instead of:
"Your behavior needs to adjust" and
"Your signal matters"*

The system teaches:
"Boys expand, girls accommodate"

I think it is also worth considering the effect that this type of behaviour has on the young men in his class. This man, in a position of authority, is modelling misogynistic behaviour to his male students. At best he is showing them that it is fine to humiliate women, at worst that it is laudable to involve them in a fetish. He is showing them that they have the power to disrespect women and to control women's reaction to that.
That the University/College are complicit in that tells us all we need to know about how little Oxford values women.

In fact, in past centuries, one can find far more flexible notions of gender identity and sexual identity than are evident on an MN thread like this one

The idea that one can express an identity by appropriating somebody else's body parts makes my skin crawl.

It affirms the belief that a woman's breast size/voice/gait/height is all a choice and that by simply having a female body a woman is deliberately sending a message to men 24 hours a day. It's 'she was asking for it', but without even the requirement that a woman wear a short skirt.

At least when the rugby club does this kind of thing on a stag night they are probably drunk and aware that some people will find them offensive.

When a man does it and doesn't even allow for women to be offended, that is abuse.

On reading the first couple of lines of your post, OP, I thought he was going to be some horrible, pervy entertainer working at Oxford University. I can’t get my head around him being a man of science. And wearing massive, comedy tits while explaining the Krebs Cycle in his biochemistry lectures.

Thank you @Taytoface . Same, except mine are 38 ff. I spent years dressing to detract from the damn things. That man definitely feels like an affront to the sexism and sexual harassment I faced in my life and career. And I think that most large breasted women would feel the same.

Fuck this has pissed me off. Someone claiming to both have a brain and be a feminist defending this.

I am just imaging how the conversation goes when some first year pitches up, and complains

Fresher "Erm, I just wanted to say how uncomfortable I feel with the giant prosthetic tit wearing of one of my tutors"

Oxford Feminist "But what exactly has Matt said or done to make you feel uncomfortable"

Fresher "well, I was kind of thinking the giant fake tit wearing would be enough"

Oxford Feminist "oh no, unless and until he decides to motorboat you with them, then we must all assume this is an entirely normal and not at all sexual expression of his gender identity. For anything else would be a witch hunt, would it not?

Can I interest you in my extensive library of Judith Butler books?

Oh. And I would bet all the gold that would fit in my giant 34FF cups that Matt has made plenty of women feel mighty uncomfortable. But feminists like you mean they hesitate to speak up.

@oxfordfeminist I am the long time, very reluctant owner of a set of 34FFs. Over the years I have been groped by strangers, ogled by lecturers, had many many men talk to my boobs. These are men that would generally be considered to be good eggs.

From my daily lived experience am very very aware of just how much men sexualise large breasts. I keep them as covered as I can for just this reason.

The only time in my life I have encountered men wearing large prosthetic breasts it was for the purpose of either being derogatory to women e.g. countless stag dos, some pretty gross drag acts and/or as part of a sexual fetish.

So, if a beardy bloke turns up to my workplace wearing a giant pair of prosthetic boobs with a red lacy top on, why would I assume any reason for this outside it being at best a mockery of me personally or a insult to women generally to at worst a display of a fetish in the workplace that I am being forced to participate in.

How would I be assured that my conclusion is not the right one? He could be as nice as pie to me and I would still believe with every fibre in my being that he was being deeply and grossly offensive to me and all women. Should I just be expected to believe that despite my 40 years plus experience, that this is the one man who has a non sexual relationship with giant breasts?

This is not a witch hunt, this is a plea to go back to leaving your giant prosthetic tits at home and brining you professional self to work.

Quite. Some academics really need to realise that there is more to the world than teaching and research. And I say that as someone who works in academia.

Some years ago, I had a union member ask me for representation. He was a lecturer, and he had been told by his female HOD to go home and change, or he would be disciplined for inappropriate dress. He had turned up for work wearing shorts. He claimed that he was being victimised as his colleague Brian, also wearing shorts, had not been told to go home and change.

The weather had been unusually hot, so the workplace was incredibly warm.

I took one look at Stan in his very tight faded denim short shorts, with frayed edges and crotch bulge. He smirked for sure as he demanded Justice.

Brian, on the other hand, was wearing a natty linen suit with t shirt and below the knee baggy shorts.

I told Stan that it was best he go home and change, as the difference between him and Brian, was that Brian didn't have his bollocks on display when sitting with his legs wide apart. And so he did, with bad grace. Nice try creepy Stan.

Nowadays it seems I would be oppressing his true expression of his true self contra to para 234 b of the Union Handbook.

As it's different times now, I think Matts union rep should demand his right to have his pic included in the staff publicity. So that all the students can see who is going to tutor them.

DGR
The appeals to tradition are hilarious. C. S. Lewis would be spinning in his grave if he could see what his beloved institution is now supporting.

Blow C.S. Lewis, how would Alban Krailsheimer (a bit more recent) feel?

And strangely, St Hilda's team themselves seem a trifle coy about Matt Rattley: in their "Our people A-Z" at https://www.st-hildas.ox.ac.uk/people he is one of the ones with no photograph.

I have seen some of the safeguarding training that they give to university staff. I am confident that situations such as this one is not likely covered.

If staff and students have been also told at the same time via education and media that this man is simply being himself and not acting out a fetish, the likelihood of them recognising this as a safeguarding issue, which it is in my opinion, is very very slim. It is only if it is correctly recognised as a paraphilia being acted upon in public that it is an immediate safeguarding red flag.

Which, of course, is why men are getting away with indulging in their paraphilias in public. Because people cannot recognise the paraphilia because they are too quick to defend this as a man simply being his best self. His true self.

Society has been groomed to consider this type of behaviour as normal and to be even be celebrated.

It will take a very brave student to voice a complaint to any staff member. The students will fear negative reactions. This is what they have been taught to fear.

A woman who cannot recognise the inappropriate sexual behaviour of a paraphilia such as this has very low boundaries. Too low. The also likely don’t have a strong understanding of the wider safeguarding principles either, including consent around paraphilic behaviour and being an involuntary witness.

On the other hand Charles Dodgson would have had no problem.

“When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master — that’s all."

Charles Dodgson didn't exactly see queer theory coming but he'd have recognised it.

Jeeze. That’s horrible. I could not possibly take that seriously. Yuk!

The oxfordfeminist studied under Simon Goldhill, so that would be Classics, Greek Literature, Humanities.

And Matt Rattley's field is biochemistry.

I feel that these two people might not have all that much in common to talk about in the canteen.... Apart from how brave and beautiful one of them is, obviously.

Which also brings us back to the lecturer upthread (and now also discussed in a dedicated thread, I think?) who challenged a noticeboard promoting this ideology in his college, and the associated impact of such displays and the culture they generate on students' ability to speak freely.

I mean, I've experienced it myself at work, FFS. It is chilling (in every sense).

And I think that very silencing in the immediacy of the college context, in the grounds, down the corridor... is precisely what goes a long way towards legitimising the kind of discussion posters are having here.

(Which is another way in which trans ideology and its proponents visiting here can be ironically self-defeating).

The appeals to tradition are hilarious. C. S. Lewis would be spinning in his grave if he could see what his beloved institution is now supporting.

"Men have been parading around wearing cartoonishly large, barely covered prosthetic breasts at Oxford for a thousand years, you bigot! Sorry if that storied tradition offends your Trumpian sensibilities. Actually, you're probably not intelligent enough to understand - it's an Oxford thing!"

(By the way, I have an advanced degree from Oxford. The kind of attitude above is unironically how many of these "scholars" view any input from the outside world.)