I am ambivalent about New Hall and Newnham. New Hall was a lovely college to be in, and I don't honestly know how much of that was the women-only nature. I'd hate for it to change, and though I don't want to say that all the nasty men will make it horrible, it does work well as it is, and I think "ain't broke, don't fix".
On the other hand, I've seen through work what having single-sex colleges does to things like the allocation of Open applicants, and I'm not sure that it's a good thing for women to be either in a minority in a mixed college or in a minority college. The argument for women from more restrictive cultures could be met by more of the mixed colleges providing guaranteed single-sex accommodation, rather than a single-sex college which actually allows quite a lot of men in.
My understanding is that once there are equal numbers of men and women in the Cambridge intake, New Hall plans to go mixed anyway. Personally I think there should be at least one all-women college, and at least one all-men college. Just to even things out.
I'm happy if they go mixed, and happy if there are the same number of all male colleges as there are all female colleges (of the same size). Not happy the way things currently are.
I think it would be shame if all the women-only colleges went mixed, as they provide something that can't be found anywhere else.
However, New Hall in particular is in a bit of a bind: it has difficulty find good candidates to fill its places: the best candidates apply to the colleges with good academic reputations, while the second tier candidates who might do well at New Hall often don't bother applying to Cambridge at all. When I was briefly a supervisor at New Hall, the college was unable to fill its moderate number of places (three) in computer science. This despite the fact that the course was just the same as at other colleges. A good opportunity went begging.
I'm trying desperately to remember who it was who recently wrote something in LJ about the feel of Girton college — made by women, but now admitting men — and how the change hasn't destroyed its essence. I'd like to link to it right now. /-8
I feel strongly that the eventual ideal has to be sex being irrelevant to most people in most circumstances. If New Hall and Newnham really feel they can't change, then I suppose they'll just plod on for the time being but it would be good if they could, and it's good that St Hilda's can.
(As a historical note when I matriculated Magdalene College's Part II students were all male. Having just emerged from an all-male school, my inclination was that women should have their all-female colleges and men should have their all-male ones, but I've no idea whether I'd have chosen an all-male college if the opportunity had arisen. Given how much of the time I socialised in other colleges, it would probably have made very little difference — and CUSFS tended to meet in New Hall bar because it was empty, presumably because most of the residents were out meeting blokes in other college's bars. (-8 )
he argument for women from more restrictive cultures could be met by more of the mixed colleges providing guaranteed single-sex accommodation,
*nods*
We're essentially here talking about Muslim women. My understanding of the religion is that men and women should be provided with separate social facilities and shouldn't interact with one another except when necessary. To achieve this there would need to be provision of both female and male only accommodation and there would need to be rules about men [including the inhabitants relatives] entering the building/certain rooms. The last time I thought this through, I came to the conclusion that you'd need a building with kitchens + common room windows shielded so that you can't see the people inside from the outside. A gym/other exercise facility would need to be inside the building. Any gardens to to it would need to be fenced in. You'd also need a visitors area in one part of the buildings, separated by a door, to allow women to bring their mixed gender relatives in/have male students over eg. those on their course to do work together. The visitors area would need its own common room + kitchen and probably a series of private rooms for women to spend private time with their relatives. It'd also need telephone points, computers/ethernet access points. Once you've got a building that fulfils all these requirements, you can ban men from the main part of the building, only making exceptions for the beginning + end of term. But, at this point who is going to want to live in this building/the parallel men only building? It's one thing for someone to want to go to a women's only college, it's another to ask them to live in a building where they can't take male friends to their rooms.
I think the answer is for the university to provide such dedicated accommodation for the whole university for all that want it and leave the colleges out of it. Nothing in Islamic law prevents men and women mixing in lectures/tutorials/the library etc.
I feel strongly that the eventual ideal has to be sex being irrelevant to most people in most circumstances. If New Hall and Newnham really feel they can't change, then I suppose they'll just plod on for the time being but it would be good if they could, and it's good that St Hilda's can.
You're confusing, I think, liberal equality with actual equality. Making every college mixed is blank-sheet equality, but it leaves us allowing the worsening of a situation where men outnumber women at every level of Oxford University, and by more than 10 to 1 at the most senior academic level.
