Having just finished invigilating an exam at Bjelke-Petersen Memorial University of Suburban South-East Queensland, I am reminded of an anecdote told by a colleague who invigilated a mid-year exam at the same university.
Said colleague observed a female student sitting the exam, wearing a medium-length skirt, and intermittently hitching up the skirt and looking at her thigh. At one point the colleague glimpsed what were presumably crib notes written on the students’ thigh. Being a gentleman of reasonably senior years and great circumspection in his conduct towards students, he was at a loss as to what to do. The student was almost certainly cheating, yet he was unable to think of a non-offensive way to ask her to show him the crib notes. And if he had, this would still have left the problem of finding a non-offensive way to secure the evidence in a form usable by the Course Convenors and other University decision-makers.
A form of cheating such as this clearly defeats all attempts at detection and penalisation. The only remedy would seem to be prevention, namely the imposition of an exam dress code which requires the wearing of long trousers for students of both genders. At University level this should be unproblematic.
However the question which must be asked is whether the student hit upon this method of cheating at University, or whether she learned the trick in secondary school. Of the great majority of secondary schools which require their students to wear uniforms, most not only permit but force their female students to wear skirts, dresses or tunics as part of the uniform - in flagrant breach of relevant State anti-discrimination laws and Education Department policies. Whilst I deplore academic cheating at any level, I deplore sexism at least as strongly, and it seems to me that schoolgirls who take advantage of the opportunities which stupid, archaic, sexist school uniforms afford them to cheat in exams are very cleverly striking an oblique blow at the patriarchy. Similarly, schools which force their boys to wear shorts in certain grades or at certain times of the year likewise have themselves to blame if the lads resort to the same ruse.
Dress codes and uniforms imposed by dominant groups on subaltern groups are invariably designed to signal the lowly status of the wearers. It behoves democrats of all stripes to oppose such dress regimes wherever they exist, and to support those who subvert them.
Why didn’t your colleague ask a female invigilator to go and check it out? Surely that would not have posed serious problems.
Anyway, I agree with the stupidity and sexism inherent in overly-prescriptive uniform rules (eg. skirts vs pants for girls, shorts vs pants for boys, etc.)
But are you saying school uniforms per se are undemocratic and/or undesirable, and ought to be subverted? I’m not sure that is true. School uniforms are not necessarily about dominance. For example, there’s a lot to be said for the social levelling that can be achieved through uniforms: it’s a little more difficult to assert status (and more perhaps more particularly economic status) when your fellow students are wearing the same clothes. To the extent that school uniforms do reflect the dominance of staff over students, that is also defensible. It is appropriate that the teaching staff maintain a dominant role. They’re teachers, after all. They are meant to be in control. And maintaining control is, of course, very different from treating students as mere children, or with the disrespect that usually attends perceived ‘lowly status’.
Cheers
BBB
Where were you when I needed you?
I struggled against uniforms for 30 plus years as a teacher.
Never really achieved any progress and had to settle for white anting as the most productive method of opposition.
I don’t think the public realize how much time and energy is spent in schools policing uniforms.
I’ve heard all the attempted justifications, a really HUGE been there done that, and don’t really want to trek through the debate again for the enth time, its boring.
About the closest I ever got to success was when I was able to point out in one school that there was ever so slightly a contradiction between ‘compulsory’ school uniform and the officially stated you beaut aims of the school which included
buzz words like ‘freedom’, ‘creativity’, ’self-discipline’, ‘initiative’, ‘individuality’ and the like.
I’ll probably cop out of this thread now, I bashed my head against brick walls for so long that I have no desire to go through it all again.
[Might not be able to resist tho’.]
But please, please do not give oxygen to those old worn out rationalizations such as: ” uniforms are cheaper for poor parents” [false], “it stops kids being able to tell who is poor” [it doesn’t] “it inculcates school spirit” [how? when most kids hate uniforms…just ask them], “it helps distinguish individual schools” [nope it doesn’t] “they look so neat and tidy” [grey is automatically ‘neat’ and ‘tidy’…huh???], there are probably others.
One bright spot in the decades was the year I spent teaching in Canada where staff, students and parents found it mind boggling that Aussie public schools should have uniforms, they found the idea weird.
Right. We can’t run our schools like Athenian assemblies. Though at my high school female students were given the option of wearing trousers instead of skirts (with their winter uniform at least)… though I can think of only two or three who did. Not to mention the fact that our free market in fashion reflects continued demand for gender based differentiation in the absence of an enforced dress code. I’m not really sure if wearing a skirt signifies subordination anymore. It goes both ways after all, guys can only wear skirts if they’re scottish.
