Anyone else work at a Uni?

[Phunkychicken]

Just having a uni wide 'meeting' - much pressure from the LGBTQ+ group about what they are going to do re the SC ruling to ensure trans staff/students are safe - management saying they're seeking guidance on what to do practically going forward. Tentatively posted that some of us welcome the ruling and have had 6 thumbs up - so they're at least 6 of us.

It's so hard not giving myself away but the push back has been insane

This Foucault-and-Butler gender shite came from the humanities departments of universities and is doing an amazing job of destroying the fabric of society, to the point of capturing governments and inspiring US presidents (Biden) to write executive orders letting men into women's jails.

Silicon Valley techbros aren't in university natural sciences, maths, engineering, and medicine departments. Some of them were in compsci departments before they went to where they can make money. University STEM departments aren't to blame for the total lack of ethics in Big Tech.

Yes. Reform have spotted the scope creep of so many organisations and it’s hard to argue against their policy of returning public bodies to their core purpose and removing roles such as DEI.

And the irony, the deep deep irony, is that we still need EDI initiatives.

• Only about 15-20% of the UK professoriate is female. And fewer women of colour even than that.
• There is still a 15% sex pay gap (at my institution which is one of woker ones around)
• Our female students still suffer detriments. The 1752 group, and the "Everyone's Invited" group show just how much our female undergrads put up with from male students & staff in yerms of bullying & sexual harassment, all the way up to rape.
• Women academics still suffer in careers from maternity & care roles deficits - they still don't progress as their male peers do.

And so on.

Not all of us humanities academics are captured. I teach women's history & writing (among other things) and I teach my students the difference between sex (immutable, biological) and gender roles and stereotypes. Except I call them sex-based roles and stereotypes, and we look at how they are culturally & historically specific.

We need the Humanities.

And not all humanities departments are to blame for Judith Butler

Edit: cross post

More weasel wording. "Defined" as in "the definition of", in which sense yes women are defined by their biology, and "defined" as in "seen as nothing more than" or "only capable of roles specific to", in which case no of course women are not defined by the biology.

The statement leverages reasonable people's likely agreement to the second, feminist meaning - of course women should not be defined by their biology - to capture support for the first: if you don't think women should be defined by their biology then what are you doing saying women have to be female?

These academics are either very stupid or very duplicitous. Given what they are supposed to be I'm not sure which is the worse indictment. Perhaps academics are interpreting Academic in its secondary meaning of "not real, not important, not relevent to the real world" these days.

I don't want to take this off topic, but is queer theory all Judith Butler? I listened to a podcast today about queering the detective novel and it just makes no sense. It comes across to me that QT is saying look beyond accepted norms but at the same time it's putting people in boxes and labelling them.

A lot of unis are struggling with funding and some may close in the next 5 years as student numvers from the UK fall / alternative/ better value apprenticeships become more appealing.

They should listen very carefully to their audience as to what they want, particularly those from backgrounds which are overtly sex-segregated as to their view as whether their daughters feel safe at a uni with gender ideological views.

Foucault has a lot to answer for too.

But yes, it is…interesting, that for all the boundary breaking they talk about, they’re all about oh, you like this thing? Get in that box.

It’s the same as when our grandparents were children (you are a boy, boys can’t like X) but with added medical abuse.

Yes, it's become a term that is used to denote anything that stands outside or disrupts a supposed 'norm'.

I worked at a university briefly and it was an experience there that opened my eyes to the insanity.
It was 2016 ish and the head of department ( science dept) sent round an email to all staff about the new gender neutral toilet. One grumpy old man academic replied with a mild joke.
The next day the same academic issued an email to all staff with a grovelling apology. This was not the culture there AT ALL. There was plenty of sexism in that department, which never seemed to bother Upstairs, and this academic was known for speaking his mind/ being blunt.
I thought it was really odd and there must be more to it… so I started researching and found out about self Id. When I started talking to people about it they thought I was paranoid/ misguided/ mean…
It was the stasi like forced speech that was clearly happening in organisations that made me think “hang on… somethings not right” so I’m quite grateful for that.
Pretty much everyone I know has now caught up but this shit went in under the radar for years and it will take a while to turn it round.

University types seem to be mad keen on Foucault and Butler.

DH goes to a philosophy group which has a core of about 5 people, who actually do the reading and enjoy spending an hour critiquing it.

They spent a whole year doing various philosophers ending up with Butler, so they had really done the work to understand WTF she is on about.

The weeks they did Butler loads of newbies turned up, talked about how amazing she is and only had the most superficial understanding. None of them were there for the weeks on her predecessors or successors.

These academics are either very stupid or very duplicitous.