All the professors are ancient, and thus come from the times when most of the all male colleges hadn't gone mixed. If we were educating 13 men to every 1 woman, it doesn't surprise or upset me that we have 13 male professors to every 1 woman. It upsets me that we were educating 13 men to every 1 woman, but we're not any more, so it doesn't seem worth being very upset over.
The last all-male college admitted women over twenty years ago. There's been plenty of turnover since then, let alone since the gender ratio at undergraduate level was more like 60:40 than 93:7 (pre-1914, I would imagine). Not that Oxford has any sort of obligation to recruit professors from the ranks of Oxford undergraduates.
If you'd care for a spread bet on what the gender ratio of professors is in ten years, I'm quite happy to have one. Or you might look at the newly appointed ones. If Professors don't persuade you, feel free to look at Lecturers - 77% are men. Or indeed at undergraduates - just under 53% are men, which will rise to just over 54% if Hilda's were to go 50/50.
The last Cambridge college to admit women was in 1988, the last Oxford college was in 1985 (which I will admit is over twenty years ago, but you might be overegging your use of the word "over")
You appear to be saying 93% of (educated a very long time ago) Professors are men, 77% of (slightly younger) lecturers are men, and 53% of students are men. This looks like the right trend from where I'm sitting, so I don't see how it supports your case at all.
If you had the stats for the average age of professors and lecturers, and stats for the gender balance of the university in their matric year that would be interesting.
Oh, and I do personally believe that there are some subjects that the male mind is on average better suited to than the female mind. And I know there is no way to measure this as you can never get away from social conditioning and biases in the measuring technique, so I don't see any point in arguing about it, but still, it strikes me as obvious. There are gender differences. It seems naive to think these are all physical instead of mental. If we give everyone equality of opportunity (which yes, I'm aware we don't) and the men are better at a subject, I'm not unhappy at all with there being 13 male professors to every 1 female. I'd rather the people who are best at the subject are allowed to succeed, instead of weaker candidates being preferentially treated on a sexism card.
Well I don't, and the college structure makes it quite tricky to collect, but as I said I'm more than happy to consider a spread bet of your choosing.
It is a pyramid, not a funnel. Women are less likely than men to be admitted as undergraduates, less likely again to be admitted for continuing study, less likely after that to be appointed to lectureships, and less likely still to be admitted to the fellowship.
However, the average age at appointment to the fellowship is currently 35, and early retirement is available at 55. Last week two fellows were appointed, both men. The previous week three were appointed, all men. None were appointed in the fortnight before that. The week before, three were appointed. Two men, and one woman.
So far this term then, that's seven men and one woman. Not a brilliant improvement.
Oh, and I do personally believe that there are some subjects that the male mind is on average better suited to than the female mind.
So do I.
And vice-versa.
Are you suggesting the subjects men are suited to are the ones studied academically, and the way to address the imbalance is to have a reader in cookery studies?
Women are less likely than men to be admitted as undergraduates, less likely again to be admitted for continuing study, less likely after that to be appointed to lectureships, and less likely still to be admitted to the fellowship.
This is a very sweeping statement, and you have very little to back it up. Wikipedia claims that Cambridge's gender ratio is 54 - 46 women to men at the moment, which would make any given undergrad more likely to be female. And what do you mean by "less likely to be admitted"? Do you mean that there are fewer women than men admitted, or have you actually looked at the more meaningful comparision between number of women/men applying for places to number of women/men being offered places? And even that doesn't say very much - if 100 badly qualified women apply for a place, and 1 well qualified man does, it is not unfair if it goes to the man!
8 people is small number statistics, and if that is the best you can do it's fairly meaningless. Even so, without knowing the gender balance in the matriculating students 17 years ago it is impossible to tell if things have improved or become worse.
No. Don't be ridiculous. Although given that the current UK university system was designed by men, it may well be centred around subjects they are naturally more talented at / find more interesting.
I was answering your question "Does it make you happy if we have 13 male professors to 1 female professor". If the professors are the 14 best people for the job, it doesn't make me unhappy at all. And I think there are some subjects where if you took the 14 best people it would not surprise me that there was that sort of gender imbalance.
Hilary: 13 men and 1 woman. Michaelmas 2005: 14 men, 1 woman, 5 undeterminable.
