AIBU to think that it is outrageous even to think that universities should be able to segregate men and women

[LoveSewingBee]

Sorry for the long title.

Link to BBC article

For once, I agree with Cameron.

Thank you Gosh. It seems very reasonable to have separate washing facilities.
Could you pray together though if you wish?

Anyone saying these should be allowed if the attendees agree might like to consider where they stand on female genital mutation.

Because the seating arrangements of adults who are enrolled on higher education courses are exactly comparable to violent abuse directed at children unable to give consent.

It's fortunate that vulnerable brown women have strong white women to protect them from themselves, isn't it?

Friday, it's perfectly valid to offer an extreme example in order to demonstrate the flaw in an argument. Pointing to the flaw ought to be enough, but it rarely is.

You're quite fond of the 'strong white/vulnerable brown' dichotomy aren't you, friday

I'm not sure what you mean by it though...do you mean that this is not the business of women with white skin?

What exactly do you mean??

What exactly do you mean??

That comparing a situation involving competent educated adults to a situation involving non-competent children is incredibly patronising.

Friday My view is that voluntarily separating in a mixed sex environment means the adults aren't educated. Anyone who has studied segregation would realise that the segregated group have been indocrinated that they are inferior - we have to fight that. This is not about colour, it is about genuine education. You try to invoke racism to prevent me supporting equality - you will lose because you are wrong.
Single sex facilities are completely different to separating the sexes in a mixed environment and a deliberate attempt to derail the argument.

Carol - and you know this because? I didn't realise this was psychic's corner.

Top tip - Yasmin Alibhai Brown does not speak for all Muslim women (tbh, no one does, hence if you spoke to Muslim women in the plural you'd find lots of opinions on segregation However the ones I know and what I've seen discussed on social media are giving a rather big side-eye to this debate and the intentions behind it).

The Muslim women I know who prefer segregation absolutely do not see themselves as inferior to men, they view it as an issue of personal space and propriety.

You do not have the right to deem them uneducated, or claim to know their intentions or beliefs better then they do.

How on earth is it liberating or "freeing someone" from oppression to tell them, "I think you are stupid and I know what's good for you". Muslim women are not children.

My view is that voluntarily separating in a mixed sex environment means the adults aren't educated

And you're on hand to save people from themselves. How fortunate.

Imo it is ridiculous to present this as a case of preventing voluntary self segregation on the part of the audience.

There is nothing to stop self segregation at the moment. When I walk into a lecture theatre I have a choice whether to go and sit next to my female colleagues on row 8 or my male colleague on row 9. There are absolutely no threats to the right of audiences, whether male or female, to choose their own seats. If all males choose to sit next to each other and all females next to each other nobody is going to step up and stop that.

What is being debated at the moment is whether the lecturer should be allowed to tell me where to sit. In other words, some visiting person gets to decide for the students and staff in the audience.

The Muslim women I know who prefer segregation absolutely do not see themselves as inferior to men

It would also be interesting to ask those who are throwing "uneducated" and "oppressed" around just where they think that oppression is coming from. My understanding of the situation is that segregation is arising particularly amongst young, educated, politically radical Muslims who see it as a radical act, and engage in it (and other things, like stricter hijab) in spite of, and not because of, the more integrationist views of their parents and their wider community. In order for people to be oppressed you need to find the oppressors, and it's not remotely clear who would be stepping up for that role here.

I don't think this debate is about whether Muslim women agree or not with separation, I think separation of sexes in this manner is against the spirit of UK and EU law.

There may be many Muslim women who totally agree with segregation. I don't give a toss. We don't live in a Muslim country and don't want the UK to become a Muslim country. We have our own heritage, own norms and values, own customs, own laws and are proud of that. Wasn't this what attracted many Muslims to the UK in the first place and made them want to settle in the UK?

In order for people to be oppressed you need to find the oppressors, and it's not remotely clear who would be stepping up for that role here.

So your logic is that 'strong white people' should not have an opinion on this because it is patronising. And that we should allow 'speakers' to dictate, in advance, where women can sit in the hall in order to absorb his pearls of wisdom.

What about the Muslim responsibility to the wider community? I will send my daughters into a works where they will be objectified and wolves shouted down by men, as happened in the GUU 'debate' last year.

Fortunately the wider community has stepped in to condemn thus action, hopefully this backward attitude of make privilege in debate, in 'talks' will end due to structural influences on that environment.

The 'talks' are the same, you cannot allow male privilege to be fostered in a seat of learning, it is abhorrent to my beliefs and values. And I need 'strong white people' to speak up fur me, and I need strong Muslim men and women to condemn segregation too.

In order for people to be oppressed you need to find the oppressors, and it's not remotely clear who would be stepping up for that role here.

So your logic is that 'strong white people' should not have an opinion on this because it is patronising. And that we should allow 'speakers' to dictate, in advance, where women can sit in the hall in order to absorb his pearls of wisdom.

What about the Muslim responsibility to the wider community? I will send my daughters into a works where they will be objectified and wolves shouted down by men, as happened in the GUU 'debate' last year.

Fortunately the wider community has stepped in to condemn thus action, hopefully this backward attitude of make privilege in debate, in 'talks' will end due to structural influences on that environment.

