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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Minister attacks universities' 'monoculture'

6 replies

BiologyIsReal · 06/09/2018 10:32

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2018/09/06/minister-attacks-monoculture-universities/

Minister concerned that certain views - ranging from identity politics to Brexit - has become unacceptable because they were not "on-trend". Says the entire campus, not just students, are responsible.

Picks out Bristol University and its attitude to "TERF" views.

OP posts:
KeneftYakimoski · 06/09/2018 11:36

I thought both that article, and Toby Young's nonsense on the topic, were good evidence of the massive dominance of education policy by the (relatively) small number of people studying humanities at RG universities. There isn't a whole lot of teaching or discussion about identity in your local mechanical engineering department, and although the gender diversity may be shameful the national and ethnic diversity will be usually significant (many courses will be majority non-UK students, for a start off).

Yeah, there'll be a lot of discussion of gender and triggering and the rest in social studies departments, but to regard that as reflective, never mind representative, of higher education as a whole is ludicrous. Of course, a disproportionate number of politicians and journalists come from such departments, and rather fewer from Condensed Matter Physics, so they think that universities are in constant ferment about these topics. They really aren't.

NameChangedAgain18 · 06/09/2018 11:53

Yeah, there'll be a lot of discussion of gender and triggering and the rest in social studies departments, but to regard that as reflective, never mind representative, of higher education as a whole is ludicrous. Of course, a disproportionate number of politicians and journalists come from such departments, and rather fewer from Condensed Matter Physics, so they think that universities are in constant ferment about these topics. They really aren't.

Whether universities are in constant ferment about these topics isn't the point. What is at stake is whether is it is possible to put forward views that challenge orthodoxies that have emerged from disciplines such as sociology which do deal with these topics (and which do have significant impact on society more broadly). And, in that regard, I agree with Sam Gyimah. Try saying that women don't have pensises on a university campus these days. You won't lose your job (academic freedom), but you will find yourself the subject of a witch hunt by a baying mob from the SU, some of whom will call for you to be sacked, and shout abuse at you. Some of your academic colleagues will also not be above such tactics.

jgrobinson · 06/09/2018 12:32

KeneftYakimoski

Dr Heather Peto, Labour LGBTQ-Trans Officer
PhD in neurology from University of Cambridge, followed by postdoctoral position at Cambridge.

Dr Clara Barker, Manager, Centre for Applied Superconductivity, University of Oxford
www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/lgbt-science_uk_5a8ef065e4b0746ba2acf7e5

I suspect there are many transwomen in engineering and computer science.

frazzled1 · 06/09/2018 14:49

In some disciplines it has reached epidemic levels. One impeccably liberal scholar was subjected to ostracism when she wrote an article questioning our double standards on identity. Changing gender is applauded, she pointed out, whereas altering your race is not. The first is treated as mutable; the second as fixed. Fellow scholars demanded that she retract the article. One accused her of the untranslatable crime of “discursive trans-misogynistic violence”. Note the instinct for censorship rather than debate. Note also the use of the word violence, which is being stretched to Orwellian lengths. It is part of the same “concept creep” that treats naturally resilient young minds as fragile things that need to be sheltered.

FT article on the similar lack of robust debate in US universities.

www.ft.com/content/36dfd398-aaa2-11e8-94bd-cba20d67390c

NameChangedAgain18 · 06/09/2018 16:54

There was an interesting programme on Radio 4 this week, which touched on some of those issues, frazzled:

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bgrnhl

There is an extended podcast with Jonathan Haidt, who discusses campus monoculture that you can access via the Podcast tab (I haven't had a chance to listen to the extended Haidt podcast yet, but what he was saying on the main programme seemed very relevant to UK universities, even though he was talking about the US).

I will say that there are academics out there who are very fed up with it. Some have left academia as a result. Others, as we've seen here, are starting to push back.

NameChangedAgain18 · 06/09/2018 16:56

I can't read that full article, btw, frazzled. Does the FT allow you share tokens, like the Times does (assuming you're a subscriber)?

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