Eton sacks teacher for lecture on 'current radical feminist orthodoxy'

[stumbledin]

I cant make any sense of this story as reported in the Daily Mail, and the version in the Telegraph is behind a paywall.

Quote from DM:

The class was for older students taking the Perspectives module, where they are told to critique topics of public debate.

Eton has been accused of 'prioritising emotional safety over intellectual challenge' after banning the lesson.

'The head master felt that some of the ideas put forward in my lecture – such as the view that men and women differ psychologically and not all of those differences are socially constructed – were too dangerous for the boys to be exposed to.

'I explained to the head master that I wasn't endorsing all the ideas in my lecture, but I wanted the boys to be made aware of a different point of view to the current radical feminist orthodoxy, which insists that there's something fundamentally toxic about masculinity.

'In my lecture, I pointed out that, historically, masculine qualities like strength, courage and tenacity have often been as beneficial to women as they have been to men.'

.
Anyhow, there are so many elements to this, posh school, cant they manage a debate, but then it turns out it isn't a debate but a man saying women (feminists) are being unfair to men.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8991981/Eton-College-SACKS-English-master-producing-lecture-questioned-radical-feminist-orthodoxy.html

The link to the Telegraph article is in the DM one, and today they are saying local MP is urging Eton not to let woke outsiders influence them.

also be really pissed off if I paid 40k a year for my kid to attend the top school in the country and someone like this was teaching.

You say that, but the parents have specifically chosen to send their boys to Eton, so It's imagine they're actually quite keen in this kind of misogynistic bullshit. The idea of men as being above women is kind of needed if you are going to maintain the old boys network.

Tangentially, it really annoys me when people opine about radical feminism when they obviously don't know what it is. Would a quick google kill them. That prating fool, Gad Saad, does this all the time as well. Just look it up!!

But what about free speech and debate? Do you genuinely agree that making this video is a sackable offence? This is a part of the cancel culture which is the same culture affecting gender critical people and their job security.

Free speech applies whether you agree with what is being said or not.

He doesn’t say that feminism rubbishes men nor that women are incapable. The main point he is making is that sex is real and not a social construct and that their are differences between the sexes.

@SerenadeOfTheSchoolRun

But what about free speech and debate? Do you genuinely agree that making this video is a sackable offence? This is a part of the cancel culture which is the same culture affecting gender critical people and their job security.

Free speech applies whether you agree with what is being said or not.

I’m pretty certain that this was not the sole reason he was dismissed. There would have been other reasons. Like that Christian dude who said he was fired for accidentally misgendering a trans student and it turned out to be a lot more deliberate than that, including pushing his view that homosexuality was wrong and deliberately using names that students had said they didn’t want to be known by. There will be something besides this video, believe me.

And if it was only this video, I wouldn’t sack him but I don’t think it should be shown to pupils and if I was the headmaster, I would say he couldn’t show it. There really are restrictions on free speech in schools and it’s always been that way.

@SerenadeOfTheSchoolRun

He doesn’t say that feminism rubbishes men nor that women are incapable. The main point he is making is that sex is real and not a social construct and that their are differences between the sexes.

He says that gender roles are natural and inherent. You know, the very antithesis to feminism. You shouldn’t show shit like that at a boys school where they will already believe they are superior to girls. It’s deeply offensive to women and dehumanises them.

What would have been an appropriate response from the school

1. What they did - not show it to the boys, insist it was taken down from the teachers personal website and sack him if not

1. Not show it to the boys and leave it at that

1. Show it, ensure there was a balancing video made. Encourage debate. Discuss the issues from all angles.

1. Show the video without discussion (I don’t think that was ever going to be the plan)

Andrew Doyle weighs in on this, and I complete agree with him. It’s important that ideas are explored and children are taught to think critically. Free speech is crucial.

Isn't the point that he should be allowed to voice his opinions and children encouraged to discuss and debate? A school that shows the Freddie McConnell pregnancy film to their students is presumably open to discussing the difference between the sexes, sexuality etc?

I think the problem is that these are predominantly white, wealthy, heterosexual young men. They are already inclined to these narrow views. Should you reinforce and entrench those views? And who provides the opposite view? A gay woman? Why should she have to? If the boys were being shown racist propaganda to reinforce their racist views (not saying they are racist, but some will be) would that be OK?

