… goes, this afternoon, with her official photographer, Tammy Trocki, to a Women of the Wall protest at the Israeli Embassy.
UD‘s reminded of her milkfed suburban weeniness by a consideration of Anat Hoffman, the allballs leader of this group.
UD, world’s worst Jew, will feel mighty strange in a prayer shawl this afternoon, rocking Passover songs with people who actually have religious convictions. She will atone for this spectacular hypocrisy by blogging about the event.
Making women sit in the back of public lectures and telling them to shut up… It’s become this adorable British university custom, right up there with punting on the Thames and afternoon tea at the cricket ground.
This post’s headline describes a 2009 event at City University London; University College London’s recent eagerness to share in the tradition has caused a bit of static, but UD is sure the university will work it out. The university surely doesn’t want a repeat of the unseemly events of March 9, when invited speaker Lawrence Krauss found people refusing segregation getting thrown out of the room altogether (they don’t yet understand the tradition – these things take time) upsetting (Krauss too needs time).
[He] said he would not speak at an event that was segregated and walked out to cheers and boos from the audience. An organiser pursued him and said segregation would be abandoned.
And they did abandon it! They suddenly let people sit where they wanted to.
When people cave that easily – some American atheist waltzes in and gets pissed off, and the organizers act, well, like a bunch of women – they make it harder for everyone else to make the case that stashing females in the backs of rooms and making them shut their faces is an affirmation of their dignity.
Either you hold your ground, or you make the world safer for infidels like Richard Dawkins.
“University College London is celebrated as an early haven of enlightened free thinking, the first university college in England to have a secular foundation, and the first to admit men and women on equal terms. Heads should roll,” [Dawkins] wrote on his website.
They won’t roll. UD is sure, given what’s going on at other British universities, that this one will find ways to sustain gender apartheid on its grounds.
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UD thanks Howell.
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Update: A letter an attendee wrote to the university:
I am writing to inform you that I was shocked about the manner in which the event was carried out yesterday.
1) The organisers clearly and repeatedly violated UCL’s Equality and Diversity policy. Not only did they enforce gender segregation, but five security guards of the organiser intimidated and attempted to physically remove audience members who refused to comply, falsely claiming that these attendees had been disruptive. Both male and female audience members felt intimidated by the actions of the organiser’s security guards.
Only after Professor Krauss threatened trice to leave the debate if the organisers should continue to enforce gender segregation (follow this link), the organisers cleared one row of the women’s area and allowed the male attendees to sit there, thereby maintaining forced gender segregation. Notably, the women who were sitting in that row were not asked by the security guards whether they would feel comfortable with a man sitting next to them, or whether they would be willing to move. Forced gender segregation was thus maintained.
2) Separate entrances were in place for women and men, although ‘couples’ were allowed to enter via the men’s door. Several members of the organiser’s security team directed people to stand in either the male or female queue based on their sex, both at the entrance to the building and the lecture theatre. Signs pointing to “men” and “women” areas were in place. There were no signs for a mixed seating area, and attendees were guided by the guards to either the “female” or “male” area. Only attendees who insisted not to be separated were guided towards a “mixed” area, which only comprised two rows.
A woman who identified herself as a Chemistry teacher at UCL said the segregation had been agreed with UCL. She also stated, that “I’m actually booking this room on behalf of UCL Chemistry, I’m Dr Aisha Rahman”. Dr Rahman repeatedly refused two male attendees access to the “women’s” seating area. When asked if the event was segregated another security guard said: “It’s slightly segregated.”
4) There were only two UCL security guards on site and they at first declined to help two audience members who were being denied access to the “women’s” seating area. They said that the only instructions they had received were to follow the instructions of the organisers. They specifically told the attendees who wanted to sit in the woman’s area to comply with the instructions of the organiser. Only after pointing the UCL security guards to that fact that they might be complicit in a breach of UCL’s Equality and Diversity policy, they reluctantly agreed to “look into the issue”.
I cannot tell you how disappointed I and many other attendees are that UCL did not live up to its promise to make sure that its Equality and Diversity policy was enforced and that the event was inclusive for all attendees.
Overall, the atmosphere of the event was intimidating for both male and female attendees. Attendees were shocked to see that although concerns about the plans to enforce gender segregation had been raised before with UCL, the organisers were able to violate UCL’s Equality and Diversity policy, discriminating attendees by their apparent gender and creating a threatening and divisive atmosphere that was not inclusive to all attendees.
I would urge to look into the matter and come back to me as soon as possible.
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Another attendee. I was wrong, up there, about organizers desegregating the event.
