University Challenge to use gender neutral questions

[lucydogz]

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So some questions will be more suitable for lady brains, I assume. Perhaps cookery, or knitting?

Read a bit more. Apparently it's putting women contestants off that questions refer to men more than women. Still a load of nonsense though. What are you doing at university in the 1s t place if this is a problem?

This has made me utterly furious, and DH can't or won't understand why.

The questions are ALREADY gender neutral, FFS. KNOWLEDGE IS PURE AND UNSULLIED BY WHATEVER FUCKING SEX OR GENDER YOU ARE.

Sorry but as a woman in the sciences this makes me fucking stabby

They cite the fact that fewer women join in than men - that is a different issue and nothing to do with the current format of questions.

Also, women have had a lifetime of answering question that refer to men and are quite good at doing so. More questions on important female historical figures would be welcome, of course, but that doesn't mean we'll spit our dummies out and refuse to engage if the subject of the question isn't someone who reminds us for ourselves....

*of ourselves, sorry.

Thank you. Glad someone else is feeling stabby

I read that article on Tuesday and it's still not making sense.

It seems to imply that gender neutral questions actually means gender neutral subjects because some subjects are more "manly" than others and the poor wimmin can't answer those questions.

Interestingly the comments from an actual woman contestant didn't mention the questions being off-putting to women. She said it is because of hostility on social media and women being reluctant to put themselves forward.

To be fair, it sounds like the producer's comments are just rehashed from an article in the Radio Times, so it was hardly robust journalism.