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I just had a metaphorical argument with my philosophy prof about polyamory.
He equated it to quantity over quality and so the argument is that the polyamorous lover would rather eat 12 hot dogs for dinner rather than a well cooked steak dinner.
I think this was the first time he's had a student ask "But you're still goign to get tired of eating steak dinner every night. What if you could have steak dinner some nights, chicken cordon bleu on other nights and a good glazed ham on others. You would appreciate the other meals more when you had them wouldn't you?"
To which he replied "That's not what the author is saying"
I'm really sick of him using that answer rather than arguing a line of logic.
He equated it to quantity over quality and so the argument is that the polyamorous lover would rather eat 12 hot dogs for dinner rather than a well cooked steak dinner.
I think this was the first time he's had a student ask "But you're still goign to get tired of eating steak dinner every night. What if you could have steak dinner some nights, chicken cordon bleu on other nights and a good glazed ham on others. You would appreciate the other meals more when you had them wouldn't you?"
To which he replied "That's not what the author is saying"
I'm really sick of him using that answer rather than arguing a line of logic.
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Oh, you should have been there when I heard my Psychology of Women professor say that no woman should ever participate in BDSM because it's degrading, and that research states that all women who do BDSM do it because they were abused in the past. She told me something along the lines of "I don't like to think of negative things and I don't think anyone else in the world should take satisfaction out of being beaten or beating someone else, even consensually. I think women should focus more on sunshines and flowers and pretty things." WTF?!!!
When exam time came rolling around, there was a question about our opinion of the course and lectures. You can bet I really spoke out on the above. I said something along the lines of the professor injected her own personal opinion using research which I am sure she used confirmatory bias on -- she already has a negative view of women who do BDSM and would only be willing to accept those research findings that confirm her idea that they all have been abused in the bast.... I mentioned that the prof herself told us that research is biased ... and I wrote down that "feminism is about *choice*" .. and there is a submissive woman I know who said that, along with the "I choose to submit" ...
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I have often said that the woman who chooses to be a houswife is no less a feminist than a woman who chooses to be an aeronautics engineer.
I know a lot of women in BDSM who had been abused in the past, but let's think about this. I think the most recent statistic of sexual abuse is that 1 in 3 women by the time they are 30 have been sexually assaulted in some way.
Forget a lot of women in BDSM, that's just plain a lot of women!!
It's not like all women engaging in BDSM are doing it in some sort of sick repetitive self-abuse. Heck I quite enjoy the activities I engage in and while I can have sex without them (which would be the mark of a sexual dysfunction if I couldn't) I certainly find them fun and enjoyable when I do get to play.
The prof has rubbed me the wrong way on quite a few occasions
It should be "Speech impediment" not "Speech defect"
it is not a "Sexual Preference" it is a "Sexual orientation"
and I went off on him pretty solidly when he agreed with Kekes' assertion that Affirmative Action resulted in a poorer teaching quality.
I attacked Kekes for having no statistical backing to found his assertion that hiring minorities directly results in a poorer quality of teaching, and then I went off again on my Professor for stating that he disagreed with the University of Ottawa's Affirmative Action policy (which I corrected him because in Canada we have Employment Equity) because the University was forcing departments to achieve a teaching ratio of a least 40% women in the next ten years and he felt that this made departments hire underqualified professors, and thus passing over better qualified men.
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BINGO! The statistics for abused women are already high enough so of course you're going to find a high percentage of just about anything for abused women... saying "all women who have been abused are into bdsm" can not be factual because there are abused women who don't do it at all and there are women who have never been abused who do it too... one really has to be careful with statistics... I've been told that statistics are a lie ;) ... it's too bad that statement isn't true enough for us not to have to learn statistics for most courses, lol...
Hmmm... it is true that in some foreign countries the quality of education is much more exceptional, so I say it is to our advantage if we hire a professor from a minority group as long as s/he meets the position's qualifications ...
I can't remember the numbers but there are low percentages of women with teaching positions in educational faculties, especially with those with tenure ... I don't think the problem is the number of women applying however. I already know many university administrations are quite patriarchal and thus can block opportunities for qualified women professors to teach, so I think that 40% is an admirable goal ...
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> professor say [...] that research states that all women who do BDSM do
> it because they were abused in the past.
Research that gave results along those lines honestly wouldn't surprise me. I mean, gee, people who were abused might be attracted to a subculture and a practice which promotes figuring out what the hell you want before you start on a session, generally doesn't fault you for your kinks and hang-ups, and embraces the idea that if you start not liking what's going on you can use a safeword and the bad things stop happening? I honestly cannot say I'd be surprised, and I fail to see this as an inherently bad thing.
Mind you, I'm getting the impression that's not the spin your prof put on it.