The peaceful ritual of breakfast was shattered on Wednesday morning with a screaming headline on the front page of The Times: “Is Oxford the most sexist university in Britain?” My bagel popped out of the toaster in alarm. Turning to the article, the quotations trundled out to make their argument, with Alan Ryan, recently retired Warden of New College, claiming that Oxford “still feels like a boys’ club.” The statistics piled up, proclaiming that only 9.5% of the top academic professors are women, and that the Arts in particular (long-since regarded a ‘girly’ field of study) only have a female contingent of professors numbering 14.8%.
I wrinkled my nose in smug pleasure at seeing God Damn Bloody Oxford getting a battering of Nadal-like proportions by the national press, and consoled myself with the thought that at least at Cambridge, within the safe grey-bricked prison cells of New Hall and the red-bricked hospital ward corridors of Newnham, there was not a hint of sexism to be found. Indeed, Cambridge is a veritable beacon of feminism, being the only university in the United Kingdom with colleges that refuse to admit men, and, moreover, make them so hideously unattractive that no man would deign to study in a place that so uniquely manages to look like a cross between a swimming pool, a prison and a power plant.
But then the milk in my cereal bowl swam like the pensieve in Harry Potter, and I recalled a memory from exam term, when a friend had returned to ‘The Boob’ (the concrete breast of a New Hall dining facility) looking very cross, clutching a timed essay that had prompted her SPS supervisor to advise she “write more like a boy.” Cambridge females may feel emancipated, but what is the use of accepting female students if they cannot triumph over the prejudices of a Cambridge examination system? Is Cambridge sexist, too?
Initially I was appalled by the notion that girls should channel their subconscious penis envy and write testosterone-fuelled tracts to guarantee them the top results, but upon casually perusing some statistics, I discovered that a strap-on could be as necessary as a biro at my next exam – in 2009, 27% of male students achieved a First in their Finals, compared to only 16.9% of girls. All the girls I know at Cambridge are opinionated, bright, hard-working and zesty, and the proportion of boys to girls in 2009 was roughly equal (53% testosterone versus 47% oestrogen). How the hell could these feisty females be lucking out in their Finals when they seemed to have everything going for them during term time supervisions?
Boys are prepared to take risks in essay writing, whereas girls are less self-confident and therefore less keen to tackle that Shakespeare question on the credit crunch. Boys are prepared to tell everyone that they’re ‘gunning for a First’, whereas girls will never admit that they are on a quest for that elusive upgrade, for fear of failure. And finally, girls expend more time on emotional support for friends and boyfriends, to the detriment of their own results.
These are just a handful of the mildly insulting reasons listed on the Cambridge University website to explain why boys achieve more Firsts than girls. The ‘risk factor’ is backed up by the statistic that more boys achieve Thirds than girls; boys, it seems, are willing to gamble, whilst girls want to play it safe. I can perhaps swallow that one, but the one that really gets my goat and carries it away onto a fucking Swiss meadow is that “girls expend more time on emotional support for friends and boyfriends.” They might just as well come out and say that a girl’s main priority is leaving Cambridge with a husband – fuck the First and the Blue.
Virginia Woolf, a zesty woman if ever there was one, wrote that “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” But what must she have if she wants to achieve a First, Virginia? Apparently, if the conclusion that The Times came to regarding Oxford is anything to go by, it’s “the ability to bullshit”. Having the confidence to stick your neck out, being prepared to argue your way into and out of a seemingly bizarre question, being self-confident enough to expect that a First is what you deserve – all supposedly masculine traits – will bring you that magic number come June.
Virginia Woolf thinking like a girl, but writing like a boy?
But if this “bullshit” factor is a supposedly masculine trait – and if 10% more boys than girls are achieving Firsts – then doesn’t that make Cambridge exams inherently sexist? If exam questions and mark schemes are geared towards a masculine way of thinking, as one female History of Art professor has intimated to her students in preparation for this year’s exams, doesn’t that put girls at a severe disadvantage?
According to Professor Gillian Evans, only 6% of professors at Cambridge are women. “I think there is a lot of unconscious discrimination at universities, by which I mean negative feeling towards people who don’t fit a certain brief.” The brief until 1948 was that you had to be male to receive a degree.