These are not adults. They need to understand these views exist but not have them presented as an argument. Anti Semitic views exist but we don't take children through them in PowerPoint presentations and ask the Jewish community to provide a rebuttal.

@Gooseybby

Since when are courage and tenacity masculine traits?

Exactly! Courage and tenacity got me through 3 births, 1 miscarriage, and raising 3 small children.

🙄

So is feminism a ‘no debate’ issue?

I think there could be a debate with two (not racist) sides about white privilege and some of the aims of the Black Lives Matter movement but many people would call me racist for saying so.

Anyone at all could provide the opposite view. No one should have to but perhaps a feminist would want to have the opportunity to put their points to the next generation.

It seems as though there is no middle ground any more on so many issues. Just the right view and the wrong view depending on each persons own opinions.

I think the idea of a debate is traditionally between equals. Labour versus Conservative etc.

In a school, teachers are not equal to pupils. They are in a position of power and responsibility (like Doctors) and so have to be cautious. We can and do discuss difficult issues but not ones that simply reinforce the prevailing narrow views of those who already have deeply entrenched prejudices inherited from wealthy and privileged parents.

@Cismyfatarse

I think the problem is that these are predominantly white, wealthy, heterosexual young men. They are already inclined to these narrow views. Should you reinforce and entrench those views? And who provides the opposite view? A gay woman? Why should she have to? If the boys were being shown racist propaganda to reinforce their racist views (not saying they are racist, but some will be) would that be OK?

These are not adults. They need to understand these views exist but not have them presented as an argument. Anti Semitic views exist but we don't take children through them in PowerPoint presentations and ask the Jewish community to provide a rebuttal.

Exactly. Talk about different views, yes. But this is a teacher telling them what to think basically. We’d never allow this with racism or disability, so why can we have some dude telling a class of impressionable young boys that feminism oppresses them and women are biologically programmed to carry out traditional roles? It’s so true that they probably already think this stuff anyway. It’s not like they have wonderful female role models to learn from at Eton.

@SerenadeOfTheSchoolRun

So is feminism a ‘no debate’ issue?

I think there could be a debate with two (not racist) sides about white privilege and some of the aims of the Black Lives Matter movement but many people would call me racist for saying so.

Anyone at all could provide the opposite view. No one should have to but perhaps a feminist would want to have the opportunity to put their points to the next generation.

It seems as though there is no middle ground any more on so many issues. Just the right view and the wrong view depending on each persons own opinions.

Of course it’s not a no debate issue but this isn’t a debate is it? It’s basically a privileged adult male telling a bunch of privileged teenage males that all the arguments women have made to fight for equal rights are actually bollocks and anti-men. That’s not the same as teaching about women’s rights in a balanced way, as there is plenty of disagreement between feminists themselves as to the right way forward.

I mean what if a white teacher thinks BLM is a load of crap and wants to show a long video about how racism doesn’t actually exist and it’s just due to people not working as hard as others or biological intelligence differences? Is that okay to show to white privileged males? No, of course it’s not.

I think it was supposed to be part of a discussion, yes, not just presented as fact. There is quite a bit of prejudice here about the boys at Eton. They are not all clones.

And as for ‘anyone at all can provide a counter-argument’, I’d prefer not to have two blokes debating whether I should be able to be treated equally just because I didn’t happen to be born with a penis. What the hell experience does a man have of the many things that still make women’s experience in society inferior to that of men’s?

I sometimes agree with points Andrew Doyle (and Douglas Murray) make about woke culture, but neither of them are coming at this from remotely a feminist perspective and I have heard both of them say that we have ‘gone too far’ with equality between the sexes.

The presentation isn’t just a viewpoint. It contains outright lies. It’s not true that gender-roles become more pronounced when society becomes more equal. That’s untrue and is presumably based on comments by Jordan Peterson about Scandinavia where he says that there is still a greater number of females in caring professions. That’s not the same as traditional gender roles being more entrenched. In fact the research has shown considerably more equality in sharing childcare than in other countries. Equality initiatives do work and so does subsidised childcare because women don’t all secretly want to be 1950s housewives but are prevented from doing that by evil feminists.

