Once upon a time, education expert Kevin Donnelly wrote a guest post for Troppo. Included in this post were all sorts of hyperbolic assertions about the alleged results and manifestations of PC in schools. When challenged as to their truth (since many can be shown to be urban myths), Kevin didn’t respond, except by suggesting people read his PhD thesis. Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt without all of us going off to read his thesis, but since he got his PhD some years ago, perhaps it would be incumbent on him to clarify that these incidents occurred in the past rather than writing about a few extreme (and poorly documented) horror stories as if this was the everyday business of schooling. The key rhetorical strategy Kevin employs, apart from this sort of metynomy, is to insinuate that parents (always constructed as straight, middle class, and God fearing) would be horrified if they really found out what happens in schools.
I wrote last week on the beatup about a programme in a NSW school where kids were being taught using resources designed to foster a spirit of understanding about non-hetero sexualities. Dr Donnelly has now used this as a hook for his usual moral panic inducing rhetoric in a column in the Courier-Mail, where among other things, he writes:
The reality is that governments and teacher groups around Australia, for some years, have pushed the rights of gays, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people on the basis that there is nothing wrong with such lifestyles.
Well, hello. There is nothing wrong with not being straight.
One of the much noted differences between blogs and op/ed columns is that bloggers can be challenged on the evidence and logic behind their opinions. In that spirit, let’s consider this assertion:
Queensland teachers are told that it is unproductive for boys to be physically assertive, to play contact sports and to do manual studies as such activities reinforce sexual stereotypes associated with what is termed “biological determinism”.
This is actually a misrepresentation of the material on the Education Queensland website. What’s actually being suggested is that boys should be encouraged in their interest in all parts of the curriculum, and that strategies need to be put in place to address the fact that most physical abuse and bullying is perpetrated by boys.
Dr Donnelly writes:
Most parents are happy for their children to develop a traditional sense of what it means to be male or female.
Well probably, if that was the question asked. We don’t know because we don’t know if Donnelly is relying on survey evidence or if this is just an assertion.
I’d have thought that most parents would be concerned for instance that there’s a pattern in many schools – well documented by studies – that boys (particularly those with behavioural problems and those from lower socio-economic backgrounds) perceive learning itself and actively engaging positively with classroom work to be unmasculine. But who knows? Maybe that’s the “traditional sense of what it means to be a male”. Or maybe it’s the bullying behaviour that I think most parents would know is a concern. When I was at High School, fights were winked at by teachers – because the ethos was that it made you tough. More boys than girls failed to go on to senior. Girls’ sporting achievements were hardly mentioned on Assembly where the Principal’s main interest appeared to be the vicissitudes of the A Grade Rugby League Team. Boys who did well at school faced social pressure to demonstrate through binge drinking that they were in fact proper boys. Gay kids and Vietnamese kids suffered harrassment for what were perceived as non-standard ways of being masculine. It was actually a good school, and I had the sort of traditional education in English and History that Donnelly’s always lauding. But maybe, since our school was encouraging “a traditional sense of what it means to be a male”, it was all good.
Donnelly also claims:
The PC approach to gender education is to argue that being male or female is socially constructed. As a result, it is possible for teachers and schools to re-educate students away from traditional roles in favour of alternative lifestyles.
The first sentence is untrue. The distinction between biological sex and cultural gender is at the heart of the approach. The upshot of this is that boys who don’t want to act out the tough laconic sports playing masculine role should also have their way of doing masculinity valued. And that everyone might be challenged to reflect on what the consequences – for individuals, education and society – of a rigid sense of gender roles might be.
The last phrase is very telling in light of Donnelly’s earlier suggestion that schools are “promoting” homosexuality. His message seems to be if you buy all this stuff, and don’t fit the Aussie male template, you’re probably a poofter. And that’s just not acceptable, it seems, in Donnelly land.
Donnelly is horrified that the Australian Education Union thinks that teachers who are not straight should be allowed to teach sex education and “that such learning should be positive in its approach”. All this licentiousness, it seems, may “undermine heterosexuality”. Interesting choice of title for a column too – “Gender Agenda has Strange Bent”. I bet he’d have loved to have been able to write “Queer” instead of “Strange” but perhaps he too is being censored by the omnipresent and all powerful spectre of PC.
Personally, I haven’t noticed heterosexuality being in any particular danger. But maybe I’m living in a reality-based community as opposed to the weird world of the moral panic op/ed.
Coda: In light of my previously expressed concerns about the politics of the misuse of arguments about biological determinism, it’s telling to note that Donnelly’s whole column is premised on his belief that there is a masculinity that is determined biologically by male sex. Perhaps now some of the sceptics can see why I worry about this stuff?
