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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

40 Oxford dons sign letter in support of Kathleen Stock

150 replies

ArabeIIaScott · 17/05/2023 10:12

This seems pretty significant.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/16/free-speech-oxford-university-trans-row-kathleen-stock/

'Oxford dons have warned students that freedom of speech is at risk as a trans row engulfs the university.
More than 40 academics - including Prof Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist, and Prof Nigel Biggar, the theologian - have intervened in support of a planned appearance at the Oxford Union by Prof Kathleen Stock, a leading feminist, in a letter to The Telegraph.'

...

Letter includes:

'“Professor Stock believes that biological sex in humans is real and socially salient, a view which until recently would have been so commonplace as to hardly merit asserting.
“Whether or not one agrees with Professor Stock’s views, there is no plausible and attractive ideal of academic freedom, or of free speech more generally, which would condemn their expression as outside the bounds of permissible discourse.”'

Free speech in peril as trans row engulfs Oxford University

In a letter to The Telegraph, dons warn against cancelling appearance by feminist Kathleen Stock over her gender-critical views

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/16/free-speech-oxford-university-trans-row-kathleen-stock

OP posts:
Thread gallery
8
Boomboom22 · 17/05/2023 17:29

Jesus the guardian writers are actually stupid as well.

DemiColon · 17/05/2023 18:16

EdithStourton · 17/05/2023 15:27

@wacademia
But yes, the student unions push it hard. Part of the problem is the democratic deficit in student unions. Voter turnout for SU officer elections is very low because most students can't be bothered to vote for officers in an institution that affects them for only three years. It's very easy for an activist with lots of friends to win an election with a three figure vote and then claim to be the voice of a five figure number of students.

Also, our SU never accomplished anything of any value to actual students, other than to run a cut-price stationery shop. The officers spent their time playing endless rounds of 'Lefter than Thou' (purity spiralling decades before the term had even been coined) and doing exactly nothing (apart from running the stationers aforesaid) that made any material difference to my very skint existence. From what I have seen of SUs and the NUS in the recent past, nothing at all has changed: it's just seen as a stepping stone to a career in politics.

I think a lot of students would be just as happy to disband the SU and not have to pay fees to it.

When I was at university the SU officers used to spend the petty cash on food fights. They were a bunch of useless morons.

Boomboom22 · 17/05/2023 18:24

Just remembered my close friend who was on the su is the only one now who still thinks twaw. And he's a gay man in absolute denial about what would have happened to him if he was a teenager in the last 10 years. Mostly driven by working in the Cs and with a delicate tw so can't envisage any other types. Tbh he doesn't really like women much to start with, he's always been sort of anti vagina and I think that doesn't help.

Signalbox · 17/05/2023 18:26

Crikey that interview!

I wonder if the accusations of sexual assault, bullying and exploitation have any truth behind them? Or have trans activists finally realised that it’s a bad idea to overtly discriminate against people who believe that there are only two sexes. He was so adamant that the severing of ties between the SU and debating union had nothing to do with KS (which seems like such an obvious lie) I suspect they are worried about a law suit.

JulesJules · 17/05/2023 18:40

RoyalCorgi · 17/05/2023 15:40

The big revelation in all this is how fucking thick you can be and still get into Oxford.

Yes it's so depressing, especially as D1 is currently sitting her finals there. But I have to say that while I think this level of twattery is more common in students than in the general public, it is still a very small set of people. I haven't seen anything like this in my D, her Bf or any of her friends. And my D at least, is very aware of how recent this privileged education has been available to women - she matriculated exactly 100 years after women were allowed to. Men, even in corsets and earrings (how EDGY) had the place to themselves for the previous 800+ years

Inamuddle36 · 17/05/2023 18:48

Boomboom22 · 17/05/2023 14:23

He seems to think it means he is more oppressed than women have ever been!

According to his Twitter comments, to refer to him as “he” is to “misgender” him.
😵‍💫

ANewCreation · 17/05/2023 19:50

Mine is having a similar sort of experience, SirVix - I don't think it's easy for students to be able to talk freely about reality-based views in Oxford, which I find really odd.

My daughter's explanation is that there are mainly lots of kids who have worked really hard to get to Oxford and who are actually just interested in their own academic subject. They may be quite brilliant at, say, Biochemistry but otherwise they are not necessarily particularly deep thinkers on anything outside their immediate subject area.

A number have very little in the way of common sense or life experience - many are still very privileged - and because their focus has been, to date, almost entirely on what they can do with their brains and not bodies they are not maybe as aware of sexism as they could be.

There are many quirky kids with some pretty black & white thinking about gender, lots of international students who are paying hand over fist for the privilege of being there and do not want to rock the boat, an academic body that leaves them to get on with it and just a tiny number of vocal Activists - but it is the latter whose voices are amplified. Her college's JCR is one of the 5 that is against the Stock visit. She was unaware of that until I told her. I could hear her eyes rolling over the phone...

After her oldest sibling went down the ROGD rabbit hole, she was vociferously GC, attending WPUK meetings, challenging school about policies etc

At this point, 5 years on, and as a really incisive thinker, I think she is just exhausted by what she describes as 'the mind numbing stupidity and illogicality' of the opposing arguments to even bother engaging in debate.

Mainly the topic does not come up - Oxford students now appear to be more obsessively getting on with work, trying to achieve that 1st/2.1 rather than chatting into the night on an eclectic range of subjects as they were back in my day! - but the social pressure now (particularly on young women) to beee kiiiind is there too.

Helleofabore · 17/05/2023 20:27

ArabeIIaScott · 17/05/2023 13:35

That phd student made my teeth itch. Completely tone deaf about the oppression of women (apparently we aren’t/weren’t whatever) and Dr Stock is ‘not being silenced’.