Easy solution Paul - take a camera into the exam and ask a female invigilator to take a photo of the offending thigh.
It was only after my last uni exam that I thought of an extremely easy way to cheat. Simply write your notes on a piece of paper, put it in your pocket, and in the exam go to the loo and take a look at your notes.
Nude exams?
Oh come on! Talk about overlaying your own beliefs onto the subjects you are looking at. Many students will cheat if they can – where is the evidence that the reason for, or consequence of, the skirt cheating is any different from any other kind.
That this little opportunity is a contingency opened up by patriarchy (as well as numerous other social forces) doesn’t mean it strikes a resistance against patriarchy!
But this founders on the fact that said photograph would then need to be seen by the Course Convenor, perhaps the Dean or other higher authority in the relevant academic unit, and possibly members of misconduct committees and appeals committees. It would be impossible to avoid giving the student grounds for complaint which would eclipse the gravity of whatever the student was being accused of.
[Eclipse the gravity - how’s that for a tortured astrophysical metaphor?]
I’m not sure of the sexist nature of the invigilator’s dilemma. There may be a faux paz involved here… but it would be no more sexist of him to fulfill his duty to prevent corruption of the process by taking action to stop her from doing so, than it would be for a male customs officer to conduct a physical search on a women suspected of harbouring drugs or weapons on her person (admittedly in both cases, as Bingo says, it would be best for a woman to handle the matter). But it only makes sense to necessarily implicate sexism in these cases if we automatically assume a sexual motivation for what the invigilator/officer does in these cases… when they are simply exercising their duty as best they can. The woman who takes advantage of the dilemma this sort of thing would pose for male invigilators is the real culprit, and is the one perpetrating a form of sexism.
With regard to your point about striking an oblique blow against the patriarchy… that is simply not applicable in a university context, where there are no gender specific dress codes. The woman in question therefore wore her skirt by choice. She was not striking a blow against patriarchy at all, quite the opposite. She was taking advantage of the gains women have made in reclaiming their own bodies from a covetous patriarchy, and using it as a loophole by which she could prevent the male invigilator (who, given his aporia, is quite clearly not a patriarch) from doing his duty.
I do not think this is correct any more. Certainly my old state high school had long pants available to female students. The debate had progressed to whether shorts were available as well, and they wound up getting them as well - officially, well after they wore them in practice anyway.
I’m pretty sure most schools would have at least long pants available. I think you will find almost universally that girls in schools have a lot more liberty to push into traditionally male clothes than the reverse.
So we support cheats - providing their cheating involves skirt wearing.
Sorry but this whole argument absurd.
David, what you say would be correct if schools are complying with applicable education department policies on non-discrimination and equal opportunity. My impression, from observing school students in Brisbane and reading some school web sites which state the uniform policy, is that compliance is far from universal. I have also been told by a person in a position to know that senior management of the Queensland Education Department is not eager for those policies to be implemented with any vigour.
Indeed. Women have much more freedom in this sense than males do… at least from a cultural perspective. Women who wear jeans or trousers or shorts are not given a second look; a man who wears a skirt or a dress, however, is either a deviant or, as I said before, a Scotsman.
You’re certainly correct about the “ever so slightly” nature of the contradiction here. I don’t think that when educational institutions use “buzzwords” such as these would cheapen them in the way you’re implying. The idea that we can express our individuality via our choice of clothes may be true to a certain extent… but really, I don’t think that is the kind of individuality and creativity that schools are trying to foster. Children have ample opportunity to accessorize and express themselves on their bodies outside of school. Thats the kind of “individuality” and “creativity” that they perfectly capable of teaching each other.
No, we support gender equality in school dress codes and we think people and organisations who seek to impose sexist (or otherwise discriminatory) dress codes deserve whatever problems they thereby create for themselves until they come into the 21st century.
I would also say that we should not downplay the role of resistance in the formation of creativity and individuality. If we set about creating a system which fosters “individuality” a priori… I really wonder what good that will do vis a vis the development of creative individuals. Ideally, authority should exercised in ever decreasing degrees over children as they grow older, but exercised nonetheless. As Hegel said, “to be free is nothing, to become free is everything”.
