Continuing with Universities UK’s ridiculous and rebarbative approach to demands for gender segregation by “controversial” invited speakers at university debates.
In practice, a balance of interests is most likely
to be achieved if it is possible to offer attendees
both segregated and non-segregated seating
areas, although if the speaker is unwilling to
accept this, the institution will need to consider the
speaker’s reasons under equalities legislation.
They shouldn’t be attempting a “balance of interests” between equality and inequality, segregation and no segregation, apartheid and no apartheid. Would they attempt that if a “controversial” racist speaker demanded the audience be segregated by race? I certainly hope not, and I also think they absolutely would not. So why are they giving away the rights of women with such a free hand?
And if the speaker is unwilling to accept even their disgusting “balance of interests” they need to drop that particular speaker. They do not need to keep crawling on their bellies in front of him. They need to tell the speaker No at the outset, and then all this waffling will be surplus to requirements.
Note that decisions can be very fact-dependent,
and that the law applies differently in different
scenarios. For example, there is an express
prohibition in the Equality Act against segregation
on racial grounds, and there are also special
provisions in relation to single-sex sporting
events. The points above are not intended as a
substitute for seeking appropriate legal advice.
Aha so they admit it – there is an express prohibition in the Equality Act against segregation on racial grounds. Well why’s that then? Because it’s discriminatory; because it’s unequal treatment. The same applies to gender segregation. Period. Connect the fucking dots, will you please?
Other practical considerations
•
Who is chairing the event?
•
What is known about the speaker?
•
What reasons do the speaker and/or the
society give for the event to be segregated?
•
Is the event open to the public?
•
Is there scope for segregation to
be voluntary/optional?
•
Has input been sought from the institution’s
equality and diversity officer?
•
Is it advisable to obtain legal advice, and/or to
seek advice from the Equality Challenge Unit?
•
Can any steps be taken to ensure
segregation is voluntary?
•
If no segregation is permitted, will this
discriminate against any groups who will
now be unable to attend the event?
•
Are there particular issues around potential
discrimination, public order etc, including because
of the particular demographic/religious/cultural
makeup of the institution’s student body?
•
Is the event likely to generate media coverage?
Do the press office and senior management
team or vice-chancellor need to be informed?
They could have saved themselves so much trouble if they had just said No back at the beginning, when the speaker first made the request. No. Just No. That’s all.
I wouldn’t attend a gender segregated talk so I think the speaker may find him(?)self addressing a more restricted group than would otherwise be the case.
I wouldn’t send my daughter to a gender segregated school, even though there’s a ton of them around here, recommended by people of all ethnicities and considered respectable, if not middle class.
I don’t use women-only gym rooms though I’m sympathetic to their existence as well as to the provision of women-only times at the swimming pool. It allows a lot of women in my area to use sporting facilities who wouldn’t otherwise.
I use the gender segregated toilets because everyone takes that one for granted. At least half the time, there’s a man in there sweeping the floor or replacing the hand towels.
Odd, isn’t it?
They were so close for a second there; asking the right questions is much of the battle.
As an ethnic member of the master race I am forbidden to sit next to a person of a different colour, and I claim the right to demand that my fellows be given the opportunity to segregate themselves. I am also forbidden to sit next to people who squint or who suffer from cerebral palsy or are professional musicians. Also, anyone who is Jewish, homosexual, asthmatic, democratic, communist, neurotic or uncircumcised. Or female. Or anyone who owns a dog. And I demand the right to be respected.
And what about all those sinister left-handed “people” eh? How long must We, The Right People, endure their contributions to art, music, science, literature, mathematics, calligraphy or indeed philosophy — to say nothing about University Politics? Just asking these questions. Or perhaps a few more, one day.
Simply take a look in a mirror; what do you see? Horrors, that’s what. And I do speak from experience here!
As I suggested on another site, women should put on fake beards and deep voices as in The Life of Brian and sit on the ‘wrong’ side and men should put on niqabs and sit on the other to really take the piss.
I wouldn’t attend a gender segregated talk so I think the speaker may find him(?)self addressing a more restricted group than would otherwise be the case.
I suspect that’s the point: by making rules which are unacceptable to anyone but a religious nut and their apologists the price of admission they guarantee a receptive audience.
I use the gender segregated toilets because everyone takes that one for granted. At least half the time, there’s a man in there sweeping the floor or replacing the hand towels.
This is a slightly different topic but cleaners are usually dismissed as invisible or asexual: a female cleaner in the gents wouldn’t raise much attention either while almost any other woman would cause a stir.
The fact that they’re generally poor and often immigrants renders them ‘non-people’.
No. Because THAT WOULDN’T BE SEGREGATION YOU MORONS!
No. Nobody would be unable to attend, but some bigots might choose not to.
How exactly is the level of media interest connected to making a moral/ethical/legal decision? Does segregation become more or less ethical if the press are interested? Do the “press office and senior management team or vice-chancellor” have the magical power to make segregation ethical or are the ethics of the decision independent of who knows about it?
I just don’t get it. How can they think about these things, come up with these questions other people should consider…and then not see what the obvious answers are? How does that work?
And how the hell are people this dumb allowed to run universities?
Ah yes, good point. Receptive and also likely to applaud everything the speaker says.
I doubt that’s the only point though. I think another is just throwing the theocratic weight around, for instance. Another is irritating the pesky feminists and secularists; another is attention…There are lots of benefits.
“Is the event likely to generate media coverage?”
What’s that got to do with it? Is that some kind of adminispeak for “Segregating the audience by sex is likely to reflect badly on the institution, but it’s all right as long as nobody notices”?
@ 10 Peter N
The whole thing reeks of covering their backsides and being seen to do the right thing rather than, you know… doing the right thing.
Shatterface @7 – I assume you think that’s what people think, rather than what you think. Here’s a little context because it is relevant. What with it being a high muslim area, the girls take off and re-arrange their hijabs in the women’s toilets. Except when there’s a guy in there. I suppose both hijab wearers and cleaners can’t be more than second or third generation citizens of the country. I don’t presume to know what either thinks of the situation.
I suppose the question has been answered, so take it as a bit of musing… But, what should the invited speaker care what kind of audience s/he is addressing – segregated or non-segregated? Or is s/he taking the entire audience’s morality into their own hands (which would be pointless and somewhat offensive)? Or is it immoral for the speaker themselves to appear in front of a mixed audience, even if they themselves don’t need to mingle within it? (The answer mentioned above, that they are simply looking for a more agreeable audience, rings pretty true.)
I would think that, if they have a problem with a non-segregated audience, they just shouldn’t be invited to speak, because I can’t see how they’d have anything of worth to say.
And of course, the ‘hypothetical’ is NOT a MUSLIM. Perish forbid!
Of course any overtly Jewish speaker, even the fiercest democratic secular feminist, is liable to be shouted down or bomb-threated unless they kowtow to the anti-semi(Ooops, anti ZIONIST) orthodoxy.