School debate about fertile women being employed

[reallyconfusedmostofthetime]

My child's tutor (YR8) started a class debate about whether women of child bearing age should be employed. Is it unreasonable to think this is sexist and ridiculous?

It's interesting because in one way it's an argument that was had and settled in the legal sense many years ago, but I don't doubt there are still people who think like that, even if they are very careful about who they'd admit it to.

Great topic to encourage critical thinking in times when children are being made to accept and believe some things with no debate

Exactly, debating euthanasia is completely different because the premise isn't arguing whether a particular protected characteristic makes a person less entitled to human rights. It's the protected characteristic that makes the topic egregious in my eyes. A closer parallel would be 'should (insert protected characteristic) people be euthanised'- which is obviously a totally unacceptable topic for a classroom debate.

True. But I don't think that the way to advance settling the argument in a moral sense is to invite children to argue in favor of the oppression of women.

I'm on the fence. Thrashing the argument out openly at a young age might act as immunisation against coming across this sort of thing later, from more subtle and insidious sources.

It's a debate, it is supposed to be contentious, and you are supposed to disagree with one side.

It's often a much better learning experience for the group that has to defend the counter-cultural POV because they have to really get out of their comfort zone and work to understand a differernt POV.

The teacher isn't meant to use it as an opportunity to indoctrinate the kids with the correct ideas.

They are meant to learn to think.

Risky, I know, but the only way to have a democracy.

Should we also have debates about whether other oppressed classes of people should have rights?
Or is it just women who are fair game?

This. Along with:

Are eugenics great?

Are disabled people a drain on society?

Should women still be owned by men?

Should immigrants all be sent home?

Should rape and beating your wife be legal?

Are neurodiverse people stupid?

Some things should not be debated. They should be taught, thought about, read widely about, couched in history, talked about. But not set up as two sides that are equally 'heard'. It's not a good medium to learn THIS stuff.

There are a lot of interesting angles a person could take if they were selected to debate this.

One might be that given that many developed nations have a low birth rate, and that population shrinkage is a serious economic problem, we should be encouraging young women to have more kids. That it's an essential economic activity.

Or you could take a totally different approach, and say that when employment is possible for young mothers, it often creates a situation where society can push them into employment, because it begins to require two incomes in a family to survive. And because increased productivity in the money economy is very good for capital owners and for taxing people, the elites are likely to push that kind of outcome for their own benefit.

I can think of a few other arguments as well. THe point of the exersize is to be able to step back from your immediate emotional response, what you think you know, to analyze ideas and see how they fit together in a logical way, to learn to consider other points of view even if it seems crazy to you.

There are also important lessons about people in the past and other cultures and how they thought or think - that they were not inherently stupider or more likely to have wrong ideas that we are, but that there were reasons and experiences that formed their POV. And the logical extension of that - that possibly our assumptions and biases are also significantly formed by our background and POV.

There are lots of people on MN upset at the lack of ability of young people to stand back and look at issues logically, or question things that are supposedly "not up for debate". Well, they can see right here how we have got to that state of affairs.

You could debate whether any particular kinds of things are rights, or who they should belong to. Sure, why not?

Some are likely to be more interesting than others, and some would be esoteric enough that it might be difficult for that age group. But the whole idea of what a right is, what we mean when we say it is inherent, what their limits are, how they interact with other kinds of rights, yes, these can all potentially be good debate topics.

A lot of people, even adults, will talk all day about rights but if you press them, don't have two sweet clues where they supposedly come from or what counts as a right and what does not. Or what other ways of talking about justice there are outside of rights based formulations, and what their advantages or disadvantages might be.

Look at same sex marriage. There is a ton of material there that would be great for teens to think about. Why do we have legal marriage in the first place, is it ever legitimate to have social institutions that relate to reproductive role, does anyone have a right to marry as such, what kinds of restrictions would it be legitimate to put on social institutions, etc.

