ZACH TENNENT

Eliminating misogyny on college campuses is an admirable goal, but implementing a rule where females are entitled to speak in classrooms before males would only serve to further perpetuate gender divides.

To combat the issue of misogyny in university environments, management professor Judy Haiven of Saint Mary’s University in Halifax proposed a unique solution: female students should exclusively be given the opportunity to speak before males in class discussions.

Haiven claims that males too often dominate class conversation and this “ladies-first” rule would do much to reverse the trend. The rule is essentially a manner of affirmative action, benefitting a group that has traditionally been discriminated against over another traditionally dominant group — which in this case is women over men.

Affirmative action is a highly contentious policy. At its core, it can be accused of using the “two wrongs make a right” ideology to solve inequality. But at the same time, it’s also the course of action that recognizes the need to take direct action against the inertia of institutionalized inequality. For that decisiveness, I have to respect it.

Haiven’s suggestion has come under heavy criticism and opposition, with the general consensus being that it’s a far too radical of an approach. This is for good reason. In practice, the “ladies-first” rule would undoubtedly only make matters worse on college campuses. An approach that tries to advance one group by penalizing the other is going about it the wrong way.

When the end goal is to discourage inequality and misogyny in the classroom, the rule would hypocritically only aggravate the issues by using inequality as a solution in itself, breeding resentment and dividing students on gendered lines.

If one sex was allowed to speak exclusively before the other — be it females or males — it would stand to reason that by the time the second group was allowed to speak, all the opinions of the first sex would have already been voiced. This would effectively isolate class conversations into separate female and male sections.

With all that being said, it’s understandable that Haiven’s suggestion is unlikely to gain much steam. However, this isn’t simply the end of the conversation.

While the rule is certainly drastic, this is primarily Haiven’s only real mistake. Extremism aside, her motives are altruistic and she deserves credit for her concerns and goals in advocating for greater female participation and gender equality.

This raises a key question: are there solutions to inequality that don’t involve using direct interference to reverse trends, or are rules like Haiven’s that force change to occur necessary?

To think of institutionalized inequality with the analogy of a race, if two runners are equally fast, but Runner A has been given a lengthy head start, Runner B’s speed alone will not be enough to catch up. When looked at in those terms, it seems that forms of affirmative action, while unpopular, are necessary to create equality for any group that’s traditionally been stuck in second place.

For her part, Haiven seems to think that tough times call for tough measures and that a “ladies-first” rule is the only viable solution. While my optimistic side would hope that the circumstances of university classes don’t warrant such a severe rule, my realistic side also recognizes that reversing these kinds of imbalances may take more than just a little effort. Maybe intervention is more necessary than we want to admit.

When all is said and done, a “ladies-first” rule would be rash, counterproductive and more than a little bit hypocritical. That said, the reasoning behind it might have more merit than a first glance would suggest.

Unpopular as it is, affirmative action recognizes that inequality won’t simply just go away on its own and that perhaps it’s necessary to approach these issues more forcefully, lest they continue to persist.

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Graphic: Stephanie Mah/Graphics Editor