unfunny stuff

[usuallyhats]

Wow, there is an awful lot of fail going around at the moment. Here are some links/signal boosts:

- (Trigger warning) The Onion thinks rape is hilarious; is wrong.

- (TRIGGER WARNING) Really horrifying stuff going on at Cornell University: FGM, child abuse, just awful.

- Incredibly comprehensive roundup of posts about a fic that uses the Haiti earthquake as a backdrop.

- AQA are developing gender specific alternatives to GCSEs. Holy gender normativity, Batman! I am all for structuring assessment in such a way that it doesn't privilege only people who do well with traditional exams, but this... is not the way to do it. It'll only reinforce stereotypical ideas of what men and women are like, not least because girls and boys will probably end up being taught differently to help them succeed in whatever type of assessment AQA has deemed appropriate for their gender presentation. And it assumes that everyone is cisgendered; fail there, too. SIGH.

Comments

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

AQA are developing gender specific alternatives to GCSEs.

Holy what. I know these sorts of organizations have to keep themselves busy making better mousetraps, but as you say, way to fail both on the stereotyping and the transphobia front. If anyone should be finicking around with the way children are educated, it should be the *teachers* in *schools*, not the exam boards.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_catharine_/]

Thirded on the WTF??!! Even if it is true that on average girls are better at coursework or whatever, it doesn't mean that any one particular girl is more suited to coursework than any one particular boy. All for people having the choice of working to their individual strengths, but not for being told (or assumed) what those strengths should be!

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

AQA = Absolute Quality Ar$eholes?

[netgirl-y2k.livejournal.com]

What is wrong with everyone at the moment? Are we all having a hard of thinking day/week/month/life?

[usuallyhats]

If anyone should be finicking around with the way children are educated, it should be the *teachers* in *schools*, not the exam boards.
Yes, exactly! I suppose at least if this does go ahead, schools will still be able to choose a different exam board.

[usuallyhats]

All for people having the choice of working to their individual strengths, but not for being told (or assumed) what those strengths should be!
Yes! Lumping students in together and telling them that they must have certain strengths and weaknesses because of their gender is just wrong.

[usuallyhats]

Something like that :/

[usuallyhats]

I am beginning to wonder if there's been some kind of secret message going round along the lines of: "It's failing time! Everybody join in!"