But I don’t buy these theories that state that women are humbly void of the traits of self-confidence and “bullshitting” that lead to a First. I frequently hear girls making statements that reek of academic bullshit. This gem from last term comes courtesy of yours truly: “Well, I’m just so into ekphrasis.” Can anyone really be ‘into’ ekphrasis?
Go to Cindies on a Wednesday night and you will see girls bullshitting all over the place – bullshitting that they’re single to get boys to buy them VKs, bullshitting that it’s their birthday to get a free bottle of ‘champagne’ (more bullshit) off the Cindies DJ, hell, even bullshitting that they’re about to vomit everywhere to head straight to the front of the endless queue for the toilet.
I find it truly baffling that 10% more boys than girls achieve a First, but don’t patronise female Cantabrigians by suggesting that they haven’t got the bottle to stick their necks out in an exam question. They’ve got the bottle, even if it requires them to ‘write like a boy’ for a few hours of their lives. The real problem is that after 800 years the examination system in Cambridge still seems to favour those who were here in the first place, and not the female new-comers. So unless testosterone supplements begin to accompany exam schedules in pigeon holes, something needs to change.
This whole article is proof that women can bullshit just as well as men.
Would someone please enlighten me as to what exactly a feminine examination would look like? Is it the black ink that is part of the masculine conspiracy or the white paper?
Could you link us to the page which lists the reasons which you mention?
I'm quite surprised to hear that the University has said those things in an official capacity.
This article really resonates with the experience I've had so far. And the problem is that when someone like this sticks their neck out and points out the problems, everyone else responds that it's "bullshit".. Hmm. Isn't it funny that usually the people pointing that out are male?
I love the fact you feel the need to mention Selwyn. A second-rate college with an equally second-rate response!
The problem is that you can't just give the one statistic 27% to 17% to say that exams are sexist. You would need a breakdown by subject to show that the difference depends on the subject. (I could just about buy an essay question/marking system perhaps favouring one style of writing to another, but struggle to see how a maths or physical science question could be sexist) You would also need to do some statistics to show that this is an actual correlation and not a coincidence. And it would be nice to have some sort of baseline before cambridge to compare people to account for ability (to see whether it is cambridge exams or exams in general) e.g. a level results.
I could go on, but basically you need a lot more than this collection of incoherent thoughts and randomly quoted statistics in this article to demonstrate sexism. And until the evidence is properly presented, I think it is fair comment to call it bullshit.
@trinners, I believe selwyn was top of the tompkins table last year, hardly second rate.
A must enlighten you to the fact Trinity was top in 2009 with 33.4% firsts compared to Selwyn in 3rd with 26.8%. Your inferiority at accurately referencing academic tables sits nicely with your delusion over Selwyn's 'academic rigour' as a cambridge college. Its not only ugly, poor and second-rate but also full of strategic candidates who would have never been accepted to places like trinity.
Selwyn topped the Tompkins Table in 2008, and, given that it doesn't have resources anything like those of Trinity, the fact that it's done as well as it has is rather impressive. This inter-collegiate snobbery doesn't do anybody any favours and the Tompkins Table in particular doesn't say all that much, given that the top 20 colleges all fall within a 5% spread.
or Jesus.
As fabulous as that is about Trinity and as proud as you must be (though I sense humility is not a word in your vocabulary), if you care to look at the average of the scores from when the Tomkins table was established, you will see that Trinity takes a lowly SECOND place behind Emmanuel. Perhaps your phrase 'second-rate' has come back to bite you in the ass in a more literal sense than you expected.
So don't be getting too big for your boat shoes mister. And maybe try harder next year, and you can up that score!
I will smugly wear my boat-shoes with pride thank you, as fortunately for the 'better' colleges in cambridge, Trinity is on the river and they will definately come in handy. Whilst you may be obsessed with average scores in the past, a past history which trinity has a CLEAR advantage within, your misconceptions are aligned more to Aru than Emma.
Aw mate, looks like Trinity has proven itself to be (very literally) a second-rate college yet again. Tough luck. Though I'm sure that looking back, years from now, when you're outside the Cambridge bubble, in the working world, it will at least comfort you to remember that you went to a college on the river.
