We know that women students and staff remain underrepresented in Higher Education STEM disciplines. Even in subjects where equivalent numbers of men and women participate, however, many women are still disadvantaged by everyday sexism. Our recent research found that women who study STEM subjects at undergraduate level in England were up to twice as likely as non-STEM students to have experienced sexism. The main perpetrators of this sexism were not university staff, however, but were men STEM degree students.
One truth about the modern media landscape: stories that pit groups against each other play well
One truth about the world is that oppressor wants the oppressed to shut up and take abuse.
The division was there already, some just didn’t notice it. If you think we’d do better united, maybe consider challenging the sexists and other bigots creating the division.
It reminds me of MLK Jr denouncing the “negative peace which is the absence of tension” as an obstacle to true equality, as opposed to the “positive peace which is the presence of justice”.
Bullshit and it’s time for the Western World to admit that is bullshit.
Just in my city, solid blue district in solid blue state, the local Jewish temple has a police car in-front of it every time they have services due to a bomb threat over a year ago. People dropped fliers in mailboxes complaining about a person putting up a sign on their door in Arabic that said “god bless this house” The fliers called it un-American. The city next to mine had a mass protest against a Mosque being built.
Ever been to Thailand? The tolerance of the pagan feels like an understatement. Everyone there believes whatever they want without any shame. People worshipping statues and making offerings to ancestors. Signs everywhere bragging about hallel food and prayer rooms. And before you even try it I am an atheist and have had zero issues there, unlike the US where I have to occasionally lie. The atheist groups I go to half the members don’t want their picture taken or name recorded.
In what way are we Westerners less bigoted? It isn’t racism, it isn’t feminism, it isn’t religion, it isn’t LGBT. Go ahead and get a few beers in any minority in your country and ask them what they really think. Or you know you could spend thirty minutes of your life looking at all the documented peer-reviewed evidence gathered that paints a picture of our supposed tolerance.
We are, without a doubt, living in some of the least bigoted societies in history.
Me, an enlightened Roman, explaining to my house slave how he has it good
We can be less bigoted than the past while also having a long way to go still. You could even count as a sign of this improvement that these issues are taken seriously and discussed rather than ignored as “just the way things are”.
But we can’t take it for granted, because progress is not guaranteed and equality can decline. Say, such as the matter of abortion rights in the US and consequently how pregnancies are policed, leading to possible arrests even for natural miscarriages.
If you acknowledge that we aren’t finished fighting bigotry, I don’t really understand what’s your concern here.
If someone thinks that a claim of male on female sexism is an attack on men, that’s a them problem. If someone accuses me of sexism, I generally don’t go on the defensive immediately. Conscientious people ought to seek out ways they can improve themselves and not even unconsciously discriminate against their colleagues. Empathy is in rather short supply these days though.