The 'talks' are the same, you cannot allow male privilege to be fostered in a seat of learning, it is abhorrent to my beliefs and values. And I need 'strong white people' to speak up fur me, and I need strong Muslim men and women to condemn segregation too.

Wolves? Damn you autocorrect although it's a good choice of word.

YANBU

Giving a lecture about religious beliefs is very different to a religious occasion.

The lecture should require that their audience follow their beliefs just that they should listen and learn therefore their sex, religion or where they sit shouldn't matter.

There does seem to be an awful lot of muddying the waters.

UUK chief executive Nicola Dandridge said the organisation agreed with Mr Cameron that universities should not enforce gender segregation on audiences at the request of guest speakers.

But "where the gender segregation is voluntary, the law is unclear," she said.

I mean if it's completely voluntary - ie no coercion - (and if there is coercion they should complain about sexual discrimination and it be taken seriously ) shouldn't we assume they are adults and let them get on with it.

The lecturer should not require. .

The coercion could be peer pressure "if you don't agree to the segregation the speaker won't attend and you'll have spoilt it for the rest of us".

In which case as adults they should be able to complain about that and their complaints taken seriously.

Giving a lecture about religious beliefs is very different to a religious occasion.

These aren't lectures, in the sense of the thing that university lecturers do for a living, and continually referring to them as though they are is doing the nutters' work for them.

The reason why nutters like renting rooms in universities (or getting hold of rooms via the booking privileges of people known to the organisers) is part of the spurious air of respectability. The SWP's "Marxism" festival takes place at the ULU and the adjacent IoE not because they're part of the university, but because it's a cheap place to rent some rooms and looks all intellectual and shit. If your reading group wanted to up its intellectual heft you could rent a room there too.

So if you rent a room in a community centre and get a semi-literate nutter in to shout loudly about killing de batty man, you look a bit nutty and people tend to back away from you in the street when you hand out pamphlets and even Andy Slaughter MP won't return your phone calls. But get a room at the IoE and hold a "lecture" on the problems of same-sex marriage in a multi-faith society, and you look like you're a moral philosopher.

The sort of events at which segregation is taking place are ranty speeches by lunatics with a taste for killing the kuffr, homosexuals, women who don't know their place, westerners, etc. A certain sort of student gets quite excited by all this sort of stuff, in the same way that a generation ago violent armed insurrection on behalf of the coming revolution was popular as a spectator sport for students as well. And enthusiastically adopting gender segregated seating is just as much a ritual, a shibboleth, a way of proving member of the in-group, as selling Socialist Worker on rainswept street corners is, and you don't get soaking wet either.

These aren't "lectures". These are gigs by colourful extremists who students follow in order to get a rise out of the oldies. Both the nutters and the audience would like people to think they're lectures with high intellectual standards, but in reality the whole thing is like middle class kids buying a leather jacket and painting "CrAss" on the back, or at least until they get a job as an accountant.

Seriously. Stop taking these people seriously. It's punk rock, without the tunes and the musical expertise.

So instead of challenging this, the authorities should just shrug and get on with providing separate entrances, seating arrangements, perhaps they could check if any of the women are menstruating?

The essence of the problem is that when a speaker requests a room to be set up so that people can be segregated according to gender, and the university agrees to this, there is a tacit acceptance that this is OK. Our institution accepts this.

It is NOT ok.

There is a wider responsibility to society not to condone this medieval practice. Women have fought hard to be taken seriously and are still sidelined by men, whatever their culture or colour. Universities agreeing to facilitate gender segregations at these talks or lecture or whatever they are is retrograde.

But if there is a 'talk' and the audience then decide that they would prefer to sit with sexes separated, perhaps sometimes with all the women silent at the back, then there isn't much the university can do about it, and it shouldn't because people have freedom to sit where they like.

Criminalising certain offences relating to sexually harassing and discriminatory behaviour would prevent such hand wringing anguish arising.

While certain new racially aggravated offences are criminalised and treated differently to sexually motivated offences, such instances can and will arise.

I don't know how you could make asking for people to sit in certain places according to gender a criminal act.

It's not about legality, it is about what is appropriate based on university's stated aim of equal opportunities. It is about guidance rather than legal enforcement.

The essence of the problem is that when a speaker requests a room to be set up so that people can be segregated according to gender, and the university agrees to this, there is a tacit acceptance that this is OK. Our institution accepts this.

Jesus. That's really not OK. How on earth does it justify that? Can you name them (I'm guessing you're in London, probably Zone 1)? The row has been had at "my" institution, but there it's about permitting the segregation at all. No one has suggested that the university should be actively party to it, just that it shouldn't try to start a fight in an empty room over the seating arrangements on rooms it rents out. And the conclusion reached is pretty much this:

But if there is a 'talk' and the audience then decide that they would prefer to sit with sexes separated, perhaps sometimes with all the women silent at the back, then there isn't much the university can do about it, and it shouldn't because people have freedom to sit where they like.

It sounds like we're actually in violent agreement on that part of the issue.

Ubik1 I don't know how you could make asking for people to sit in certain places according to gender a criminal act

Change this to "I don't know how you could make asking for people to sit in certain places according to their race a criminal act" and you have your answer!