Ill Eagle

Ill Eagle 18

Ill Eagle 18 .. Feb 2002 .... ISSN 1466-9005

Gobbledeygook

Take care of the sounds, and the sense will take care of itself - Lewis Carroll

In Redbourn in the '60s, I went across the road to a further education lecture series by a gardener. Since he was a real gardener, his middle class audience listened in rapt silence. They admired The Common Man. However, I realised that the gardener, having heard lectures, and knowing what they sounded like, was actually making noises which sounded like a lecture, but which had no content. Fearing that my suppressed guffaws would offend my anxious neighbours, I never attended again.

Radfems, using the argument that rationality is part of patriarchal oppression, have taken over large swathes of academia and filled it with such gobbledeygook. A good eaxmple is of course Catharine MacKinnon, Toward a Feminist Theory of the State, pub. Harvard UP 1989. I willote a justification for such gobbledeygook by twqo academics in England, Victoria Robinson and Diane Richardson: Introducing Women’s Studies, pub. Macmillan 1993/7. On p2, Robinson writes;

“If a fundamental feature of Women’s Studies is the simple yet radical belief in an approach to knowledge which places women at the centre of analysis (challenging an androcentric/phallocentric notion of knowledge which can be defined as men's experiences and priorities being seen as central and representative of all), then this realisation of a theoretical dishonesty has profound implications for how we organise, structure, teach and research within the disciplines and the academy in general. This 'simple' shift in theorising and teaching recognises the politics of theory in terms of the so-called objectivity of knowledge, which has failed to recognise and validate the diversity of experience of over half of mankind.

Ill18 p4

"Post-modern claims that to pursue a total theory is mistaken and essentialist, given that to do so inevitably means to generalise and universalise, have informed this feminist theorising."

Wow! The very idea that radfems do not generalise!

The undermining of academic precepts, by men like Feyerabend, pre-dates the radfems. Taking advantage of scientific treachery by F and others, we now see a full-scale, largely successful, radfem subversion of the probity of academia.

The radfem fixation on the penis recurs (/phallocentric). Radfems, including lesbian radfems, think and talk about the penis far, far more often than men do. - Ed

How exams are fixed in favour of girls

The article with the above title by Dr Madsden Pirie from The Spectator, 20jan01, was printed in Ill Eagle 14, p8. I added a footnote;

The attack on Physics is gong on hand in hand with the attack on Maths. They are the two subjects I did at A level in 1953, gaining a State Scholarship to Cambridge. Because girls do better at Geography than at Physics, Physics has now been turned into a branch of Geography. It is particularly destructive to corrupt Physics by bringing ecology propaganda into it. True Physics is objective, value-free. – Ed

The future for Science

".... the oppressed may make better biologists, physicists, and philosophers than their oppressors. Thus we find the feminist theorist Hilary Rose saying that male scientists have been handicapped by being men. A better science would be based on women's domestic experience and practice. Professor Virginia Held offers hope that 'a feminist standpoint would give us a quite different understanding of even physical reality.' Conversely, those who are most socially favored, the proverbial white, middle-class males, are in the worst epistemic position." - Christina Hoff Sommers, Who stole feminism?, pub. Simon & Schuster 1994, p74.

IT must put gender on the agenda

- Rachel Fielding 18jan02

It's time for IT to put gender on the agenda. It may sound trite but that's the message from industry bodies and human resources executives from some of the world's largest IT recruiters.

Speaking at the Computer Software and Services Association (CSSA) conference to tackle the women in IT issue, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry Patricia Hewitt has called for greater collaboration between industry, government and education to tackle the issue head on.

"It is pathetic that fewer women are entering the IT industry than 20 years ago. The opportunities for industry and the economy in general are huge," she said.

Encouraging women to enter and stay in IT jobs is more than simply an altruistic ideal. It makes more business sense than ever, although getting that message through to the industry is proving a pretty hard nut to crack.

Ian Watmore, managing director of Accenture in the UK, said that equal representation and "equal perception" of his company by females was essential.

"It's not just a moral and ethical argument, it makes common sense," he explained. "By 2010 I will represent a minority - white, able bodied males. Eighty per cent of the growth market of the future will be women."

And although companies continue to complain about skills shortages in certain areas, the situation is compounded because they're recruiting from a pool that is half its potential size. Women represent over half of the potential workforce in this country, but only 22 per cent of the IT workforce.

The figure is more shocking as the number of IT jobs in the UK has grown by over 50 per cent in the last five years, with proportionally less women being recruited than before. As recently as 1994, women made up 29 per cent of IT employees, according to government figures.

"We need to do something at a grassroots level to change the image of the industry and share lessons about how some employers have succeeded in broadening their recruitment," said Anne Cantelo, project director at national training organisation e-skills NTO. The body has launched IT Compass, a website to attract individuals from non-IT backgrounds into the industry. ...

