Not all Romans

[AskBasil]

The Romans built the first roads in Britain.

But not all Romans

The Vikings built ships which sailed as far as America.

Not all Vikings.

Rabbits are known for reproducing really quickly.

Not all Rabbits.

Etc. etc. I think I will add "not all" whenever anyone refers to anything ever, until people stop saying Not All Men as a first response to a class analysis of men's behaviour.

"You say you are a physicist and yet think h3o is heavy water? Brilliant advert for female science!"

What is "female science"?

Thing is it was like a chat type situation, and a woman was talking about how her (female) relative had done all this work on water, and I was just trying to join in with her and sure, fucked up, but I was just saying, oh that's interesting, I don't know much about chemistry, I've heard of this heavy water stuff though and apparently it's very interesting.

At the time I was thinking I was having a nice chat with a woman about her aunt, not that I was supposed to be representing every single woman in the entire scientific community.

I remember it really upset me at the time. I just thought, well I was just trying to make conversation and be "nice", you know, show an interest, and now someone's just sort of unexpectedly gone for me.

I don't always look things up before I make conversation and I even said "this isn't something I know about" and still I got someone saying I was lying and / or stupid, and that furthermore this discredited all women in science everywhere.

Yes it pissed me off maybe more than it should and it was a long time ago but there you have it.

I thought the point of a forum was where people of different beleifs could discuss things together?

Think again. It can also be a place where people of broadly similar beliefs can discuss things together. If you believe your presence is essential to give this forum a point, you can stand down soldier.

Thing is I used to be proud of it even though I'd forgotten most of it, and TBH spent more time in the pub than in the lab (I wasn't the best student ever!) but still I did it but as it's been pointed out to me that if I say anything wrong then I'm going to get stamped on, and it's true I don't remember much and anyway some of it will be out of date now, I don't feel at all proud any more.

I was proud because I had something that it was unusual for a girl to have, and then I got an online telling off from a man, and now I'm not proud at all any more and don't ever mention it. So, result? Yes, probably.

I play well with others.

Not all others.

Anyway sorry enough "me me me" that was quite cathartic though.

Back to the romans who I most definitely know fuck all about.

I've got a spare Venn Diagram somewhere in the cupboards. Maybe that might help? And some notes about sets and subsets that dd did. In primary school. If there is anyone struggling with these concepts?

I've also got some Roman ears handy, but not those of friends or countrymen.

I'd like to weigh in on the educational bias point. It's definitely not just accepted when girls are getting better results than boys. I've been teaching 11 years and can't remember any year where we haven't had some sort of inset about how we can get our working class boys achieving higher results. Some years, ALL the inset I've had has been about engaging boys and raising their attainment. Even though I teach maths, which is supposed to be a male subject, and even though we got rid of coursework a few years ago, which was supposed to help boys. We've got a fairly equal attainment now in maths between the sexes. Other subjects haven't got the equal attainment yet, but I know that teachers and other educational experts are working at the problem of boy's underperformance all over the country, and they have been for many years.

Just to be clear, larry does not speak for all Cambridge physicists. I very much doubt he speaks for more than the tiniest minority.

#NatSciAndProud
#NotInMyNameLarry

That coursework thing was weird.

They said that girls do coursework better than boys, and since it had moved from exams to more coursework, girls were doing better. This was seen as a bad thing.
So then it was decided to stop the coursework and go back to exams.

But if boys are better at exams and girls are better at coursework, then surely it would be best to make them 50% coursework and 50% exams to get a view of how they work both in terms of retention / exams under stress and also longer more involved pieces of coursework. And to give a fair crack to both sexes. At the time on MN I remember people pointing out that both were valuable in terms of future endeavours.

Yet in the general press the talk around it at the time was all to do with exams are more rigorous and better and so we need to go back to them for proper standards oh and by the way we think this will put the advantage back with boys.

Is that the way it went?

Also, obviously, when it comes to coursework / exams, and which sex is better at what, need to emphasise NABALT and NAGALT also.

Msmermaid as an ex teacher I can second that. There was no shortage of initiatives or talk about how to get boys involved.

DS has SEN and the sheer amount of work TAs, SENCOS and educational experts (all women FWIW) at his school put in to helping him achieve is staggering.

And Whirlpool I know exactly how you feel. One mistake is taken as representative of your class. It's wearing and a complete burden.

So, let's take one many years old comment out of context and build the thread around that. Personal assassination is so much more fun than meaningful discussion though.

But, hey, why bother to observe the rules of the site or any kind of objectivity when you can have so much fun?!

"And Whirlpool I know exactly how you feel. One mistake is taken as representative of your class. It's wearing and a complete burden."

Yy. And this on a thread where some men are protesting "men as a class" analysis.

Oh bugger, another broken irony meter.

They said that girls do coursework better than boys, and since it had moved from exams to more coursework, girls were doing better.

Here in Ireland, the move to exam assessment by coursework was never made - the leaving cert is almost completely exam based with some rare exceptions (such as artwork submissions for art). Girls are still performing slightly better than boys.

I think the proportion of male teachers is higher too so boys don't have the dreadful handicap of having to take women seriously all the time.

I think coursework is probably more valuable in terms of how well somebody will perform in a lot of jobs, I know I look things up a lot and tend not to rely purely on memory. Dh constantly has a reference book on his desk. There are probably other jobs where you need to have excellent recall, in thinking surgeons for example.

Personally, I'm glad we got rid of maths coursework because it was a pain to teach it, the kids tried to work together on it, parents helped a lot(sometimes making it worse instead of better), it became very easy to download coursework and just change it a bit. It was also ridiculously time consuming to mark. I do think that done properly, coursework is very valuable.

You asked her to prove you said it because you claimed you said no such thing.

You made a generalisation of the kind that is being protested on here by some of your fellow men, and you did so from one comment (qualified by the poster) in a casual forum post not decades of statistics about which sex, say, commits more violent crimes.

How you have the temerity to keep posting on this topic is beyond me.

Oh and there was NO character assassination - that's a bit of over dramatisation, isn't it, dear?

WG quoted the post and how it made her feel. How is that a character assassination of you?

Larry, I think the point us that when a woman makes a mistake it discredits "female science". When a man does it doesn't discredit "male science".

Because that's just science.

And STILL no apology.

I am happy to apologise for what I said a mere 6 years ago. At least I have kept my name and not hidden behind a series of name changes.

I should not have said that. There was some history behind my comment with the particular poster but, no, I would not make the same remark today. It was crass and posted in the heat of the moment.

whirlpool you have every reason to be proud of your achievements. Some dick on the internet who can't do class analysis is in no position to diminish you.

Ok so had to exit half way through thread but if Dis is still around, please please do us the common courtesy of being banned. Feel free to express freely what seem to be your horror that one poor poor man was banned from mumsnet for basically saying it's ok to beat the shit out of a woman . Don't let the door hit you on the arse on your way out.

Call that an apology?

At least I have kept my name and not hidden behind a series of name changes.

What. A. Dick.

Do you think you would have said "brilliant advert for black logic" in the heat of the moment? Or "brilliant advert for gay intellect"?