"Former student sues LSE over its 'gender bias' against men"

[NormaStanleyFletcher]

here

LRD - I'm not involved in the gender studies field, so I wouldn't know. I didn't mean to come across as dismissive.

I certainly wasn't sticking up for the whinger - he obviously hadn't read the course description. Either that, or he did it on purpose to make trouble.

Oh, no, I didn't think you came across as dismissive - I probably phrased my post wrongly. I should have said 'to be fair' or something.

In university 'gender studies', masculinity is less studied that femininity, because gender studies centres have a heavy debt to feminism. But then, there is a lot of writing on masculinity in our culture, in general, because of the generalized male/female biases.

I see what you are getting at now, LRD.

If "Mens' Studies" was to exist as a module, who do you reckon should be on the reading list?

small ... oooh, don't get me tempted to write a men's studies course!

Not wishing to drag down the quality of the debate, but - with that facial expression, how big is whatever he has stuck up his arse?

Bet he failed his first essay and this is the fightback.

I have heard via Facebook that he was a bit of an arse IRL, a bully in discussions and generally uninformed.

I think an interesting point comes out of this though, which applies whether or not this individual was silly or misguided or whatever. In lots of subjects, women (or men) who want to write about or read about women have to look at the course specifications and find a way to do that. The work isn't done for them; there may be significant obstacles against it. (Incidentally, I think this tends to polarize work on women ... it's often either very good, because the student had that extra something that got them doing independent work, or very bad, because there isn't as much support).

In general, if you want to write about men, you don't have to look at a course spec and work out how to do it - you just do it. In some subjects, like mine which is English Lit, you could even write about men on modules dedicated to women - because we end up working on texts by men, about women and men, not just by women about women.

I wonder if this student just struggled because it hadn't occurred to him that he might be expected to work out for himself how to relate his interest in masculinity to the subject matter?

I did a degree in history - should I sue the course because there really was bugger all female history discussed bar a few token lectures.

I really hope he is paying his own legal fees for this because I do not want my taes wasted on this shite.

SGM - I agree, but isn't that the most depressing thing? He could get into LSE - a good university - to do a masters, and still be this clueless.

Who do we sue for gender bias against women, then?

I dunno alice but when you find out, can you let the rest of us know?!

There are scads of really interesting books and studies on masculinity, and there is no way a reputable MA in gender would ignore them.

I can only conclude that a) if this dilettante dickwad had stayed the course he would have been given a thorough introduction to the field and b) it's a clearly malicious prosecution taken by someone who is determined to see only what he wishes to see. It's fair to say, I think, that his quotes illustrate his pre-conceived position on the matter. Reading them, it's entirely possible to speculate that he enrolled with the sole aim of dropping out and taking this case!

Any thoughts on the university's approach?

"The university's legal team has asked for the case to be struck out, claiming the core texts were not compulsory, merely recommended readings, and that the texts were equally available for both men and women to read, so therefore did not directly discriminate against men. The team also argues that "any discriminatory effect [against men] was plainly justifiable"."

The first point is clearly arguing that there is no gender discrimination on the basis of 'access'. The second one is interesting - the idea of a 'justifiable discriminatory effect' - or what we might term 'redressing the balance'. Anyone know if this has been used as a successful defence in similar cases?