Universities will be the last bastion of gender ideology and the denial of women's rights

[BridgetPhillipsonIsACowardlyJobsworth]

With thanks to @IcakethereforeIam A new/spinoff thread to discuss/commiserate about the steadfast refusal of universities to acknowledge that women have rights in law.An article from The Critic, and what I posted on the House of Communion/EDM thread (love the typo, BTW!)

https://archive.ph/L8E0b

https://thecritic.co.uk/how-the-war-wasnt-won

It is depressing, and I think she has put into words how I have been feeling lately about the whole thing. I worked in HE many years ago (not as an academic) and it seems clear to me now that, as universities always do, they will continue to move and change at a glacial pace, if at all.

Universities exist, and have for a very long time existed, in order to exist. They generate income in order to generate income. They hoard their resources in order to buy up land and build their estates, in order to generate more wealth by taking on more and more international, high-fee-paying students, whose families then do their publicity for them. Which, in turn, generates more wealth. So they can exist. In order to exist.

I believe that the only thing that will shift the HE sector will be a high-level, extremely public, lawsuit against a top-ten ranking, Russell Group institution, won with significant damages awarded. So, not one academic suing for constructive dismissal, but a suit by a high-profile, wealthy individual or foundation taken against UCL, Imperial College, or LSE, with the outcome and damages awarded not being hidden behind an NDA.

Or a major foreign donor withdrawing support for the institution.
This could take another generation. I have a feeling that universities will be the last bastion of gender ideology, where the law-deniers teach the next generation of law-deniers.

I'm very glad that I no longer work for a university.

Any thoughts? We know that many universities have withdrawn from Stonewall, but there's a lot more to do. Please cheer us all up if you have any progress in HE that you have noticed. I think we could all use a good news story right now, after the EDM and Hampstead Heath Ponds announcement.

Whist the government continue to peddle the lie that everyone should have a degree, the Uni's have a guaranteed pipeline of young people to educate in mickey mouse subjects.

What we need is a political party that recognizes practical skills are just as valuable, and arguably more necessary for the country to continue to prosper. One who will give serious thought too funding vocational colleges and apprenticeships that could provide future generations with marketable skills. Instead of a specialised degree which requires the government to create unnecessary public sector jobs to give to the people with them.

Ultimately it will be market forces that will sort it out, because this country is up to it's eyeballs in debt, and it can no longer continue to support an education system that is spitting out non-producers. Nor keep funding a public sector that as become moribund and stuff full of useless workers.

It's like the whole state establishment has been turned into a day care provider for kidadults.

Ultimately it will be market forces that will sort it out

I do agree with most of what you have said, except that I have been waiting for market forces to deal with HE sector bloat for 20 years. I think that government could solve many of these issues, but unfortunately it's the universities that grow politicians, and they are not going to work at putting their own children and grandchildren out of positions that they are holding onto for them. Nepotism is also alive and well in universities. And many universities rely on alumni donations to beef up their coffers.

If you're talking about market forces affecting how many students actually attend university, well I think we are already starting to see that shift. Every year we see fewer home students (who have no money) at university, and more international students (who have lots of money), and the HE sector perpetuates its own future demise, because relying on lots of wealthy, foreign students paying expensive tuition fees is not sustainable. Not if you want to continue to call yourself a "charity" or "non-profit" instead of a business.

With regard to universities disobeying the law, market forces will not make them change their minds. Getting Stonewall out was only a first, tiny step. I believe we need to see wide scale legal action from those wealthy, overseas individuals, partner institutions, and major donors if there is to be any change. But there has to be incentive for them to do so. Hence, the inertia in the HE sector.

Whoever wrote this has never worked in the entertainment industry/theatre/music. Universities are terfy in comparison.

I think you're absolutely right about Universities being amongst the last public institutions to move back to sanity. Its really depressing.
I read a wonderful article that popped up on my twitter feed a week back opining how young women in particular prop the ideology up.

The wonderful Maeve Halligan said the same recently in an interview. I don't know how that gets changed in the short term tbh, women are empathetic & held to account by peers/society in ways men aren't - empathy at the risk of self negation & fear at reaction - what's to be done?

My DD (grades allowing) may go to Oxford this year, I mention it because I asked her if she'd be inclined start a Women's Society much like Maeve,Thea & Serena have at Cambridge - it was just a question not a suggestion on my part.

