Not a lot of time for posting today, I am busy grading and resting.
Yesterday on campus, I ran into a colleague I hadn’t seen in several years. "Max" and I were hired around the same time as adjuncts in the early 1990s; I eventually was lucky enough to get a full-time job. Max (who taught sociology and psychology) was not. He taught at PCC for a number of years, and then gave up his dreams of teaching and went into the business world. He told me yesterday, as we greeted each other, that he’s back to "adjuncting" again — his business success has allowed him to return to his original passion of college teaching, even if only part-time. He’s maybe a decade and a half older than I am, somewhere (I think) in his mid-fifties.
I never saw Max teach. But I vividly remember a discussion we had close to ten years ago (’late ‘96 or early ‘97), not long before he left the college. He was in the faculty lounge one morning, going over his class roster. He stood up excitedly when I walked in: "Hey Hugo, look at what I’m doing!" I came over, and saw that he had placed numbers next to the names of many of his students. My heart sank; I thought Max was going to share with me some new and complex grading theory that would be very tedious to have to listen to.
But it wasn’t about grading: "Hugo, I’ve ranked all the girls in all my classes!"
I was stunned, staring at the sheet. He’d ranked them two ways. One, "ordinally", from 1 (the "hottest" in his estimation) up to about #20 (there were that many women in the class). Then, he’d put a second number (in a different color pen) next to the first number. This reflected, he explained, where the girls stood on the classic 1-10 "objective" scale. His #1 in the class, therefore, ranked as an 8.75.
I was so bewildered, all I could think to ask was "Max, how long did this take you?"
Max told me he did this with every class each semester. It took him a few weeks to make decisions, he explained. "I can’t make a final decision on where they rank until I see them in different outfits; it’s usually not until the midterm week that I am sure of what numbers they deserve. But hey, Hugo, you should try it — it’s objective and subjective grading at the same time!" And with that, I got a slap on the back and off he went.
I really agonized for a while about confronting Max about this. The temptation to "let it go" was overwhelming. I was 29, still untenured (though already full-time). I was certainly still quite tentative in my commitment to challenging older men. But after running Max’s story by a friend of mine who was an active feminist (and not on campus), I summoned up the courage to confront him. Of course, it didn’t go well.
I invited Max into my office, and I told him how uncomfortable I was with what he had showed me. I used words like "sexist" and "unprofessional". Max became very indignant. "This is bullshit, Hugo. I’m only doing on paper what every man does in his head. I’m honest about it — but you, you’re a fucking self-righteous fraud!" And he stomped off. Later, he came up and apologized for his language , but not for his "ranking system." And having said my peace, I let it drop. When I saw Max yesterday, I instantly flashed back to our fight over his "rankings". Honestly, I’m surprised I hadn’t remembered it earlier to blog about it before.
This story ties in nicely with the theme of yesterday’s post about feminist men and assertiveness. It also dovetails with the vital issue of accountability in fantasy as well as in action. (I wrote a long post about sexual fantasy and integrity in March.) And in that context, I remember that Max had been right about one thing: many men do in their minds what he was doing on paper — "ranking" their students, colleagues, and acquaintances on their sexual desirability. He may have been more brazen than many, but he was hardly unique.
As a teenager, I learned that "ranking" girls was one of the chief pastimes of my peers when we were in a single-sex group. And I’ll be the first to admit that in those years, I happily participated. We had long debates about whether "Cindy" or "Lisa" was the hottest girl in Mr. Fletcher’s biology class. And of course, even at that age, I figured out the desperately obvious: the real pleasure in sharing these rankings lay in the fact that they acted like glue to cement male friendships. I was shy and insecure and eager to make friends with guys, and at that age, more than willing to use sexual objectification as a tool to bring me closer to them. Homosociality in action indeed!
It was telling to me that Max was so eager to share his ranking system. It wasn’t enough for him to establish "control and power" over the women in his classes by secretly evaluating them on their looks without their knowledge. Whatever pleasure that brought him was insufficient — he needed to share his efforts with another man. I suspect that he hoped I would react with pleasure. He knew that he and I shared some of the same female students, and that perhaps we could spend a few happy minutes together discussing and rating their physical attributes. And to be candid, for a split second, the idea did seem appealing to me. I’m grateful indeed that for me, the charm of his "system" vanished so fast!