As a Trinity guy i'd hate to be lumped in with the idiot above. But I don't think it's right to call anyones college second rate, we're at Cambridge for fucks sake. Calling yourself "Not a Trinity Twat " is just asking for an argument.
So please stop arguing over this pointless matter completely unrelated to the article. It's like reading the shitty comments on a youtube video where they argue back and forth 'You're a twat' … 'No you're a twat'
Scintilating stuff.
I must enlighten you to the fact that you are a first rate bellend
The trend is for almost all subjects across the arts and the sciences. In Physics and Maths part of the reason is because men are more likely to only revise a few areas, but revise them very well, and women are more likely to cover all the bases. That means that if a guy get's lucky and all the right subject areas come up then he's more likely to do well. Maths is also a perfect example of "risk taking" because of the absurd way in which it's marked. Certain combinations of alphas and betas get you certain marks. I have it on good authority that you go into a maths exam knowing what grade you are going for and therefore what questions and how many of each you need to attempt. If there is a difference between genders in "risk taking" then it's easy to see how this would affect a physics or maths grade.
In terms of pre-university grades it's pretty common knowledge that females do better than males in their GCSEs and A levels.
Also 50 years of women under-performing compared to men isn't a coincidence, it's a trend.
"In terms of pre-university grades it's pretty common knowledge that females do better than males in their GCSEs and A levels.
"
The overall average is certainly higher for girls, but this may be skewed by a lot of boys who get poor grades, the top end may still be dominated by males. (In the same way, if you did a Tompkins style scoring for girls and boys, you might find girls score higher because they get a greater no. of 2.is and boys get more thirds.) My suggestion was not about the overall results anyway but comparing a cohort as they go through a levels and university, which you would do in a study if you were trying to prove there was bias in the tripos system. The boys who get firsts may have always been at the very top (i.e. very high UMS scores, obviously everyone got As).
The suggestion about risk-taking is a bit spurious, I don't know anyone who got a first, male or female, who studied in this way, and in any case you would expect this strategy to horribly fail much more often than it succeeded, which isn't borne out by the figures. Even if this explanation is true, it doesn't mean there is a bias in the exam system, just that there is a risk-reward equation, you can either go for a fairly safe 2.i, or risk getting a third with the possibility of getting a first. If girls really want firsts, all they would have to do is adopt the more efficient revision method for that outcome. No-one is setting biased questions or discriminating against the way people answer questions in that scenario.
This isnt a piece of official bloody research, it is an entertaining, amusing piece of journalism. All hail Pithers.
This is so true. Without more statistics those figures mean absolutely nothing.
Boo.
If your cliched metaphors and hasty conclusions are an equal representation of your essay writing, no wonder females like yourself struggle to achieve the top marks.
On the whole, we're more driven, more calculating, more analytical and more focused… and, let's face it, we outperform you across the board – whether it be in arts or science, business or sports. Blaming 'the exam' is like blaming the weight of a stone… because you can't throw it as far – sorry… but that's just the way it works.
Secondly, who came up with the idea that 'bullshitting' is a means to achieving a 1st anyway? – It's so obviously utter nonsense. Here's a tip: Less babble, and more to the point. If anything, you females all bullshit way too much. I could bet my bottom dollar that for every page males write in an exam, females write at least another half a page of jibberjabber.
And finally, the vast majority of you are indeed messed up and emotional wrecks (and certainly even more so at Cambridge than at other universities); I really don't know why you bother denying it.
Got a girlfriend?
I think we both know the answer to that
Logical head – He will probably have three. Do you want one…
"long-since"? Since when?
Probably since the majority of Arts students were female and the majority of science students were male. Although there are exceptions, the figures from CUSU in the Alternative Prospectus bear this trend out.
'Male' you have written the longest comment on this thread, less babble next time maybe?
Also, being an emotional wreck doesn't preclude anyone from getting a first and is not limited to women by any means! Emotion can be a strength as much as a weakness. However, you use the key phrase in this debate…'in general', for that is the best that can be achieved; mere generalisations and abstract statistics. Therefore, I think the best thing to do as a woman is prove them wrong often enough that they are no longer valid, and one day we will, I hope.
