Modern Feminism-Good for Society?

CtevenSrowder

Tell me how wrote: »

Sure you were.

Don't worry I was. I've previously debated the usefulness of international men's day on boards, El Duderino and klaz (I think) were both prominent members of that discussion.

Bannasidhe

Eric Cartman wrote: »

1) I dont know who was funding it , the ‘tutor’ in question was a self proclaimed feminist and really had a thing for promoting women in stem so as to whether it was funded or altruism is unknown to me

2) it definitely didnt universally work for all lecturers , there were some she would have sway with and others not

3) It wasnt mark bumping, it was allowing students re-submit assignments that she would then help them with.

4) I know this happened because a female class mate had a discussion about how she hoped she could re submit and was anxious to see the ‘tutor’ about this.

So either these tutorials were funded which means the Uni had identified a need In 'my area' we didn't have special tutorials based on gender as no need was identified - but we did based on certain learning difficulties such as dyslexia.
But in this case it sounds like a tutor decided to volunteer their own time meaning it wasn't a tutorial (which sound official), it was a study group facilitated by a woman who happened to also be an experienced tutor - which a male tutor could have done if he wished.

Assignments cannot be resubmitted unless there are demonstrable extenuating circumstances otherwise there would be a flood of the bloody things.

One of the roles of a tutor - back when universities could afford them - was to approach lecturers on behalf of students when it was deemed necessary. Equally, tutors would inform lecturers when a student wasn't attending, completing assignments etc. Standard practice across all disciplines.

None of this, as I said, has anything to do with Feminism, apart from the fact that a female tutor may have decided to volunteer her own time to help women studying a traditionally male field - however, there was nothing stopping a male tutor volunteering to facilitate a study group for male students who were struggling for whatever reason.

...Ghost...

Bannasidhe wrote: »

And this is your proof that across the board in Irish universities female students are routinely getting special treatment?
One course. One lecturer.

And condescending or not, I do know what I am talking about and if you were 1% short to pass your course in an Irish University then your record would have been discussed during exam board by all the lecturers in the dept - including any medical certs/extenuating circumstances.
Now, every dept is different but in my experience it would be 'this student' (no names given but everyone has the list so can check) is failing by 1% blah blah medical cert blah blah. 'This Student's' entire record is examined - any extensions, attendance, over all marks etc, before a vote is taken by show of hands.

All of your course work would also be given to the extern examiner who has the final say.
If you had to repeat then that is what the Extern decided based on your own academic record.

But sure, you go ahead and blame feminism, and extrapolate from your (imo only one side of the) story that preferential treatment for women is rampant across the entire 3rd level.

As for your other story- if a class rep had all the names of students plus their student numbers there are massive GDPR issues there that frankly do not add credence to your story.

With all due respect, you really don't know what you're talking about and you are blinkered if you think that discrimination is not wide spread across our universities. Correcting a few thousand scripts doesn't make you an expert, or at all knowledgeable on the subject. I have my personal experience and seen this first hand from more than one lecturer and I witnessed it in a staff meeting when all these benefits were afforded to one gender.

Failure by 1% is typically seen as something you don't do. My OH is a teacher and was appalled by it. Most lecturers and examiners would find the extra percent or two somewhere, but the particular lecturer was regarded by staff and students as a "insert bad word here". The fact was I failed at 3% on her module which was enough for her to get away with not passing me by 3% and the 2% addition was a slap in the face for pointing out her lies and bias. The fact was she refused to share critical information from the class I had missed. And as she had tenure and a horrible temperament, nobody was willing to take her on. The best they could do was move her to a different department and change her timetable so she had less opportunity to inflict students with her presence.

If you think it's not advantageous for women to be offered segregated access to meetings and talks with professionals in the industry and you concurrently think this is fair, then we have a differing view on what equality means.

On GDPR...I have to laugh out loud there. Let's just say that student numbers and names were not hard to put together and often test results were published to the class with a student number attached. If you wanted to know who failed, or who did the best...the student number was all you needed.

I think what you are missing is the difference between what should happen and what does happen. While you may well be an outstanding and fair person when it comes to your job....many don't have those blessings.

Sarcozies

More women succeeding in second level/third level education? Nothing to see here.

More men succeeding in politics/business? There is a systemic wide bias that needs to be addressed.