This person has no fucking idea. I suspect they cannot see past their own fucked up misogyny.

Helleofabore · 17/05/2023 20:37

This ridiculous lie that ‘women aren’t being silenced, they just cannot speak “here”’ brand of rhetoric is bonkers.

Yes!! Women ARE being silenced when they cannot speak at events! Or cannot even hold their events! How dishonest can these people get. Dr Stock left her job due to the intimidation that was allowed at her uni, she had calls to cancel her invite at Cambridge and now this. That is attempts of silencing. I know of no other group that this rhetoric is used for.

Yet the double standards are rife!!

Apparently, despite all the positive news media and shows on TV and Willoughby and others being asked onto all these shows - it once was Fae, Bergdorf and Faye, apparently trans people don’t have enough representation. Despite feminists not protesting any of them or seeking to get them cancelled!

This really is bonkers logic. It is like a whole different world exists in their bubble.

DollyParkin · 17/05/2023 21:53

I thought it was excellent that at last men are seeing what women have known for the last decade - that transactivism and gender identity ideology are damaging to free speech and civil discourse.

Some real heroes such as Michael Biggs as signatories. He’s done amazing work in revealing the paucity of ethics and research evidence for things such as the Dutch protocol on puberty blockers.

Iafontaine · 17/05/2023 22:16

yes @DollyParkin I did not know of Biggs' work so it has been great to read up on him (and other signatories').

OP posts:
Villagetoraiseachild · 17/05/2023 22:26

Wondering if there are any groups/individuals planning to go to Oxford to support Kathleen Stock outside the O.U.?

ArabeIIaScott · 17/05/2023 22:31

Good point, Village. I hope the Uni are organising robust security.

OP posts:
DollyParkin · 17/05/2023 22:35

Iafontaine · 17/05/2023 22:16

yes @DollyParkin I did not know of Biggs' work so it has been great to read up on him (and other signatories').

I think some of Dr Biggs’ publications in this area are Open Access so you could probably go to his university website and follow the links.

anythinginapinch · 17/05/2023 22:38

Yay

leafinthewind · 17/05/2023 22:38

I'm a life member but I've never tried going back for a debate. There's a lot wrong with the Oxford Union, but it is a bastion of free speech. I did some gardening for it, for the first time since I left. There's a link on its front page for donations. Yes, it's a private club - but so are all student societies, and this one has an expensive building to run. Ah well, the world's not perfect.

Iafontaine · 17/05/2023 22:39

thank you!

witheringrowan · 17/05/2023 22:54

@ANewCreation You're right, no one from Exeter signed.

I'm contemplating sending a "disappointed and re-considering my standing donation if they aren't going to stand up for free speech & academic rigour" letter to the Development Office.

TheBiologyStupid · 18/05/2023 00:15

Iafontaine · 17/05/2023 22:16

yes @DollyParkin I did not know of Biggs' work so it has been great to read up on him (and other signatories').

He had a clever idea about looking at how Stonewall and similar organisations are ignoring the LGB in favour of the T (Helen Joyce cites it in her book Trans): https://users.ox.ac.uk/~sfos0060/LGBT_figures.shtml

LGBT facts and figures

https://users.ox.ac.uk/~sfos0060/LGBT_figures.shtml

Iafontaine · 18/05/2023 08:22

wow @TheBiologyStupid those images are so striking

SirVixofVixHall · 18/05/2023 10:19

ANewCreation · 17/05/2023 19:50

Mine is having a similar sort of experience, SirVix - I don't think it's easy for students to be able to talk freely about reality-based views in Oxford, which I find really odd.

My daughter's explanation is that there are mainly lots of kids who have worked really hard to get to Oxford and who are actually just interested in their own academic subject. They may be quite brilliant at, say, Biochemistry but otherwise they are not necessarily particularly deep thinkers on anything outside their immediate subject area.

A number have very little in the way of common sense or life experience - many are still very privileged - and because their focus has been, to date, almost entirely on what they can do with their brains and not bodies they are not maybe as aware of sexism as they could be.

There are many quirky kids with some pretty black & white thinking about gender, lots of international students who are paying hand over fist for the privilege of being there and do not want to rock the boat, an academic body that leaves them to get on with it and just a tiny number of vocal Activists - but it is the latter whose voices are amplified. Her college's JCR is one of the 5 that is against the Stock visit. She was unaware of that until I told her. I could hear her eyes rolling over the phone...

After her oldest sibling went down the ROGD rabbit hole, she was vociferously GC, attending WPUK meetings, challenging school about policies etc

At this point, 5 years on, and as a really incisive thinker, I think she is just exhausted by what she describes as 'the mind numbing stupidity and illogicality' of the opposing arguments to even bother engaging in debate.

Mainly the topic does not come up - Oxford students now appear to be more obsessively getting on with work, trying to achieve that 1st/2.1 rather than chatting into the night on an eclectic range of subjects as they were back in my day! - but the social pressure now (particularly on young women) to beee kiiiind is there too.

Very similar, yes. Although my dd’s college is not one of the four, thankfully.

GrumpyPanda · 18/05/2023 10:55

Inamuddle36 · 17/05/2023 18:48

According to his Twitter comments, to refer to him as “he” is to “misgender” him.
😵‍💫

Worse than that - it's to misgender himself. Mastery of pronouns plainly isn't a precondition of access to an Oxford PhD programme, not even for the pronoun crowd.

Iafontaine · 18/05/2023 11:04

Thank you @OldCrone I am not a native speaker so I am catching up.

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