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

Yes and really it should be a boy playing with the dolly!
Also "back in the morning with my bill" has changed to "back in the morning yes I will".

Maybe it should just be scrapped!

YANBU

There is a very strong stereotyping working its way here, though perhaps not intentionally.

Likewise it would be wrong to assume that say a primary school teacher is a "she" or a nurse is a "she".

Children and adults pick up on these subtle messages and it is not good in any respect.

Litchick - YANBU at all.

This thread has moved on a lot since this morning but just wanted to say that Rosalind Franklin who did the original x ray crystalography work on DNA possibly represents the greatest injustice in the recognition of the contribution of women in science. Some believe she was treated unfairly because she was a woman.

I studied Biochemistry at university and on of the things we learned to do as lab practical was replicate her work. She deserved a Nobel prize without doubt. There is a campaign to get her recognised but I believe the Nobel committee will not award posthumus Nobel prizes. She has been awarded other prizes posthumously though.

Her story is something that has particular poingniancy for me because she died at 37 from complications with ovarian cancer - my own DW was also a biochemist and she suffered from ovarian cancer at exactly the same age.

I was lured into biochemistry by Juliet Stevenson as Rosalind Franklin in Life Story on the BBC.

Jeff Goldblum played James Watson. In one scene he was looking for Franklin at Kings, and was told he wouldn't find her in the SCR because it was for men only. He said "Why? Is it a toilet?"

No idea of the accuracy of the scene - but it still makes me laugh.

Ironic really given Watson's recent shennanigans

'keeping my end up' has dominant male overtones? LOL

Maybe I'm just being charitable by trying not to see it as sexist? I just think it's reasonable to read "he or she" where you see the generic "he" without having it spelt out to you, rather than leaping up and down and huffing about reinforcement of the phallocentric society with yer Millie Tant head on, that's all.

But tell you what, I shall ask DD what she'd have thought if she had this homework. Can't say fairer than that.

Oh, and I'm still not clear - was this a worksheet written by the teacher or one photocopied from some book or other resource? If the former, was the teacher male or female?

And how do you pronounce s/he?

(Yes, I write "proper books an' that". Can't tell you what, though, or I am no longer anonymous, and that is important to me here as it is to everyone else!)

The teacher is a woman, and Litchick talks of her "typing it up".

I do wonder whether you'd really find it as easy to read 'he or she' into 'she' as you do into 'he'...

you don't pronounce s/he. You read it.

I've come a bit late to this but wanted to add twopennorth about the use of "he" - which is just to say that dds have repeatedly queried it (without prompting from me) "Why when people are talking about people do they just use "he"? It's silly and wrong and annoying." and variations thereof. I love the fact that they do this, that they feel strongly about it and that, as is so often the case with kids, they have analysed it, described it and dismissed it with such precision. out of the mouths of babes and all that.

and I like the bit on that webpage about Dorothy Hodgkin being a housewife. I guess the science was just a hobby.

UnquietDad. You are missing the point. Nobody wants to lynch the teacher. We just don't want him/her (or whoever produced the worksheet) to use this kind of unthinking exclusive language, because it perpetuates gender stereotypes which are damaging to girls and to society generally. It's not that hard to understand.

And you can take your "Millie Tant" crap and shove that up your end while you're about it.

The Millie Tant thing is a bit beneath you, isn't it, UQD?

You'll be accusing us of having no sense of humour next.

Perhaps this website's name should be changed to s/henet?

oh the milli tant is a cheap shot UQD. This is a quite explicit example of sexism. It isn't malicious. I think the OP made her point very subtley and without a hint of MilliTanteese.

Cry's of mysogyny and constructing 'keeping you end up' as 'dominant mascunlity is millitantesqe.

I agree with the general point that UQD is making that there is far too much silly jumping up and down by 'militant feminists' about words like mankind, manhole, manager, etc.

Like the woman he mentioned who made a list of all the times a lecturer used perfectly acepted generic terms I just think it massively misses the point and does not address the real issues of sexism and inequality that need dealing with. It makes men very defensive because they feel they are going to be judged and jumped on for tiny little 'perceived' transgression. Other women just do not want to be associated with it because it makes them look extreme and unbalanced even though they obviously want to be treated fairly and equally.

