We’ve already noted on this blog that since Australian universities stand for nothing, they have no trouble allowing gender segregated events on their campuses. MEN IN FRONT; WOMEN IN THE BACK. AND KEEP YOUR MOUTHS SHUT.
Fine, fine. Different strokes for different folks, says the University of Melbourne vice-chancellor, quite on the defensive after everyone, including the opposition leader and the Minister for the Status of Women, expressed shock at his university’s nonchalant collusion with what are arguably the most reactionary forces in the world today. After all, the university explained, this was an “external organisation.” Not my business, man!
So the v-c’s backtracking a bit, now that everyone’s squawking, and he’s pointing out some niceties in the discrimination law — without noting that the discrimination in this case is coming from that external organization about which his university cares not a whit. Without noting that universities not only have a right – they have a duty – to stand for the principles of democracy, and to bar (which, the v-c hastens to add, Melbourne will in fact start doing from now on) organizations founded on discrimination.
But tut-tut, says the v-c. All religious organizations deserve respect and consideration.
It’s anti-democratic, that is, to be intolerant of any group that calls itself religious, no matter what that group believes and does. And certainly no university has the right to “impose” what the v-c calls its “preferences” on anybody.
That’s why UD said in her last post about this that if you’re fed up with British universities and their intolerant respect for democratic principles, go to Australia.
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Jennifer Oriel gets it said.
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A professor at Melbourne who specializes in Islam sets the vice-chancellor straight.
[I]n the most sacred place on earth, the sacred mosque in Mecca, there is no separate section for men or women. Millions of Muslims visit the mosque and pray each year without the need to separate men from women.
…
Gender equality and associated values are fundamental to Australian society and those values must be respected by all, including those few Muslims who may not necessarily agree with them.
I find it very troubling that there are some who feel that they have a right to send women, whether Muslims or not, to the back of a lecture theatre as though this was the most natural place for women in such a setting.
For the men who organise public events to require women participants to go to the back of the facility is a breach of trust and a misuse of the facilities of the university.
It is also demeaning to women. I’m sure most Australian Muslims would also be deeply offended by such practices and would indeed question the connection between the practice and their understanding of Islam.
Yes, it’s grotesque that this man must clarify basic human rights and the proper use of his university to the vice-chancellor. But I’m afraid that’s where we are now. At least in Australia.
Brits are protesting gender segregated events at their universities. In response, universities which have in the past allowed it to happen are beginning to ban the groups that do it.
If efforts to maintain equality at British universities are annoying to you, be aware that Australian universities are much friendlier to the stash-the-girls-in-the-back boys.
At an April 13 lecture on Islamic Jihad in Syria, signs directed “sisters” to the back of the theatre, and “brothers” to the front.
Gender segregation was also encouraged at an information session for prospective Australian Islamic Peace Conference volunteers held by the Islamic Research and Educational Academy at the university’s Public Lecture Theatre on March 10.
The university said the events were held by external organisations and it would not intervene to prevent the practice.
Yes, in Australia, universities don’t stand for anything, so you can bring your organization and do anything you want on that nation’s campuses. As long as you’re “external.”
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Someone managed to dig up some old gender studies professor to squawk about this.
University of Melbourne gender politics professor Sheila Jeffreys said she was shocked to learn that this “form of subordinating women” was taking place on an Australian university campus.
“There needs to be great outrage about this,” Professor Jeffreys said. “It is a Rosa Parks moment . . . Making women sit at the back in lecture theatres is sexual apartheid. This is a new practice in Australia, whereas apartheid against black Americans was an old practice. But it should be challenged strongly so that it goes no further.
“Religious ideas that so blatantly make women into second-class citizens are not worthy of respect. They should not be allowed to undermine people’s justified rejection of discrimination against women.”
Who in the hell allowed that woman to speak?
… notes Huma Yusuf in the New York Times, and indeed this blog has followed with amazement the mandatory gender segregation at a number of university-sponsored events in British universities.