Hmmm. Kevin has me thinking. When I was at uni I had my head shaved for a couple of years and got a good deal of attention from my sisters in pubs, at Bible studies etc but I had to regretfully demur on account of never being the slightest bit sexually attracted to women. I’ve always thought it was a pity since, you know, the blokes weren’t exactly lining up — think of how much more sex I could have had!
Now I have someone to blame. If only my school had done a better job of undermining my heterosexuality, why, putting a dollar value on that lost pleasure just makes my head spin.
Do you think I can sue?
Hmmm. Kevin has me thinking. When I was at uni I had my head shaved for a couple of years and got a good deal of attention from my sisters in pubs, at Bible studies etc but I had to regretfully demur on account of never being the slightest bit sexually attracted to women. I’ve always thought it was a pity since, you know, the blokes weren’t exactly lining up — think of how much more sex I could have had!
Now I have someone to blame. If only my school had done a better job of undermining my heterosexuality, why, putting a dollar value on that lost pleasure just makes my head spin.
Do you think I can sue?
“?ÄôIt’s telling to note that Donnelly?Äôs whole column is premised on his belief that there is a masculinity that is determined biologically by male sex. Perhaps now some of the sceptics can see why I worry about this stuff?”
Not really, Mark. Can KD think masculinity is biologically determined AND that a few classes could change it?
Interestingly, the Australian Study of Health and Relationships found that same-sex sexual activity was less common among young people today than previous generations, partly at least because they believe that the idea that same-sex sex is more widely understood (and understood at younger ages) as linked to being gay – a lifetime identity, rather than a bit of experimenting or fun.
So the sex education KD is complaining about is likely to have the opposite effect to the one he fears on actual sexual activity, and I’d expect no difference either way on long-term sexual identity, which is probably determined well before sex education classes start.
“?ÄôIt’s telling to note that Donnelly?Äôs whole column is premised on his belief that there is a masculinity that is determined biologically by male sex. Perhaps now some of the sceptics can see why I worry about this stuff?”
Not really, Mark. Can KD think masculinity is biologically determined AND that a few classes could change it?
Interestingly, the Australian Study of Health and Relationships found that same-sex sexual activity was less common among young people today than previous generations, partly at least because they believe that the idea that same-sex sex is more widely understood (and understood at younger ages) as linked to being gay – a lifetime identity, rather than a bit of experimenting or fun.
So the sex education KD is complaining about is likely to have the opposite effect to the one he fears on actual sexual activity, and I’d expect no difference either way on long-term sexual identity, which is probably determined well before sex education classes start.
without putting too fine a point on it, Mark, KD is a polemicist not a scientist and he is not much of a logician either. believing that somethings may be biologically determined and believing that what is biologically determined is good and should be promoted are two logically independent viewpoints. KD by his recent conversion to biological determinism should perhaps similarly welcome attempts to make gay students comfortable with their innate sexuality but of course he isn’t going to do that. the man is not a thinker but a hack, end of story.
without putting too fine a point on it, Mark, KD is a polemicist not a scientist and he is not much of a logician either. believing that somethings may be biologically determined and believing that what is biologically determined is good and should be promoted are two logically independent viewpoints. KD by his recent conversion to biological determinism should perhaps similarly welcome attempts to make gay students comfortable with their innate sexuality but of course he isn’t going to do that. the man is not a thinker but a hack, end of story.
PS 2nd last sentence should read ‘KD by his recent conversion to **reinforcing** biological determinism’
PS 2nd last sentence should read ‘KD by his recent conversion to **reinforcing** biological determinism’
But Jason, that’s precisely my point. Andrew is quite right that Donnelly’s argument is illogical, but these sort of arguments from people who have the ear of the Minister suddenly result in school curricula being changed or enquiries being announced. And communicating his ideas in the Courier-Mail affects Austalian political debate far more than this conversation we’re having does. Of course, his argument about “biological determinism” is incoherent and wrong, but it’s a handy catch phrase that allows him to avoid the accusation of bigotry for his reactionary views. That’s what I’m trying to talk about with my concerns about the way these terms are used politically.
But Jason, that’s precisely my point. Andrew is quite right that Donnelly’s argument is illogical, but these sort of arguments from people who have the ear of the Minister suddenly result in school curricula being changed or enquiries being announced. And communicating his ideas in the Courier-Mail affects Austalian political debate far more than this conversation we’re having does. Of course, his argument about “biological determinism” is incoherent and wrong, but it’s a handy catch phrase that allows him to avoid the accusation of bigotry for his reactionary views. That’s what I’m trying to talk about with my concerns about the way these terms are used politically.