Tell me how

Sarcozies wrote: »

More women succeeding in second level/third level education? Nothing to see here.

More men succeeding in politics/business? There is a systemic wide bias that needs to be addressed.

Conflate and misrepresent the issue in order to undermine any suggestion of advocacy for women? Business as normal.

...Ghost...

Tell me how wrote: »

Conflate and misrepresent the issue in order to undermine any suggestion of advocacy for women? Business as normal.

Ignore and disregard anything which threatens bias in favour of women. Keep walking

Bannasidhe

...Ghost... wrote: »

With all due respect, you really don't know what you're talking about and you are blinkered if you think that discrimination is not wide spread across our universities. Correcting a few thousand scripts doesn't make you an expert, or at all knowledgeable on the subject. I have my personal experience and seen this first hand from more than one lecturer and I witnessed it in a staff meeting when all these benefits were afforded to one gender.

Failure by 1% is typically seen as something you don't do. My OH is a teacher and was appalled by it. Most lecturers and examiners would find the extra percent or two somewhere, but the particular lecturer was regarded by staff and students as a "insert bad word here". The fact was I failed at 3% on her module which was enough for her to get away with not passing me by 3% and the 2% addition was a slap in the face for pointing out her lies and bias. The fact was she refused to share critical information from the class I had missed. And as she had tenure and a horrible temperament, nobody was willing to take her on. The best they could do was move her to a different department and change her timetable so she had less opportunity to inflict students with her presence.

If you think it's not advantageous for women to be offered segregated access to meetings and talks with professionals in the industry and you concurrently think this is fair, then we have a differing view on what equality means.

On GDPR...I have to laugh out loud there. Let's just say that student numbers and names were not hard to put together and often test results were published to the class with a student number attached. If you wanted to know who failed, or who did the best...the student number was all you needed.

I think what you are missing is the difference between what should happen and what does happen. While you may well be an outstanding and fair person when it comes to your job....many don't have those blessings.

Lookit - you made a claim about a sector I worked in for many many years so it pinged my interest.

That claim doesn't hold up to scrutiny because:

a) it's based on one personal anecdote from someone angry that they failed, who feels they were disadvantaged due to their gender but hasn't really provided any solid evidence

b) the additional proof supplied turns out to be a well dodgy infringement of data collection and storage by a student rep .

c) It doesn't take into account that universities do not actually want to fail anyone as it's bad business so they walk a tight rope between passing as many as possible while still trying to maintain standards. In this situation anyone who is failing by 1% is extremely likely to have that extra mark found somewhere in their coursework to justify the pass. Regardless of their gender.

Sarcozies

Tell me how wrote: »

Conflate and misrepresent the issue in order to undermine any suggestion of advocacy for women? Business as normal.

Tell me how, tell me how I did that?

Tell me how

...Ghost... wrote: »

Ignore and disregard anything which threatens bias in favour of women. Keep walking

All we've seen here with respect to this and education is your anecdotal story which you are demanding is taken as fact over someone elses anecdotal story.

Tell me how

Sarcozies wrote: »

Tell me how, tell me how I did that?

There's more people on this thread than just you.

Sarcozies

Tell me how wrote: »

There's more people on this thread than just you.

Buy you quoted me and said it?

Tell me how

Sarcozies wrote: »

Buy you quoted me and said it?

You commented without referencing a specific quote, indicating you were making a general comment on the views on the thread.

I quoted your comment to in effect respond to that, but posted in the same tone and context by which you had posted.

Understand now?

Sarcozies

Tell me how wrote: »

You commented without referencing a specific quote, indicating you were making a general comment on the views on the thread.

I quoted your comment to in effect respond to that, but posted in the same tone and context by which you had posted.

Understand now?

I honestly don't. Could you explain it better?

Tell me how

Sarcozies wrote: »

I honestly don't. Could you explain it better?

No.

Bannasidhe

Bannasidhe wrote: »

It is the standard checks and balances used by all Irish and U.K. universities to try and ensure the standards are the same across the sector. It's not a perfect system by any means but it does mean a student's results are not decided by one person who may like/dislike them.