Obviously, I don’t rank my students this way, even in my mind. It’s unethical, it’s anti-feminist, it’s immoral, you-name-it. As a married Christian feminist twice the age of my students, to do so would be antithetical to everything I profess. But I still run into men (including some of my current colleagues) who from time to time are eager to "bond" over a shared discussion of the relative and objective attractiveness of their students, co-workers, or simply women passing by. Sometimes, the temptation to "get along and go along" still kicks in for me, though I resist it. The lure is not in the power over women, or the excitement of evaluating women who would no doubt not give the likes of us a second glance. The lure — the terrible, destructive lure — is that in sharing fantasies and "rankings" men can become closer, recreating as adults the "boys only" clubs of their childhoods.
Max is back on campus. (And his real name, obviously, ain’t "Max.") And I’m wondering whether to bring up the ranking system again, or leave it be. He’s not violating an official college ordinance, after all. Maybe what he’s doing is harmless. But from the perspective of his students, the idea of him continuing on with his "system" bothers me still. I’m not yet sure what, if anything, I’m going to do.
Maybe what he’s doing is harmless.
That’s a pretty big maybe in my mind. I can understand looking at women (even your students) and thinking that they’re attractive and comparing them in terms of looks. What I cannot wrap my head around is the idea that a professor is waiting to *see what outfits* his female students are wearing so that he can further assess their hotness. Somehow, I find it very hard to believe that his ranking them doesn’t somehow effect how he ultimately grades their work and treats them in class.
I think I need a shower.
Just to think that a professor would do such a thing is just unbelievable. Maybe I’m naive, but I can’t believe men would stoop that low. He deserves to lose his job. This is extremely unprofessional behavior. Actually I’m sure this is the reason he wasn’t given a full time position.
I’m only doing on paper what every man does in his head.
This is, however, a non-trivial distinction.
Bette, I can assure you that this had nothing to do with his not getting a full-time job. Now, if I were ever on a hiring committee for which he was an applicant, it’s the sort of thing that might affect my decision.
Hugo wrote: “It wasn’t enough for him to establish “control and power” over the women in his classes by secretly evaluating them on their looks without their knowledge.”
That’s ridiculous Hugo. How the hell does one establish “power and control” over another person by secretly ranking their ‘hotness?’ If those women didn’t know he did this, just how would they be “controlled” or influenced in any way whatsoever by it?
It’s ideas like that which make resonable people think feminists are complete loons and thus cause them not to identify as feminist.
You continue: “Whatever pleasure that brought him was insufficient — he needed to share his efforts with another man.”
Well one thing’s for sure: He certainly wins the clueless prize thinking that you would respond favorably to his ’scorecard.’
I agree with you and others that “Max” seems to have some issues, but jeez Louise, making a big deal out of this seems to me over the top. People (yes, men and women) rank each other all the time; I’m sure that even some feminist WS profs rank their students on various attributes (maybe even using a “hotness” scale), even if they don’t share their ’scorecards’ with you. But hey, if getting in the face of a guy like Max makes you feel like you’re doing your part as a male auxilliary of The Feminist Movement (TM) then by all means, knock yourself out. Just be sure to pick your battles carefully, lest someone else knock you out themselves. ;)
My advice (not that you probably give a rip): Chalk Max up as a clueless loser and let it go. You probably have more important battles to concentrate on.
“Max” is clearly not an Arjuna. Just leave it at that - “karmapala” (that is the complete term) will take care of the rest, I always say.
Geez.
Ok.. granted- person A thinking about the relative attractiveness of persons B, C and D is not an objectively evil thing.
However, this gets creepy when person A is in a position of power over B,C and D. It gets *ultra*-creepy when B, C and D are young people and A is meant to be acting in a guiding or helpful way towards them. That is *not* the same as when A, B, C and D are all peers- to my mind.
I would also argue that male ‘ranking’ of female attractiveness has never really been a benign or harmless thing. In my experience, it has *always* had overtones of hostility and hatred. Always. It’s never about appreciating the beauty of the women’s individual humanity. It’s about reducing them to cuts of beef and feeling superior about it.
