As Rosie mentioned in a comment, the telltale link in Gopal’s article that I pointed out yesterday has been silently removed. I call that sneaky. It’s sneaky to correct a mistake silently instead of acknowledging it.

Here is the passage now:

I want to raise this because of the deft way in which Student Rights, an offshoot of the bullishly paternalist Euro-American think tank, the Henry Jackson Society, has managed to bring ‘gender segregation’ at some campus events to national attention despite evidence that events in which the audience is so segregated are not numerous. 

Yesterday, as I wrote, there was a link on “to national attention” and the link was to channel 4 on the protest – as … Read the rest

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Maryam was on the BBC World Service yesterday to debate a woman from Hizb-Ut-Tahrir.

Her opponent made me squirm with anger and revulsion.

You can listen via Maryam’s link.… Read the rest

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Via Helen Dale* on Facebook, Priyamvada Gopal on gender segregation and the politics of same.

Ours is not an easy moment at which to practice a simultaneous commitment to anti-racism, equality and social justice. It’s a particularly testing time for progressive people who affiliate in some way to Britain’s ethnic and religious minority communities, among whom Muslims are under unprecedented attack. For us, it is especially difficult to practise a commitment to gender equality and social change in a context so heavily shaped by an intolerant Western ‘liberalism’ passing itself off as ‘secular’, ‘enlightened’ and more knowing-than-thou.

That doesn’t bode well.

In the wake of Student Rights’ aggressive campaign, which clearly targeted Islamic student groups, Universities UK –

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Have a heartwarming story because why not. It’s a reunion story. I love reunions. I’m like Shakespeare in that way (and no other) – he was always staging separations so that he could stage reunions in Act 5. Cymbeline, for instance; there are so many reunions at the end of that play you have no idea who half the reunited characters are, but you soak your hanky just the same.

This reunion is a little girl and her stuffed friend Roar, whom she accidentally left on a train from York to London. Someone named Lauren found Roar at King’s Cross and posted pictures on Twitter.

She took a lot of pictures of Roar having adventures while waiting to be found, … Read the rest

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Having so appreciated Manfredi La Manna’s comment on the gender segregation issue, I took a look at his website and found a page of contributions to the Times Higher Education Supplement aka the Times Higher aka THES. It’s good value. There’s one on Keith Ward, for instance; Keith Ward is someone I like to see disputed.

Keith Ward’s attempt to portray himself as a persecuted seeker of truth deserves comment (THES, October 11). First, it is misleading to lump theology with the humanities and to see the well-deserved criticisms to the former as a general attack against the latter. The humanities are qualitatively different from theology in so far as they have different methodology, aims and ethos. Indeed, after the

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Originally a comment by Manfredi La Manna on Any Questions.

Hate to self-publicize, but the follow-up programme “Any Answers?” has a brief comment of mine exposing a common misunderstanding about the odious document on gender segregation on UK campuses and criticizing Shami Chakrabarti for not taking UUK to task (24:10 into the broadcast). For a longer comment, read on.

What is wrong with “voluntary” gender segregation?

The recent debacle by Universities UK, who had to withdraw their odious document on gender segregation on British campuses, has highlighted a number of interesting issues on the relationship between universities and the public sphere. Before addressing the issue of “voluntary” gender segregation, a few comments on the governance of British Universities are … Read the rest

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I’m listening to the bit of Any Questions – starting 38 minutes in – where they talk about gender segregation. I’ve paused it after Amjad Bashir said his piece (he’s the first) because it’s so good. (It made me get something in my eye for a second.) First of all he just said No, and got applause. Then he said about growing up in Bradford (and he has the Yorkshire accent to prove it) and meeting everybody, from primary school on. Mixing. Meeting all kinds of people. And his children, and his grandchildren, they do the same. This is not Saudi Arabia, where women are not allowed to meet people.

Yes exactly. It’s not just the meddling with … Read the rest

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Didja see Jon Stewart taking on Fox News on the war on Christmas and Festivus and beer cans and Santa is white god damn it of course he is?

(Before I get to that though – how not to start a piece. Also how not to continue it and how not to end it. The sfgate piece on the subject:

Hide your kids, hide your wives because the War on Christmas is here and no ugly sweater or racial stereotype is safe.

Don’t do that. Don’t assume only men can read. Don’t assume you’re talking exclusively to men.)

Medialite has the clips.

Stewart shows a bit of the “discussion” between Bill “the Catholic League” Donohue and Shmuley Boteach and … Read the rest

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Student Rights has a useful post on the victory, with many links for reference.

The news that Universities UK has announced that it will be withdrawing guidelines which excused gender segregation on UK campuses is a great success for those who have been campaigning on this issue since the guidelines were released in November.

It’s a success in this particular case and, even more, it shows that such a success is possible. So often there are protests but nothing changes; it’s very heartening to see a real result.

A demonstration outside UUK’s offices showed that people were willing to turn out on the streets to support the rights of women on campus, and this brought the issue to wider

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