So on the total available statistics (a one year sample) 34-39 men were appointed, and 3-8 women. The gender balance in matriculating students ten years ago was pretty close to parity (within 60:40 anyway), I'd be very surprised if it was significantly different seven years before that.
I have corrected the wikipedia article, at least assuming its sources are correct, though official figures from the University would be more useful..
I'd be very surprised if it was significantly different seven years before that.
We've already noted that the colleges went mixed in the 80s, with the last ones admitting women in 1988, it seems eminently likely to me that the gender balence in 1989 was radically different to the gender balence seven years later, as those were seven years of fairly interesting change. (I'm assuming your source of data for matriculating students ten years ago is that you were one, and you remember it being "about right", but if you have any better stats, that might help your cause)
Although given that the current UK university system was designed by men, it may well be centred around subjects they are naturally more talented at / find more interesting.
I'll just keep repeating myself, shout when you need my input :-)
But when I suggested Professors of Cooking you told me I was being ridiculous. What are these feminised academic disciplines which have no status in universities, then?
Well, being one, and also reading the prospectus and not being struck by any particularly surprising figures. Also in 1989 there were two women's colleges, rather than one. The last men's college *in Oxford* admitted women in 1985, so by 1989 that would have worked through the system, though some Oriel departments are still rubbish (routinely one woman per year got admitted for History). Another good piece of anecdotal evidence for the gender balance being fairly close in the late 80s is that it didn't come up as an issue in student politics, nor was it the primary argument made around men's colleges admitting women (yes, I'm a sad man, but I have in my time read the entire back catalogue of the Cherwell newspaper, at least since the early 70s).
Any idea what the gender balance is like in computing as a whole (in Cambridge or in universities in general)? Certainly among software developers it appears to be massively skewed towards men, and though I'd naively expect to see something similar in education, on the assumption that it can't all be down to sexist hiring, I don't actually know.
As I happen to have the data for last year's Moderations in CompSci and Maths+Comp at a certain institution in the South-Eastern counties: out of 47 candidates who took the examination, 7 were female.
OK, if you're going to be sententious about it, here's a challenge: identify the point in my original comment at which I made any suggestion I was being serious.
Even if many more women want a single-sex college, so we should compel men who want co-ed not to have it?
I couldn't answer the second half because AFAIK New Hall and Newnham get half their intake from people who appear to prefer single-sex and half from the Pool. I think, therefore, one of them should go co-ed and the other should not.
I'm puzzled by these requirements, because they weren't met by either of the women's colleges at Cambridge. So what is it about a women's college that makes it acceptable to Muslim women despite the fact that men are allowed in most of the time (exceptions being at night if they were unaccompanied, ISTR)?
Being an evangelical atheist, I'm also not sure that the university should be providing special facilities for people who don't want men around for religious reasons.
What I actually meant was that we should have the same number of places available to men as to women. If there are places that can only be filled by women (ie women's colleges) then it must either be easier for women to get into Cambridge than men or harder for women to get into mixed colleges than men, both of which I think are fairly unacceptable.
However, having read your comment, I see that although single sex male colleges would achieve this, having places in mixed colleges that could only be offered to men would achieve this too. So that might be an adequate fudge if men didn't want single-sex education. Although given how many people complained when colleges went mixed in the first place, one might hypothesis some men want single sex education
New Hall and Newnham get half their intake from people who appear to prefer single-sex
"Appear" being the operative word - at our school it was very common for the head of sixth form to encourage weaker candidates to apply to Newnham.
I got the impression that for some of the women at my college, Mummy and Daddy had only let them leave home to go among the heathens because they would be living in a women's college. The fact that the college didn't actually meet the strict requirements for avoiding meeting men "at home" was perhaps not communicated.
I think it's easier if you regard only your own room as being "home" and act outside it as you would in other public spaces. A bit difficult when the shower is across the corridor, but the newer accommodation had ensuite showers.
I understood parental consent to be part of the argument, yes.
I think things that get people into university despite parental suspicion are generally good, albeit in the sense that a plaster is good rather than the sense that not falling of your bike is good.