"if 10% more boys than girls are achieving Firsts – then doesn’t that make Cambridge exams inherently sexist?"
No, correlation does not imply causation. If you now changed the exams so that it was equal, 50% girls getting firsts, then you would have changed the exam system to favour women more, which is sexist to men.
In the same way, the entry system to have set a quota of having 50% women at the university is sexist against men – it is an artificial target set to increase the number of women, but it leads to weaker candidates being chosen – women over men. Application statistics kind of show why women do worse when they get to cambridge – they have been chosen artificially in some cases.
I liked how you managed to implement zeugma with the verb fuck.
The statistic quoted in the above article is consistent with IQ testing between the sexes. Men are more likely to have IQs at the extremities of the deviation than women. If we assume that only people above a certain (rather high) IQ score get into Cambridge then that would show us why more men get firsts. If your classmark is, at least largely, dependent on your intelligence (which I take to be IQ in this instance) then only the people with comparatively higher IQs to the rest of the University (i.e. the people at the upper extremity of the deviation) are going to get firsts. Since there are more men at the extremities it logically follows that more men get firsts.
However what IQ testing and Cambridge University examinations do NOT tell us is that men are more intelligent than women (if that were the case no women would get firsts), merely that the deviation is greater in men, and, interestingly enough, even more pronounced at the high end of the deviation. Before anyone comes along and says 'oh, that just shows the same thing, IQ testing is biased in the same way that the University examinations are', I suggest that they take a look at the findings of Jensen (Bias in mental testing, 1980).
Though whether or not IQ constitutes intelligence is an argument for another day.
This is a rational answer I can agree with.
In other news, why isn't there a CUSU Mens officer?
I'd just like to point out that surely your examples of bullshit sound much more like girls learning "to play pretty and demure", exploiting men's weaknesses and or pretending to be vulnerable…
women are fucking stupid, that's why they don't get firsts!
oh dave,
you're fucking stupid
According to wikipedia, the university was founded in 1209. It was only in 1947 that women were accepted as full members of the university.
This means that for 643 years, the system of education has been geared towards a male perspective.
Has the system had a complete reversal in the last 63 years, with the female psyche understood and incorporated into the system as well as the male? After such a long time under male rule, it seems unlike that in a 10th of the time, the university has managed to complete assimilate itself to female, as opposed to male, needs.
I can do nothing but agree with Ms Pithers and thank her for highlighting how the difference between the sexes has repercussions in the examination and educational system that have not yet been fully addressed.
Being a New Hall graduate as you state, one would assume you do agree… Why do you need to quote mis-guided user-edited figures from Wikipedia? Oh well, someone has to serve people coffee at costa.
That made literally no sense.
http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/press/factsheets/…
If anything the current Cambridge system is intrinsically biased towards women. This is largely due to the application procedure. The majority of colleges accept both men and women. And most women apply to a mixed college. Some of these students then get pooled and because the vast majority of women apply to mixed colleges there are many places in pooling at the all girl colleges. So women have a (reasonably) fair (in comparison to men) opportunity to go to a mixed college. They then get an easier opportunity than a man to get a place via the pooling system.
I'm sure you have noticed the pooling element of this argument is unimportant and that having women-only colleges biases the whole procedure anyway. However, I make the pooling point because a higher percentage of women than men get into the university via pooling, so they are less likely to be extremely good (i.e. 1st standard) students. That means the application system's bias towards women reduces the average (according to the colleges' application protocol) ability of women in comparison to men.
Therefore this article is only presenting an outcome of an earlier bias to women in the application process. So you can either have a fairer application system and therefore a higher calibre of woman and thus a higher percentage of 1sts or you can accept that biasing the application procedure to women in the hope of generating a "fairer" society will lead to a lower percentage of 1sts. In fact there is a 3rd option, the one this ridiculous article appears to suggest; Bias the exams as far as possible towards women (e.g. increase linguistic demands)/abolish the subjects in which men (on average) hold an advantage over women (e.g. Physics, Engineering and Mathematics). Focusing on an outcome of an earlier gender bias is both ridiculous and a characteristic of lots of current feminist thought. Blaming society/institutions is often just the lazy way out and in the current climate of PCness a cheap way out (for people know that those who argue against a feminist viewpoint will be branded a sexist immediately). And if some women choose to think like this then they are only holding themselves back; looking for excuses can only be a weakness.
