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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU - sexist science homework

519 replies

Litchick · 17/09/2009 09:06

Lst night's science homework was to write a short passage about a famous scientist, what they discovered and its applications today.

Fine except that each question said 'he'.

Eg what was his name? What did he discover?

DD and I chose Marie Curie and changed everything to she.

AIBU to make the point on the prep sheet or just touchy?
Does it matter? It felt to me like it does. Grrrr

OP posts:
seeker · 17/09/2009 10:05

"It's only the same as every baby book saying 'she'...does it really matter? "

Yes it does matter. Stuff like this becomes part of a child's mental furniture, and perpetuates the stereotypes that hold girls back from science subjects when choosing GCSEs, A levels and careers.

posieparker · 17/09/2009 10:09

Perhaps I have yet to face the text book male using 'he' at every opportunity. 'They' would have been better. I hope with the curriculum many women are discussed too.

UnquietDad · 17/09/2009 10:13

It's not necessarily something I would do - I was just defending the fact that there is a grammatical tradition/ accepted rule. It seems it's being phased out anyway. I wonder what the kids really would have thought. I shall have to ask DD tonight what her take on it would be.

GrendelsMum · 17/09/2009 10:14

Oh, thank you, Spam! That's probably what it is.

My great-grandmother was a computer, too.

legspinner · 17/09/2009 10:15

LTOS, heavy water is D2O..the hydrogens are replaced by heavier atoms of deuterium, and it makes a difference to its properties, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_water

Sorry for the hijack! A YANBU vote from me by the way, being another non-famous female scientist on this thread :-) The use of "he" throughout the sheet would irritate the heck out of me. To me it sends subtle messages that science isn't for women.

posieparker · 17/09/2009 10:15

within not with

Romanarama · 17/09/2009 10:16

"They" is a plural though isn't it? If you're asked what one scientist did then why would you use a plural pronoun? I hate it.

Use of language matters a lot. I'm delighted that in English we seem to have stopped 'feminising' nouns with diminutives. I haven't got my head around this pronoun thing though. I can speak 5 languages and the generics and mixed plurals are the same as the masculine in all of them - there's been no attempt to introduce a gender neutral alternative like 'they'. I wonder why not.

UnquietDad · 17/09/2009 10:21

Good point about other languages, Romanarama. You got in before me with that.

Anyone fancy getting all stroppy about the fact that, in French, in a mixed group, even if there is one man and a dozen women, you have to call them "ils" and give the group masculine adjectival agreements? Hmm?...

WidowWadman · 17/09/2009 10:30

Romanarama - "they" is both a plural and in recent years also has become a gender-neutral singular. That's the beauty of language evolution and polysemy. Just because a word is relatively new, or another meaning of a word is relatively new it doesn't make it wrong or ungrammatical.

MrsEricBanaMT · 17/09/2009 10:30

YANBU. Good for you.

Hobnobfanatic · 17/09/2009 10:32

YANBU. The exercise has taught your daughter something very valuable indeed - to question misogyny and challenge it. Well done!

MrsEricBanaMT · 17/09/2009 10:32

abd if people are worried about word counts they can just write 's/he'

MrsEricBanaMT · 17/09/2009 10:34

Well I don't think it misogyny. Its a bit sexist and thoughtless. It's not hateful

Pyrocanthus · 17/09/2009 10:34

'They/their/them' as a plural only isn't an immutable law of nature; there are precedents for singular 'their', for example, back to the C14th (not necessarily in the sense of 'he or she' though). It went out of favour: the OED says that singular 'their' is 'not favoured by grammarians', but I would put money on that changing when the entry is revised, and authors cited as using the singular 'their' include Fielding, Goldsmith, Thackeray and Bagehot.

I must dismount from my hobby horse and go and earn some money...

Pyrocanthus · 17/09/2009 10:44

I think the French are more than capable of fighting their own battles, UnquietDad, but they would have to take on L'Academie Francaise, which might make it a bloody one.

Gone.

Romanarama · 17/09/2009 10:46

I don't have a job, so will stay on my hobby horse for a bit, then pop to Zara to spend some of the money dh is busy earning. Hurrah for feminism!!

MrsEricBanaMT · 17/09/2009 10:53

lol

cory · 17/09/2009 11:11

of course it's to do with the teacher's perception of scientists

dd's history project last autumn was to write a biography of an important person from the period 1000-1450. The teacher gave them a list to choose from, which included one woman and I think about 15 men. This from the era that produced Eleanor of Aquitaine, the Empress Matilda, Julian of Norwich, Margaret of Scotland etc etc. Dd went back to school and opted to do a biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine. Teacher said no, because Eleanor was foreign and they were supposed to study British history. (Dd still trying to work out a way in which Eleanor was foreign which does not equally apply to Henry II and Richard I, both on teacher's list).

It's the same old attitude: you don't have to bother learning about female rulers because they can't have been that important anyway.

GrendelsMum · 17/09/2009 11:14

On the other hand, Margaret Kempe is an utter bore and should be hastily forgotten, even if she did have female chromosomes.

Fennel · 17/09/2009 11:19

YANBU

I'd be steaming up to the school to complain. (they are quite used to me, it's exactly the sort of thing I go in and complain about)

Poledra · 17/09/2009 11:20

So, cory, the fact that Eleanor of Aquitaine was the Queen of England and the mother to 2 kings of England doesn't qualify her as part of English history? She probably spent more time in England than Richard I!

Futuna · 17/09/2009 11:23

Maybe you should direct the teacher to Chapter 1 of this report

www.equalities.gov.uk/pdf/297158_WWC_Report_acc.pdf

on the need to combat gender stereotyping in education.

MillyR · 17/09/2009 11:25

I think YANBU. They could easily have written, 'what was the scientist's name?' and so not made any reference to gender.

I also think it is bad that it is in the past tense. I read a Government committee report on A level students and none of them could name any living scientists other than Dawkins and Hawking.

BikeRunSki · 17/09/2009 11:29

O goodness. There's still sexism in Science!!!

25 years ago we had to go through our 0 level Chemistry books and cross out every reference of "man made" and write in "Synthetic".

It is for reasons like the OP that I am a Science and Engineering Schools Ambassador.

cyteen · 17/09/2009 11:41

I would just like to say that I endorse everything about this thread: the feminism, the obvious accomplishment of contributors, the bickering about language, and of course the lols. It's what makes MN great