Academic freedom and "reasonable accommodation."

[bankside]

Now you're being thick. The reasonings that lend favor to a mother in a custody hearing do not extend to "banning men from having children", or banning fathers from having custody. The courts do however acknowledge that with other factors being equal, the psychological bond of mother and child is a factor to weigh in the decision.

How does that kind of ill-informed discrimination not bother you?

 

[bankside]

According to the article another student taking the same online course abroad was already exempt from the assignment.

I wouldn't fuss about this issue unless it was a blatant violation of regulations that had been unambiguously formulated before the student registered for the course.

Typically though, a professor will weigh the reasoning behind the request and excuse the student or not. No one would expect a professor to excuse someone on the basis of "I would like to be exempt from this assignment because the new Beyoncé album is being released that day, and I need to go to a listening party."

So here we have one situation where the first student was excused for a reason the professor felt was reasonable and perhaps unavoidable, while the other student came up with a trivial reason to avoid the work. The first situation does not create a precedent for the second, I think.

 

[xbuzzerx]

How does that kind of ill-informed discrimination not bother you?

It probably doesn't bother me because I don't consider it ill-informed discrimination; of course I don't want the child to go to a meth-addicted mother over a responsible father simply because she's female. But I do acknowledge abusive contexts aside that the mother-child relationship is different, and often closer, than the father-child relationship. I don't have studies or findings to link off hand but I am fairly certain there is a degree of acknowledgment in this within the psychology and medical fields as well. The notion that it's nothing but fantastical prejudiced discrimination is completely novel to me.

 

[Kulindahr]

It's entirely possible that two different cultural notions are equally worthy. But it's also possible they are not.

True enough.

I think that's a bare bones oversimplification that if applied widely stands to really pre- and misjudge things.

I went to school, for example, with a couple of Egyptian guys. I asked them one time if they would marry American women or if they would only marry Egyptian women.

"Probably not American, unless she was from a family from a Mediterranean culture, it wouldn't have to be Egyptian," they said.

"Why Mediterranean?" I asked.

"Because a lot of Mediterranean cultures share a lot of the same ideas about home and family and a lot of emphasis on the father having a job that allows the mother to take care of the children," they answered.

"Why that specifically? Do Mediterranean cultures not like women working?"

"No no, nothing like that. But when we were little kids, when we came home from school we had our mother there taking care of us, and we feel like we were better off because of that than the kids who came home and were by themselves all afternoon until the parents came home from work. And we would want our kids to have that too."

Mind you, these were substantially Americanized Egyptian guys... they'd come over at 5 or 6 years old. But they still placed a lot of value on what we would call a "traditional/old-fashioned gender role in the home." And many people, especially with no context or whatever, would broad brush that entire tendency with "sexism" and "wanting to keep women unequal." And I'm sure that judgment does apply to some misogynists in their culture, and to social conservatives or religious fundamentalists, and to many parts of the Middle East or the Mediterranean. I'm also nearly 100% sure these guys weren't lying to me, because they were fluent English speaking Americans born in Egypt who went to school with and formed study groups with men and women all the time. One of their sisters went to med school later, in fact. So I have no reason all of this stemmed from any "illicit" belief that women should be curtailed or not have freedom of choice.

So supposing the topic were "traditional female gender roles in the home", my problem with your reasoning is that it'd be all too easy for us to say: "It's simple. It's a question of whether you value females as equals or not, and if you don't, you're wrong." When that's not only a broadbrushed but also a contextless summary judgment of something that may actually be quite a bit more complex and maintained for a variety of reasons that go beyond what we'd simply rush to label as gender inequality or sexism.

All of that being said? Of course I'm not defending either that women shouldn't be educated with men, or that there is any harmful effect of women being educated alongside men. But equally: you are leaping to the conclusion that this was his belief or the reason for his request.

That's an interesting perspective. It reminds me that there have been matriarchal societies where the woman staying at home was because she was in charge of it.