Agreed. But that does not say anything about the right course of action in the very concrete situation you have given in order to illustrate your more general observations here. Gender inequality in school dress codes is not for the invigilator to worry about, nor for the student in question to take advantage of. Besides, I don’t think the whole “we should address gender inequality because women can take advantage of it to cheat in exams” argument serves your higher principles very well, and if it were the basis for a change in policy, it would be a hollow victory for feminists indeed.
“Far from universalâ€? is also far from “most” schools forcing girls to wear skirts, which is what you first stated. Also you have to realise the massive gap between official code and actual practice. For a start, perhaps some schools just haven’t updated their website?
Even if it is still a massive patriarchal problem, I’m really struggling to see how a woman or girl hiding notes on her thigh is at all related to this patriarchy, let alone a resistance to it. Surely one could write notes on one’s thigh under a skirt (or even shorts) in the ideal community where any gender could where another gender’s clothes.
I think it’s a shame that you are actually endorsing a kind of cheating. Even more, you are saying endorsing it is a requirement of democracy! This is sad and ethically and intellectually dishonourable.
If they are cheating they are probably going to fail anyway.
ECU Business exams - sat through a number of those with students openly talking to each other. Didn’t help me - Couldn’t understand because it was either chinese or Indonesian.
Tell it to George, Cliff.
And I second Jobby’s call for nude exams, which might give new meaning to the stern final warning “pencils down”.
Our SRC is currently fighting to be allowed pants over skirts and tights in winter. It’s so reasonable yet the staff are fighting it!
I’d get the female invigilator to check the offending thigh, transcribe (not photograph) any suspicious equations or whatnot, then submit the transcription as evidence in a stat dec.
See, I’m old and sneaky.
This is rather defeatist. One could try.
Well certainly administrations share some of the blame for the morally wrong behaviour perpetrated against them when they played a part in its cause. Kind of like the relationship between the actions of the West and terrorism. But acknowledging this fact is a world a way from endorsing the behaviour itself, which we should unequivocally condemn as wrong. Let me remind you what you actually said:
So accordingly to your argument, the problem of skirt cheating was caused by patriarchy and the cheating is resistance against it. We should support resistance against patriarchy. Tell how your scheme doesn’t lead us to the conclusion that we should support this instance of cheating.
Why see unsolvable problems everywhere? People have been solving problems that are much more difficult to deal with than cheating students for thousands of years.
Good to see a High School SRC with teeth. The SRC at my high school was a token organization and, when I was on it in Grade 10, the Principal only met with us twice in one year.
Yeah of course it doesn’t defy “all” attempts to police. You just get a female staff member to check her thigh afterwards and compare it to her test paper.
I apologise to the Fijians, and any other male skirt wearing culture, for my oversight.
If anyone makes the mistake of yanking the oaken stake out of Jo’s corpse, this august institution may have to be renamed.
Sorry which uni is this - Bjelke-Petersen Memorial University?
I’m out of the loop.
I think he’s referring to Griffith University.
Unsolvable? Open book exams.
Ah yes… we can stop cheating by making it unnecessary.
Where in all hell did you get this from?
I think it’s fair to say that uniforms aim to express conformity and uniformity (as well as conveying a large amount of anonymity and privileging role over authenticity), but being a way of signalling lowly status? Look at the other social groups who wear uniforms: police, nurses, sports teams, etc. … and you’re claiming this is this some form of oppression by the evil hegemonic forces or something?
He’s actually expressed the statement to neatly exclude police uniforms. He limits the subordinating effect to “Dress codes and uniforms imposed by dominant groups on subaltern groups”.
Of course this makes what he is saying pretty much empty and close to tautology… but hey I think the whole argument is empty.
Eh? Consciously? Unconsciously? This seems very unlikely as an explanation for cheating to me. Most people cheat because they’re not confident of passing based on memory, they aren’t trying to make some kind of political statement.
More like “saw it on Fast Times at Ridgmont High” and thought it was a cool idea. Were they completely dressed like Pat Benatar as well?
Insert “WENDY/Welcome To Jamaica Have A Nice Day” joke here.
I sat a few exams three years ago as part of a masters. It devolved into a handwriting and memorization test, using pencil and paper. No multiple choice, 85% pass mark, computer-driven, web-based tests like the industry standard. It was hard to believe that nothing had advanced since my last exam in 1979.
The main problem is that I haven’t been able to handwrite for twenty years. I gave up writing 90min into a three hour exam - even I couldn’t read it The exams were pointless and of no value to me whatsoever. Assignments on the other hand were extremely helpful. The course was heavily weighted on the exams, so my already marginal interest was extinguished.