While I have agreed with everything else you've written, I can't with this. Depending on the course, and the administration of the individual institution, lecturers can have great influence over the results of students, which come outside of the actual formal examinations themselves. Coursework, presentations, projects, etc all tend to be marked by the lecturer, and the administration will generally trust that the lecturer is not showing any bias. Depending on the major, projects and presentations can represent a significant part of the overall results.. in addition, when it comes to references needed to employment after, lecturers "can" have huge influence, if they have a reputation of their own. Their recommendations often carry a great deal of weight, especially, if it's a niche qualification.


I did a Bachelor in Psychology as a mature student.. and there were a variety of female lecturers with strong views regarding feminist ideology and the place that psychology had in supporting feminism. They were.. resistant to viewpoints and statistics/research which ran counter to their own biases.. and since they were professors, they believed that their views were superior to everyone else. Those who refused to play ball, did get lower marks that others who did comply. I complied after a while, because there was no value in resisting their viewpoints, irrespective of the other research papers that would have run counter to their views. TBH, It's one of the reasons I'm so skeptical about psychology as a science, since there are so many biases contained within it.

In any case, that is the effect of feminism, and it can be connected to the surge of women who entered Psychology after the main successes of the Radical feminist theorists in the US, in the late 80s/90s. The area of psychology did a U-turn on numbers of female vs male practitioners, and more importantly, the numbers of women engaged in research, which tended to focus on gender constructs, and other connected topics.

None of this has anything to do with feminism.

At this stage, feminism is intertwined in society, and education. Plenty of people have been exposed to both moderate and radical feminism in education, and work spaces.

While I agree that the other posters account seems unlikely, I do know other people who have run afoul of lecturers who had strong feminist or "woke" sentiments, resulting in lower grades for projects. I know these people, they'd be workaholics, and high achievers... and I doubt they'd score so low on projects unless there were other factors unrelated to actual work involved.

...Ghost...

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Lookit - you made a claim about a sector I worked in for many many years so it pinged my interest.

That claim doesn't hold up to scrutiny because:

a) it's based on one personal anecdote from someone angry that they failed, who feels they were disadvantaged due to their gender but hasn't really provided any solid evidence

b) the additional proof supplied turns out to be a well dodgy infringement of data collection and storage by a student rep .

c) It doesn't take into account that universities do not actually want to fail anyone as it's bad business so they walk a tight rope between passing as many as possible while still trying to maintain standards. In this situation anyone who is failing by 1% is extremely likely to have that extra mark found somewhere in their coursework to justify the pass. Regardless of their gender.

a) I was disappointed failing that exam. I was angry at the lecturer for being a kniving and vindictive can of sh1te. But sure, there is no such thing as a teacher/lecturer who behaves unprofessionally when shown to be a liar. My bad there.

b) The "infringement" of data is the least of the problems.

c) I get that universities don't want to fail students and I had very positive experiences with most lecturers who would bend over backwards to help you out. However, in the experience I am quoting, the lecturer was unprofessional, bias and vindictive. She treated the male students with malice and the females as if they walked on water. She never officially applied the extra 2%, so the official failure mark was by 3% and nothing could be done because apparently lecturers are not required to share critical class material to a student even when there is a medical reason. I wasn't the only one in this boat, but I am the only one who had a medical reason.

Tell me how wrote: »

All we've seen here with respect to this and education is your anecdotal story which you are demanding is taken as fact over someone elses anecdotal story.

Do show me where such a demand was made. Believe my anectdotal story or don't, it's your choice. I know it happened, but short of providing recordings (which I don't have) and sharing emails (which I still have), there is no proving anything.

Tell me how

Deleted User wrote: »

While I agree that the other posters account seems unlikely, I do know other people who have run afoul of lecturers who had strong feminist or "woke" sentiments, resulting in lower grades for projects. I know these people, they'd be workaholics, and high achievers... and I doubt they'd score so low on projects unless there were other factors unrelated to actual work involved.

In what context do you know of these examples?
Were you in the class? Working with the people? Were they friends of yours?

I've several years experience in being a student in 3rd level education on engineering courses in which there were also female students and have zero examples of any conversation around preferential or detrimental grading because of gender. Not a small number, or 'in some cases' but zero.

This education experience included female/male students and lecturers across a number of different institutions so I am surprised I heard nothing to this effect. Am sure there are isolated cases, but to suggest you guys have frequent experience of it, and I don't, I find curious.

the_pen_turner

The problem is that most subjects outside of the stem subjects are basically just opinion based. Stem is great, your right or wrong it's easy prove. All the rest are very dependant on the bias of the teacher and those correcting. Most people here can relate to just telling the teacher what they want to hear in your work.

