This post was originally published on the Theos blog.
Poor old Universities UK. After months of consultation, handwringing and drafting, they have managed to produce guidelines on gender segregation for events held by university societies that both Guardian and Telegraph columnists think are terrible. This is no mean feat.
It doesn’t stop there. There is a rapidly growing petition and angry protesters gathering (mostly, according to these Daily Mail photos, middle-aged ones) and some of them might be about to get topless. Twitter is awash with righteous indignation and there is a very clear consensus: gender segregation in any university event should be banned. We have seen this paroxysm of anxiety over another “Muslim women” issue recently, niqabs. Banning in that case feels too far for most people. Gender segregation seems a more open and shut case.
Before I take (some, limited) issue with this orthodoxy, it’s important to say what I don’t think. I'm happy to call myself a feminist, and am no fan of gender segregation. Indeed, I find it fairly repulsive and would swiftly walk out of any event where I was asked to sit separately from my male colleagues and friends. I don’t like the underlying understanding of gender, I don't buy the 'seperate buy the equal line', I don’t think speakers should be requesting it nor societies agreeing to it. Gender segregated events should have no place in 21st century university campuses.
Neither, however do I think that banning it is a productive way forward. If I thought that a ban might help change hearts and minds on this, and challenge the troubling underlying assumptions, or have any real effect in changing things long term, I’d probably be in favour. I'm not a libertarian, opposed to all bans in principle. But this one wouldn’t really change anything. We all know what happens when you ban things, especially what when you ban things that teenagers, or very young adults, are particularly keen on. It adds to their glamour. It creates a sense of self righteousness, and it can often harden those attitudes which might naturally have passed. There is interesting parallel with university Christian unions who do not allow female speakers. I’m not very keen on that either, although I think the motivation is more often unity in disagreement than straightforward misogyny. Every so often a university student union tries to ban a Christian union with this policy (many of them do allow women speakers) and the whole thing is farcical. The same goes for the student secular society wearing 'Jesus and Mo' T-shirts at LSE. Making it clear how rude, thoughtless and plain nasty things are is one thing, banning it another.
Student years are the most zealous years of your life, and holding extreme ideological positions, whether religious or secular, is almost a rite of passage. They are working these things out. If the whole adult establishment tries to forcibly conform them to the opinions we’ve reached, rebellion is inevitable. If you make people feel that their beliefs are so illegitimate as to require banning, and I think this particularly applies to deeply held, identity shaping beliefs like religious ones, you will drive them to the margins of society and hinder possible future engagement with the mainstream.
So perhaps let’s take a deep breath and swallow our distaste. Slow and laborious and far less satisfying to our righteous indignation, ‘soft power’ is the only way to genuinely bring about change on these kind of issues. Time, and cross-cultural friendships, and dialogue, and education, and disagreement based on respect, not attempts to close the other down are what are required. Ultimately what changes things is the offer of a more humane, attractive alternative. I’m not sure the proposed topless protest would be very helpful. Neither is the very hyperbolic language like “apartheid” which implies that women are somehow forced to attend these events by a coercive state. Women, even (gasp!) Muslim women do after all have their own minds and the ability to vote with their feet. And if they don’t vote how we would want them to? Well, in a plural, liberal society what we need are better arguments, not to take away that choice. And we might just have to lump it.
Poor old Universities UK. After months of consultation, handwringing and drafting, they have managed to produce guidelines on gender segregation for events held by university societies that both Guardian and Telegraph columnists think are terrible. This is no mean feat.
It doesn’t stop there. There is a rapidly growing petition and angry protesters gathering (mostly, according to these Daily Mail photos, middle-aged ones) and some of them might be about to get topless. Twitter is awash with righteous indignation and there is a very clear consensus: gender segregation in any university event should be banned. We have seen this paroxysm of anxiety over another “Muslim women” issue recently, niqabs. Banning in that case feels too far for most people. Gender segregation seems a more open and shut case.
Before I take (some, limited) issue with this orthodoxy, it’s important to say what I don’t think. I'm happy to call myself a feminist, and am no fan of gender segregation. Indeed, I find it fairly repulsive and would swiftly walk out of any event where I was asked to sit separately from my male colleagues and friends. I don’t like the underlying understanding of gender, I don't buy the 'seperate buy the equal line', I don’t think speakers should be requesting it nor societies agreeing to it. Gender segregated events should have no place in 21st century university campuses.
Neither, however do I think that banning it is a productive way forward. If I thought that a ban might help change hearts and minds on this, and challenge the troubling underlying assumptions, or have any real effect in changing things long term, I’d probably be in favour. I'm not a libertarian, opposed to all bans in principle. But this one wouldn’t really change anything. We all know what happens when you ban things, especially what when you ban things that teenagers, or very young adults, are particularly keen on. It adds to their glamour. It creates a sense of self righteousness, and it can often harden those attitudes which might naturally have passed. There is interesting parallel with university Christian unions who do not allow female speakers. I’m not very keen on that either, although I think the motivation is more often unity in disagreement than straightforward misogyny. Every so often a university student union tries to ban a Christian union with this policy (many of them do allow women speakers) and the whole thing is farcical. The same goes for the student secular society wearing 'Jesus and Mo' T-shirts at LSE. Making it clear how rude, thoughtless and plain nasty things are is one thing, banning it another.
Student years are the most zealous years of your life, and holding extreme ideological positions, whether religious or secular, is almost a rite of passage. They are working these things out. If the whole adult establishment tries to forcibly conform them to the opinions we’ve reached, rebellion is inevitable. If you make people feel that their beliefs are so illegitimate as to require banning, and I think this particularly applies to deeply held, identity shaping beliefs like religious ones, you will drive them to the margins of society and hinder possible future engagement with the mainstream.
So perhaps let’s take a deep breath and swallow our distaste. Slow and laborious and far less satisfying to our righteous indignation, ‘soft power’ is the only way to genuinely bring about change on these kind of issues. Time, and cross-cultural friendships, and dialogue, and education, and disagreement based on respect, not attempts to close the other down are what are required. Ultimately what changes things is the offer of a more humane, attractive alternative. I’m not sure the proposed topless protest would be very helpful. Neither is the very hyperbolic language like “apartheid” which implies that women are somehow forced to attend these events by a coercive state. Women, even (gasp!) Muslim women do after all have their own minds and the ability to vote with their feet. And if they don’t vote how we would want them to? Well, in a plural, liberal society what we need are better arguments, not to take away that choice. And we might just have to lump it.