Now I can see the point of an exam as a reality check to see that the person being examined is the same one who submitted their assignments, but beyond that they’re a joke. Especially in their typically primitive form.
“Unsolvable? Open book exams.
Ah yes… we can stop cheating by making it unnecessary.”
Good exams are tests of undersrtanding not memory. Open book exams, properly designed, are very challenging. This is because, properly designed, they test the student’s understanding of the material, not stuff s/he has memorised. There is very little to be gained in looking stuff up if you don’t understand it.
Spiros
There are few greater trainers of the young mind than rote learning.
The school I attended only allowed skirts/dresses for girls and these had to be a certain length. Frankly, I would have preferred to wear pants (more convenient and warmer in winter), but as far as feminist issues go, it wasn’t at the top of my list (and most people who know me would describe me as a raving feminist). Given that the school gave equal education, encouragement and support to girls and boys in every area of endeavour and gave me a great education, which enabled me to pursue the career I wanted, wearing a skirt did not seem that unreasonable.
As for uniforms generally - not sure whether they promote school spirit, but they do promote discipline and stop kids having silly fashion contests at school.
If the woman cheating thought that she was “striking an oblique blow at the patriarchy” she was sadly mistaken. Not only was she risking her academic record if she was caught, she was doing herself a disservice if she did not study for the exam properly - when it comes to applying that knowledge, she may not have a crib sheet to rely on. Being competent is a better way to strike a blow at patriarchy than being dishonest.
I think you’re being a bit unfair Ulysses - the post raised a point which was worth debating (as evidenced by the forty something comments). Isn’t that what a blog post is about?
BTW, I agree with Spiros re open book exams - they stop students cheating, they test understanding rather than ability to learn by rote and if you go into an open book exam and actually need to rely on your notes/books, you’re in trouble anyway - so you need to do as much study. Most of my uni exams (law and politics) were open-book and IMO they were no less conducive to learning than the traditional type of exam.
Well anyone can bring up the point that girls should be able to wear pants without putting it in the context of a ludicrous argument. Frankly it’s an embarrassment to leftists such as myself to have someone proclaiming the banality of cheating to be a subversion of patriarchy.
I still have not worked out how a woman cheating at university is the fault of schools not letting girls where pants. Heck, why not blame global warming on school uniform policy as well. That too would bring up something worth debating. But that’s not enough, is it? The post actually has to make sense.
But it’s not just stupid. It’s disgraceful. An academic has stated that a woman’s cheating at university is actually resistance to patriarchy, and in the next breath stated that we should “support� resistance to patriarchy. What does this mean? From a person whose professional and ethical duty it is to uphold intellectual standards? This post should not be on LP.
This comment and thread are pants. Completely pants.
This is serious stuff… don’t skirt around the issue.
LOL
This above all: to thigh known self be true.
I think she was just cheating. And cheating is unfair to other students. She should fail.
An oblique blow?? I too think that’s overstated.
With enough imagination, any ordinary act may be labelled as an oblique blow: choice of fashion, choice of magazine, choice of surname, the way a lady walks along the street, oh we are such IRONISTS nowadays….. my very goodness !!
If such be ‘analysis’ or ‘intellectual play’ in some circles, I hope they’re ever-diminishing circles. Piffle!
cheerio
I’m astonished by some of the bile that this (I would have thought) fairly innocuous and rather interesting post has produced, and I’m guessing that at least some of it is from people who go into antifeminist hysterics whenever they see the word ‘patriarchy’. (Quite right too. Patriarchy is a Bad Thing.)
Paul was not advocating cheating, a point he spells out clearly so even the least inattentive reader can’t miss it, or so one would have thought. He was flying a kite and following an idea to its logical conclusion.
Apart from anything else, I wouldn’t give you five cents for any body of knowledge you could pass an exam in by looking at notes that would fit on a thigh, a hand, an erect penis (though that would certainly add a little fun to an exam, not to mention the initial note-taking) or any other body part. As someone has pointed out, education is about understanding and the capacity to work things out, not a memory test.
And this was? That we should support a cheat because she used a skirt?
“…who go into antifeminist hysterics whenever they see the word ‘patriarchy’. (Quite right too. Patriarchy is a Bad Thing.)”
But Dr. Cat, don’t you see? Just as (I’ve often heard it claimed) there are ‘many feminisms,’ so too, there are many patriarchies. All different shapes and sizes. You seem to be living in one of the good ones.