Christopher Roche said: “It was clear that the segregation was still in effect [after organizers said they would stop segregating] as when I sat in the same aisle as female attendees I was immediately instructed by security to exit the theatre. I was taken to a small room with IERA security staff and an organiser named Mohammad who told me that the policy was actually given to IERA by UCL.
“Shocked, I said that I would like to return to my seat but was told that security would now remove me from the premises for refusing to comply with the gender segregation.”
The organisers’ security staff then tried to physically remove Mr Roche and Adam Barnett, a journalism student and friend of Mr Roche, from the theatre.
Professor Krauss intervened and threatened to leave to stop the removal of the two audience members. The organisers then prepared a row near the women’s section at the back of the room where the two men sat quietly for the event. Professor Kraus said he had been told in advance that there would be no segregation, and that people could sit wherever they wanted.
Adam Barnett said: “What happened on Saturday is a scandal. UCL and the organisers owe an apology to me, my friend, the audience and the general public. For a London University to allow forced segregation by sex in 2013 is disgraceful.
“The organisers should also apologise for their appalling behaviour if they want to hold any more events on campuses in the future.”
… Yeshiva University, an institution whose misdeeds – financial, moral, sexual – do much to keep blogs like this one in business.
UD well remembers her early aesthetic encounters with the vagina. There was, naturellement, Courbet’s L’Origine du monde; there was Humbert Humbert’s description of the heavy lifting involved in doing Charlotte (“I bayed through the undergrowth of dark decaying forests.”); there was Henry Miller’s hymn to a whore (“All the men she’s been with, and now you, just you, and the barges going by, masts and hulls, the whole damned current of life flowing through you, through her, through all the guys behind you and after you…”)…
The language of the University of Cincinnati student group currently displaying vagina photographs on campus (students modeled for them) is much less pretty (“Our demonstration serves to call attention to the vagina as a site of conflict in medical, legislative, domestic, and representational arenas.”), but then this is about politics, not art. In response to an anti-abortion group that’s been on campus displaying lurid photos of fetuses, this group intends to reclaim some symbolic territory from them.
Yes, things are muddled here – vagina, womb, fetus – but I think that’s okay. If you’re going to go there (see Governor Vaginal Probe) others will too.
… so female embryos do not sexually arouse ultrasound technicians.
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Story has jumped to the UPI.
Haredi parties Shas and the United Torah Judaism have responded to a request to bar them from the elections on the basis of excluding women from their party ticket: “The parties function, as demanded by the halacha (Jewish law), with clear segregation between men and women for reasons of modesty. Men have one role and women another role. This segregation does not exclude women, nor discriminate against them nor deem them less worthy than men.”
Good news from Belgium, whose constitutional court has upheld the constitutionality of that country’s burqa ban. There are of course questions of public safety, the court noted. Beyond that, in democratic societies we need to be able to see one another.
I hope they have good security. We’ll see whether Tunisia’s government will even let them hold this conference.
Romney’s eyes look a little red. Tired? Anxious? Good line from Romney: “We can’t kill our way out of this mess.” (Talking about instability in the Middle East.)
Actually, Obama’s eyes look red too. Maybe it’s the cameras.
Too bad they’re sitting down this time. I think striding around was good for both men. Seemed to wake up Obama.
Obama gets in the first hit: Romney’s strategy in regard to the region “has been all over the place.”
Romney gesticulates more than Obama, which I find sort of surprising.
Another hit from Obama: Romney called Russia – not the Middle East – our biggest foreign policy challenge. “Every time you’ve offered an opinion about the region, you’ve been wrong.”
Romney comes back strong, correcting Obama on Russia. Yes, he called it a geopolitical problem, but “in the same paragraph” he identified Iran as our biggest national security threat.
The guys are mixing it up now, talking over each other. Obama is rather condescendingly lecturing Romney.
“Syria is Iran’s route to the sea,” says Romney, which neglects, Mr UD points out, Iran’s long coastline.
Romney’s long-suffering smile is a little odd after awhile.
Obama, in talking about Egypt, makes an elegant reference to JFK (the moderator began by noting that today is the fiftieth anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis.)
Romney’s effort to characterize our weak economy as a threat to our power and influence abroad is rather unconvincing.
“America is stronger now than when I came into office.” Obama answers strongly. “Our alliances have never been stronger.”
What happened to foreign policy? They’ve wandered totally into domestic policy. Bob Schieffer is being a wimp. Get Candy Crowley in there!
