THANKS to disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, women’s rights have again taken centre stage. The New York Times’ exposé last October that blew the lid off Weinstein’s chronic sexual predation of young starlets has inspired a fresh wave of feminism in Western democracies. And, through the power of social media, it is inevitable this wind of change will soon reach Asian shores.
American women, especially, are resonating with the #Time’s Up and #MeToo social media movements as vehicles to identify and shame sexual predators, many of them celebrities or public officials. Even United States President Donald Trump has not been spared.
More significantly, these movements have added urgency to the larger conversation on women’s rights and gender disparities in income, education, economic status and political power.
There is little doubt that women have had to fight tooth and nail for any level of social equality — from the right to vote, to proving themselves able leaders in business and politics, and smashing the weaker sex stereotype that male-dominated media has long perpetuated with glee.
Yet, it is imperative the tidal wave of feminism battering patriarchy’s tall citadels does not turn vigilante. If the process of social justice for women is opportunistically put on steroids, there is a genuine risk it may end up doing more harm than good.
Take Oxford University for example. Media sources reported that starting last summer, all math and computer science majors were given extra 15 minutes in exams to help “female candidates [who] might be more likely to be adversely affected by time pressure”.
University officials defended the move as necessary to help improve the grades of female students, since men had been drubbing them for years in the number of first-class degrees gained in these disciplines. And, since Oxford enjoys the status of a sacred cow in academia, it is inevitable other colleges around the world will follow suit.
However, on balance, there is a possibility that such policies would turn women into a special-needs category at colleges. And, ultimately, will reinforce many of the gender’s most grotesque stereotypes. It will have the signalling effect of deepening their internalised sense of inferiority that feminists routinely blame patriarchy for.
Two general defences of women have emerged in the aftermath of Oxford’s decision that, while valid, predictably point to institutional failure stemming from gender stereotyping.
One, school teachers habitually lowball girls when assessing their understanding of math and science, which consequently create an “anxiety” in them about these disciplines. Maybe, but Oxford has a rigorous admission process that only passes the best and brightest. Hence, the anxieties of the average female student are irrelevant in this case. If there is sufficient evidence to prove that pre-tertiary level teachers indeed prejudice against girls in these subjects, which over time discourages them from pursuing them professionally, it behooves the government to implement a mandatory retraining regime to remedy the situation.
Two, standardised tests are heavily biased towards male (i.e. individualistic) patterns of thinking, whereas girls do better at collaborative problem solving. Again, group testing is meaningless to establish learning outcomes at a degree level, since the weightage of individual effort is impossible to establish. Social justice is a highly desirable quality in any society, yet we must be wary of rebels without a cause who have injected themselves into the narrative and bring an element of extremism to women’s rights. This will dilute the core message of the movement and even reduce it to a farce.
For me, the sociological value of Oxford’s exam policy rests on two important questions. First, will it advance the pursuit of global gender equality? No, I believe it will pigeonhole women as a special-needs category and concurrently recycle the old sexist stereotype of them as damsels in distress. It not only cheapens the value of the female intellect, it also signals to society they are patently unable to level up mentally or acquire stress-coping mechanisms to succeed in high-pressure situations.
Two, will it present women as the intellectual equal of men? Negative. By publicly declaring exam times have been extended to help women compete, Oxford has in fact passed judgment that they are inferior to men in organising their thoughts and completing tasks in a timely manner.
Male chauvinists, too, are going to have a field day with this, as Oxford’s decision hands them yet another foothold to hammer home the notion that women are scarce at the top rungs of business and politics because they easily crack under pressure. Moreover, one of the cardinal mistakes of the current crop of social justice warriors is to treat men as a gender monolith. For, as studies repeatedly show, men can react poorly to pressure and suffer from contextual anxieties based on their psychological makeup and life experiences. More pertinently, such Band-Aids will not resolve the core issues of gender inequality the way handouts have little impact on eradicating poverty.
For perspective, when we seek sociological solutions to poverty — or beggary specifically —research suggests simply giving money to beggars gradually diminishes their motivation to better themselves. A more sustainable solution is teaching these marginalised individuals a trade or skill that incentivises them to earn a living.
Assuming the desire to appear relevant did not predicate Oxford’s decision, it should require female students to participate in stress-coping workshops where they can develop mental tools to deal with the pressures of education and later, work.
These workshops should be embedded in the core university curriculum for all science disciplines for starters, and offered beginning of freshman year. Likewise, it may also be useful to incorporate in them the life stories of female role models who rose from the depths of despair to put their stamp on the world. J.K. Rowling and Oprah Winfrey come to mind.
Such a holistic approach to college learning will reduce the conditioned inferiority that women have long experienced in society and help them self-actualise without the crutch of pseudo-affirmative action.
S. Mubashir Noor is an Ipoh-based independent journalist.