"We need an incentive structure to encourage all employers to invest in training and level out the playing field," said Poodle-Man Lance Williams, human resources director at EDS.

A Barriers to women returning to IT report will be published by the Department of Trade and Industry on 21 January.

Schools are short of male staff, admits minister

- Rebecca Smithers, Guardian, 8jan02, p8

The govt yesterday admitted there was a worrying shortage of male role models in the classroom, after a Labour MP claimed that black boys were under-achieving because primary schools were dominated by women teachers.

The school standards minister .... admitted that .... more male role models were needed in schools.

The proportion of men entering primary teacher training courses is below the 15% target set for the teacher training agency. [A much smaller % than women MPs now in the Commons. Why not 50%? The implication that we need more women students because they will go part-time or withdraw, is surely matched by the fact that the attrition of male teachers as a result of false allegations will continue to rise. Is any effort being made to attract men to teaching by setting up procedures to give them better protection against false allegations?

Speak up, Patricia Hewitt! Also note Baroness Margaret Jay, House of Lords, 20dec01, col. 392, arguing for increasing the number of women MPs above the present 18%; ".... unless we have [wo]men in public life [teaching] in much the same proportion as they are in the population .... rather higher than the 18% .... in the House of Commons at present - we lose [wo]men's distinctive perspective. There is a genuinely different women's perspective. Furthermore, we lose the different life and work experiences which [wo]men have and bring to the political [teaching] process." Also Baroness Seccombe, col. 386; ".... only 18% [of MPs] are women. It cannot be denied that that is a sorry state of affairs." Thus, the previously quoted "15% target set for the teacher training agency" is aiming to achieve a sorry state of affairs. - Ed]

Diane Abbott, MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington [bordering Islington], said black boys needed boundaries and strong direction from "male mentors" at an early age. [This directly contradicts the radfem anti-patriarchy propaganda that if boys are left in the hands of women, they will avoid learning macho behaviour, and be passive and sweet. - Ed]

She said primary schools had become a feminine domain and called on the education secretary, Estelle Morris, to recruit more teachers from the Caribbean. .... "There's nothing wrong [with white women] but the fact is when these black children come into school aged five, the are doing as well as white and Asian children. By age 16 their achievement has collapsed, particularly black boys. [she said the issue was] a silent catastrophe. ....

"Black children are six times more likely to be excluded than others. Children in care run 10 times the risk .... 42% of young offenders are former excludees." - Mary Riddell, Observer, 20jan02, p24

".... more than two-thirds of Afro-Caribbean families are .... single mother." - Eamon McMahon, Letter, Observer, 13jan02

From the Guardian, 31jan02; "Among the statistics contained in Social Trends is the frequency of mental illness among children. Around one in 10 adolescents had some form of mental disorder and children of lone parents were twice as likely to suffer mental health problems as those from "couple families". Mental illness is closely related to class. Only 5% of children of social class 1 families had such disorders, compared to 14% of children of social class 5.

Even more alarmingly, as many as 2% of children aged between 11 and 15 had tried to 'harm, hurt or kill themselves'."

Ill18 p5

Deadbeat dads: Victims?

- Laurence A. Elder, 30jan02

Full text at www.ivorcatt.com/2019.htm

.... this angry response from an eighth-grade inner-city public school teacher:

"As an African-American public school educator in a school that serves an urban demographic, I'm intimately familiar to the genesis of these irresponsible fathers. There is little the government can do to help these men. They must first help themselves, and their communities must help them help themselves.

This year, 95 percent of the black boys I educate are failing my eighth-grade algebra class, despite all of them being at least as capable [if not more] than those that are passing. These 95 percent waste most of their class time, do little or no homework, are preoccupied with sports and girls, deride the 5 percent passing my class as "weak" or "soft," are consumed with wearing the latest "gear," only read when their teacher pleads, and laugh when they get Fs.

While I love them as intensely as I love my own son, I loathe their academic skills, attitude and commitment. I have no doubt the public school system has ruined them with years of inexperienced /uncommitted teachers who haven't demanded or expected the level of performance I have of them. Not surprisingly, none of these boys has a father at home (conversely, the 5 percent that are passing do). Very few of them are promising athletes, which, combined with their poor academic performance and social skills (many of the girls find them quite undesirable), you have the recipe for gang-bait. The help these young men need starts at home. ....

I take little pride in being the first black man they've known who a) went to college; b) doesn't smoke, do drugs or abuse alcohol; c) doesn't try to be a "playa"; d) consistently speaks standard English; e) doesn't have a criminal record. Black people must simply stop having children that cannot be responsibly reared, period. It's obvious to me why this issue is never emphasized by the social service advocates: You can't get government money for something most people should learn at home ..."

The Black Hole: Women's Studies, Science and Technology

- Lynda Birke and Marsha Henry

From the book Introducing Women's Studies, ed. academics Victoria Robinson and Diane Richardson, pub. Macmillan 1993/97, pp 221 and 222

.... At the beginning of 'second-wave' feminism .... There was .... some hostility towards science within the women's movement, which sometimes collapsed into hostility towards women scientists .... .... science .... is stereotypically associated with masculinity ....