In February, during the annual Pakistan Future Leaders’ Conference at Oxford, which brought together student delegates from more than 40 colleges, a Pakistani friend who is on a fellowship at the university joined a panel discussion on Pakistani politics. During the debate, he was taken aback to hear some participants champion the role of religion in state affairs and call for the revival of an Islamic caliphate. “The only revolution that can work is one brought through Shariah law,” one participant said. Another speaker dismissed the Pakistani Constitution as “human law” that is irrelevant in the face of “divine law.”
It took my friend some time, and several conversations with pro-democracy students who recognized them, to understand that his fellow speakers were [radical Islamic] Hizb-ut-Tahrir activists. “Their interventions were meticulously planned and very disconcerting,” he told me. “It’s clear that they’re very committed to their cause.”
British universities are being remarkably indolent about dealing with the problem. Or maybe they don’t think it’s a problem.
Fazil Say’s the name today, the name Christopher Hitchens, if he were alive, would be invoking. A brilliant pianist who performs around the world, Say’s regular run-ins with Turkey’s increasingly ideologically rigid government have now produced a suspended ten-year sentence. Crime? Writing critically about Islam.
“We are sad for the country,” says his lawyer. Say has shut down his Twitter account. Turkey’s efforts to suppress free speech are working.
… are helping themselves to British universities. As always, eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
… is the price of freedom.
People were thrilled when University College London banned a group of bigots from the university. UD wasn’t thrilled. See above. Efforts are ongoing to make Britain’s universities safe for sex segregation and hate speech. There will be successes along with near misses and failures. This is a campaign; and there’s no reason to believe UK schools are going to be able to handle it.
Sanctimony is under threat around the globe. With Israel’s ultra-orthodox kicked out of the government, to take one current instance, Israel’s non-ultra-orthodox population suddenly has nowhere to go for its spankings.
In other places, matters are even worse: People are getting belligerently anti-sanctimonious.
A woman attending the now-notorious Islamic Awareness event at University College London (go here for details) stood up at the end to lecture guest speaker Lawrence Krauss on the glories of sex segregation (it had just been imposed in that very lecture hall).
Professor Krauss shot back that women so viscerally offended by unthreatening male company in a public space would do well to stay home and spare others their sanctimonious conservatism.
Is sanctimony being forced into the closet?
From whence cometh our shaming if our shamers are silenced?
University Diaries introduces a new series – Sanctimony Watch – which will keep an eye on growing threats to sanctimony around the world.
UD and Tammy were carrying too many things – purses, prayer shawls, coats – so when it came time to hold the program for the event, we leaned some of this stuff up against the Chinese Embassy’s fence.
A few minutes later, a nice man approached and explained that the fence was China, and China would prefer we not use its territory that way.
The rally’s location was politically sensitive – embassies everywhere. Sensitive embassies. Our group wasn’t very large (a hundred plus people), but we attracted scads of anxious men whispering into phones.
The Israeli embassy people were extremely friendly. “We wanted to invite you all into the embassy,” explained one of several embassy people who came to talk to us. “But we would have needed a list of names in advance for security.”
A deputy assistant whatever addressed our group. “We respect you. We respect what you are doing. We get your message loud and clear, and it is a message we will send back to Jerusalem.”
The message – in case you haven’t been following these posts – is that women should have equal rights to pray at the Western Wall.
UD ain’t much of a Jew, but when this kind and friendly group of Jews began to sing a psalm together, she was crying somewhat.
Would she have teared up if they’d been kind and friendly Anglicans singing As Pants the Hart?
Er, yes.
Anyway. It was a chilly overcast early Washington evening, and UD and Tammy put on their prayer shawls, and raised their prayer shawls, and listened to the speakers, and thought about that strange place, Israel. When, toward the end of the event, the speaker announced it was time for davening, they figured that was their signal to leave. They crossed Connecticut Avenue and had sushi and talked about God.
… 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.”