I’ll take nine silk feminisms, please, and a dozen of those nice cashmere patriarchies, in assorted colors.
JPZ, does the phrase ‘enough rope’ mean anything to you?
“does the phrase ‘enough rope’ mean anything to you?”
Not when it doesn’t come attached to enough other words to make it witty. Or at least an argument.
Censored?
Ridiculous- humourlessness on a grand scale- oblique blow my arse , baseball bat sledging by nonentity.
Okay, JPZ, how’s this — your ‘joke’ about feminism and patriarchy was perhaps more self-revealing than you intended it to be.
“an erect penis (though that would certainly add a little fun to an exam, not to mention the initial note-taking) or any other body part. As someone has pointed out, education is about understanding and the capacity to work things out, not a memory test.”
You read The Young Ones coffee table book Bachelor Boys too? Only works if your invigilator is unattractive enough to deflate the notes when discovered, though.
No, I thought it up all by myself. (So to speak.) Obviously the Young Ones’ minds and mine work the same way.
A female thigh is not the equivalent of a penis and we were not invited to focus our attention on a penis as a possible canvas for cheat notes or to speculate about how a teacher can ask to examine a penis as opposed to a teenage girl’s upper thigh.
No, jinmaro, of course it isn’t — that thought never crossed my mind. I was simply musing about possible sites for cheat notes and thought the collapsible one was funny. I do think people are being a bit harsh on Paul, considering some of the genuinely egregious outrages (sexist or otherwise) that we all encounter every day.
One of the luxuries of having been a teacher of literature is that no amount of notes on any body part (gender-specific or otherwise) could help students even if they wanted to cheat. Either they’d read the novel/poem/play and understood enough to be able to answer questions about it adequately, or they hadn’t.
Although those were absolutely determined to cheat did always have the option of plagiarising in essays. I once had a student hand up an essay in which she had plagiarised big slabs of an article I’d written. She was astonished when I recognised it, too.
Dr Cat, thanks for the support. Most of the commenters on this post have clearly either completely misread it, or read it as a far more serious and literal statement of my views than I intended. To quote Helen Garner, they are rotten readers.
Also, as someone who posts under my own name (which may be brave or simply foolish) I find it difficult to respect or to take seriously people who libellously impugn my motives for posting from behind the coward’s cover of pseudonymity. The comments in question have accordingly been moderated.
Although I don’t know which posts you are responding to with your comment there Paul, I don’t think it is a winning strategy to respond to people’s objections to your writing by calling them “rotten readers”.
Well, personally, I’ve never been known as an anti-feminist and am quite willing to acknowledge the validity of the term “patriarchy” in social science and commentary… but I think that its use in this post was conceptually stretching it to breaking point. I agree that the ‘personal is political’, but I have noticed a tendency for left leaning thinkers to apply their once potent powers of analysis and critique more and more to the banal minutiae of human social life. I’m not saying that you may not be right (who knows what was motivating the student in question… maybe she was a feminist insurrectionary), I’m just saying that to apply the analytical criteria and jargon of feminism to a situation for which there is almost certainly a more simple explanation and which, if taken by itself (without recourse to the analytics and jargon) constitutes an unambiguous violation of rules that are fairly designed (leaving aside the irrelevant question of how effective cheating is), is probably not the best way, in itself, of striking a blow against the patriarchy (which from where I’m standing, is already at the very least severely bruised).
On the question of gendered dress codes, I would say that what is most important is not the actual existence of a gendered dress code, but the interpretation of it. Whilst I agree with Paul when he says that “Dress codes and uniforms imposed by dominant groups on subaltern groups are invariably designed to signal the lowly status of the wearers”, I would also add that such a statement, as it is worded, is almost impossible to disagree with. If a group is already subaltern vis a vis a dominant group, a dress code that differentiates said subaltern group from the dominant one
by definitionsignifies their subaltern status… and I would go further and say that whether a dress code is imposed or not, anything which distinguishes a subaltern group from more dominant ones will signify subordinate status simply by virtue of being symbolically associated with a subaltern group. Paul’s statement here is true, but true in the way that a tautology is. If applied to modern Australian society, it is either only marginally or residually relevant, or pretty much irrelevant. Whether or not women wear different clothes to men, one can only say that these clothes signify subordinate status if women themselves are considered subordinate and subaltern. If they are not (and I would argue that they are not, or are at least increasingly not), then their clothes do not signify subordination, but are just different. They are just what women wear… no more a sign of subordination than going to the women’s toilets is, or going to a women’s only gym is. Arguing as Paul does that a gendered dress code invariably signifies the subordination of women contains a big, silent “IF” that should have been more properly ad’dress’ed (are we still doing the silly puns?).I understand, respect, and would positively
encouragewriters on LP to muse, speculate and to generally de-familiarize their readers from the familiar… but I think that they should also make sure that the force of their speculation does not rely on too many debatable assumptions, or that it doesn’t fall too easily to the ‘misreading’ of others. Paul should have put more emphasis on the fact that, even though this situation causes us to ponder on more general questions about the nature of gendered dress codes in society, the concrete situation in question at the very least admitted a number of conflicting interpretations, the least (and most unlikely) of which that the woman was “striking an oblique blow against the patriarchy”.But kudos go to Paul for writing what was (for me at least) a thought-provoking piece. Admittedly, the thoughts it provoked were formed due to my negative standpoint vis a vis the positive assertions of the piece… but that’s probably how most thoughts are produced anyway. The shortest and least interesting threads on this or any other blog would no doubt be the ones where everyone agreed with each other.
