As someone who graduated high school in 1956, this film reminds me of the world I grew up in.

Categories Bias, Economy

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retired teacher says:

February 15, 2021 at 12:27 pm

Women are still dealing with so-called gate keepers, although women have made strides towards equity and salary parity. Men and moralists are still trying to deny women the right to choose what happens to their own bodies. Women and minorities are not treated the same by doctors or the criminal justice system. Inequality remains a problem.

I recently read an article about Simone Biles, the greatest gymnast of all time. She wants to include a vault in her routine that only a handful of men in the world can do. No other.woman has ever done it. The gymnastics federation assigned a low point value to the vault to discourage women from trying it. They claim it is for safety reasons, but I wonder if it is due to a mixture of misogyny and racism. https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/columnist/nancy-armour/2019/10/04/gymnastics-simon-biles-penalized-championships-being-too-good/3866255002/

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- NYC public school parent says:
  
  February 15, 2021 at 5:22 pm
  
  That was an interesting article. The subject of banned moves in gymnastics is really complicated. When I was a kid, I was glued to Olga Korbut’s Olympic routines when she did a backflip on the bars — it’s now banned and when I watch that (and some other banned moves) I feel stressed even when I know they land them safely. It’s a tough call because of course elite athletes want to push themselves to the limit but the more points you get, the more athletes are incentivized to do it. There are moves banned in male gymnastics, too, although I’m not sure if the men get more value added points for some “not banned but dangerous” vaults than others.
  
  Unfortunately, it’s only after someone gets seriously injured or paralyzed or worse that people say “why didn’t they ban that instead of incentivizing it by awarding so many points?”
  
  All I can say is that when I watch the top level gymnastics or high diving or ski jumping I am glad I’m not the parent of an elite athlete!
  
  There’s a fascinating video of 13 year old skier Kai Jones skiing off cliffs — intentionally! — he is truly amazing! But some part of me says — you’re good enough, please stop pushing it now before you really get hurt! How do you know when you pushed the boundaries too much? With some sports, it can be when you really hurt yourself.
  
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Laura H. Chapman says:

February 15, 2021 at 12:36 pm

I graduated from high school in 1953. I had prejudicial experiences like this in undergraduate education (e.g. women cannot learn to weld. I did).

My sister, four years older, worked for an employer who nixed women for supervisory roles. She says that experience made her became a feminist.

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- retired teacher says:
  
  February 15, 2021 at 1:19 pm
  
  When I first started teaching in public schools in 1970, there were no women in leadership positions except for couple of department chairs. By the time I left more than three and a half decades later more than half the district’s leadership roles were held by women.
  
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Catherine King says:

February 15, 2021 at 1:34 pm

STRANGELY RELATED from Nature online magazine.

Russian law change threatens outreach

Scientists and academics in Russia are protesting against a proposed law change that they say will damage academic freedom and free speech. Lawmakers say the amendment to Russia’s law on education is intended to stop anti-Russian propaganda. It would require academics and educators to get permission from state authorities to do public outreach for educational activities, including those involving science. A petition against the change has drawn more than 200,000 signatures. Russia’s lower house of parliament, the State Duma, is scheduled to vote on the change next week. “The proposed amendments are intolerably repressive,” says biologist Mikhail Gelfand.

Be aware that, in a Putin’s Russia context, the term “anti-Russian propaganda” MAY actually mean TRUTH. CBK

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beachteach says:

February 15, 2021 at 2:52 pm

Thanks for posting…. made me laugh. I think I am Mabel for sure….. “another change…. I hope this doesn’t happen every other day”…… and in education it does.

Maybe that is the solution for reformers at the elementary level…. employ more men (or women) who accept orders and don’t question change. 😉

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Bob Shepherd says:

February 15, 2021 at 3:12 pm

Well, clearly, these women hadn’t been to the Sears Charm School:

A reminder that Sears once had a charm school (Circa 1960s) from vintageads

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- Bob Shepherd says:
  
  February 15, 2021 at 3:34 pm
  
  We all owe a great debt to Simone de Beauvoir who, in her masterful 1949 book The Second Sex, first drew, clearly, the distinction between sex–a biological inheritance that itself is not always clear-cut–and gender, which is socially constructed. People tend to think that their way of living is the norm, not a historical/cultural peculiarity. (The isolated nuclear family in the suburbs–that crazy-making institution–is an example of such a historical aberration that is widely but falsely considered a universal human norm.) There are times when a public intellectual introduces an idea that has dramatic consequences. This was one of them.
  
  Sartre, btw, stole many of his best ideas from Beauvoir. https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/2019/03/18/existentialism-in-five-minutes-bob-shepherd/
  
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LeftCoastTeacher says:

February 15, 2021 at 4:38 pm

Virus or no virus, vaccinated or not, women need to MAN UP and get back into the classroom where they belong. Having school closed and children at home is driving me crazy! So, you stupid, lazy jellyfish, time to suck it up and go back to teaching in person…

…said the Billionaire Boys Club.

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- Bob Shepherd says:
  
  February 15, 2021 at 5:34 pm
  
  lol
  
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