Longtime Hugo reader here (I usually just lurk).
Ed (@ 8/3/2006 2:22pm): I believe the word is “karma-phala” (literally, the fruit of one’s actions). The “ph” in the word sounds something like if you tried to pronounce “pf”. Or if you cough slightly while saying “pa”.
Random Lurker (@ 8/3/2006 3:21pm): Right on. You took the words right out my mouth.
Do you think he might have grown up?
Radi:
Yes, you’re correct. In Balinese, though, there are no aspirated stops, so most people end up saying (and writing) “karmapala”. Oh well, vive la difference. But I don’t want to drift from the thread too much…
Grown up since 1997, Nancy? Perhaps. Of course, he’s in his fifties now, and was at least forty back then.
Just to clarify, he didn’t specifically weight these, uh, “rankings” into the grades he gave, did he? Now THAT would be very unethical, of course.
As a grad student I’ve been a TA in many classes, and I must admit that I have, in fact, talked and joked a little bit, outside of the work environment, with other TAs/grad students about students who I thought were attractive. If this was a transgression, I feel it was a minor one. I can’t agree with Random Lurker that this is about reducing them to “cuts of beef”; it’s just that … well, I’m a heterosexual male, and we notice attractive women.
But actually letting this affect your work would strike me as extremely unprofessional. I would make a concerted effort to put these sort of things aside in discussion and grading, and treat them like any other student. (I was concerned enough about showing favoritism of any sort that, for example, when grading electronically submitted homework I would run it through a little “anonymizing” program I wrote that stripped each submission of identifying information.) And I would never do something like what “Max” did. I mean, doesn’t the guy take any pride in his position and his work? Geez.
this gets creepy when person A is in a position of power over B,C and D. It gets *ultra*-creepy when B, C and D are young people and A is meant to be acting in a guiding or helpful way towards them.
right, exactly. and it doesn’t matter if the girls in max’s class are aware of this or not. there’s no way that this kind of meticulous attention to the appearance of the women in his classes *doesn’t* affect how he ultimately grades them. he might not be cognizant of it, but really - how can you be objective about a woman’s intellectual capability if you revel in your inobjectivity about her appearance?
and really, beyond that, women *do* know that men think about them and rate them like this: friends, strangers, teachers, etc. and what max is doing is emblamatic of a bigger societal impulse, which is to convey to women that there is always a chance they’re being looked at, viewed, judged. and when that’s a woman’s mindset, she’s automatically at a disadvantage, because it takes up that little (or big) bit of her consciousness that could otherwise be reserved for, oh i don’t know, learning.
I would be very interested to raid his files and run an analysis comparing the grades he gave with the ratings he gave. If there is any sort of correlation, (and I think there would be) then there would be at the very least, grounds to suggest that rating his students hinders his ability to grade them subjectively.
I would hope he wouldn’t be foolish enough to keep his ratings scorecard from previous years, but given the amount of attention he gave it, it certainly seems he would keep it. I’m sure Hugo wouldn’t be up for ‘borrowing’ his files, but that would certainly be fascinating data.
If I was a student of his and found out about his “ranking system” I would take it up with the university as sexual harassment. It’s completely unprofessional and when a teacher believes that there’s nothing wrong with objectifying his students, and contributing to a sexually hostile environment (especially since he shows other teachers), then I don’t think there’s any question that he’s abusing his authority.
yes it’s karma phala. phala means ‘fruit’ so karma phala is the fruits of one’s actions
I have fond memories of my college years, and would’ve horrified to discover my profs “ranking” me on my appearance—I ranked them on their teaching skills, passion for the subject, and of course knowledge of the same; and expected them to rank me on the student’s understanding of same.
Ugh. I realize people can’t help making observations about physical attributes (though I always felt it was one of my duties as a student to do this as little as possible towards my teachers) but as another poster said, this is creepy; it’s not harmless.
I’d like to think finding out about something like this wouldn’t've soured me on college, but I surely would’ve dropped the prof’s class, pronto. (Feminism has made some strides, I guess: bringing suit strikes me as a much better approach.)