I may get brickbats for this… but this the kind of post I would expect to see from feminists whose substantive political and social demands have already been met.
The scurrilous speculations about Paul’s motivations were lame and unacceptable.
However, Paul, I don’t think you can complain that readers interpreted you “literally” when you didn’t do anything to flag your post as non-literal.
At some point, an author needs to take responsibility for how they are interpreted. Language only takes on meaning within the context of a community of readers. If 90% of people interpret an author in a particular way, it means the author should have better clarified what he or she meant.
I wish I wasn’t so forceful in my criticism (the internet makes that too easy), but if you throw around rhetorical inflation (”striking a blow against the patriarchy”) about a controversial issue (cheating), it is reasonable to expect some rhetorical inflation to come back.
I’m not sure I can see the inference about “striking a blow…” but a lot of the personal criticism was undeserved and mean-spirited in my opinion. If you don’t get the tone, or the intentions of the writer aren’t clear, or you think a long bow has been drawn, a forum like this is ideal to seek clarification. There’s no need to fling abuse as some commenters did.
It’s sometimes difficult to ‘read’ levity in text without some sort of special punctuation or some unambiguous sign. My stepdad’s sense of humour, for example, is notorious for the dry sincerity of its delivery… such that when he seriously told me that my bedroom was flooded with about an inch of water on the floor back when I was in highschool, I didn’t know whether he was joking or not. He wasn’t. I’m not sure if that was the case in this post, as there was no recognizable (for me anyway) sign denoting that it should not be taken literally. In the case, I applied the principle of charity and assumed that Paul was making a sincere argument or observation that should be received as it was written. My personal experience of some of the theoretical labour undertaken by academics perhaps paved the way for me doing so… its my observation that it is (or was, at least) not uncommon for members of the academe, in the humanities at least, to seek and find instances of oppression and resistance, hegemony and counter-hegemony, in every nook and cranny of social and cultural life. I certainly would not assume to reject such microscopic inquiry a priori, but it may have a tendency to ‘get lost’, or oversignify the situation involved.
There is often an immeasurable gulf between the general and the particular, between the structural and the agential, and I found that in this situation the attempt to bridge a particular instance of cheating with a more general conception of feminist ethics and politics unfortunately did not get the measure quite right, from where I’m standing at least.
I do however think that Paul has raised a legitimate question with regards to the dilemma he describes. I’ll be invigilating an exam next saturday, and I’m glad the person I’m doing it with is a woman… so I won’t have to worry about it. And I’m sure she’s thankful she’s working with a man, just in case a bloke decides to write cheat notes on his erect penis… a rather curious tactic brought to our attention by Cat. I’m sure the guys will all be boasting about how many formulas they can fit on their phalli.
If I remember rightly, all the way back to the days when my old department still set exams as part of the assessment, I always had a male co-invigilator; we were actually supposed to accompany people to the loo. Simply to make sure that was where they went, you understand; to hang around outside and to barge in there and shout at them if they were in there for more than a minute or two.
I could have dealt with cheating scenarios. I just used to pray that nobody would vomit or faint.
Chaiting student are all the time find themselves that they are not competent to go with the run or not thought yet to be independent on themselves .It is our responsibility to guide them to right path and at the same time we have to tackle this problem in strict way.
Armand Rousso
http://education.armandrousso.biz/
Scusi?
I agree with Cliff’s post of 4.20pm Sunday 2nd Sept.