I don’t think untruths should be told to kids and presented as if they were true. Same with opinions about how gender pay gaps are just due to choice when so many women get less than male counterparts for the same job and women earn less than men even if they don’t have any children.

Who is going to put the feminist perspective to these boys? Someone who shouldn’t have to or someone who has no right to?

@SerenadeOfTheSchoolRun

I think it was supposed to be part of a discussion, yes, not just presented as fact. There is quite a bit of prejudice here about the boys at Eton. They are not all clones.

They aren’t all clones but almost without exception they are set for an extremely privileged life, largely as a result of their school education. The vast majority come from very wealthy families and many from families who also have a lot of other influence - judges, QCs, politicians, diplomats. Unlike the kids from the comp, they are taught that they are special and that they are the elite. The teachers who teach them are nearly all public school educated too. You won’t get an Eton headmaster who grew up working class and made his way to eg Oxford from a comprehensive school because, despite his intelligence, he wouldn’t ‘fit’. It truly is a different world.

I agree that the inaccuracies in the presentation should be pointed out and dismantled. Mr Knowland has asked for factual inaccuracies to be pointed out in reply to his pinned comment accompanying the video.

I was initially sympathetic to the teacher and the idea of discussing from the point of view of critical thinking. Having seen the video I've changed my mind. The video is just rubbish, not just biased but MRA rubbish.
If you want to discuss points of view you put the best evidence available not create a caricature.
This video could never be part of an acceptable lesson plan. It's not a free speech issue it's a professional ethics issue.

How very thoughtful of Mr Knowland. Perhaps he could have got off his arse and engaged in some research before making a factually inaccurate video in the first place. Although I’m not surprised that someone possessed of bucketloads of male arrogance would make a video without fact-checking the various claims he was making and then moan when people didn’t want to show it.

We are talking about a school here and school children. Normal principles of free speech don’t apply in schools. I can’t teach kids a load of controversial stuff just because I want to and because I have free speech. In state schools, the state literally tells you what you much teach the kids. If this guy wants to write a newspaper column with his views, let him crack on. But don’t bring it into the classroom.

And as I said, I strongly suspect there are other things behind the sacking. I remember that there was an outcry a while back (also in the DM) about a lecturer being sacked for making an innocuous comment about how there are a lot of good Jewish scientists and maybe Jews are naturally gifted at science. Turns out to have been a very selective reading of the disciplinary report as he’d also said that black students were genetically inferior and needed extra help. I’d bet my bottom dollar that this isn’t the full story.

I would like to see what more is going on with this, it does feel like a rather one sided story. There's another article about it in DM today and if I was a more cynical person I'd say he'd had more than a minor input into it.

I used to teach an advanced feminist philosophy class that was very academically rigorous. It is totally possible to teach feminism in a deep and intellectually engaging way, while also leaving room for debate. This ... doesn’t even seem like feminism. It seems like a weird cobbled together lecture based on his own ideas and pop culture references ( like Jordan Peterson). I would be pissed off if I was paying all that money and my kid was getting this as an “education.” So for me personally it’s got nothing to do with feminism being off limits for debate . It’s just this ain’t feminism.

But Eton strikes me as a very strange place. I remember when one of their entrance exams was published and the boys had to pretend they were the prime minister addressing the nation live about the army killing some protestors. The task was to justify this and calm the nation down. I also remember when the eton handbook leaked a few years ago, and it revealed the boys had classes on how to prepare to being a good husband and how to find a wife. That doesn’t sound too bad until you realise that these boys aren’t interacting either any girls, so it all felt rather like a big game hunt. Like I said, weird place.

The one about how he’s from such humble beginnings because he got a scholarship to a public school and how he will be homeless? And how his wife was on BGT? I think I read that one.

I seriously seriously doubt that the headmaster of Eton is a radical feminist Marxist. He doesn’t look the type. I suspect there is way way more involved than just this video. In any event, he was told to take it down and refused. If you’re a teacher, there are often clauses in your contract that state that you mustn’t bring the school into disrepute. You’re held to different standards to the rest of the public.