Though I have to admit, this guy’s hardly the only one. I had a prof punningly call me by the name of a venereal disease, once. Why I didn’t have the sense to complain to the administration back then…as I said, really bad to subject young women to this sort of crap.
rejiquar
Someday there will be a sexual harassment lawsuit against your college, Hugo, and someday Max and his little notes will be center stage in a deposition.
Beyond that, Max sounds a little, oh, immature? It’s one thing to notice attractive students. It’s a step beyond that to make the mental effort to “rank” them. But sitting down and making a list over time, with different-colored ink yet?
Like kate d. said, it’s really unlikely that the girls in the class hadn’t picked up on this at all. Anyone who spends this much time evaluating people based on their appearances is unlikely to maintain an unbiased manner in the class, and students are usually very aware of who gets the best reactions from the teacher. Add that to what Hugo’s described about sexual competetiveness among women in the school, and you get an extremely degrading situation, especially for the girls that aren’t likely to rate a 1 on his scale. It’s even worse that he’s teaching psychology and sociology, disciplines that focus on human interactions and relationships and power, and he doesn’t see how damaging this could be.
I went to Wheaton College. As a smallish private Christian school, it holds the teachers to very high standards in their relationships with students, in much the same spirit that Hugo describes his teaching philosophy. I was fortunate to have excellent teachers that demonstrated a great deal of interest in mentoring and encouraging their students, as well as pushing and evaluating them. It’s a competetive school with very bright, self-confident students, but even in that situation there were students who were extremely sensitive to their teacher’s analysis of them. Positive and negative feedback from teachers had a lot of influence on the way those students saw themselves, whether it was a grade on a test or a response to their contributions in classroom discussion.
In a school where there is a wider power gap between the teachers and students, having a teacher feel the right to judge a student on something so clearly unrelated to their studies is frightening. I’m actually surprised that Mr. Bad thinks this is no big deal, though I suppose I shouldn’t be.
Just to clarify something — most of us at PCC have double sets of rosters; one that gets turned into the college at the end of the term with official grades on it; the other a xerox of that roster on which we can “back-up” our grades. Max’s rankings were on his private back-up roster.
I’m only doing on paper what every man does in his head.
Wow. Really? That hetero-ish men notice various women are attractive to them (something which is undoubtedly ubiquitous) does not translate into ‘ranking’ women from various spheres (in this case, each class). That’s beyond creepy, and his supposition that sharing this practice with somebody–especially you, Hugo!–would be ok sort of shows just how out of touch with social reality this guy is; combine this with a view that all men are doing exactly what he’s doing but in their heads is a bit pathological, in my opinion.
You are faced with a tough choice, I think, regarding talking with him. On one hand, ought he be able to get away with doing this stuff (if he still is)? On the other hand, is there a way to do it that isn’t just one man coming down on another? How important is the latter factor when something is this creepy? No easy answers, here, I think.
By the way, I think it’s commendable that you talk at all about attractions between teachers and students. I think it is one of those elephants in the room oftentimes, and talking about it out in the open is one good way of ditching some of the ugly side of homosociality, among other things.
“How the hell does one establish “power and control” over another person by secretly ranking their ‘hotness?’”
…said the creepy man sitting in the corner checking out women, thinking they don’t notice him.
In a school where there is a wider power gap between the teachers and students, having a teacher feel the right to judge a student on something so clearly unrelated to their studies is frightening. I’m actually surprised that Mr. Bad thinks this is no big deal, though I suppose I shouldn’t be.
Well, people do judge each other on matters of attractiveness all the time in their head, don’t they? What made Max’s actions questionable to me is how he did not hesitate to dwell on it and be quite explicit about it. Not to mention that his “rankings” were likely reflected to some degree in his grades; I suspect the kind of guy who cheerfully chats with a colleague about this isn’t the sort to be too exacting about impartiality in his evaluation, either.
On a slightly different note, the “ranking” of who’s attractive never served to “cement male friendships” for me, because I was too afraid of being ridiculed for not liking the “right” people.
Is it another introvert/extrovert thing?
Jeff, I’ve resolved to see if I can’t find a way of finding out if he’s still "at it", as it were. I only saw him for a moment on Wednesday and learned he would be picking up a few classes here (and at other local JCs). I certainly don’t want a repeat of the angry exchange we had many years ago — but at the same time, I’m not sure whether it’s okay to let it go.