Cliff, you have set out in detail what many of the posterpersons were trying to say, albeit more crisply, I think.
I’m not sure why some think harsh criticism is uncalled for. I like that aspect of LP. It still seems to me that some posters have an attitude that commenters here should “go easy on the left” , while being happy to watch persons “of the right” get abuse, ad hominem, misrepresentation, and general heckling dropped upon them from a great height. The fashion seems to be that anyone who gets a run in the “MSM” deserves heaps.
This I find irritating, on several grounds:
1) the “left” is occasionally fatuous, and would benefit from rigorous criticism. How else shall they lift their game?
2) ditto the “right”; how else are its errors to be exposed?
3) that Great Satan, the MSM, can be a useful source; and need not be shunned (by social activists, for instance)
4) the polite and disinterested discourse of logical and informed persons (label it the stuff of ‘civil society’ if you will; say it goes back to the dialogues of Socrates, or the recorded speech of revered teachers millenia old, if you wish) is our main hope for civil and civilised progess
I reckon….. but I may be mistaken….
Personally, I am unimpressed by the Theocrats (Aussie Ayatollahs) of the “Australian” “Left”
cheerio
In response to Cliff’s and David’s most recent comments, and also Kim’s comments, I have to concede that my original post probably was too… errr… oblique.
I was certainly not meaning to suggest that the university student who utilised her thigh as a cheat sheet was doing anything other than self-interested cribbing with no political motive. On re-reading the first three paragraphs in isolation from the rest of the post I don’t see how such a suggestion could be read into them.
What I was trying to say in the remainder of the post was that schools which impose gender-discriminatory uniforms or dress codes run the risk, as an unintended consequence of their discriminatory policies, of enabling their female students to also cheat in this manner, and that there is an element of cosmic justice, and a source of some amusement, in seeing organisations which engage in anti-democratic and anti-egalitarian practices creating trouble for themselves thereby. Of course it is highly unlikely that any girl who took advantage of this opportunity to cheat would be doing so for any consciously political motivation, and she would be well advised against it on both prudential and ethical grounds. Nevertheless, the perhaps not entirely serious point might yet be made that the schools in question would be instances of the patriarchy striking an unwitting blow against itself.
I don’t think anyone was saying that harsh criticism of the post was uncalled for. I think people are concerned about scurrilous attribution of motives to and reflection on the character of the poster.
Ambigulous, and also David further up the thread, I’m not sure why you’re automatically conflating a post about feminism with issues around “the left”. Some of “the left”, and some feminists, wouldn’t accept that.
I don’t think ‘harsh criticism is uncalled for’ per se. I thought the harsh criticism of Paul’s post indicated that people weren’t reading it properly (ie taking it too literally and not taking in even half of what Paul was, I thought, spelling out), and that with the exception of jinmaro, who was coming from somewhere different, the harshest criticism seemed to be from people who self-inflate with rage whenever they see anyone doing any kind of feminist analysis of anything, light-hearted or otherwise.
Pavlov’s,
i’m just grumpy (and old): sick to death of smug, prating ‘lefties’, bored witless by so-called ‘analysis’ (which hardly deserved the proud honorific ‘feminist’…)
You see, some of us who reacted negatively, do NOT always respond like a slavering Pavlov puppy every time we see the word “patriarchy”, though it might make us prick up our ears, if purred sweetly.
What gets our goat is, quite simply, to see PIFFLE POSTED!
That’s about it. LP is a site where some really good argument occurs, and often stimulated by a beauteous post.
Maybe we expect a high level in both, and start barking when disappointed. Back to chewing a juicy bone….
Spring is in the air, take a stroll in a garden; set aside foolish things for a few minutes (e.g. bile)
All I know is, if the gal was trying to cheat by writing stuff on her thigh, I’d buy her a drink any time.
Ascribing motives:
yes, I agree that guessing (or claiming to know) a poster’s motive or motives is fatuous nonsense, a waste of time, and irrelevant.
