Only 37% of Remainer Academics would lunch with a gender critical colleague !

[GrimDamnFanjo]

order-order.com/2020/08/03/major-report-reveals-academic-freedom-is-in-danger-at-uk-universities/

Guido has the story on the research but is focussing on the remainer/leave/right/left angle and not the gender critical results.
I'm very shocked by this. What a state our universities are in.

Was transwoman defined? If people understandably thought it meant woman who is trans, or trans men they may have answered differently...

It doesn't actually say this

Yes it does It says:-

While 86% of those surveyed reported that they would be comfortable sitting next to a Remain supporter, this falls to 54% for sitting next to a Leave supporter

54% of Remainers would not be comfortable sitting next to a Leave supporter.

I highly doubt that anyone who works in a university doesn't know what a transwoman is at this stage, given the huge amount of resource that is devoted to trans awareness activity (far in excess of any other protected characteristic). Possibly those who have retired, might not be aware, though. I don't understand why such a high % of those surveyed were retired academics. Very odd.

@DidoLamenting

It doesn't actually say this

Yes it does It says:-

While 86% of those surveyed reported that they would be comfortable sitting next to a Remain supporter, this falls to 54% for sitting next to a Leave supporter

54% of Remainers would not be comfortable sitting next to a Leave supporter.

It says:

While 86% of those surveyed reported that they would be comfortable sitting next to a Remain supporter, this falls to 54% for sitting next to a Leave supporter

Of those who were surveyed, some were Leave supporters and some were Remain supporters. 86% of this total (some of whom supported Leave and some Remain) would be comfortable sitting next to a Remain supporter. This is not unexpected, since there were more Remain supporters than leave supporters in the sample, and one would expect that remain supporters would be comfortable sitting with other remain supporters.

54% of those who were surveyed (most of whom were remain supporters but some of whom supported leave, the same sample as above) would be comfortable sitting next to a leave supporter. One might assume that those who supported leave would be comfortable sitting next to another leave supporter, so out of the remain supporters it might be reasonable to assume that the percentage of them who would be comfortable sitting next to a leave supporter is actually lower than 54%.

If they are actually looking at two different groups of people, it doesn't make that clear in the paragraphs I quoted from the report.

WonkHE has a good article on this research which notes that, among other problems, the number of people saying 'neither agree nor disagree' to the 'would you eat lunch with' questions are quite high, but they all got lumped in with 'wouldn't want to eat lunch with': wonkhe.com/blogs/proposals-on-academic-freedom-would-achieve-anything-but/

If I'd answered those questions I wouldn't quite be sure what I was being asked; I wouldn't want to have lunch with someone talking about their leave or gender critical views if I'm honest - I'd find it awkward - but I would happily have lunch with someone who I knew held those views. Since it wasn't that clear which was being asked I might have opted for 'neither agree nor disagree'. On the same basis I wouldn't actively opt to have lunch with someone who talked about football, but I'm not prejudiced against football supporters.

Ah, now that is a very useful clarification, Hardback, thank you. Appears to be a badly written paper?!

Appears to be a badly written paper?
Not so much that, as a questionable methodology (unclear questions, surveying people who no longer work in academia, etc). That is often the case when think tanks commission research, though, as they aren't usually coming at the issue from a neutral perspective.

Who the fuck wants to have lunch with some humourless woke thought-police anyway. Bloody ridiculous.

Hardback sums it up very well.

I wouldn't want to discuss Brexit with a Leave supporter as it would be pointless and just end up in an argument but I'm not in the habit of demanding my work colleagues tell me how they voted! No doubt I've had plenty of friendly interactions with Leave voters!!

Until about the end of 2021 discussing "Brexit" is more or less pointless. Hopefully at the end of that there will be majority support for coming to sensible trading arrangements with the EU once we understand the realities. But until then discussion would just mean carrying on with the same arguments that get nowhere and which will only prolong division.

There's also a link to the questions they actually asked in the WonkHE link above (I can't work out how to link directly to them as its a pdf that auto-downloads). I'm not qualified to judge - all the academic research I've ever done is on people who have been dead for 500 years, so survey design isn't in my skill set - but it looks really odd to me and there's quite a few questions, like the lunch one, where although the wording is, on the face of it, unambiguous it's so clear that the question is driving at something or describing a very weird situation that I'd hesitate to answer it ('are they really asking me if I'd sit with them and chat about the weather, or am I supposed to assume the topic would come up, because otherwise what is the point of this question?', 'If a colleague of mine did research showing the British empire did more good than harm I would think they're a shit historian not because of the conclusion but because was X historical process good or bad is a question for primary school children not researchers - but that's not the same thing as disapproving because it's pro-empire so how do I answer this question?'). Almost all the questions have a large percentage of neutral answers, which - again with no expertise - doesn't seem like the mark of a survey that's going to deliver great insights to me.

