Hmm...the person who started this thread and has taken a vehement approach against it has a male name. Interesting.
Railing against policies that make women a priority is a rather typical response. Believing that giving women more spaces to express themselves somehow will hurt and diminish men is also a typical response.
Interesting as well that you know very little about the extraordinarily handsome male who started this thread.
You may be interested to know that he has a wife who holds her tongue for no man, including him. He's also helped raise two very intelligent, independent minded young ladies who would never tolerate being given the backseat to anyone.
This policy isn't about helping women. It's about deciding that women should 'speak first'. Because, y'know a girl can't ever hold their own in a discussion without a policy in place to protect them, right?
I know there's sexism out there. I've witnessed it when I've gone car shopping or house hunting or other such things with my wife and people talk to me, the male and not my wife the docile female who is supposed to talk first and make the decision. I usually sit back and watch my docile wife make mincemeat out of 'em. We had dealings once with a shady landlord, my wife literally had him in tears when we were done. She don't need me fighting her battles. I'll be happy to hold her coat while she beats up the bullies and just look pretty.
Cornflake is right, there is so much more going on here than just women not raising their hands.
I never said it was about just girls not raising their hands. But if we're talking about a classroom setting, it does come down to girls either not participating and the reasons why (Which quite frankly, it's insulting to assume that all girls who don't participate do so for the same reason) or teachers who don't give them equal chance to participate.
It has nothing to do with the male students who want to participate. And telling those boys that what they have to say isn't worth hearing, isn't that important, that they're doing something wrong by raising their hand because their 'boys' is wrong headed and will simply create new problems and not help solve the ones it's purported to even address.
When white, able-bodied men dominate a conversation, women, minorities, and people with disabilities are less likely to join in. But if the marginalized voices are heard first, which encourages all voices to join in, there is nothing stopping the men from also coming in and joining the conversation as well. It possibly creates more balance in the classroom.
A good teacher shouldn't let any one group dominate a conversation. Randomization calling on kids might be an answer in some cases. One teacher at my girls school uses a computer program that picks kids at random. Which is fun for them when their in his class together. But that doesn't deal with the individual reasons why a kid might not want to talk in class. Maybe they don't like speaking in front of the class. (Something that happen to boys and girls) maybe they stutter. Maybe they don't know the answer because they're not very good at the subject. Maybe they don't know the question because they're daydreaming.
Maybe instead having policies that make it a point to divide things into boys vs. girls we should look at the individual students and develop policies that address their individual issues.
If a girl sitting in class is told the big strong boys can't talk unless she speaks first, how is that helping her feel confident about expressing herself?
No voice should be marginalized. The idea that the way to stop marginalizing once kind of voice is to start marginalizing another, which is exactly what the people quoted are saying, is just plain stupid.
That's like saying the way to address discrimination against a group, whether it's because of race, gender, sexual orientation or favorite football team is to take the bad things done to that group and do it to the group it's not done to. It's not. That will only further the divide.
In my classes (7+ years teaching experience at the university level), it isn't about who raises their hand first. I don't care if you are the first one to always raise your hand, that doesn't mean you will always (or ever) be called on. Students have a much more difficult time hearing silence than I do. The longer I wait, the more hands will come up, and the more women/minorities/or just people who don't talk much will raise their hands.
Are you saying that if a boy sits in your class and always raises his hand first to answer a question that should be held against him? Because he prepared and eager to participate in class. I would never suggest you should always call on him first. But I don't see that raising your hand when the teacher asks a question is a bad thing and should be encouraged. And sending him the message that he's wrong to raise his hand is wrong. I'll assume that's not what you're saying.
My wife is a teacher for about a dozen years. Different grade levels. She understands that different kids need different things and for different reasons.