Oh yeh, proving all the people who say that pooled candidates are less likely to get firsts wrong also feels really good. There are many reasons people are pooled and being a lower 'calibre of woman' is not one of them. And although it is on a personal level that I am bothering to respond as I do find this pretty offensive to be honest (I know you said 'less likely' not in every case, but even so this is insulting), I don't know where you are drawing all of these generalised remarks from, as far as I know there is no distinction on class lists as to whether a candidate was pooled or not?
Please consider setting aside your evident, shallow assumptions about both women and pooled candidates, proving people wrong has a certain satisfaction as I have suggested, but I would love to not have to prove anything.
You have not proved anything – 'proving all the people who say that pooled candidates are less likely to get firsts wrong'. You got a first. That is all that can be said from that, your one result is statistically unimportant. And you're not really right when you say there are 'loads of reasons' why candidates get pooled. There are certainly a number of factors that contribute to the decision, but predominantly the main reason why candidates get pooled is that they are considered strong candidates but not strong enough to make the cut at that particular college. Of course, colleges make mistakes, it seems that you are one of them. You got a first, therefore the college that pooled you (unless all the students there got higher firsts) has clearly made a mistake.
And that is the premise from which these 'generalised remarks' of 'pc dont stop me' appear to be drawn from. A simple, rational, examination of the Cambridge admissions system. Whether this examination is correct or not I don't know but at least there is thought behind itwhile a mere blind defence based on having been personally affronted like saying 'as far as I know there is no distinction on class lists as to whether a candidate was pooled or not' gets us nowhere.
Let's keep the tone of this debate appropriate to the high levels of intellectual discourse expected of the Tab message board (and, indeed, all message boards (especially youtube)). We wouldn't want to get bogged down in puerile (is using that word sexist? Classicists help me, is there a modern word of identical meaning that derives from Puella?) insult-slanging now would we?
My cousin was pooled at Oxford after applying to Merton. She later discovered that no girl was offered a place there in her subject that year or the two subsequent ones. Never mind; her double first followed by a published PhD consoled her a little.
tl;dr
the words of a bitter second-class English student, perhaps?
When an examiner sets an exam, they think "how can I best test the students' knowledge of this course".
When a lecturer sets said course, they think "how can I best teach these students the relevant information and skills they might need in future careers with any given employer"
When said employer hires a previous student, they think "who can I hire who has the skills to complete the job I need carrying out in order to make profit or provide a necessary service in this society".
If in any of that chain of processes you can find a point where now, or at any point in history, one of them says "I need to gear this towards males" then you win the argument.
@Selwyn: Although I don't agree with the original author, you've missed the point. The gender bias is argued to be inherent in the way students are examined, not intentionally introduced by lecturers. Going even further, if there is a gender bias in the workplace towards skill sets generally characterised as masculine, that would be reflected – presumably without conscious criticism – in the hiring decision of the employers. To avoid a naturalistic fallacy, though, we need to show that these gender biases are not value-neutral, something for which the author hasn't argued.
girls DO spend more time providing emotional support for friends and boyfriends, especially in exam term…. catch a boy taking a twenty minute unscheduled tea break to calm down a friend who's convinced she's going to fail everything after doing a bad past paper….
I've done this plenty of times for female friends. If you make crass generalisations towards other people then chances are you make crass generalisations in your exam paper, hence poorer results.
This article is a load of nonsense.
Yes, more males get Firsts.
But also, more males get Thirds.
OMG OMG CAMBRIDGE IS SEXIST AGAINST MEN!!!!!! Or not.
I was at Cambridge in the late 70s and find it depressing that there still seems to exist such a virulent, nasty mysogynism amongst the male students. Some of the comments left here are repulsive and you should be ashamed. (Would any of you find it acceptable to make such comments based on race? No, I thought not.) Just listen to yourselves! You – who are after all amongst the most privileged young men on the planet – are so grudging, so suspicious, so mean-minded. You seem to find it absolutely impossible to be open to the idea that discrimination against women persists. Get real.