However, I strongly feel in this case that the teacher was wrong to use he about scientists because chldren read words literally. It would have left the strong impression that scientists are only men.

What might have been a better way was to to give two lists of male and female scientists and ask the chldren to pick one from each list. I genuinely think many children would be amazed and interested to know there are so many famous female scentists.

UQD - somewhat off topic but you are absolutely right to point out that violence by women against men is often seen as funny and even occassionally on MN. My own DSs (Age 8 and 6 at the time) were subjected to it at school by a group of girls who had been told by a older girl that kicking boys in the groin was funny. They started walking up to the boys and kicking them without warning and for no reason just to see the reaction and then running away laughing when the boy was laid on the floor crying in pain.

Thankfully the teachers put a stop to it.

dailymailrus - I think that wouldn't be a too bad idea. Or rather I always thought that calling it 'mumsnet' kind of implies/reinforces the notion that parenting is woman's business.

"I agree with the general point that UQD is making that there is far too much silly jumping up and down by 'militant feminists' about words like mankind, manhole, manager, etc."

Is there? Could I have a few examples please? I thought that generally this sort of stuff was made up by people with the intention of ridiculing feminists. Just like practically every example of so called "political correctness gone mad" can actually be shown not to be true!

It is super of you gentlemen to come on here and put us right about our silly feminist notions though. Thanks for that.

UnquietDad Thu 17-Sep-09 18:28:29 Add a message | Report post | Contact poster

"Not sure about the list of medieval people. The fact that there is that ratio is probably an interesting talking point in itself. After all, doesn't it reflect the balance of power at the time? It's like those lists of "great writers" or "great painters" where they are 90% (or more) men, and one side gets cross about this while the other tries to explain patiently that this is just the way history has left things. (Who was the woman? I hope it was Eleanor of Aquitaine.)"

The list included Henry II and Richard I, but not Eleanor of Aquitaine (who certainly spent more time ruling England than ever Richard did). The teacher seemed quite surprised at the concept of Eleanor as a ruler: she seemed to think of medieval queens and aristocrats as fluffy-headed creatures who just sat around in their boudoirs. tbh some of the men on the list seemed nonentities to me.

I fully agree when it comes to lists of writers for some of the earlier periods. I once had a lecturer who thought women should be given equal weighting to men in a reading list of Roman literature. This was manifestly absurd: the female Roman literature amounts to 6 short occasional poems by one writer- so not a lot to set against Vergil and Horace and Lucretius and the rest.

But medieval "important" people is different. For one thing, the Middle Ages is a period where you actually do see a lot of powerful and influential women; secondly, it does raise questions of how you define "important". The list was a bit of a hotchpot of rulers, writers and the religious, so there were would have been plenty of scope for including medieval women in any of those categories. I think that in the teacher's mind ruler = king, so it wouldn't occur to her that a man might actually have a woman as his overlord.

seeker - there are plenty of examples of loony left councils introducing prescibed terminology such as 'person hole' instead of 'manhole'. The example that UQD gave of the female student in his class is similar to examples I have come across. It is just stupid and confrontational for no really positive benefit just like changing the name of manholes. It just makes feminism a laughing stock which it should not be because the issues that really matter are far too serious.

ABetadad - Would you mind showing evidence of at least one "loony lefty council" having done that? Tabloid articles don't count as evidence, I'd like to see a direct link to a council site using these terms.

I doubt that you can find one.

'keeping my end up' has dominant male overtones

was a joke, y'know... a parody of militant femspeak.

I'm waiting for the link, ABetaDad!

Quite, grimma. As was the stuff about phallic and chthonic colloquialisms. Trouble with these anti-feminists is they've got no sense of humour.

ABetaDad Fri 18-Sep-09 09:22:26 Add a message | Report post | Contact poster

"seeker - there are plenty of examples of loony left councils introducing prescibed terminology such as 'person hole' instead of 'manhole'."

are these actually authenticated? or is it on a par with the councils allegedly forbidding the celebration of Christmas?

not denying that it may be true, just remembering how surprised I was when the Christmas story was investigated and found to be totally without foundation.

(for those of you who do not know it already: The midwinter feast in question was not a politically correct attempt by the council to avoid offending Muslims: it was a commercial idea, designed by the local stores to extend the winter sales period and had nothing to do with religious sensibilities)