And naturally you chose not to give me the benefit of the doubt. Is there some other issue you'd like to discuss with me, or are you jsut in a bad mood?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-07 06:37 pm (UTC)On the other hand, I've seen through work what having single-sex colleges does to things like the allocation of Open applicants, and I'm not sure that it's a good thing for women to be either in a minority in a mixed college or in a minority college. The argument for women from more restrictive cultures could be met by more of the mixed colleges providing guaranteed single-sex accommodation, rather than a single-sex college which actually allows quite a lot of men in.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-07 07:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-07 07:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-07 09:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-07 09:37 pm (UTC)However, New Hall in particular is in a bit of a bind: it has difficulty find good candidates to fill its places: the best candidates apply to the colleges with good academic reputations, while the second tier candidates who might do well at New Hall often don't bother applying to Cambridge at all. When I was briefly a supervisor at New Hall, the college was unable to fill its moderate number of places (three) in computer science. This despite the fact that the course was just the same as at other colleges. A good opportunity went begging.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-07 09:59 pm (UTC)I feel strongly that the eventual ideal has to be sex being irrelevant to most people in most circumstances. If New Hall and Newnham really feel they can't change, then I suppose they'll just plod on for the time being but it would be good if they could, and it's good that St Hilda's can.
(As a historical note when I matriculated Magdalene College's Part II students were all male. Having just emerged from an all-male school, my inclination was that women should have their all-female colleges and men should have their all-male ones, but I've no idea whether I'd have chosen an all-male college if the opportunity had arisen. Given how much of the time I socialised in other colleges, it would probably have made very little difference — and CUSFS tended to meet in New Hall bar because it was empty, presumably because most of the residents were out meeting blokes in other college's bars. (-8 )
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-07 10:04 pm (UTC)*nods*
We're essentially here talking about Muslim women. My understanding of the religion is that men and women should be provided with separate social facilities and shouldn't interact with one another except when necessary. To achieve this there would need to be provision of both female and male only accommodation and there would need to be rules about men [including the inhabitants relatives] entering the building/certain rooms. The last time I thought this through, I came to the conclusion that you'd need a building with kitchens + common room windows shielded so that you can't see the people inside from the outside. A gym/other exercise facility would need to be inside the building. Any gardens to to it would need to be fenced in. You'd also need a visitors area in one part of the buildings, separated by a door, to allow women to bring their mixed gender relatives in/have male students over eg. those on their course to do work together. The visitors area would need its own common room + kitchen and probably a series of private rooms for women to spend private time with their relatives. It'd also need telephone points, computers/ethernet access points. Once you've got a building that fulfils all these requirements, you can ban men from the main part of the building, only making exceptions for the beginning + end of term. But, at this point who is going to want to live in this building/the parallel men only building? It's one thing for someone to want to go to a women's only college, it's another to ask them to live in a building where they can't take male friends to their rooms.
I think the answer is for the university to provide such dedicated accommodation for the whole university for all that want it and leave the colleges out of it. Nothing in Islamic law prevents men and women mixing in lectures/tutorials/the library etc.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-07 10:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-08 01:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-08 01:14 am (UTC)You're confusing, I think, liberal equality with actual equality. Making every college mixed is blank-sheet equality, but it leaves us allowing the worsening of a situation where men outnumber women at every level of Oxford University, and by more than 10 to 1 at the most senior academic level.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-08 08:21 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-08 08:24 am (UTC)PS
Date: 2006-06-08 08:25 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-08 08:45 am (UTC)If you'd care for a spread bet on what the gender ratio of professors is in ten years, I'm quite happy to have one. Or you might look at the newly appointed ones. If Professors don't persuade you, feel free to look at Lecturers - 77% are men. Or indeed at undergraduates - just under 53% are men, which will rise to just over 54% if Hilda's were to go 50/50.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-08 08:52 am (UTC)I'm largely in favour of keeping all-women colleges because they attract intelligent lesbians to the area and encourage female bisexuality, mind.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-08 09:02 am (UTC)You appear to be saying 93% of (educated a very long time ago) Professors are men, 77% of (slightly younger) lecturers are men, and 53% of students are men. This looks like the right trend from where I'm sitting, so I don't see how it supports your case at all.
If you had the stats for the average age of professors and lecturers, and stats for the gender balance of the university in their matric year that would be interesting.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-08 09:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-08 09:17 am (UTC)It is a pyramid, not a funnel. Women are less likely than men to be admitted as undergraduates, less likely again to be admitted for continuing study, less likely after that to be appointed to lectureships, and less likely still to be admitted to the fellowship.