Mark, I really don’t see the point in vilifying someone who wrote something you disagreed with months ago. But speaking of bullying, it’s with some degree of professional experience that I attest boys’ version of same may be ever-present but girls’ is probably more genuinely hateful and psychologically destructive.
Furthermore, it’s usually people without children who dogmatically assert that masculine traits aren’t inherited. Quite simply, they are – as most people with little boys will happily tell you. Including hitherto doctrinaire Blue Stockings who buy Barbies for their boys only to see them bent over to form little plastic guns. The Barbies I mean.
Whether you or Ed Qld like it or not, many – maybe a majority – of parents regard any suggestion of moral equivalency between heterosexuality and homosexuality to be unacceptable. It is, moreover, commonly and uncontroversially asserted that girls are superior organisers and communicators and – indeed – more mature and responsive students generally. This, of course, is perfectly alright to progressives.
Yes, I know – you’re simply arguing that if my hypothetical boyo with a Barbie dresses it up in perfectly matching shoes, skirt and jacket and glories in his un-boyish otherness, he should not be made to feel un-valued. Well, life’s unfair to everyone. Society seems to value millionaire footballers and their craft more than a pair of annoying poofs redecorating a flat on the tele. Boo fucking hoo.
“There is nothing wrong with not being straight” is a “hyperbolic assertion” of your own. That’s really the fulcrum of your argument: my hyperbolic assertion is better than Kev’s – all very male and very schoolyard. To many people, there IS something wrong with not being straight – whether you like that or not. That being so – and it is – it is legitimate to question a State seeking to re-educate the great unwashed about their religious and moral views.
A child born with Downes Syndrome is a product of nature, may be deeply loved and so on. But no-one argues such children have been born ‘normal.’ Indeed, scientists today work on ways to ensure they and others like them aren’t born at all. Bio-ethical ‘progressives’ aren’t concerned about that – they (and you) ridicule a US president who questions one crucial aspect of where such eugenics are taking us. (Clever work squaring away the ‘born gay’ notion btw).
Homosexuals are like West’s ‘Clowns of God’ – perfectly natural, perfectly human and perfectly not normal. (Hence their own appropriation of the description ‘queer’). The question of their treatment is one of manners; the question of their sexual orientation vis-a-vis heterosexuality is one deeply embedded in most people’s wholly explicable recognition of what is healthful and normal and what isn’t.
The Maoists in Ed Qld can come up with any number of sanctimonious strategies to change people’s sexual mores – the kids themselves will disestablish such attempts in the first lunchbreak after Visting Expert’s special presentation. Donnelly is right to assert – as his work does in genere – that institutional prejudices are moving ahead of community sentiment, without the authorisation of parents themselves.
He is no more a “hack” than alleged objectivists and CIS spiritualists who irrationally fetishise the Invisible Hand as the default solution to every problem faced by humanity – from water allocation to head-lice.
Mark, I really don’t see the point in vilifying someone who wrote something you disagreed with months ago. But speaking of bullying, it’s with some degree of professional experience that I attest boys’ version of same may be ever-present but girls’ is probably more genuinely hateful and psychologically destructive.
Furthermore, it’s usually people without children who dogmatically assert that masculine traits aren’t inherited. Quite simply, they are – as most people with little boys will happily tell you. Including hitherto doctrinaire Blue Stockings who buy Barbies for their boys only to see them bent over to form little plastic guns. The Barbies I mean.
Whether you or Ed Qld like it or not, many – maybe a majority – of parents regard any suggestion of moral equivalency between heterosexuality and homosexuality to be unacceptable. It is, moreover, commonly and uncontroversially asserted that girls are superior organisers and communicators and – indeed – more mature and responsive students generally. This, of course, is perfectly alright to progressives.
Yes, I know – you’re simply arguing that if my hypothetical boyo with a Barbie dresses it up in perfectly matching shoes, skirt and jacket and glories in his un-boyish otherness, he should not be made to feel un-valued. Well, life’s unfair to everyone. Society seems to value millionaire footballers and their craft more than a pair of annoying poofs redecorating a flat on the tele. Boo fucking hoo.
“There is nothing wrong with not being straight” is a “hyperbolic assertion” of your own. That’s really the fulcrum of your argument: my hyperbolic assertion is better than Kev’s – all very male and very schoolyard. To many people, there IS something wrong with not being straight – whether you like that or not. That being so – and it is – it is legitimate to question a State seeking to re-educate the great unwashed about their religious and moral views.
