Education Today

(cross posted on my other blog, Mad Girl in the Attic)

Lately on YouTube a video by Dan Brown has sparked a lot of discussion. His video An Open Letter to Educators can be seen here. Also one of my favourite responses can be seen here.

Now this video and subsequent responses have got me thinking about a lot of things about the Academy today. To me the Academy should be focusing on teaching critical thought, constantly questioning norm, pushing boundaries to create new knowlege, not just consuming pre-made knowledge wholesale.

I feel like, especially at my own university, that the focus of the upper admin is to make as much money as they can. They no longer care about the quality of scholar they turn out, they care only about the bottom line. This means cutting jobs, having less tenured professors, having larger classes and tutorials, all in search of the almighty dollar.

This is especially apparent within the Humanities. Programs are being cut left right and centre. It is hard enough to get into classes that are needed and once you are in them they are often too large to be run effectively.

It has also extended into the library system. There is a large push for e-material over paper material. Jobs are being cut and retirement packages offered over and over again. More space is being allocated as “study areas” and less and less space is being allocated for books.

The worst part about the whole thing? Is that the university isn’t allowing the students to know what is on the agenda. They only release information to the student body once the mechanism has been set in motion and cannot be stopped.

With this in mind I have an urgent announcement for all McMaster Students. It has been recommended that Innis Library be closed.

This would mean that all of the Innis collection would be moved to Mills and there would be even fewer service points for all students. Business students would have to go to second floor Mills for research help from librarians who may or may not have experience in the area of business research. This would mean that the Research Help at Mills would be used by at least 3 extremely diverse faculties.

Even more people would be going to Mills for reserve material. This would lead to longer lines and less time for the student assistants to help each patron.

As both a student and employee of McMaster University I find it disheartening that all that really seems to matter to the upper admin is the bottom line. I feel as though they forget that without students, without employees, there would be no University, just empty buildings.

The bottom line isn’t the be all and end all Mr George and associates. Nor is the quantity of students who can be pushed through the system on a diet of memorized facts.

The quality of education is what matters. And your budget cuts will only hinder our growth as learners in the future.

Males are the disappearing “gender”?

So I got up today and went to check my email. When I did so I saw this:

I thought that this article would be very interesting. My answer to the question “Men or Women?” was automatically women. I thought it might be talking about abortion of female babies, feminicide in export processing zones like those in Northern Mexico, or maybe even violence against women in general.

I was wrong. When I clicked the link up came a video from Fox News discussing how males are the disappearing “gender”.

I put gender in quotes because sex and gender are different things. The easiest way to describe the difference is that sex is between the legs and gender is between the ears.

The titles at the bottom said things like:

Common Chemicals Feminizing Entire Male Gender

Study: Male Humans and Animals Vanishing due to chemical exposure

Then there was a selection of pictures entitled: Male Gender in Danger?

Not sure If you can see it but yes all of them are 'wearing' lipstick

As pointed out all of the pictures are wearing lipstick. Because what is the first thing feminized males do run to the local Shoppers Drugmart and purchase lipstick, especially when they are ferocious wild animals prior to said feminization.

At one point you can hear the other news anchors in the room laughing. The woman who is reporting this tells them that it isn’t funny. The laughing man say “No it’s not funny and you’re a woman. For the men in the room it’s really not funny.” As in “How could you possibly understand? You’re just a woman”.

The study in question found male deer with deformed sex organs, alligators with low testosterone and hermaphrodite polar bears.

But the biggest question was not about what we could do to reduce chemical usage for the good of the environment? This question is asked at the end but not for the good of the environment but to stave off the long term effects on males.

The biggest question was

Drumroll please………

Should men be worried?

The answer:

Male reproduction is very resilient.

Thank you once again for reminding us of that.

Norway Named Best Country for Women

So I was going to post this a while ago but have been overloaded with school. So I’m doing it now.

Forbes.com recently put out their evaluation of countries and their policies for women. 

The Global Gender Gap Report measures the size of the gender gap—the disparity in opportunities available for men and women—for 130 countries in four critical areas: economic participation and opportunity, health and survival, educational attainment, and political empowerment. A country’s rank is based on the overall score, which is expressed in a percent. The score represents how much of the gender gap the country has been able to close. A score of 100 per cent would represent perfect equality. The majority of the data come from various non-government organizations, such as the International Labor Organization, United Nations Development Program and the World Health Organization. – From Yahoo!

Norway was ranked number one for women with a score of 82%.  Finland, Sweden, Iceland and New Zealand ranked 2nd through 5th.

Where is Canada? you may ask. Surely we ranked in the top 25? No. The top 30? No. We earned 31st place. Disgraceful. We got 71%. We even ranked behind the United States who came in 27th.

Our ranking was hurt by poor educational attainment and by low political empowerment. I mean look at our House of Commons right now. Not many female faces there.  

And the Ivory Tower? Still mostly an Old Boys Club.

Education here actually widens the pay gap between women and men. Women with post secondary education earned 75% of what their male peers did. By 2005 it had dropped to 68%. (From the Canadian Labour Congress)

And yet we stand by and watch as the government takes away funding, as it seeks to oppress us. Something must be done. Something can be done. We must make our voices heard from the streets of small towns to the offices of the Prime Minister. We are citizens. Laws need teeth. We should no longer fear demanding our rights from employers. We should have protection, not even special protection, just the protection provided to every citizen by our government.