Romney says the navy has fewer ships than it did in 1917. “Governor, we also have fewer bayonets and horses. Things have changed. There are now, for instance, submarines; boats that go under the water.” Ouch. Fantastic comeback from Obama. On Romney’s budget: “We’ve visited your website quite a bit. The numbers still don’t work.” Getting laughs from the audience. Strong stuff from Obama.
Both men have beautiful speaking voices (Obama also sings well, while Romney’s singing voice is painful). Mellifluous is the word that comes to mind.
I’d say that generally Obama seems nimbler, more energetic. Romney feels a little flat-footed, reciting policy paragraphs but not punching well. I’d even suggest that Romney’s age relative to Obama’s is showing a bit.
The seated arrangement is hurting Romney. Obama is now going down a long list of examples of Romney being “all over the place” on foreign policy, versus Obama’s “clarity of foreign policy.” If they were standing, Romney would be striding about; here, he’s forced to sit there and take it.
“When Tunisians began to protest, this nation moved to support them before anyone else.” Good answer from Obama in defense of our response to the Arab Spring.
Obama has also told, throughout the debate, lots of human interest stories (Romney has told none).
Romney’s good on the trade imbalance with China. In fact, he’s now telling his first story: His encounter with counterfeit valves.
They’re both keeping their tempers. “People can look it up,” says Romney calmly, on the matter of exactly what he said about Detroit and bankruptcy.
Another anecdote from Romney. Good. On the other hand, his repeated statement – “I love teachers.” – comes across as empty, and in fact Schieffer just made fun of it.
Closing statements now.
Instant responses here, with our friends:
Obama won the debate.
I don’t know. They agreed about so much.
UD‘s blogpal Allen Frances is currently down the street from her house, at the National Institutes of Health, where UD‘s father spent his whole career as an immunologist. Frances is lecturing to a group of journalists about what he calls diagnostic inflation, or the tendency of the culture, led by profit-seeking pharmaceutical companies, and abetted by the authors of the paradigmatic postmodern work of our time, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Illnesses, to designate everyone, from as young an age as possible, mentally ill.
It hasn’t happened yet in this election cycle, but UD anticipates American presidential and vice-presidential debates revolving mainly around a clash of diagnostic claims. You can see how easily it could have been done in this latest round, with Biden’s inappropriate affect, Ryan’s compulsive swallowing, Obama’s first-debate narcolepsy, and (most troubling) Romney’s disclosure at the Al Smith dinner that he hasn’t had an alcoholic drink in sixty-five years. All of these people are mentally ill, and all of the people who will run for these offices in the future are mentally ill. Americans will have a choice between borderline psychotic and psychotic.
It’s a choice.
… already know about Tunisia’s Manouba University (scroll down), a school under siege by Salafists. Now the readers of the Washington Post know about Manouba too.
… “Afghan human rights activist, ex-minister and burka opponent Sima Samar is …seen as a possible winner” of this year’s Nobel Peace prize. This would be spectacular publicity for the effort to get women and children out from under this grotesque garment.
Plus of course UD‘s beloved Don DeLillo is again being shortlisted for the literature prize. He and Philip Roth always show up together on this list.
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I thought of DeLillo’s novel Mao II tonight while reading again – for the first time in forty or so years – Catcher in the Rye. Almost at the end of that novel, Holden Caulfield has a heart-to-heart with one of his teachers, the very smart, alcoholic, Mr Antolini. Antolini recognizes Caulfield’s intelligence, sensitivity, moral rigidity, and self-destructiveness. He understands how the trauma of Holden’s beloved brother’s death has set on him on a nihilistic, existence-loathing path. He also sees how this rage, combined with Caulfield’s restless intellect, could make him some sort of dangerous fanatic. Here’s one of the things he says to Holden:
“Something else an academic education will do for you. If you go along with it any considerable distance, it’ll begin to give you an idea what size mind you have. What it’ll fit and, maybe, what it won’t. After a while, you’ll have an idea what kind of thoughts your particular size mind should be wearing. For one thing, it may save you an extraordinary amount of time trying on ideas that don’t suit you, aren’t becoming to you. You’ll begin to know your true measurements and dress your mind accordingly.”
This know-yourself haberdashery put me in mind of a very similar piece of advice DeLillo’s hero, the totally Salingeresque writer Bill Gray, recalls having read and heard growing up:
He remembered the important things, how his father wore a hat called the Ritz, gray with a black band, a raw edge and a snap brim, and someone was always saying “Measure your head before ordering” which was a line in the Sears Roebuck catalogue…”
As he’s dying, Bill repeats this phrase to himself.
Know your true measurements and dress your mind accordingly. Measure your head before ordering.