A child born with Downes Syndrome is a product of nature, may be deeply loved and so on. But no-one argues such children have been born ‘normal.’ Indeed, scientists today work on ways to ensure they and others like them aren’t born at all. Bio-ethical ‘progressives’ aren’t concerned about that – they (and you) ridicule a US president who questions one crucial aspect of where such eugenics are taking us. (Clever work squaring away the ‘born gay’ notion btw).
Homosexuals are like West’s ‘Clowns of God’ – perfectly natural, perfectly human and perfectly not normal. (Hence their own appropriation of the description ‘queer’). The question of their treatment is one of manners; the question of their sexual orientation vis-a-vis heterosexuality is one deeply embedded in most people’s wholly explicable recognition of what is healthful and normal and what isn’t.
The Maoists in Ed Qld can come up with any number of sanctimonious strategies to change people’s sexual mores – the kids themselves will disestablish such attempts in the first lunchbreak after Visting Expert’s special presentation. Donnelly is right to assert – as his work does in genere – that institutional prejudices are moving ahead of community sentiment, without the authorisation of parents themselves.
He is no more a “hack” than alleged objectivists and CIS spiritualists who irrationally fetishise the Invisible Hand as the default solution to every problem faced by humanity – from water allocation to head-lice.
Mark, I really don?Äôt see the point in vilifying someone who wrote something you disagreed with months ago.
C.L., Dr Donnelly is so prolific with his op/eds I think I’ve exercised some degree of restraint (though most say the same thing – so perhaps it’s only worth having a look every few months). I can’t see the issue with commenting on his public comments – particularly when it’s an issue I feel strongly about.
And if education sought only to reinforce existing prejudices, I suppose kids would still be learning that “The Aborigines are a dying race” and that women shouldn’t work. It’s a furphy, C.L. – and only raised when various moral panics over sexuality and gender are at stake.
Mark, I really don?Äôt see the point in vilifying someone who wrote something you disagreed with months ago.
C.L., Dr Donnelly is so prolific with his op/eds I think I’ve exercised some degree of restraint (though most say the same thing – so perhaps it’s only worth having a look every few months). I can’t see the issue with commenting on his public comments – particularly when it’s an issue I feel strongly about.
And if education sought only to reinforce existing prejudices, I suppose kids would still be learning that “The Aborigines are a dying race” and that women shouldn’t work. It’s a furphy, C.L. – and only raised when various moral panics over sexuality and gender are at stake.
How is “there is nothing wrong with not being straight” a hyperbolic statement?
All I can say here I have already said in a post of my own, back in the lesbian teacher debate of March.
How is “there is nothing wrong with not being straight” a hyperbolic statement?
All I can say here I have already said in a post of my own, back in the lesbian teacher debate of March.
It’s odd isn’t it, one day public schools are being attacked for not teaching values and the next day they’re attacked for teaching… er… values.
Donnelly often argues that schools should teach the values that parents want taught. But I’d be surprised if he’d support a government school teaching all students ‘Islamic values’ just because that’s what most of the parents at that particular school wanted. If Catholic parents complained, whose side would he take?
It’s odd isn’t it, one day public schools are being attacked for not teaching values and the next day they’re attacked for teaching… er… values.
Donnelly often argues that schools should teach the values that parents want taught. But I’d be surprised if he’d support a government school teaching all students ‘Islamic values’ just because that’s what most of the parents at that particular school wanted. If Catholic parents complained, whose side would he take?
Mark,
Any theory can be used in the wrong way. Donnelly’s illogical use of biological determinism is a good example.
Personally I see that arguments along the line of all science being political are so much more dangerous. With only a slight misuse you can argue against everything from evolution, global warming and all kinds of environmentalism. Any prejudice you like can be confidently be asserted in the knowledge that any opposing fact can be dismissed as “political”. Undermining of the idea that you can actually choose meaningfully between two different ideas with some sort of objectivity leads us to leaving the reality based community.
Mark,
Any theory can be used in the wrong way. Donnelly’s illogical use of biological determinism is a good example.
Personally I see that arguments along the line of all science being political are so much more dangerous. With only a slight misuse you can argue against everything from evolution, global warming and all kinds of environmentalism. Any prejudice you like can be confidently be asserted in the knowledge that any opposing fact can be dismissed as “political”. Undermining of the idea that you can actually choose meaningfully between two different ideas with some sort of objectivity leads us to leaving the reality based community.
Steve, I don’t disagree – I’m not saying that all science is political. Just that there is a social element to the selection of scientific problems and a social structuring of scientific practice. I agree that it’s essential to argue against this sort of politicisation of science – and there is a responsibility there for scientists too.
Steve, I don’t disagree – I’m not saying that all science is political. Just that there is a social element to the selection of scientific problems and a social structuring of scientific practice. I agree that it’s essential to argue against this sort of politicisation of science – and there is a responsibility there for scientists too.