Tell me how

Tell me how wrote: »

In what context do you know of these examples?

The context being adult friends who I'd previously worked with, telling their own negative experiences.

Were you in the class? Working with the people? Were they friends of yours?

What's with you and interrogations? Have you forgotten how to have a reasonably nice discussion with someone?

I've several years experience in being a student in 3rd level education on engineering courses in which there were also female students and have zero examples of any conversation around preferential or detrimental grading because of gender. Not a small number, or 'in some cases' but zero.

I have roughly a decade in third level as a student, and as a lecturer (not all at the same time, but it works out a decade for both roles)

Great. My area of focus has always been finance, and the "soft" skill areas, such as psychology, and marketing as relating to behavior. As such, the lecturers tend to be qualified in areas such as psychology, behavioral science, sociology, etc. All of which, have previously attracted a fair bit of attention from those interested in either feminism, or woke ideals.

Oh.. And you might want to reconsider what I wrote about. I didn't support that other posters claims. I pointed out what can happen when you resist a lecturers viewpoints. Nothing about giving preferential treatment to women.

This education experience included female/male students and lecturers across a number of different institutions so I am surprised I heard nothing to this effect. Am sure there are isolated cases, but to suggest you guys have frequent experience of it, and I don't, I find curious.

So, we're going back to framing the discussion by introducing things that weren't said? Yeah. No.

Tell me how

Deleted User wrote: »

What's with you and interrogations? Have you forgotten how to have a reasonably nice discussion with someone?

.....


So, we're going back to framing the discussion by introducing things that weren't said? Yeah. No.

Over the weekend, we had people repeatedly asking for examples of cases of discrimination experienced by women. I gave some examples and they were first ignored, and then dismissed. Here I am asking questions and am being accused of interrogating. I thought asking questions was a central part of discussions, or, if not, is it just posting something like on Facebook?

As for the final point; So you don't have frequent experience discrimination occurring which favoured females is that it?

Tell me how

Tell me how wrote: »

Over the weekend, we had people repeatedly asking for examples of cases of discrimination experienced by women. I gave some examples and they were first ignored, and then dismissed. Here I am asking questions and am being accused of interrogating. I thought asking questions was a central part of discussions, or, if not, is it just posting something like on Facebook?

Well, I remember asking what these examples were, and being told by you that you'd already provided them, and when I asked twice for the post#, I was soundly ignored.

As for the final point; So you don't have frequent experience discrimination occurring which favoured females is that it?

Nope. I don't. Never said I did.

CtevenSrowder

Tell me how wrote: »

All we've seen here with respect to this and education is your anecdotal story which you are demanding is taken as fact over someone elses anecdotal story.

You mean like your anecdotal stories referencing your sisters?

Tell me how

Deleted User wrote: »

Well, I remember asking what these examples were, and being told by you that you'd already provided them, and when I asked twice for the post#, I was soundly ignored.

I'm sure you saw other people respond to them and comment on them and so know that they were provided so.

Deleted User wrote: »

Nope. I don't. Never said I did.

Thanks for clarifying.

Tell me how

CtevenSrowder wrote: »

You mean like your anecdotal stories referencing your sisters?

You will probably see that when I introduced those stories first, I specifically commented that I was doing so in response to someone else who had commented anecdotally on their sisters experience.

It was done within a specific context by which to point out that just because they felt that things were better for their sister than they had been for their mother did not mean that there was no longer any room for any progress in terms of how women experience the workplace.

CtevenSrowder

Tell me how wrote: »

In what context do you know of these examples?
Were you in the class? Working with the people? Were they friends of yours?

I've several years experience in being a student in 3rd level education on engineering courses in which there were also female students and have zero examples of any conversation around preferential or detrimental grading because of gender. Not a small number, or 'in some cases' but zero.

This education experience included female/male students and lecturers across a number of different institutions so I am surprised I heard nothing to this effect. Am sure there are isolated cases, but to suggest you guys have frequent experience of it, and I don't, I find curious.