However, the average age at appointment to the fellowship is currently 35, and early retirement is available at 55. Last week two fellows were appointed, both men. The previous week three were appointed, all men. None were appointed in the fortnight before that. The week before, three were appointed. Two men, and one woman.
So far this term then, that's seven men and one woman. Not a brilliant improvement.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-08 09:19 am (UTC)So do I.
And vice-versa.
Are you suggesting the subjects men are suited to are the ones studied academically, and the way to address the imbalance is to have a reader in cookery studies?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-08 09:28 am (UTC)This is a very sweeping statement, and you have very little to back it up. Wikipedia claims that Cambridge's gender ratio is 54 - 46 women to men at the moment, which would make any given undergrad more likely to be female. And what do you mean by "less likely to be admitted"? Do you mean that there are fewer women than men admitted, or have you actually looked at the more meaningful comparision between number of women/men applying for places to number of women/men being offered places? And even that doesn't say very much - if 100 badly qualified women apply for a place, and 1 well qualified man does, it is not unfair if it goes to the man!
8 people is small number statistics, and if that is the best you can do it's fairly meaningless. Even so, without knowing the gender balance in the matriculating students 17 years ago it is impossible to tell if things have improved or become worse.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-08 09:30 am (UTC)I was answering your question "Does it make you happy if we have 13 male professors to 1 female professor". If the professors are the 14 best people for the job, it doesn't make me unhappy at all. And I think there are some subjects where if you took the 14 best people it would not surprise me that there was that sort of gender imbalance.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-08 09:55 am (UTC)Michaelmas 2005: 14 men, 1 woman, 5 undeterminable.
So on the total available statistics (a one year sample) 34-39 men were appointed, and 3-8 women. The gender balance in matriculating students ten years ago was pretty close to parity (within 60:40 anyway), I'd be very surprised if it was significantly different seven years before that.
I have corrected the wikipedia article, at least assuming its sources are correct, though official figures from the University would be more useful..
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-08 09:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-08 10:00 am (UTC)I'd be very surprised if it was significantly different seven years before that.
We've already noted that the colleges went mixed in the 80s, with the last ones admitting women in 1988, it seems eminently likely to me that the gender balence in 1989 was radically different to the gender balence seven years later, as those were seven years of fairly interesting change. (I'm assuming your source of data for matriculating students ten years ago is that you were one, and you remember it being "about right", but if you have any better stats, that might help your cause)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-08 10:01 am (UTC)I'll just keep repeating myself, shout when you need my input :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-08 10:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-08 10:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-08 10:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-08 11:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-08 12:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-08 03:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-08 04:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-08 04:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-08 05:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-08 05:24 pm (UTC)I couldn't answer the second half because AFAIK New Hall and Newnham get half their intake from people who appear to prefer single-sex and half from the Pool. I think, therefore, one of them should go co-ed and the other should not.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-08 07:38 pm (UTC)Being an evangelical atheist, I'm also not sure that the university should be providing special facilities for people who don't want men around for religious reasons.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-08 09:29 pm (UTC)What I actually meant was that we should have the same number of places available to men as to women. If there are places that can only be filled by women (ie women's colleges) then it must either be easier for women to get into Cambridge than men or harder for women to get into mixed colleges than men, both of which I think are fairly unacceptable.
However, having read your comment, I see that although single sex male colleges would achieve this, having places in mixed colleges that could only be offered to men would achieve this too. So that might be an adequate fudge if men didn't want single-sex education. Although given how many people complained when colleges went mixed in the first place, one might hypothesis some men want single sex education
New Hall and Newnham get half their intake from people who appear to prefer single-sex
"Appear" being the operative word - at our school it was very common for the head of sixth form to encourage weaker candidates to apply to Newnham.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-09 09:14 am (UTC)I think it's easier if you regard only your own room as being "home" and act outside it as you would in other public spaces. A bit difficult when the shower is across the corridor, but the newer accommodation had ensuite showers.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-09 10:44 am (UTC)I understood parental consent to be part of the argument, yes.
I think things that get people into university despite parental suspicion are generally good, albeit in the sense that a plaster is good rather than the sense that not falling of your bike is good.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-09 06:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-09 08:48 pm (UTC)