I know and work with some of them (one a closeted lesbian ...). They vary between the #bekind and the full-on Butlerian "gender is a performance" and gender=sex

I increasingly say to students that a) Butler isn't a feminist in the political sense (you can theorise about "gender" without being a feminist; and b) there are other theorists of queer theory and also much more to feminist writing

It's that irritation I get then with non binary. While I accept people are free to define themselves as they wish, this idea of identity relies on putting other people into boxes. Without the norm or the orthodox, there is no queer. But the podcast's academic was saying queering is nothing to do with LGBTQ. To me, this is just putting a label on something that we could, alternatively, accept as part of humanity in all its' complexity. It seems to be claiming all sorts of things that have nothing to do with queer identity and are just being human.

Yes. And I expect there are other staff/students with protected characteristics such as disabilities who need someone to advocate for their needs.

The sensible thing to do it seems to me, is to return/fold DEI as part of the overall HR responsibility as in a non-captured or deprogrammed organisation they should ensure the balance of policies to meet the needs for all staff.

I'm going with some being stupid and some being duplicitous.

And some being cowardly and not willing to think about anything that might make them think they have a duty to rock the boat.

As @GCAcademic says, all this bollocks plays slap into the hands of Reform.

The 1752 Group don't think that women need single-sex spaces to escape their campus rapists... https://1752group.com/2025/05/02/statement-in-solidarity-with-the-uk-trans-and-non-binary-community/

“We unequivocally reject the idea that women can be defined by their biology, a claim which is neither feminist nor scientific. For centuries, women have fought for the right to do, wear and be what they want to be. It is essentialist and patriarchal to assert that body, genes, chromosomes and reproductive capacity make women (or men)”

Im truly open-mouthed that this has been written by intelligent people!

I'm starting to notice 'intelligent' doesn't always group people as well as 'intellectually curious'. For example, in the thread about 'the guilty feminist' on triggernometry, there was some excellent analysis of what her analogies were intended to mean, what they actually conveyed, and where they lead if followed through. Perhaps people driven to questions like 'what does that mean?' 'how does that idea fit with others' ' why could it be right and why could it be wrong?' are likely to end up in a different position from otherwise intelligent people who accept things more at face value. Or am I being unfair - have the people that believe that thought deeply and with intellectual openness about it and all the ramifications of what they are saying and still come to that conclusion?

I think we misunderstand what leads people into academia. For some, of course, intellectual curiosity, the spirit of discovery, passion for a topic... but for others it's the culmination of having been a good boy or girl at school, getting high marks for knowing the right answer, locating their self-image and self-esteem in being told that they are correct and (therefore) good. Some never make the shift to intellectual independence.

It's incoherent isn't it.

"For centuries, women have fought for the right to do, wear and be what they want to be"

And who were these "women"? What did they have in common? Why did Patriarchy single out this group of people? Was there a lottery? Was it an eye colour thing?

"It is essentialist and patriarchal to assert that body, genes, chromosomes and reproductive capacity make women (or men)”

Then what does make a woman different from a man? Why do those categories exist at all? What utility do they bring, what meaning do they have?

What connects these people who are definitely "women" but definitely not such because of their "body, genes, chromosomes and reproductive capacity" and the people who "For centuries, ... have fought for the right to do, wear and be what they want to be" such that they are the same group? What is the common thread that links them?

What is this thing "woman" that means the story of the people who "fought for the right to do, wear and be what they want to be" is the history of people who are definitely "women" but definitely not such because of their "body, genes, chromosomes and reproductive capacity"?

Oh, and of course, if "Woman" isn't a matter of "body, genes, chromosomes and reproductive capacity" what's the big issue with people who do share a commonality of "body, genes, chromosomes and reproductive capacity" having a name, social and political identity and necessary protections ad rights because of the needs that arise from that?

Why do female humans have to share everything - spaces, rights, history, name, political and cultural identity - with "women" when by this new definition of "woman" there's no reason to assume they have anything in common?

There seems to be a lot of confusion between a woman being 'defined' by the nature of chromosomes and biology ( which they are), and women being entirely 'subservient' to or 'conditioned' by their chromosomes and biology (which they aren't).

The idea that biology is entirely one's destiny ( which they seem to want to reject) is in part true...because 'destiny' is the set of conditions one is born into or has inherited and which one has to deal with...but not everything about someone is conditioned by their sex. We are all human beings with unique personalities, histories, talents, skills, preferences regardless of our sex.

'Sex' is a condition one is born into, and 'Sex' interacts with one's culture and one's society. We cannot get around or away from the fact that we all have a sex...but we can shape our own response to that sex, and we can also attempt to negotiate or help to shape our society or culture's response to it.

We are mammals. Mammals are a two sex category of life on earth.

Earlier forms of feminism wanted to reject female biology and the body because they saw it ( and the roles that resulted from it) as the root of female oppression. Feminists wanted to say " women are not their biology"....which the trans movement has now taken to mean " being a woman has got nothing to do with biology".

If womanhood is not biological, how come we can trace a line back through the DNA in our oocytes to Mitochondrial Eve?

Same here.