Likewise I neither have such experience, but you are engineering and I likewise STEM. Maybe it is more prevalent in the 'soft'-sciences, were ideology can play a more prominent role.

Tell me how

CtevenSrowder wrote: »

Likewise I neither have such experience, but you are engineering and I likewise STEM. Maybe it is more prevalent in the 'soft'-sciences, were ideology can play a more prominent role.

Maybe, as you say, I don't have experience in that field. But by the same token could you then understand how gender 'norms' might exist within the minds of people in STEM and as a consequence be something which can create a barrier for women in that field?

CtevenSrowder

Tell me how wrote: »

Maybe, as you say, I don't have experience in that field. But by the same token could you then understand how gender 'norms' might exist within the minds of people in STEM and as a consequence be something which can create a barrier for women in that field?

It is ofcourse possible, but not very probable, that it exists to the extent that there will be barriers for women in general. There is demonstrable evidence of bias's that exist in the social sciences on a large scale.

I believe it's also been shown that in countries were women are less 'free', they are more likely to do STEM subjects then women in the West who have more choices.

Tell me how

Tell me how wrote: »

I'm sure you saw other people respond to them and comment on them and so know that they were provided so.
.

Nope. Otherwise I wouldn't have asked for the reference, and thereafter, you kept saying that you'd already provided them, when others raised the same query.

Tell me how

CtevenSrowder wrote: »

It is ofcourse possible, but not very probable, that it exists to the extent that there will be barriers for women in general. There is demonstrable evidence of bias's that exist in the social sciences on a large scale.

I believe it's also been shown that in countries were women are less 'free', they are more likely to do STEM subjects then women in the West who have more choices.

So, which do you think is more likely, or are they each as likely to exist as the other.

A: That bias's within STEM fields exist and negatively impact on womens opportunities and experiences within those fields.
B: That bias's within social sciences exist and negatively impact on mens opportunities and experiences within those fields.

I would expect that in countries where women are 'less free' that they are more likely to select traditional male fields as much to prove their capability as anything else. Or that outside of education, the opportunities for employment in social science type industries do not exist than they do such as in the West.

Bannasidhe

Deleted User wrote: »

While I have agreed with everything else you've written, I can't with this. Depending on the course, and the administration of the individual institution, lecturers can have great influence over the results of students, which come outside of the actual formal examinations themselves. Coursework, presentations, projects, etc all tend to be marked by the lecturer, and the administration will generally trust that the lecturer is not showing any bias. Depending on the major, projects and presentations can represent a significant part of the overall results.. in addition, when it comes to references needed to employment after, lecturers "can" have huge influence, if they have a reputation of their own. Their recommendations often carry a great deal of weight, especially, if it's a niche qualification.

I would have agreed with you absolutely if I hadn't done stints as both an internal and an external examiner.
As an intern, in cold war like secrecy in a locked room where lunch was literally brought into us, I was given the scripts corrected by 3 unidentified colleagues to check. They did not know I was the intern, and I did not know which colleague was responsible for which - it was all anonymised. Fairly quickly it became evident that there were some 'dodgy' marks, students getting far lower marks than the work deserved. After a few of these I was obliged to call it to the attention of the senior supervisor, I made notes for the extern and every single mark given by the person (whose identity I still do not know) was checked across all courses and years.
As an extern, in addition to checked anything flagged, I was obliged to check all the coursework of anyone on the cusp of a failure/a first. The task was to see if it was possible to bump them. Sometimes it was, sometimes it just wasn't. This is why the failed by 1% due to one lecturer claim I find hard to believe, it just seems to me there is more to the story.

Anyhoo - all off topic, I only engaged as a poster claimed a bias towards female students across the entire university sector and I was interested in his evidence for such a claim.
His evidence, such as it was, did not support his contention.

This is not to say he didn't, personally, get an absolute dragon. Or that all lecturers are wonderful (there certainly are many who shouldn't be allowed any where near students), or that people don't play favourites, or that the system is perfect. It isn't. In parts it's awful.
There's a reason I no longer work in it and I miss teaching but not the rest of it. Couldn't pay me enough to want to do the rest of it.

But widespread bumping up of women's marks/endless extensions due to feminism? Nope.

Psychology... don't get me started, with the exception of geology anything with an 'olgy' starts me twitching as I have an allergy to rampant theorising and I know lots of feminist ologists. :P