Worrying university experiences

[Porridgeoat]

This is such a worrying read for me having teens. So much conditioning where there should be open debate

www.gcacademianetwork.org/#

Those accounts are terrifying - and bloody shameful. What on earth are university managements doing to allow these levels of intimidation and threats to become the norm in universities.
It seems that teenagers would be better off not entering such toxic environments if this is what they encounter.

I certainly won't be encouraging my DD to go to university. It's an absolute travesty what has happened within one generation. My parents didn't go; I was the first in my family. To think that university has gone from being an aspiration to something to avoid within 30 years.

@ShulamithFirestone

I certainly won't be encouraging my DD to go to university. It's an absolute travesty what has happened within one generation. My parents didn't go; I was the first in my family. To think that university has gone from being an aspiration to something to avoid within 30 years.

I think that's an overreaction. Most students can avoid this sort of stuff, especially if they're doing a sensible sort of subject.

I'm not saying it's not a real problem, but I think more for academics (some departments more than others) than students.

@ShulamithFirestone

I certainly won't be encouraging my DD to go to university. It's an absolute travesty what has happened within one generation. My parents didn't go; I was the first in my family. To think that university has gone from being an aspiration to something to avoid within 30 years.

Same here. I am the only person in my family to go, my parents didn’t even do further education (although no reflection on them personally). I gained so much from branching out, meeting new people and gaining a much wider perspective on life.

Nowadays, diversity of thought seems to have gone out of the window but the worst bit for me is the dismantling of safeguarding, either by making toilets mixed sex or allowing students to register using their ‘preferred sex’ meaning that their single sex accommodation policy is meaningless.

My daughters are very academically able and university would have been great for them but not at risk of their safety. I don’t know how we can move things forward as there is such a stranglehold.

I know one girl who went to a woke uni as a lesbian and 4 months after realising her ‘true self’ started on T and 6 months on from that is about to have a double mastectomy. She is so young.

I have a DD at a highly regarded uni, doing a "proper" subject.
She has always been a critical thinker, not one to go along with the masses or buy into trends, but by her second year she was 100% brainwashed by twaw.
We couldn't discuss it at all for months without her becoming unreasonably furious.
Now, she's beginning to see that it's not so black and white as she thought and she's starting to be open to seeing some nuance, but it's still the only subject we can't have a proper conversation about.

I worry for my critical thinker also. The peer pressure and conditioning is substantial

Most students can avoid this sort of stuff, especially if they're doing a sensible sort of subject.

Not necessarily. It's already taking hold in law and medicine.

To those posters with teenagers: please don’t be put off. Universities are public institutions and they have to serve everyone. The current agenda is, in part, an exercise in keeping people out, especially those from families that have traditionally not sent young people to university. These are your and your children’s institutions, too. Make your voices heard - at open days, in emails to admissions tutors and so on. Ask about academic freedom, about women’s rights and single-sex accommodation. Don’t be intimidated, not by weasley answers or eye-rolling offspring. There are plenty of gender-critical academics and we need parents to ask tough questions.

There are also encouraging signs of universities reacquiring their backbones re the fundamental importance of free speech and debate.

I’m in my final year of a biomed degree and it’s not a big issue at my school. Yes, there are some ‘woke’ lecturers, but gender identity is not taught or discussed in curriculum content, although I do see it as part of the wider culture in the university -some lecturers have pronouns at the bottom of their emails. It’s not a conversation my peers are having, but I’m repeating this year so I don’t know them as well.

X that’s good

@Xpectations

I’m in my final year of a biomed degree and it’s not a big issue at my school. Yes, there are some ‘woke’ lecturers, but gender identity is not taught or discussed in curriculum content, although I do see it as part of the wider culture in the university -some lecturers have pronouns at the bottom of their emails. It’s not a conversation my peers are having, but I’m repeating this year so I don’t know them as well.

thank you for that.

My worry is the undermining of safeguarding like single sex facilities/accommodation etc - do you have any experience of that?

Relevant thread here by music PhD student Jonny Best about his experience of being complained about for alleged transphobic behaviour.
Academic staff at universities can't be open about the complaints against them - and most complaints of transphobia from students seem to be directed at staff. I'm just a final year PhD student, under no contractual requirement to be confidential, so I can share.
He talks about the complainant (whom he'd previously thought of as a friend) 'performing vulnerability' while behaving aggressively. But 'the university was completely incurious about about why the complainant feared victimisation. They made no enquiries into the matter.'

It's a long thread in which he makes some interesting observations about TRA tactics, and in the end the complaint against him was not upheld - but, he says:
The malicious strategies inherent in the complaint against me are seen over and over again by professional academics - mostly women, but some men too. Most of these complaints are not upheld, but that is irrelevant: the investigation process itself is the point of the complaints. (my bold)

twitter.com/JonnyWorst/status/1363063717856960512

@HesMyLobster

I have a DD at a highly regarded uni, doing a "proper" subject. She has always been a critical thinker, not one to go along with the masses or buy into trends, but by her second year she was 100% brainwashed by twaw. We couldn't discuss it at all for months without her becoming unreasonably furious. Now, she's beginning to see that it's not so black and white as she thought and she's starting to be open to seeing some nuance, but it's still the only subject we can't have a proper conversation about.

I could have written this. Its like you have been watching my daughter and I for the last two years. She was science based gender critical and strong minded two years ago before she entered the belly of the beast. Unfortunately she found herself being isolated for even mild comments but then met an uber left-wing and woke boyfriend. game over. Before she turned she said something interesting, that it must have been easier coming out as gay in the 60s at university than gender critical at university now.

The worst part for me is that most of the brainwashing happened when she joined the university Feminism Society.
It is proudly "all inclusive" and it seems to revolve around trans issues . .

@gardenbird48
I’m a mature student so I don’t live on campus.
I was on campus just before lockdown started last year. All hygiene facilities were sex-segregated. My university has a lot of students from religious backgrounds that would be indirectly discriminated by mixed facilities, so I doubt the university would try it.
I’m not sure what the Humanities dept is like, but in my Science school, gender identity doesn’t feature on the curriculum.

[quote Xpectations]@gardenbird48
I’m a mature student so I don’t live on campus.
I was on campus just before lockdown started last year. All hygiene facilities were sex-segregated. My university has a lot of students from religious backgrounds that would be indirectly discriminated by mixed facilities, so I doubt the university would try it.
I’m not sure what the Humanities dept is like, but in my Science school, gender identity doesn’t feature on the curriculum.[/quote]
thanks Xpectations - that gives me some comfort - dd1 is hugely into art and fashion atm but she has the brain and aptitude for something more academic so we'll see where she goes with that.

Those accounts are really horrific. It's far worse than I'd realised. So women aren't discriminated against? There is no issue with violence against women? Rape is now unmentionable?

The malicious strategies inherent in the complaint against me are seen over and over again by professional academics - mostly women, but some men too. Most of these complaints are not upheld, but that is irrelevant: the investigation process itself is the point of the complaints.

Time for vexatious complainants to be sent down