It was her physical reaction that 'upset' me more than her answer - she kind of coiled back & her eyes went rabbit in the headlight wide "fuck no Mum, have you read what they've been through & are still going through up there? I just want to get my degree & not end up a social pariah - if im asked what I believe, i'll be honest, so i might well end up cancelled anyway - but im not putting myself up against the wall !"

Everyone in her friendship group is a Terf. All would be terrified to rock the boat at Universities, they're all smart enough to know the first through the door gets shot & simultaneously know if someone doesn't go first nothing will change.

She was 7 when I first became aware of 'all this'. I've done all the things women here have done, public meetings, raised money, met & made many life long friends, wrote letters, just talked to people. Things are & have changed. But a dark corner of myself feels a guilt & dread at being asleep at the wheel for so long & now my daughter & her generation are left with the mess to try & navigate.

I dont have an answer, just thought i'd say how its looks in this house with a young woman about to start University. Grim.

It will be interesting to see whether universities that offer women only accommodation get in line with the law. If I’d signed a contract for single sex accommodation and found myself in a mixed sex ‘women’s’ flat I’d go after the university for my hall fees. The upper limit for a small claims court case is currently £10K, which is around a year’s hall fees depending on location and catering.

Just reading on twitter Michael Foran has had to cancel a series of public lectures he was giving in Oxford due to protest/harrasment of students attending.
The unqualified fuckery of all this!

People who inhabit the world of universities need to demonstrate their advanced intelligence to the rest of us and supporting trans ideology gives them the perfect opportunity to show their so called enhanced thinking.

They think that we are bogged down in mundane discussions about toilets and sports whereas they are looking at the concept of gender identity, the writings of Judith Butler etc, stuff we couldn't possibly understand. As the Harvard t-shirt says "So it works in practice but does it work in theory?"

I agree that the arts are captured too but they just follow the most progressive line to be seen as non conforming. They don't have the ideological attachment to it.

Michael Foran

@michaelpforan

Due to escalating disruptive protests, I have decided to cancel the remainder of these lectures. This is deeply lamentable, but the disruption has undermined the academic nature of this series. Students shouldn't face bullying or harassment when attending academic events.

It is unfortunate that these protesters have chosen disruption over genuine intellectual engagement grounded in academic charity and rigour. In attempting to shame students into deplatforming these lectures, they manifest the antithesis of what a university stands for.

I took dc to Bath open day, and was pleasantly surprised. The toilets are labelled female and male and a third ‘non-binary’ option was available (this is also true of Leeds btw). When you apply for accommodation you can choose mixed/women (inc trans) or men(inc trans)/actual single sex. Not really sure why they need the middle options (which are also obv mixed sex) but it did seem to offer a proper choice. The recognition that you could hold terfy views and still be a student was refreshing tbh

I’d also take issue with the suggestions upthread that higher education is pointless; but I’m absolutely behind the idea that HE isn’t suitable for everyone, some courses are rubbish, and proper apprenticeships should be supported and seen as an equally valuable route

Practical skills are indeed important - though making people marketable sounds nasty to me. However, though we need plumbers we also need philosophers; civil engineers require maths and someone has to study pure and applied so that we can use the applied; health workers and historians...for without the academic subjects we cease to have a civilization. (We could maybe live without Banksy and some art critics but not without perspective and the art of drawing.)
Education cannot be left to the market btw. The market only promotes what makes monetary profit - there is more to our world than monetary profit - man cannot live by bread alone...(daresay you know the rest of that).

I agree. There's a difference between education and training as well.

The 'non-producers' comment reminds me of 'useless mouths' 🙄

This is appalling.

Whist the government continue to peddle the lie that everyone should have a degree, the Uni's have a guaranteed pipeline of young people to educate in mickey mouse subjects.

Not even Blair at his most enthusiastic called for everyone to have a degree. In 1999 he said"Today I set a target of 50 per cent of young adults going into higher education in the next century."

This higher education was supposed to include university degrees, HNDs & apprenticeships. In fact we have ended up with 50% attending university & little emphasis on HNDs & apprenticeships.

