A taste of what’s to come as more women learn of admissions bias aimed at them…
University of Alberta women take offense at university president’s vow to draw more men — yes, even white men — onto the campus. They organize a demonstration jokingly referring to themselves as the “femimenace.”
Women push back
Students take offence to university president’s remarks
By ALYSSA NOEL, SUN MEDIA
Hundreds of posters featuring the “femimenace” and other tongue-in-cheek images were put up around the University of Alberta campus last week in response to controversial comments made by the university’s president.
In an interview published Oct. 21, president Indira Samarasekera said she was concerned by Statistics Canada numbers that indicate women make up 58% of the student population at Canadian universities.
She went on to say a major worry is that 20 years from now “we will not have the benefit of enough male talent at the heads of companies and elsewhere.”
She also said she will be an “advocate” for young white men because, as a woman who is a visible minority, she “can be.”
The comments struck a chord with women’s studies major Derek Warwick and a group of students.
“The group in general felt the president’s comments were pretty uncalled for,” Warwick said.
“Her comment that women are going to be leading or beating men in the workplace in 20 years suggests a complete lack of understanding of our context today.”
So, the Samarasekera Response Team, as they dubbed themselves, got to work designing and distributing posters voicing their opposition.
In one, a giant woman reminiscent of King Kong, is walking over a university building with a car in hand.
“Women are attacking campus!” it reads. “Only white men can save our university! Stop the femimenace.”
Warwick explained it was meant to be humorous, “as well as provoke some thought.”
But less than 24 hours after they were put up last Tuesday, most of the 300 posters were taken down, he said.
Samarasekera was away from work last week, the group was told, but her office was aware of the campaign.
The most disappointing part of the comments was that Samarasekera glossed over demographics that really could use a post-secondary advocate, Warwick said.
“The biggest problem we had was just how her comments were creating this fear-mongering (that the number of women enrolled in university) is increasing at a faster rate than men,” he said. “There was no mention of lower classes and women of colour, whose numbers are lower.”
Kory Mathewson, president of the University of Alberta Students’ Union, agreed that addressing barriers to education for all people is important.
“The comments that the president made really speak to a larger issue of ensuring all qualified students are able to access a quality education,” Mathewson said.
“I think the growth in female enrolment is encouraging news. But there are still under-represented groups that need representation, (such as) aboriginals and low-income (earners).”
Calls to the university for comment were not returned by press time.
Tags: canada protest
November 5th, 2009 at 9:34 am
This article suggests what may be the avenue towards much wider public awareness of the whole issue of educational problems with boys. There is something about certain stories that propels them to intense national attention. One of the best recent examples is the Balloon Boy story. Lawrence Summers became a big story and left the Harvard Presidency because of his remarks. Maybe there will be a big discrimination lawsuit by a woman against some big school that will propel the whole issue to the front pages.
November 5th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
And one should also read the column on college admissions in today’s NY Times.
It is slowly getting through to people that college admissions, at least at high prestige institutions is only vaguely related to “merit”, at least if merit is defined as some combination of high school academic achievement measures (grades, AP scores, SAT’s, glowing letters from teachers) and fashionable extracurricular activities.
If diversity includes an approximate balance of male and female enrollments, then measures of merit can be defined to achieve that. It is also possible to define merit so that incoming classes are almost entirely male or entirely female. A possible merit-based standard for male/female balance would be to define as one of the goals of the institution as development of well-educated citizens with high ethical standards as well as technical proficiency in some specialty. If the institution is open to all, then there has to be some balance of men and women, since they are equally needful of both ethics and proficiency. We have recent good evidence from the world of high finance that serious problems can arise if excellent technical skills are not accompanied by high ethical standards.
One could also define merit to be demonstration of potential for high-risk entrepeneurship accompanied by potential for the highest engineering/scientific/financial excellence because both are required to build advanced new industries that can rebuild the country’s prosperity and compete globally. Guess what class composition that standard would produce. Anyone who remembers the boy millionaires of the dot.com 1990’s already knows the answer.
November 5th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
I agree with the above. There are still quite a few internet boy millionaires out there, I work for a 21 year old who got his start at the ripe old age of 14.