 

[Harke the Boeotarch]

Typically though, a professor will weigh the reasoning behind the request and excuse the student or not. No one would expect a professor to excuse someone on the basis of "I would like to be exempt from this assignment because the new Beyoncé album is being released that day, and I need to go to a listening party."

So here we have one situation where the first student was excused for a reason the professor felt was reasonable and perhaps unavoidable, while the other student came up with a trivial reason to avoid the work. The first situation does not create a precedent for the second, I think.

So here we have one situation where the first student was excused for a reason the professor felt was reasonable and perhaps unavoidable, while the other student came up with a trivial reason to avoid the work. The first situation does not create a precedent for the second, I think.

Religious beliefs are hardly trivial in Canada, I believe. Could the student have been unaware of or misinformed about the course requirement to do the group assignment?

 

[xbuzzerx]

True enough.



That's an interesting perspective. It reminds me that there have been matriarchal societies where the woman staying at home was because she was in charge of it.

Most definitely. The Pueblo and several southwestern North American tribes would be examples of that. Even to this day in some of those tribes your membership is determined through the mother, not the father, and irrespective of your blood quantum. Even if your father is from the tribe that does not qualify you for membership by itself because that was never the way that their identity was traced.

 

[Kulindahr]

I'd be careful with that-- there are some real, not imagined, advantages to the mother-child relationship which even our courts acknowledge when deciding custody cases.

Not recently. The trend is toward a stable parent, regardless of gender -- because evidence shows gender doesn't matter.

 

[bankside]

That's an interesting perspective. It reminds me that there have been matriarchal societies where the woman staying at home was because she was in charge of it.

You say that like it's a good thing.

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: Academic freedom and "reasonable accommodation."

Most definitely. The Pueblo and several southwestern North American tribes would be examples of that. Even to this day in some of those tribes your membership is determined through the mother, not the father, and irrespective of your blood quantum. Even if your father is from the tribe that does not qualify you for membership by itself because that was never the way that their identity was traced.

I've run into that. If my mom had the native blood my dad did, I could be accepted into the tribe(s) here. As it is, I have a heavier burden of proof -- though it's in my favor that until my dad, the native blood followed a female line... but still not enough.

 

[Kulindahr]

You say that like it's a good thing.

It demonstrates that where the woman is expected to be is not a measure of her stature in a society.

 

[bankside]

It demonstrates that where the woman is expected to be is not a measure of her stature in a society.

Ahh, quite right; I see your point.

Of that society, however, I would still say, it is weakened by holding people to gender binary roles (and of course weakened by denying men equal standing, regardless of their location.)

In this case I don't think the student was objecting because he thought his maleness would bring down the calibre of the group or deferring to their female superiority; I really don't think he was making an argument that could be construed as egalitarian or even deferential to women..

 

[xbuzzerx]

Ahh, quite right; I see your point.

Of that society, however, I would still say, it is weakened by holding people to gender binary roles (and of course weakened by denying men equal standing, regardless of their location.)

In this case I don't think the student was objecting because he thought his maleness would bring down the calibre of the group or deferring to their female superiority; I really don't think he was making an argument that could be construed as egalitarian or even deferential to women..

I think you are probably right that in this case that's a safe assumption. I was only nitpicking reasoning that seemed to apply to any condition of gender separation based off beliefs or religious practices as inherently sexist or damaging to women when, like Kulindahr and I have been discussing, that would frequently be a quick and easy but incredibly inaccurate prejudgment if applied widely or generally to any case.

 

[Callum]

Well, it's York University…and it's not law or business…so, no one cares. But for the sake of discussion, this class is actually an online course. There were no expectations of group work or interaction(s) with classmates. So, I'm pretty indifferent to the argument at large. If the professor structured his course around online interaction and it was obvious from the syllabus, the kid should have known better. If the professor didn't, the kid should be accommodated -- despite being a tool.