Some other examples of similar stunts:
1. Assuming that the NT intervention is a disguised ‘land grab’
2. Assuming that someone discussing the cheating, skirted university lass, is a secret thigh-botherer or perve
3. [Judging by weekend reports and reviews of Dr Greer’s book about Anne Hathaway]… publishing a whole book of speculation, guesswork, ascribing all kinds of things; the sort of writing that harsh lecturers and tutors and school teachers used to decry as “WAFFLE” in student essays; but bolstered by a formidable reputation can apparently pass as a worthy contribution to public discourse
Number 3 at least has some ancestors: for instance Sigmund Freud’s very silly (book length) “analysis” of the deceased Leonardo da Vinci. It was sorry enough the Siggie thought it OK to be making up stories about Viennese ladies whom at least he had met face-to-face, and who were voluntary interviewees, and some even came back for more (they say)… but as far as we know, Leonardo wasn’t available for questioning; nonetheless was put on the couch, and a full ‘report’ published without right of reply…
CRIKEY !!!!
And you reckon the MSM is pathetic??
Have a look at mainstream book publishing and mainstream academia.
cheerio
Sorry, that’s very confused. Sigmund Freud and Germaine Greer aren’t lefty bloggers.
Don’t believe everything you read in the book reviews pages.
Mark:
I didn’t claim they were.
But thanks for grading my post as “very confused”; it made my day. No need to apologise, Mark! Happy Springtime to you, too.
Pavlova:
Fair point. Yes, I really should wait to borrow the book from someone foolish enough to fork out cash for it; or look at it in a library
cheerio
I’m just wondering who, exactly, you include in the category of “Theocrats (Aussie Ayatollahs) of the “Australianâ€? “Leftâ€?…?
I don’t see myself as an Australian lefty as having a lot to do with Germaine Greer in any sense of the word - different cultural/generational background, different politics, different style, different practice, etc, etc. The set of those you find “irritating” is rather ill constructed in my view.
Not sure if this will clarify my confused earlier post. Here goes.
* Ascribing motives to living persons including living bloggers is speculative and irrelevant.
* Ascribing motives to long dead persons on the basis of scant evidence seems fairly pointless. The old book by Dr Freud and the very recent book by Dr Greer seem to me to be examples of wasted ink and paper. Such grand edifices built on such shaky foundations. I cited them because the authors are famous. Sorry to be such a celebrity-chaser. If I’d used a more obscure example, Mark might have marked me down as “very confused and very obscure”
At least real historians search around in archives etc, weigh up what evidence they (and predecessors) find, assess, judge, report.
On a related matter, Dr Greer’s “Whitefella Stand Up!” I thought a very poor effort - full of speculation and guesswork on her part, almost devoid of ascertained fact or reliable history. I wonder if it was published mainly because the author was very very famous? If so, piffle!! I say.
There is a realm for poetry, and her “Whitefella, stand up!” perhaps belongs there, as I’ve heard that some Aussies found it inspiring. But as sociology, history or policy analysis, what a sorry mess it was.
cheerio
Fine, Ambigulous, but I’m still unclear as to what Greer and Freud have to do with this post, and secondly, who the “Theocrats” are and why that category apparently subsumes both Greer and Paul Norton, and indeed, what it means, and why it’s useful at all.
You referred to civil discourse before. Surely one of its conditions of possibility is the ability to make reasoned distinctions and to defend them.
Theocrats
Those who take their Leftism so seriously as a guide to snap judgements, that they are able to ascribe motives (especially motives of ‘the right’ or the Prime Minister) with confidence, are eager to decry every action of ‘the right’ without exception.
No doubt, Mark, this decription doesn’t fit you at all. But now and then I hear this fundamentalism in some of the voices here in LP.
They who despise religion, are occasionally prone to take a Manichaean attitude to politics, if not to life generally. It worries me. It saddens me. This country could have a brighter future. The social democratic left could do so much better;but I think it should start by being more self-critical.
The further left - well, I don’t think many lessons have been learnt there… at least I’ve seen little evidence of it. What lessons? Well here are a few: the repressive nature of Soviet society, the murderous (but pious) nature of Pol Pot’s Cambodia; some (no doubt unintended) consequences of Whitlam’s failures - and Whitlam’s dreams; the totalitarian impulses of those who - as a vanguard party - know better than the masses and are willing to trample on the masses; those whose all-embracing ideologies are so all-embracing that they can never explain any particulars and fail to foresee social changes; the life-long fibbing of Wilfred Burchett and his apologists; the “worship” of the Australian Communist Party as if it were the bearer of all the finest traditions of Australian workers, to the exclusion of all other Parties.
I trust that’s enough to be going on with. Yes, it’s a broad list. Ill constructed too. But I don’t understand why the associated concepts and “ideals” are so enduring and appealing. I wish I did. Do you, Mark?
I was lucky enough to read Orwell’s essays in the mid-1960’s. They didn’t fully innoculate me against “leftist