Stand up. Make yourself be heard. You are not alone.

This Just In: Women’s Bodies Are Still Their Most Economically Valued Asset

So I was checking my mail on Yahoo like I normally do the other day and I was intrigued by a video titled “Desperate Women Turn to the World’s Oldest Profession During Economic Downturn”. Unfortunately I can’t embed this video so you’ll have to click on the link.

Basically this video looks at the trend of women applying to brothels because of the economic downturn. I find that this is extremely disturbing. Mostly because these women are being forced, they say “choose”, but with only one viable option there isn’t much choice involved. This is rape for money.

This video really makes me mad because it only focuses on a legal brothel. It disregards the fact that there are many much dirtier scarier brothels in the world, without doctors and condoms.

It also focuses on the economic aspect of prostitution. That the Johns are not able to pay the women as much. Thus the women make less money.

This disregards the emotional damage that can be caused. It also disregards the possible violence these women face on the streets.

This disheartens me. I cannot believe that the only work that women can do and be pay very well is prostitution. In any other profession women make 30% less than men.

I can’t believe that a news program would broadcast this so non-chalently. It is almost as if they are closing their eyes to the fact that this is no more than paid for rape

Rape is Disease … Just Covering Your Ears Won’t Make It Go Away

I was dismayed today when I read yet another article about rape. I guess its good that it is being talked about within the media. Sort of. Kind of. Not really at all… except for the most sensational stories.

This article in particular detailed how a teen girl was allegedly raped and forced to work by her aunt. She was under ”Cinderella-type conditions” … not exactly the usual conditions of rape.

More disheartening than the sensationalism used by journalist and by Yahoo for placing the story on their homepage was the dicussion happening in the comment section of the article. There was a blatent disregard for the victim, for rape, and for feminism, even by those who claimed knowledge of the concept of rape and feminism.

The first was the accusation that the girl fabricated the rape to make her own story so sensational. I am not naive enough to believe that this never happened, nor that it will stop happening but until there is some more hard evidence accussations like that should not be thrown around. This is also the reason why I hate the word ‘allegedly’, though I do understand “innocent until proven guilty”.

Also there seems to be this idea that feminism and feminists are propegating the ‘myths’ that “there is still inequality” and that “rape is rapant”. These unfortunately are not myths. Rape is prevalent in our culture, our media, our psyche. Ordinary men *can* and *do* rape (some also are raped). Ordinary women are raped (some also commit rape). Rape is about many, many things, power, sex, and anger to name a few.

Another thing that irked me is that feminists are seen as man-hating dykes. Personally I like men, I wouldn’t sleep with one, but I generally like them. Sometimes they irk me, just like women irk me sometimes. Frankly men are also effected and hurt by social constructs, just like women, though not always to the same extent. I tend to find that the reason that people hate feminists seems to be because the change that we propose scares them. 

Rape won’t go away if you just pretend that it’s not there. And neither will we.

Remember Remember The Fifth of November

And not just because of Guy Fawkes who tried to blow up the Parliament Houses.

Also not just that we all woke up (or stayed up) to find out that the first African American president elect is Barrack Obama.

But also that while the Democrats were celebrating their push for change millions of Americans voted to amend their state constitutions to include the “Traditional Marriage”.

This is wrong.

Unlike I have seen so many people say THIS IS DISCRIMINATION.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines to discriminate against: to make an adverse distinction with regard to; to distinguish unfavourably from others.

This is what the voters in Florida, California, Arizona and Arkansas have seen fit to do. They have decided that the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness only applies to certain groups of people. Again.

It seems like we are always looking for someone to blame. Whether they are Jewish, Black, Muslim, or Homosexual they are different and hence the source of all the world’s problems.

Bigotry is Bigotry.

Or else would someone explain to me why it is not? Oh wait! I know! Black people don’t “choose” to be black but gay people “choose” to be gay.

Yeah. Right.

And another thing. Domestic Partnership is NOT the same as marriage.

What this video does not mentions is that domestic partnerships costs way more.

See a particularly moving video against Prop 8 here.

I am not saying that other forms of discrimination don’t exist or that they are less important than homophobia. Just because Obama is president doesn’t mean that racism will just disappear.

This was just what was on my mind.

Yes I am gay. I say that as proudly as ever before. I had felt as though I had been slapped in the face by millions. Now I’m going to turn the other cheek and work to accept and tolerate others. Even if they don’t accept or even tolerate me.

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

On the Eve of the Great Election

Here are a few things to ponder as we anxiously watch the election results come in.

Might help you see how race and racism are playing a part in the election…

What if John McCain were a former president of the Harvard Law Review?

What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?

What if McCain were still married to the first woman he said “I do” to?

What if Obama were the candidate who left his first wife after she no longer measured up to his standards?

What if Michelle Obama were a wife who not only became addicted to pain killers, but acquired them illegally through her charitable organization?

What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?

What if Obama were a member of the “Keating 5″?

What if McCain were  a charismatic, eloquent speaker?

What if Barack Obama had an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter……

This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in another when there is a color difference.

(Please note: I did not write these questions but got them from Feministing.com, who got it from a forwarded email)