Katharine Timpf on a genuinely appalling idea:
It used to be that women couldn’t speak until they were spoken to. But now, apparently, women often can’t speak even when they’re spoken to because they’ve been conditioned to believe they shouldn’t unless a man has spoken first.
At least that’s the opinion of the Canadian professors who want to make it official school policy that you have to call on female students first in class:
“I do think, in general, there are a lot of studies that indicate women, girls are socialized not to speak first. … And so to make a conscious rule, a deliberate rule that is explicit, that ‘no, men are not allowed to speak first,’ is certainly a strong way of addressing that issue,” said Jacqueline Warwick, a professor of musicology and former coordinator of the Gender and Women’s Studies Programs at Dalhousie University.
We have to say, okay, quiet down men! Let the little ladies have a turn before you start talking in your big scary man-voices! Will somebody please tell me how something this demeaning could be considered feminism?