There are quite a few different ideas both sides of that debate could take, and they would learn a lot about why they hold their own views.

People that can't actually articulate about this stuff are in a very weak position whenever their ideas are under some kind of challenge. And being able to repeat that such and such a right exists as a mantra, no debate, is not a sign of a deep understanding of that right. That comes from having to think it through as if it is a real live question.

There are lots of people on MN upset at the lack of ability of young people to stand back and look at issues logically, or question things that are supposedly "not up for debate". Well, they can see right here how we have got to that state of affairs.

An excellent point, well made.

We have to consider that ideas of what is right and wrong change over time, both in popular opinion and in law. It is hard to define a 'moral absolute' independently of human opinion. We should be wary of placing any idea 'beyond debate' however vehemently one might personally oppose it.

Some things should not be debated. They should be taught, thought about, read widely about, couched in history, talked about. But not set up as two sides that are equally 'heard'. It's not a good medium to learn THIS stuff.

This is the crux of it for me. Well said.

So many of the messages young people are receiving these days are deeply misogynistic, and that is the context in which this debate is likely to fall. We, and especially teachers, need to do our best to create a different context. This kind of debate is not the way to do that.

The problem is most Year 8s don't have the wider knowledge base or context for this. So either the teacher has to spoon feed arguments which means they don't think for themselves or you open it up to simplistic, likely sexist arguments.

This is a debate best saved for older teens. There are lots of better topics for younger teens which allow critical thinking and debate on topics they have a better context for.

The problem is most Year 8s don't have the wider knowledge base or context for this. So either the teacher has to spoon feed arguments which means they don't think for themselves or you open it up to simplistic, likely sexist arguments.

Given the destruction of women's rights being pushed by so many governments and institutions (schools, for instance ) at present, I'd be suspicious of what the agenda in proposing this theme, worded this way, might be.

It's a balance though isn't it. Look at all the threads on here where people want time off or social allowances because they are pregnant, or want a job where they can wfh so they don't need childcare. Unfortunately those people (who I'm sure would be pisstakers anyway) let the 'team' down. I myself have worked with a few people like this and I would certainly make me think twice now which is pretty sad! Probably worth at least having the debate out in the open

Exactly. All you need is a charismatic, convincing individual arguing for the ‘wrong‘ side and suddenly people are agreeing with them. Basically exactly what happens in politics.

We see discrimination in action every single day. I think it's good to get the kids to reflect on it and think about why it happens. A debate seems quite a good way to do that

Are you in the UK?
Even in the UK though, there are people who agree with the proposal. As we embrace cultures and people's who do not share our views. Do we disengage or not?

Also if the aim is to educate a healthy individual who looks at both sides of the evidence to reach their opinion then all to the good. Or do we want an ech chamber?

You don't need to sterilise women (which is an expensive operation and not risk free) if all the men have vasectomies. Once the government has control of the sperm banks then female fertility is irrelevant because you're only going to be able to get pregnant if you go to an approved clinic and get the sperm released.

Which is of course where this superficially very appealing idea which would indeed solve a whole bunch of real life problems starts to look a bit iffy.

People can get very confused about the difference between debating an issue and being in favour of it. They are not the same.

I wonder if they had phrased it as 'people should be taken out of the workforce for 25 years in case they have children' if that would have skewed the debate.

At some time education in this country has been quite lacking. Concepts of debate and null hypotheses should be much better understood than demonstrated on this thread.

Exactly this.

Even if the teacher was trained in critical thinking and debate (most are not) you don't teach debate by encouraging children this age to attack fundamental rights. They don't have the experience or the context to bring to the debate and judging by the shocking state of girls' experience in schools - nor do the schools.

For this age group if you want to teach debate you need a subject which has good and bad arguments on both sides and which doesn't make objects of half the discussion group. Its a stupid subject to pick.

Actually, having read the thread and considered it more, I agree with other posters who say it’s been handled poorly. And that there are far better ways to discuss the issue.