It does break it down into categories, btw - here are those two questions (sorry for crap screenshots, again link above)

I wouldn't want to discuss Brexit with a Leave supporter as it would be pointless and just end up in an argument

I'd bet we could have a very reasonable discussion about it, @HPFA. I've found that my reasons for supporting brexit are quite similar to friends' reasons for supporting leave (anti-racism; desire to support the world's least advantaged). Different perspectives on same basic values.

Related to this - Trevor Phillips in the Times today.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/university-bigots-want-to-control-minorities-j6jq5dfg5?shareToken=c046d211b23b31db6c48b69be545400b

@pinkbiro

I'm hoping that once the reality of the very destructive form of Brexit the government is imposing on us becomes apparent we can all agree that there are better ways of moving forward. The chemicals industry is about to face £1 billion in extra costs because the govt is insisting on a double regulation system which benefits nobody and which the industry doesn't want. And hopefully the vast majority of the country will realise that is pointless.

I just think it needs the reality to happen before the debate can properly start.

I wonder just how far a Transwoman will push things, because someone is going to do something that is beyond everyone's limits.
At this point everyone will rear back in shock and rules will be applied because a woman will take it to court and a judge will see sense.

[quote ErrolTheDragon]Related to this - Trevor Phillips in the Times today.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/university-bigots-want-to-control-minorities-j6jq5dfg5?shareToken=c046d211b23b31db6c48b69be545400b[/quote]
Wow, thank you for sharing that brilliant article. It really sums up where we're at in higher ed. People forget that women were even allowed to study at university until relatively recently - "transwomen" had access to university way before women ever did, and women had to fight for their places and their right to education. Now it's being taken away from us, and the woke have the nerve to call us "oppressors".

Seriously these people need to find themselves alone, with no one to eat lunch with. People who think their twitter timeline is the real world somehow need to see what the rest of us see: reality.

I don’t blame the right/left divide so much as I blame the ascendancy of postmodernism. It can lead very clever people unable to see the emperor’s new clothes.

What I find so sad is that people have become so intolerant of views that are different to their own. It's especially sad that academics, who I would expect to be even more open to debate, are this critical. It doesn't bode well for the future of our society.

We can all be like that (myself included). All that happens with more intelligent and educated people is they are better able to bury the appearance of their biases in clever rhetoric. We are all very much capable of making the same fundamental error.

Julia Galef has a very interesting analysis of this some might find helpful:

That's a pretty blistering article.

I know an remainer Labour Lord academic who was picked up from Parliament by a leave voting black cabbie, the Lord refused to speak to the cabbie because he voted leave. No other reason, as soon as he said he said he voted to leave he wouldn't speak to him anymore. He was quite proud of himself too, which is how I know.

a not an 🤦🏻‍♀️

@Hardbackwriter

It does break it down into categories, btw - here are those two questions (sorry for crap screenshots, again link above)

So it's only 52% , not 54% of Remainers who would be comfortable sitting with a Brexiteer

I'm very unlikely to vote Labour again but I have no issues with sitting next to a Corbynista.

I might they might bore me/lecture me/we'd find it difficult to chat (although vegetarianism/ animal rights might be a common concern) but that's minor. I'd be perfectly comfortable sitting next to a Corbynista or a Communist.

So it's only 52% , not 54% of Remainers who would be comfortable sitting with a Brexiteer

It's worse than that. Only 49% of remainers say that they'd be comfortable sitting with a Brexiteer (versus only 79% of Leave voters - the rest of the Leave voters are 'neutral' or 'don't know'). Although only 14% of remainers say they'd be 'uncomfortable'. The 52% is the result from everyone in the survey. See screenshot which includes relevant headers.

I've no idea why they gave the headline figure as 54%, unless they think that only men count, or maybe only people in London and the south.

Full table at this link.

docs.cdn.yougov.com/4lwd0ybm5c/BBResults_200423_Academics.pdf

It's worse than that. Only 49% of remainers say that they'd be comfortable sitting with a Brexiteer (versus only 79% of Leave voters - the rest of the Leave voters are 'neutral' or 'don't know'). Although only 14% of remainers say they'd be 'uncomfortable'. The 52% is the result from everyone in the survey. See screenshot which includes relevant headers.

But that's the thing, you could easily phrase that as '86% say they wouldn't be uncomfortable'. The fact that 21% of leave voters went for a neutral answer suggests that I'm right that a lot of people struggled with the question - why wouldn't you feel comfortable sitting with someone who shares your view? Again, I think a lot of people thought they were working on the assumption that they had to actively discuss the issue.