It’s about a third of 18 year olds that go to uni - way way way less than other comparable nations, embarrassingly less: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1227272/share-of-people-with-tertiary-education-in-oecd-countries-by-country/?srsltid=AfmBOooa6AIA-1JRtb3a9iQExQVogvQpRU1ftjj5OPO5Dc8cRR2FIVjz

I too am glad OP no longer works in the sector given their disdain and lack of knowledge of it.

This will be an interesting point to watch for. Many overseas female (and male) students require 100% guaranteed same-sex accommodation, or they cannot attend. As the PP has said, re Bath, it is a step too far even for some universities to offer co-ed accommodation only. (Although, in my experience, many of these international students come from wealthy families who would prefer to buy their daughters a house of flats, and fill it with their female friends who pay rent, rather than deal with university accommodation. It's an option for some.)

However, you do not then get the safety and security of uni accommodation with security guards, hall wardens, and additional accommodation for chaperones (yes, really!)

So, it may be that accommodation would be a sort of no-go area for pretending that men can be women, but I don't know if that is the norm across the sector.

Those stats say 60% for the UK, and a lot higher than many comparable nations.

You’re probably right OP.

And I imagine universities which are unionised and who feed into the entertainment, music, arts industries will be there at the bitter end.

I wouldn’t despair of your daughter’s reaction, she seems entirely pragmatic. However it’s people like her who may be able to quietly dampen down the whole situation simply by not whooping it up. I was watching something on TV, can’t remember what it was, but about Henry 8 and the Catholic/church of England. And I thought, no, I wouldn’t be tortured and then burnt at the stake for my beliefs. I sort of thought I would. It’s changed the way I deal with the issues, slightly!

The doors say one thing - I'd be very interested to know what happened if a young female student reported an obvious male in the 'actually single sex' Ladies, though.

Supported, ignored or shamed?

I too am glad OP no longer works in the sector given their disdain and lack of knowledge of it.

That's an odd thing to say as I, in my OP, said nothing about numbers of students.

In my second post I said

Every year we see fewer home students (who have no money) at university,

So, I if you are directing your disdain at the "OP" (me), I think you've got the wrong person.

Or was it just general disdain for the discussion you were wishing to indicate?

This approach is just so illogical, the absolute opposite of what universities are meant to teach - critical thinking!

I seriously cannot understand their position, at all.

Edited for clarity

Agree. I have a dd at Oxford and she hardly ever talks about this with any of her friends. It came up with one female friend, who brought it up as she’d had a disagreement with her boyfriend on trans issues (friend is GC like dd). I think that’s the only time she has ever discussed her opinion at university.

I have a friend who has a trans daughter at Oxford. She (the daughter) has always had anxiety and other mental health problems. Especially at uni she presents as male, uses a male name and pronouns. Her social group is 100% affirming. Apparently this helped to start with, but her anxiety is now worse than ever. I hope that, eventually, the university will notice that it’s affirming approach isn’t helping anyone - not sure how that message gets through though….

It's a circular phenomenon, in my opinion.

The universities are letting the students run things because they are the paying customers. The universities then only teach what the students are willing to hear. And the students are allowed to learn only what the most vocal minority want them to learn, because they will be threatened by the vocal, bullying minority if they rebel (and this vocal minority is also made up of students who have paid to be there).

All these students then leave academia and take their narrow "education" into the workforce. Or they stay in academia, to teach the next cohort of students only what they want to hear. Because they are the paying customers... so on and so forth.

There is no room for critical thinking because the paying customers don't want to hear anything they don't want to hear, because they aren't paying for that. They are paying to get a job (someday, perhaps) or paying to stretch out their adolescence, an adolescence, remember, during which time they didn't want to hear anything they didn't want to hear.

I'm friends with a woman whose daughter was in the first cohort to get swept up in this as a young teen (she's 27 now) usual story clever, thoughtful, autistic, lonely went from discord to GIDS.
Had a very supportive network at University, all young women & as her mum tells it was seemingly happy for a long time.
She's living back at home now & working part time not really making use of her very good degree from a very good Uni. Had her breasts removed & testosterone has left her balding with urinary/gynae problems.
She was invited to a wedding in London of a University friend. My friend dropped her off - they've all moved on these young women, marriage, one is expecting a child, one has a dream job abroad - my friend rightly or wrongly is angry - her daughter is stuck, unhappy & in failing health whilst all her University group who cheered her transistion on have packed up the progress pride flags & grown up.