Yes, mutual attraction will happen in the classroom from time to time. I don’t want to deny that fact. I’ve talked about it from the student end here and from the teacher end here. But acknowledging that eros often shows up in Clio’s domain is one thing,what Max was (is?) doing is another!
As for the problem with “secretly ranking” someone else’s hotness, that’s a good subject for a future post.
Hugo,
Well good for pointing out your colleague’s stupidity. Happens quite often, particularly among my Baby Boomer colleagues and I suspect Hugo’s colleague thinks of himself as a progressive Boomer, right?
Anyway, enough about the Boomer professors, my suspected villian in this case.
Good for telling him. Remind him also that he doing a job; nothing more, nothing less. The students are customers; nothing more, nothing less.
Hetrophobia is a pernicious creed running its course the world over. Its virulence manifests itself where society sees expressions of hetrosexuality as problematic unless initiated by those politically worthy.
How has society received the same expressions of heterosexuality manifested by the women of “sex and the city” ? With applause.
Creepy, creepy bastard. I wonder if he fucked any of his students?
Max just sounds really insecure. I mean yes sometimes men bond by rating women (and I have a hard time imagining many women don’t also do this), but it’s usually as deep as the plot in a porno: simply an excuse to stare at attractive women. Discussing rankings with someone outside the context of those visuals, or with even shared knowledge of them, seems so weird. “There’s this girl Lisa, she’s way cuter than this other girl Tiffany.” “Why do I care?” That he meticulously writes this down and tries to share the paper with someone else, seems like just a geeky (and mysoginistic) way to get attention.
What it sounds most like is someone from a role-playing game telling you about their character and showing you their character sheet (something I’ve been guilty of). These things are banal and meaningless outside of the context, and only done by people who a) have little social intuition and b) are desperate for attention.
And oh yeah, even if he doesn’t grade just based on looks, I would be very surprised if he doesn’t dole attention and responsiveness based on looks and charm and gender.
I said: “How the hell does one establish “power and control” over another person by secretly ranking their ‘hotness?’”
To which jeffliveshere said: “…said the creepy man sitting in the corner checking out women, thinking they don’t notice him.”
Hugo, that’s a direct personal attack. Will you enforce your standards here at the BB, and if you don’t in this case, may I respond in kind?
Personal attacks have resulted in my getting banned, so I’m just tring to clarify if this is a consistent standard or if I’m held to a higher one than others before I post a response to this.
suzie wrote: “Creepy, creepy bastard. I wonder if he fucked any of his students?”
Interesting and germane question given the history of all involved here.
So, which is worse, a prof who ranks his students on a ‘hotness’ scale or one who uses his position of authority to get into the pants of the students he considers ‘hot?’ IMO the latter person’s conduct is more egregious.
What do you think Hugo?
You know, while I’m not very sympathetic to Max’s “program”, reading about this has given me pause to think about my own responses to attractive students in my classroom. My goals are almost precisely the opposite of Max, from what I gather here, but I admit I have taken a moment or two of downtime during tests and the like to think about the relative attractiveness of my students. I’m concerned about something Hugo’s brought up here before, that is, whether I give undue preference to attractive students, or whether attractiveness unduly effects grades — an especially pernicious threat given that every assignment I give these days is a written assignment and thus grading is necessarily subjective. While I’m satisfied that my grades are, in fact, fair, I do feel that probing my responses to my students is a necessary part of my own self-assessment — albeit a highly uncomfortable one.
On a different topic, to those who wondered how simply acknowledging a student’s attractiveness could be considered an act of power, I suggest you have a look at some of Hugo’s earlier posts about student crushes, namely this one: http://hugoboy.typepad.com/hugo_schwyzer/2006/03/im_thinking_thi_1.html ; not only is there the risk of taking advantage of a situation in some way, but there is also the risk of undermining the pedagogic goal of helping young students to mature into subjecthood (or more empowered subjecthood, maybe). Giving in to objectifying impulses runs directly counter to teaching itself, whether or not one ever acts on one’s attractions.
“beyond that, women *do* know that men think about them and rate them like this: friends, strangers, teachers, etc. and what max is doing is emblamatic of a bigger societal impulse, which is to convey to women that there is always a chance they’re being looked at, viewed, judged.”
