Jesus gives two fingers to women’s empowerment
By Fiona MacGregor
Jesus College JCR voted against a women’s empowerment motion for absolutely no good reason. Like the broken dam allowing the river Isen to flood Isengard, the motion was unlucky enough to be inundated by a deluge of petty, irrelevant or idiotic objections, mixed in with a very few valid but minor technical concerns.
While we cannot know exactly what the demographic of the voting was, opinion was split less along the gender divide and more between a passionate second year who dominate the committee, faced with disgruntled freshers and finalists who exploited a motion for female empowerment to stick up the proverbial two fingers at its supporters. Great, well done guys. You’ve really done democracy proud there.
On top of this irresponsible use of their vote to express dissatisfaction with the workings of the JCR, the motion was plagued with misunderstanding and idiocy: there were people failing to recognise the point of demographic specific events; some sagely observed that women’s empowerment was divisive and so should not be supported; others that we should bury our heads in the sand because by attempting anything so foolhardy as to do something about the problem we were highlighting the fact that the problem exists (because we’d hate to do that, obviously); or stubbornly insisting that we should mandate events for every other underrepresented group in the JCR. Goodness, that idea is so feasible I can’t believe we didn’t think of it earlier. In fact I’m pretty sure a motion proposing a Tory empowerment session is winging its way to our next JCR meeting.
One particularly moronic comment was to the effect that a motion to do with women’s empowerment should be proposed by a woman. Ye gods. I think I just saw the ghosts of feminism past, present and future crawl into their coffins and try to nail them shut from the inside. William Wilberforce was black, right? Yeah, obviously, because otherwise that would have been ridiculously unrepresentative. A man showing that he understands the importance of women’s empowerment is a cause for celebration, not censure, and to think otherwise is cutting off your nose to spite your face, or shooting yourself in the foot, or any other appropriate metaphor illustrating abject and self-destructive folly.
An objection I concede is valid yet still insubstantial, was that women’s empowerment should be the job of the Equal Opportunities Committee rather than the Welfare Rep, a debatable opinion, given that empowerment should be intrinsic to women’s welfare, and also that this could be renegotiated once the event itself was mandated. Opposition to this motion appears to me to be almost entirely due to malice towards the committee, missing the point entirely, or simply being unable to see beyond the technicalities to what should have been a step forward for female empowerment.
One hundred JCR members will hasten to add, as a footnote to their vote, ‘hey, we’re not anti-feminist’. No, just petty and short-sighted, and totally cool with looking misogynistic at the same time. Because that’s fine then.
-Fiona Macgregor
Womsoc member
28/05/2012 at 12:13
Can’t decide which is more depressing: “I’m not a feminist, but…” or “I’m not an anti-feminist, but…”
Hazel
28/05/2012 at 14:14
Even if they’re both depressing, at least people about to say stupid things send out such verbal red flags beforehand.
Hazel
29/05/2012 at 15:17
Just wanted to say thank you to all the disgusting Jesus JCR members who shouted this down during the (two) discussions. Applicants will find out about this when they google our college. So will alumni. So will other Oxford students. So thank you for making us look ugly and backwards to the entire world.
It's grim up North (London)
02/06/2012 at 23:00
hahahahaha JCR melodrama in the extreme.” People will find out when they google our college”. Oxford is representative of , and in some senses fuels, serious social divisions in this country. Not passing another lame JCR measure is not a serious issue.
Alice
03/06/2012 at 10:17
It’s a serious issue, idiot anonymous poster, when it silences female JCR members and makes them feel unsafe and unvalued.
It's grim up North (London)
03/06/2012 at 20:42
It doesn’t silence them at all. Their proposal was considered and rejected. That’s democracy, albeit the lame JCR variety that’s rife with posturing and overreactions.
Shrill Womynist
03/06/2012 at 22:47
I am outraged that our token JCR measure has been democratically rejected. Some may object that the measure had no actual effect, and was therefore another empty attempt to boost the egos of a few womyn in Jesus. This is totally false, as:
a) Any democratic objection to our measures is UNACCEPTABLE and will reflect far worse on our college than say, it being composed almost entirely of middle class white people.
b) Rejecting our postures (sorry measures) makes us feel unsafe. In fact anyone contradicting my…I mean our…opinion is UNACCEPTABLE.
…
[continues for several hundred pages]
Alice
03/06/2012 at 22:52
Thanks you two, but I doubt you were there, considering female JCR members were shouted down by shrill males who decided that a measure about helping women learn to speak up and be heard wasn’t an issue.
Cam
07/06/2012 at 18:42
In an article about a JCR motion, would it take much space to say what the motion was. I doubt it was just a moion for “womens empowerment” as I didn’t think Jesus had that kind of power.
I am sure everyone has voted down motions with good intentions due to poor wording or flaws that could harm the JCR.
Alice
17/06/2012 at 03:24
I’m sure everyone that voted down the motion has sincere intentions and the good of the JCR community in mind! Obviously when men vote, they don’t vote with their prejudices!
Fiona
18/06/2012 at 16:30
@Cam, You’re right that the article does not spell out what the motion was. When it was printed in the paper there was also a news story about the motion printed. You can read about the original motion here: http://oxfordstudent.com/2012/05/19/jesus-in-sexism-row/, and the following referendum here: http://oxfordstudent.com/2012/05/24/jesus-rejects-empowerment-vote-again/