I am a current male student and completely agree with "old student". There is far too much misogyny amongst some at Cambridge; it's laughable and pathetic, really. It's also amusing that they often deny discrimination against women exists whilst actually discriminating against women themselves. Luckily there are more refined men at Cambridge as well as strong, intelligent women, so we can console ourselves with that at least.
Ah a bit of sense in this misogynistic mess of comments, thank you!
Women just aren't as good as men at most things, get over it.
Men and woman are different. Their brains are different. They think differently. It is idealistic to assume that the genders should be doing equally well in an examination system.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/sep/20/research…
I'm going to Cambridge in October. And now, thanks to some of these replies from certain fuckwits, I'm looking forward to it just that little bit less.
Please don't let these remarks shape your view of Cambridge. I agree, some of these remarks are utterly pathetic, but utterly pathetic people never cease to exist in all walks of life. Cambridge is a fantastic institution and I absolutely love studying here. Do not allow yourself to be put off by a few exiguous excuses for human-beings.
I've always disagreed with the idea that there is a 'natural' male and female way of thinking, writing etc. It's significant that no one has suggested in what way the examination system could practically be geared towards women.
Personally I think if men write more confidently and are more prepared to take risks, then that IS something that should be cultivated in women. That is not sexist , because these traits are not inherently male!
If the system was strongly geared towards style (stereotypically male) over content and learning (stereotypically female) then that would be a problem. But the problem would lie in the bias towards superficiality, not gender prejudice. And I think the style/content balance exists in the exam system, albeit with a fair bit of subjectivity in arts subjects.
Girls get better A Levels – Papers scream that this more proof that women are more intelligent than men…. We take this on the chin, and hope that the male layabouts at the bottom of the table who are dragging our averages down someday get the fuck of the street and into a library. Come on guys, you only need to get 480 out of 600 to get A.
Men get better uni grades – THE SYSTEM IS SEXIST. OMG IT MUST BE.
Sexism in popular culture or the structures of acceptable debate? Anyone?
like
Agree with you there.
When females outperform males, it's proof they're better.
When males outperform females, it's proof the system is sexist!
Double standards from the media and society.
The Cambridge examination system favours a style of writing that is slightly more likely to be used by men than women. It does not discriminate against women, it discriminates against people (male and female) who do not write that way. Examiners cannot and do not judge essays by the sex of their writers. Society is still sexist, cambridge exams are not.
"write more like a boy" is probably just a casual way of saying "do a better job".
Stop attacking "Male", he is simply stating his observations which happened to be in support a certain hypothesis (H1:Males are better) over the Null that (H0: both sexes are equal). He made some good points.
I might be wrong, and i often am, but look at it this way.
All the evidence we have seems to support that males are better at Cambridge exams. So let this be… so what?
We (esp. scientists) must not let emotions and ideology cloud our impartial judgement nor shall we distort facts and observations.
From the physical assault on E.A. Wilson 30 yrs back to the cancelling of Dr. Watson's coming to Cambridge a few years ago, little have improved.
It is important that scientists should hold their ground and defend the truth even if it involves racially/sexually sensitive issues, esp scientists with authority but seldom speak up because they do not wish to offend.
Women tend to float face up, men tend to float face down. The whole water system is biased against men, right? Same logic as this article.
Why would you expect gender equality in all things? What basis does this have in any evidence?
This entire argument is completely ridiculous. Sure, we need equality between all groups but we also need to accept our differences. Men and Women are different- FACT (I can show you pictures if you don’t believe me). We cannot expect them to perform exactly the same at all times, and aspiring to this is a fallacy.
Having said this there probably are inherent prejudices in society one way or the other, but you won’t be able to spot these by looking at one statistic; it’s a bit more complicated than that. Making a vague accusation of sexism based on little substance does nothing but further obscure more well thought out claims. Until something is proven properly I’m afraid we all have to take a hit on the swings, and catch up on the roundabouts.
some of this comments are the proof that cambridge are sexist!