Yup…one of the blessings of getting older is having to worry about this less and less.
So, which is worse,
Ooh, are we playing the false dilemma game?
Max’s rankings were on his private back-up roster.
I really, really wouldn’t want to be your college’s lawyer right now, Hugo.
I guess the question I have to ask is: Does “max” teach the course in Logic? - if so, then he is the same old leech at PCC who I took a course from - who may in his mind have thought he was equal and fair but for instance, only asked for responses from the most model-like girls in the courses whether they wanted to answer or not.
Hugo, your anhedonia is tiresome. You clearly fail to make the distinction between an aesthetic evaluation, which is independent of moral per definition, and your own political moralisms.
Thus you end up being a Puritan, who in the words of Mencken is someone who is always suspicious that someone, somewhere is having a good time.
This is a recurrent theme in your postings on male sexuality ( in true feminist style you do not try to apply the same narrow ethics to female sexuality ).
Of course all this is in vain because sexuality and passion will never truly be subordinated to political moralism even in the most perfect feminist utopia.
Give it up Hugo!
mythago said: “Ooh, are we playing the false dilemma game?”
That’s right dammit - this is about Max and nobdody else!
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
: “the real pleasure in sharing these rankings lay in the fact that they acted like glue to cement male friendships.” “The lure — the terrible, destructive lure — is that in sharing fantasies and “rankings” men can become closer, recreating as adults the “boys only” clubs of their childhoods.”
Is there something inherently evil about cementing male friendships OR men becoming closer. Do you feel the same way about female bonding too?
Sam
Elizabeth, he doesn’t teach Logic.
I have nothing against male bonding, Sam. I’m against using the objectification of women as the glue.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Ah, we ARE playing false dilemma. Either we talk about Max or we talk about Hugo, but we can’t do both.
You clearly fail to make the distinction between an aesthetic evaluation, which is independent of moral per definition
Ranking your students hotness on a 1 to 10 scale and showing the rankings to a colleague is independent of moral by definition?
because sexuality and passion will never truly be subordinated
Passion??? Passion??? What the heck does passion have to do with writing a bunch of numbers next to students’ names on a piece of paper?
In any case, “passion” doesn’t need to be “truly subordinated” for people to recognize some boundaries in how it should be expressed in a teacher/student relationship.
I’m reminded of when other white people have shared with me some horribly racist thought of theirs and then, pathetically, tried the wink-wink, nudge-nudge thing with me, and have received a really rude surprise in response. (E.g., the waitress who shared her opinions of African American customers patronizing an adjacent business. I complained, so that God and Everybody - as we say in the South - could hear, and then pursued further complaints through the management chain.)
Of, analogies can be dangerous business, and no, I don’t mean to be engaging in the “comparitive oppressions” dance, but anyway…
Anyway Hugo, what I mean by this is that, when you’re at your best, I’m happy to regard you as “our” spy in certain enemy territories. You’re not faultless, and you’ve never pretended to be. But you can use your privilege and access in ways that shed light on how truly idiotic that privilege and access is (without simplistically fastening yourself to feminist or other ideologies, and/or compromising or denigrating your own identity), and I truly appreciate that.
Been too long since I’ve visited, will try to come back again soon.
Lynn -
Sorry if I exposed to you, the final consequences of political moralism.
Maybe it is time for those of us who care about art to wake up.
Aesthetics are independent of morals right down to the very fact that they are processed in the brain before any moral processing takes place.
Feminism seeks to measure everything on a scale as to how it contributes to what they define as gender equality.
Feminism is not pluralistic at all. It subordinates all other values to its political ideal. The ends justify the means.
Sorry if I exposed to you, the final consequences of political moralism.
But you didn’t. You spouted some words that make no sense whatsoever in the context of the situation to which you’re applying them. That doesn’t exposed anything to me, other than the weirdness of your own perspective.
Maybe it is time for those of us who care about art to wake up.
Ranking your students on a scale of 1 to 10 for hotness isn’t art by any stretch of the imagination.
Aesthetics are independent of morals right down to the very fact that they are processed in the brain before any moral processing takes place.