Steve, to clarify – there are value commitments involved in most scientific research and more so in its uses. Anything is capable of being politicised, and some science may lend itself more easily to a particular political position, but that doesn’t mean that “all science is political”. I hope that clarifies things somewhat.
Steve, to clarify – there are value commitments involved in most scientific research and more so in its uses. Anything is capable of being politicised, and some science may lend itself more easily to a particular political position, but that doesn’t mean that “all science is political”. I hope that clarifies things somewhat.
Interesting conflation of the “feminine” with homosexuality here, and of teaching gender roles and reinfocing traditional ideas about men and women, as if this will somehow remove same-sex attraction. Does not being manly enough make you gay?
I’m also yet to understand why homosexuality is regarded as so threatening…
Interesting conflation of the “feminine” with homosexuality here, and of teaching gender roles and reinfocing traditional ideas about men and women, as if this will somehow remove same-sex attraction. Does not being manly enough make you gay?
I’m also yet to understand why homosexuality is regarded as so threatening…
CL, I thought you of all people would have defended the idea that some religious and moral views were absolutely right, regardless of the opinions of the ‘great unwashed’.
Just sayin’.
CL, I thought you of all people would have defended the idea that some religious and moral views were absolutely right, regardless of the opinions of the ‘great unwashed’.
Just sayin’.
“I?Äôm also yet to understand why homosexuality is regarded as so threatening…”
That is THE most interesting and important question about homosexuality.
I think there are two basic answers: the conflating of homosexuality and paedophilia (particularly recently) and the internalised homophobia that most (all?) men feel when they experience homosexual thoughts and feelings, if fleeting ones.
“I?Äôm also yet to understand why homosexuality is regarded as so threatening…”
That is THE most interesting and important question about homosexuality.
I think there are two basic answers: the conflating of homosexuality and paedophilia (particularly recently) and the internalised homophobia that most (all?) men feel when they experience homosexual thoughts and feelings, if fleeting ones.
I wish I understood what the problem is with admiring another human body. I enjoy looking at people. I enjoy looking at a nicely presented pair of breasts, or great legs (male or female) or a nice ankle and I don’t care who they belong to. It doesn’t mean that I want to jump into bed with that person because I don’t. I married my husband because, among other qualities, he has a fantastic pair of legs, nice ankles and a cute bum (and I did want to jump into bed with him). I also enjoy looking at my son’s body but that doesn’t make me a paedophile. I’m just so impressed that my body grew something that beautiful. I don’t care if he’s gay straight or inbetween, he’s my son, he’s normal, he’s beautiful and I love him.
I wish I understood what the problem is with admiring another human body. I enjoy looking at people. I enjoy looking at a nicely presented pair of breasts, or great legs (male or female) or a nice ankle and I don’t care who they belong to. It doesn’t mean that I want to jump into bed with that person because I don’t. I married my husband because, among other qualities, he has a fantastic pair of legs, nice ankles and a cute bum (and I did want to jump into bed with him). I also enjoy looking at my son’s body but that doesn’t make me a paedophile. I’m just so impressed that my body grew something that beautiful. I don’t care if he’s gay straight or inbetween, he’s my son, he’s normal, he’s beautiful and I love him.
C.L. will be in trouble with Pope Benedict now for his relativism.
C.L. will be in trouble with Pope Benedict now for his relativism.
Having been a high school council president for a few years a while back I’ve yet to find anything that Donnelly said about public schools bears any relation ship to the facts.
Having been a high school council president for a few years a while back I’ve yet to find anything that Donnelly said about public schools bears any relation ship to the facts.
Alan Barcan has written a very good critique of Donnelly in this month’s Quadrant (no link). He takes him to task for, among other things, ignoring the historical perspective He writes: ‘One misses a sensitivity to the historical-social context. One also senses a neglect of specifics, of what goes on in the classroom’ . Barcan also contends that Donnelly ‘does not fully confront the problem of a pluralist multicultural society’, which must necessarily impact on the nature, content, intent and practice of education in such a society. Good non-emotional, non-vituperative stuff, I thought.
Alan Barcan has written a very good critique of Donnelly in this month’s Quadrant (no link). He takes him to task for, among other things, ignoring the historical perspective He writes: ‘One misses a sensitivity to the historical-social context. One also senses a neglect of specifics, of what goes on in the classroom’ . Barcan also contends that Donnelly ‘does not fully confront the problem of a pluralist multicultural society’, which must necessarily impact on the nature, content, intent and practice of education in such a society. Good non-emotional, non-vituperative stuff, I thought.