Anything to get men and women to score absolutely equal on college tests!
And here's the latest: Oxford University has decided to let its female students take their final exams at home with virtually unlimited time, whereas male students will have to slog to campus and take the usual timed exams. All to close a "gender gap" in which only 32 percent of women Oxford grads obtain a coveted "first-class" degree from the elite U.K. university, in contrast to 37 percent of the Oxford men.
Horrors!
So, according to the New York Post:
In an effort to help female students close the gap on men, they will be allowed to sit exams at home.
Oxford University in the UK is going to let history students answer a paper from home. The paper is part of final year exams which students take in year five.
Because, well, when women can't get that first-class Oxford degree that is the entree to cushy U.K. jobs…they get depressed, and we can't have that:
In May it was reported that the gender pay gap isn’t just making women poor, it’s also taking a toll on your mental health.
A study from Columbia University found women earning less than male peers were more than twice as likely to be diagnosed with depression. In addition, they were four times more likely to be diagnosed with anxiety.
Yikes!
Nonetheless, not all feminists are happy about Oxford's decision to give its female students an easier time of it by letting them sit for their exams at home. Here's a report from the U.K. Telegraph :
Oxford University has been blasted for its “insulting” decision to allow students to sit exams at home in an attempt to close the gender gap, as a leading historian warns that the decision implies that women are the “weaker sex”….
Amanda Foreman, a historian who is writing The World Made By Women, said the move was “well intentioned” yet insulting to women.
“The reason why girls and boys perform differently in exams has nothing to do with the building they are in,” said Ms Foreman, who is an honorary research senior fellow in History at the University of Liverpool.
“I think it is extremely well intentioned and I applaud them for taking the matter seriously. But it is so insulting.
"You are saying that the girls can’t take the stress of sitting in the exam room, which does raise one’s anxiety levels. I don’t think girls are inherently weaker than boys and can’t take it. Women are not the weaker sex.”
Ms Foreman said the reason why men outperform women in their degrees is because young men are encouraged to be risk takers, while young women particularly at school are encouraged to be conformist.
“A first class degree is awarded on basis of whether ideas are fresh and new – risk taking behaviour takes you to that point," she said.
Now, I'm inclined to agree with Foreman that men are greater risk-takers than women. That's evidenced from everything from young men's greater propensity to get into serious car accidents to their frequent choice of dangerous jobs and their overwhelming dominance in Nobel Prizes in science and medicine. But I dunno about the "encouraged" bit. But I think, as scientific studies have shown, that it's more a matter of genetic adaptation: Women, who have to bear and nurture young children, just can't afford to take risks. For men, on the other hand, the payoffs from risk-taking can be huge: a better ability to attract mates and provide for their offpsring.
Which is why I don't think much is going to come of Oxford's coddling of women with take-home exams so that their statistical numbers will come out equal for those first-class degrees.