So now what you’re saying is that ranking students according to hotness on a copy of the sheet which you are supposed to be using to grade their academic work is independent of morals because we may notice the attractiveness or ugliness of another person before we think anything about morality.
Whether one thinks about morals before noticing that someone is pretty is neither here nor there. One is certainly capable of thinking about the morality of one’s acts before spending a few weeks carefully observing students in different outfits, marking up a grade sheet with those observations, and showing the grade sheet to a colleague.
And it’s just bullshit to say that the world of art is made poorer if people who grade, give promotions, etc., make a reasonable effort to evaluate the people they grade, give promotions to, etc. on their work, rather than their looks.
Feminism seeks to measure everything on a scale as to how it contributes to what they define as gender equality.
Whatever “feminism” in the abstract seeks to measure, I personally don’t remotely measure “everything” on a scale as to how it contributes to gender equality. But things that a professor does to female students and not to male students?
Lynn
I see that you are unable to discuss at an abstract level so let me just ask you this simple question.
How do you think that state should enforce the thought policing you and other feminists are proposing?
Hugo, was this Fletcher you mentioned passim also a biology teacher at MPC? I think I might have been his student back in the day…
No, he was at Carmel High. Still is, in fact, one of only a handful of teachers left from my era of the early 1980s.
Hans, Lynn is VERY capable of abstract thought. That is an invalid critism. And no one is proposing thought police, that is a total strawman.
You are tiresome.
Well, Hans, it would help if the abstractions you invoked had anything whatsoever to do with the subject. I mean, if someone were to respond to Hugo’s account of the incident with arguments about the merit or lack of merit of prayers in public school, I’d have the same sort of “Huh?” reaction as I do to your invoking “art” and “aesthetics.”
How do you think that state should enforce the thought policing you and other feminists are proposing?
Max’s thoughts, whether moral or not, are his own business to monitor. His use of his grading sheets, and his conduct regarding his students in a professional setting, are the university’s business.
There used to be this sort of list going around different teams at Microsoft. It’s one thing if you do this in your head and maybe talk about this outside of work, but several people thought it would be funny to actually write out a list in their work emails and pass them around while at work. I never said anything, and sometimes I wish I had because I know some of my female friends were really uncomfortable when they found out about the list.
“Hugo, that’s a direct personal attack.”
Flip response: Is not.
Real response: Mr. Bad, what I said is not a direct personal attack, unless you are the sort of man who sits creepily in the corner leering at women and thinking that they don’t notice. The point of my comment was that people who say things like, “How the hell does one establish “power and control” over another person by secretly ranking their ‘hotness?’” are likely missing something of the situation in the way that Max is also likely not understanding–one thinks it’s secret, but it’s not. People may not notice the exact way you’re being creepy (i.e. marking up a gradesheet with numbers to grade ‘hotness’), they still see that you’re creepy. (And this is apart from the ’secret’ being told to at least one other prof, namely Hugo.)
Just to be clear: A direct personal attack on you, Mr. Bad, relevant to the conversation, would have been worded something like, “Mr. Bad is a creep who sits in the corner and leers at women, just like Max, probably.” I purposefully didn’t phrase my comment that way, and instead suggested a connection between two ways that people might think they don’t have power/influence over others when, in fact, they do.
Even if Hans’ points made more sense, he’s leaving out the fact that people, even people who are somehow ‘objects of art’ to somebody (i.e. if somehow Max gauging ‘hotness’ was a ‘purely’ aesthetic judgment, which is a questionable proposition in itself), they are not only objects of art–they are also people, which means that judgments about them and their relationship to whether or not Max wants to/gets to leer at them are moral judgments, as far as I can tell. That they are people brings it right into the moral sphere from the get-go. If Max wants to rate paintings he wants to fuck, no harm done; but once he starts rating people, it’s a moral issue.
On a slight tangent, I love it when people walk into the comments and start spouting stuff like …”aesthetic evaluation, which is independent of moral per definition…” as if that’s somehow an uncontroversial claim. I mean, heck, that’s something people talk about right off the bat in philosophy of art classes–it’s hardly an issue that’s been decided. There are still, for instance, lots of people who are semi-Platonists, and who believe that morality comes from our aesthetic judgments, and that the latter are therefore inextricably intertwined with the former.