One important strand .... involves attempts to encourage women into science by various means, including changing the curriculum and its delivery. This has entailed, for example, developing 'girl friendly science' .... Challenging the content is, of course, rather more difficult. It is also rather threatening to many scientists, including many women scientists, and particularly so when feminists assert that science is masculine and needs to be changed. .... in 1985, one of us encountered hostility from a woman scientist in the audience: 'But if you succeed in changing it,' she agonised, 'it would no longer be science'. Indeed: it would no longer be the kind of science that so many of us have criticised. [Note that this is only in the 1997 edition, when boys had already fallen behind in 'science'! - Ed]

Tories target the causes of crime

- Philip Johnson, Telegraph, 9jan02

.... Oliver Letwin, shadow home secretary, .... focusing on social ills that fuel criminal behaviour - notably an absence of fathers from millions of broken homes. .... crime .... was particularly pronounced where there were a large number of broken homes. "Britain suffers from an epidemic of father absence," he said. "More than a fifth of our children now live without their fathers and, for half of these, contact is so infrequent that they are effectively fatherless." .... if a neighbourhood is allowed to go to rack and ruin crime will quickly take root. ....

Feminization of Maths

My article with the above title in Male View oct98 referred to the article Dumb and Number by Marian Chester Coombs in the journal Chronicles, oct97, p47, which discusses the attack on maths also taking place in the USA. ".... to cripple all, by making girls' 'learning style' mandatory for all. Mathematics .... is being neutered ...." Elsewhere, in Ill Eagle, I have said that Physics has been turned into a subset of Geography, because girls do better in Geography and boys in Physics. (Example; What are the similarities between our Moon and a certain planet of Jupiter? - GCSE Physics today. Next, perhaps boys will be learning the names of the rivers of Wales, because water flows downhill - a potential question in Physics which I learnt in Geography class in my Welsh school.)

We have now reached the stage where, as reported by the headline in the Telegraph, 12jan02, p1, "Girls win all the way from primary to university." The article says; "At both school and university, the gap between the sexes has widened as the nature of testing has changed.

"More emphasis has been put on coursework and continuous assessment, which reward steady application, and less on 'sudden death' exams, which are thought to favour boys."

The article misses altogether the removal from syllabi of content in which boys excel.

Now that girls are well ahead at all levels, even in maths, perhaps those who control education and have, at the behest of feminists, removed course material in which boys excel, might allow us to restore some parts at least of the doctored syllabus. Would women in general settle for mere sex equality in exam achievement? That would let us restore some key concepts in maths and physics. An example in A level Maths and Physics is the couple, or torque, which girls tend to have more trouble with. Another is angular momentum. A society which bans key concepts in the interests of equality puts itself at a disadvantage internationally.

Another factor is suicide. As the suicide rate among young men continues to escalate, their examination performance will deteriorate further. Someone contemplating suicide does not study so well. A reduction in the massive man-bashing in all the media would help here. It damages young men more than the older, because the young have only ever experienced the current anti-male vituperation.

A good man is hard to find

- Eugen Hockenjos (honorary member of ManKind, also see Male View jan02, p41), Guardian, 20mar96, p2

Tommy is a quiet four-year-old living with his mother in Islington. He hasn't seen his father since mum left a relationship in which she felt abused. He likes playing with super-heroes. Since mum started a part-time job he gets looked after by a child minder who has a baby of her own. Next month he will start nursery. In Islington, 97 per cent of nursery staff are female. When he moves to primary school he will be welcomed by a teaching staff which, if it is anything like the national average, will be 80 per cent female. Should his mother have problems requiring help from the social services he will again see only women in the caring roles, as, similar to other local authorities, Islington's pool of social workers is 82 per cent female.

There is also little chance for Tommy to encounter a caring male during his contact with social services, as many of the male staff are allocated to deal with drug or alcohol-dependent clients, or those with HIV/Aids, and are often preoccupied with tasks considered too dangerous for Ilsington's women social workers. How will Tommy learn to care if he has no access to male role models? .... The absence of men in caring roles is escalating. ....

[Does the government then introduce a policy aimed at restoring the proportion of men in teaching to 50%, as it plans the Commons, where the female representation is around 20 or 25%, leading to a campaign to increase the %? See p4, col. 3. In education, the aim is to reach less (men) than the percentage (of women) which is regarded as scandalously low in Commons. - Ed]

Continued at www.ivorcatt.com/02b.htm

[Ill Eagle 1999 issues are at www.ivorcatt.com/99.htm ]

[Most past Ill Eagle issues are at www.ivorcatt.com/98.htm ]

[Ill Eagle 2001 issues are at www.ivorcatt.com/01.htm ]

[Ill Eagle 2002 issues are at www.ivorcatt.com/02.htm ]