AIBU - sexist science homework

[Litchick]

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

I'd choose Dorothy Hodgkin. First woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

YANBU - although as dolly says the teacher might have a trick up her sleeve. I'd have used "they". I didn't know that "he" is the correct generic, nor that "they" is wrong. But then my grammer is rubbish

grammer? Sheesh! Grammer.

Why didn't the teacher just use his/her and he/she? I'd have sent back this homework not done.

Going slightly off on a tangent, this happens in the construction industry too.

I am an architect and one small example which I experience almost daily is receiving letters trying to get me to specify products addressed to 'Mr' and followed by my blatantly female name. All those letters go straight in the bin. It's the outright assumption that anyone in my position must be male that they don't even bother to look at the female name they are typing!

I'm going to be the only possible YABU on the thread, I guess there has to be one!
I just don't feel comfortable with the idea that the teacher (short on time and support) "must" think of every possible sensitivity or minority interest when assigning this single sheet of homework.

If I were OP I might go back to teacher and point out that the questions were misleading, in implying that only men could be acknowledged. If I did say something, I would be very good humoured about it.

Hardly a minority interest, lljkk!

Ah yes, reminds me of the A level computing class I taught where one of the (male) students made the comment that "Girls can't do computers"

Yes dear, your teacher, the Head Of Department, the students who get the top grades are all female. Open mouth and extract foot.

k Thu 17-Sep-09 11:59:05 Add a message | Report post | Contact poster

"I just don't feel comfortable with the idea that the teacher (short on time and support) "must" think of every possible sensitivity or minority interest "

interesting. so women are a minority interest. and there I was thinking we were half the population...

this is precisely my point: women are being treated as if they were a small unimportant minority group, something out of the normal

this is precisely what feminism is about: we do not want half the population to be regarded as a "minority"!

I agree a bit that we shouldn't all be paranoid about everything being exactly perfectly pc, but surely the issue here is that girls are alienated from science so teachers should be making a conscious effort to do something about that.

OP, why not ask them to do something specially about female scientists. Show them the list someone linked to.

yanbu

and I love a thread like this on mn.

I don't think it would be any more acceptable if this was about including minorities in science. If the question had implied in some way that the scientist must be white, that would be unacceptable as well.

I think DD can take back the homework with all the he's changed to she's and hope it makes the point.
I suspect DD may well say something also.
She is no shrinking violet when it comes to telling people they are being sexist.

She recently told me she was so annoyed at one of the boys saying she couldn't be in the cross country team she was tempted 'to kick him in the willy.'
Note - she didn't act on it.

I hope you told her off! If a girl had been rude to my DS and he said in return that he wanted to "kick her in the girl bits" I'd have been furious with him.

(Oh, but I forgot - violence towards men and boys is always fine to joke about...)

PMSL at "grammer? Sheesh! Grammer. "
I love Otter

Litchick, tell her not to kick him, just to ask him why you need a willy to run cross country?

Grammar, grammar, grammar !!!!

And I had to correct myself again when I typed that.

I just had a look at the directory of Fellows of the Royal Society. I've not counted but there is a huge gender imbalance.

Most of them aren't famous outside their own fields of course. Not enough scientists are famous, of either gender, so its not suprising that the list of famous female scientists is pretty sparse.

Anyhow, changing the homework to 'she' throughout was quite right!

PS - the list is available here if anyone wants to see.

Thank you legspinner, I had a suspicion I was going wonky! Couldn't help myself though,or be arsed to google to see!

Never mind...

OP, your initial sentence displays why the teacher used 'he'

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

'They' is plural. It shouldn't follow 'scientist'.

And 'She/he' is very cumbersome.

It's quite clear from the question that the salient feature is that the person should be a scientist, not a man or woman.

It is hardly reasonable to criticise the teacher for following standard grammar about which there is bitter debate that has nothing to do with science lessons.

Yes maybe it would be better to go back to using the male form for everything.

Although I seem to remember that when this was common, if the thing being talked about was eg making school dinners or looking after children, the "he" suddenly became "she".

And then we're back where we started on the happy old game that is gender stereotyping of roles.

But there is a substantial school of thought that says that 'he' should be used to refer to an unspecified male/female person.

I don't think this is something that has been resolved at all.