Hugo, sorry to take up space with nostalgia, but “Fletch” is indeed my Bio/Behavior teacher from MPC, circa 1980. Before you got to Carmel High, I’d go every year to his classes there and do teach-ins on nuclear war (I was Monterey County co-chair of the Freeze Iniative). I always liked him; wish he’d change his hairstyle though. No wonder you’re so together, ol’ Padre!! Keep the faith.
Douglas! You’re back to commenting! I was wondering what happened to you!
It is a small world, Doug — I learned so much from “Fletch”. He was — and probably still is — absolutely insane. He’s one of perhaps three teachers (other than my parents) who moulded and shaped my teaching style today.
Ah yes, I’m back to your blog. Now that I have some time, and I’m more ‘normal’ I’ll read your posts and comments for today. ___I really was insane this morning. And gosh, I can’t blame hormones either…..
Hi, Mermade: I got a job, that’s what happened. Hope all is well with you and yours.
If you don’t think women rank men by number ($), you’re an idiot.
I guess I’m an idiot, then :-). Seriously, I don’t think many people, male or female, assign everyone of their preferred sex that they meet in their work environment an ordinal rank for sexual desirability, much less put it in writing.
And, “in their work environment” is a key point here; if you abstract away from that, you’ve lost the whole reason Max is wrong. Men and women meeting each other in bars and clubs can feel free to assign each other any numbers they darn well please, and even make dorky charts of those numbers, if they want to waste their time on such charts.
An amusing story indeed. Of course nearly all men do this in some way, including some of the liars commenting here. Sorry ladies but its true.
However Max’s system is far too complicated. These days I opt for a simple four stage system. You might want to pass this onto max, would save him a lot of work
3 points - the full power Marilyn Monroe type woman, you dont have to think about how to rate them, you just know.
2 points - the more regular woman, you dont have to think too hard about rating them but you find yourself weighing up their attributes first.
1 point - you would, if nothing better was on offer.
0 points - nothing doing.
This of course is all filtered through superficial looks. I capriciously reserve the right to alter scores based on personality and familiarity. Someone could traverse from 0 to 3 as I got to know them.
I’m not at all sure I’m going to get around to passing this on, Lurker. And please, calling other posters “liars” is unacceptable. You may wish to believe that this is universal heterosexual male behavior, but I assure you it is not. Noticing attractive people is something we all do — developing a ranking system is something utterly different.
OK liars is a bit harsh. Sorry.
The punchline is sooooooo buried
Of course what he’s doing is harmless. Maybe what he’s doing is gross. Maybe what he’s doing is immature. Maybe what he’s doing is even immoral.
But until he either starts screwing with a girl’s grade due to her “hotness” or trying to coerce/force her into sex, the actual act of ranking girls’ looks is harmless. It maybe distasteful, stupid, childish, etc. but it just doesn’t harm anyone until it’s combined with some other action. Harmless fantasy.
And I do think that “Max” is right. I’d wager a majority of men do it. Since sperm are cheap and eggs are expensive, men are programmed to have excess libido. For non-single men: Just keep it in your pants and don’t let it cloud your judgment, and you gonna be a’ight.
Since sperm are cheap and eggs are expensive, men are programmed to have excess libido.
This makes no sense. Why have half of the species running around with blue balls all the time?
This makes no sense. Why have half of the species running around with blue balls all the time?
So that they are ready at a moment’s notice should the opportunity arise of course.
I seriously, seriously doubt that this “scale” is not interferring with his students’ grades, just like I bet that if more girls in the class knew about it, they would a)immediately transfer out, or b) dress better in hopes of getting a higher scale score (and therefore getting a better grade).
“Brownie points” aren’t supposed to effect grades either, but I can bet you they do (just out of curosity, anyone know where that phrase came from?)
As a female college student, I rank my professors on the basis of attractiveness.
I know that most of my friends do the same thing.
I suppose that would be sexist also . . .
Not quite, Victoria — the immorality lies in the vast power differential, and the decision by those in a place of authority to sexualize those beneath them. Case law on sexual harassment says that it’s much harder for an employee to harass a boss or a student a teacher than vice versa.
I hope, btw, that you don’t make academic decisions about what to major in and study based solely or even primarily on the attractiveness of the faculty.