An Oxford University college recently voted in a "white heterosexual male officer" to represent their interests on the formal student body.Ooooh, you can see where this is going, can't you?
I know I will be criticized for not being able to "take a joke" (Ed: Ya think..?!) but there is a difference between taking the piss out of excessive political correctness and immaturity with potentially dangerous implications.Oh, do tell? What horrors is this likely to usher in?
Lowe might be joking, but life as a minority at Oxbridge is far from funny. When I was studying there, I felt wedged between overly sexualized bops (college parties) and competitive tutorials with arrogant public school boys. The only thing harder than spotting the black kid in my college photo was trying to find a woman on my reading list.Oh, you poor darling! How on earth did you survive?
Surely, Abu Ghraib hath not tortures to compare with not having enough womyn writers...?
It continues on in that vein for some time, and the commenters promptly tear her a new one...
"overly sexualized bops"
ReplyDeleteSounds like pretty much every university in the country, surely....
I'm not even enjoying the slaughter in the comments anymore. The Guardian is so, so out of touch, yet they really do believe they are cutting edge and relevant.
ReplyDelete"When I was studying there, I felt wedged between overly sexualized bops ".
ReplyDeleteThey were compulsory were they? Rowenna also writes:
"Lowe's calls for Radio 3 and 4 to be played in college grounds to create the right "middle-class atmosphere" risk isolating any potential working- class students.".
She thinks that is a serious proposal?!
Since when are women 'a minority' at English universities? I thought they were slightly more than half? And apparently get slightly better results than men, so what's the problem?
ReplyDeleteThis harpy is so addicted to playing victimhood poker that she twists the stats brazenly to make a point.Note how the very low figure for 'black' students at Oxbridge is arrived at; the numbers actually refer to black Afro Caribbeans, and exclude black Africans and mixed race Caribbeans.
ReplyDeleteOn a more optimistic note,the comments suggest that the market for this drivel is shrinking-even at CiF !
Off topic but how bad is this Vid
ReplyDeletehttp://andtherewasmethinking.wordpress.com/2009/06/11/worried-about-stinky-pits/
Mummy x
"On a more optimistic note,the comments suggest that the market for this drivel is shrinking-even at CiF !"
ReplyDeleteYes, there's been a noticable 'we've had enough of this drivel!' quality in a lot of threads lately...
"Off topic but how bad is this Vid"
As you predicted, it's been vanished pretty damn quick!
ah, here it is
ReplyDeletehttp://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1559540565?bctid=26048850001
Mummy x
Gah!
ReplyDeleteI suppose, lucky it wasn't one for Gillette...
The only thing harder than spotting the black kid in my college photo was trying to find a woman on my reading list.
ReplyDeleteWould not be because they are (a) bloody THICK and (b) because they are thick and have nothing relevant to say, would it?
Von Brandenburg-Preußen.
Seems appropriate to quote some comments picked up by Laban
ReplyDeleteYou'd think that such a high proportion of top positions being filled by alumni from just two universities might not have escaped the eagle-eyed attentions of the gender-balance-noting Jackie Ashley (St Anne's College, Oxford), or her colleagues Polly Toynbee (St Anne's College, Oxford) and Madeleine Bunting (Corpus Christi College, Cambridge).
and then
I was of course forgetting Martin Kettle (Balliol College, Oxford), George Monbiot (Brasenose College, Oxford), Jonathan Freedland (Wadham College, Oxford) and Michael White (University College London. Oh, the shame). Younge? Who he?
But are these brave chaps just token sausage-swingers amongst Catherine Bennett (Hertford College, Oxford), Allegra Stratton (Emmanuel College, Cambridge), Zoe Williams (Lincoln College, Oxford), Tanya Gold (Merton College, Oxford), Marina Hyde (Christ Church, Oxford), Bidisha Bandyopadhyay (St Edmund Hall, Oxford) and Melanie Phillips (St Anne's College, Oxford)?
"Ah!" but I hear you cry. "What about Sam Leith (Magdalen College, Oxford), Peter Preston (St John's College, Oxford), Andrew Rawnsley (Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge), Simon Jenkins (St John's College, Oxford), Alexander Chancellor (Trinity Hall, Cambridge) and not forgetting the leader of the pack, Alan Rusbridger (Magdalene College, Cambridge)?"
In the light of such overwhelming evidence, I should have to concede that The Guardian is in fact gender neutral and representative of the widest possible cross-section of British society.
And to that list of Oxbridge alumni it seems we must now add Rowenna Davies. Doing her bit for diversity at the Guardian.
ReplyDeleteHah! Nice find.. ;)
ReplyDeleteTDK-
ReplyDeleteThanks for recalling Laban's link on the Oxbridge background of the Graun's finest. It show that Ms Davies's whinging about how awful/undiverse her fellow students were was simply playing to the gallery. And as the comments thread shows, the old tunes she extrudes simply don't play that well to the gallery anymore.