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EDITORIAL: University etitquette dinners should better address the equal role of women in the professional world.
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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN OPINION
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》 OUR VIEW
Dinners should empower women
The University Career Center hosts routine etiquette dinners to teach students to dine with strangers in business situations. In these dinners students can learn to butter their bread properly and to appropriately pass the salt and pepper shakers. They can also learn manners that are archaically prim and sexist.
At the last dinner on Feb. 27, several of the gendered instructions needed a 21st Century revision. For instance, it's true that most business executives are men. It's not in the least bit necessary to make quips about gender discrepancy in the business world while teaching students how to behave in front of "he's" as though it is unlikely that this trend will ever change.
Nor is it appropriate to teach gendered mannerisms that render women dainty creatures to be cared for. Students at the etiquette dinner were told that when a woman gets up from the table, all the men need to stand up as she leaves and again when she returns. In theory, this custom is respectful. However, because the practice is extremely rare in recent American history, it is more likely to make a woman in a business setting uncomfortably aware of her gender than it is to make her feel confident of her capabilities. The considerate woman unused to this trend may even forgo a trip out of her seat just to avoid making her male acquaintances stand twice.
Students at the etiquette dinner were also instructed that, before dining, men must pull out ladies' chairs before the ladies sit down. As the dinner director stated, this is a matter of
common, traditional courtesy: "Ladies must be ladies." The director also quipped that kindergarteners who she teaches do not always understand this rule. She reported that some young boys ask something like, "Why do we have to do that stuff even after the women's suffrage movement?"
Indeed, why do we? Tradition is not a sufficient enough explanation. For many college women, it is not only awkward if a man pulls out their chair during a business interview, it is patronizing and offensive. If a woman can't freely sit in her own chair without a man coming to her aid, how is she supposed to apply for a professional leadership position? "Ladies" should be polite, not submissive.
Kindergarteners comprehend this, and so should we. It's one thing to encourage men to act gentlely on a date; it is quite another thing to teach men that they are required to "escort" women to their seats when dining in business environments. Such old-fashioned mannerisms may seem harmless but nonetheless reinforce ever-prevalent stereotypes of women's inferiority.
Motivated female students already know they face an uphill battle to rise to the top in professional careers, and it's unhelpful and inappropriate for our university to reinforce stereotypes detrimental to women's success in the business world. In a persistently male-run society, women at our university need a little more help learning to politely kick butt.
Education should be Congress' priority
COMMENTARY
Every election year, one of the hottest buzz words is "education." It needs to be changed, it needs more funding, schools aren't good enough, teachers aren't paid enough, etc. Unfortunately, once the polls close, the subject is conveniently forgotten. At the collegiate level, we are supposed to be preparing to enter the real world, but the people in charge of that world have a bad habit of ignoring our needs. If our society is going to insist that college education is truly significant, then it must be prepared to accommodate us.
College is supposed to be our transition from the naive world of high school to real life. It's where we get to test the waters of society, see if we can actually fit in with our plans of being rocket scientists, history teachers or trial lawyers, then eventually decide to join the Peace Corps for a few years instead. So why must some people make it so much more
- Alison Kieler for the editorial board.
complicated than it needs to be? I don't mean hard classes or seemingly unusual credit requirements. Even the most successful marine biologist could stand being rounded out by an art history course or two.
The problem is that a lot of people do not seem to consider the actual importance of higher education. I fully aware that it wasn't considered the norm for people to attend college until sometime around the 1960s, but that doesn't
College is supposed to be our transition from the naive world of high school to real life. It's where we get to test the waters of society, see if we can actually fit in with our plans of being rocket scientists, history teachers or trial lawyers, then eventually decide to join the Peace Corps for a few years instead.
tion was the buzz word it always is among the candidates. But it took a massive petitioning campaign from student governments across the state of Kansas to get Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and the state legislature to pay attention to the fact that school facilities need as much maintenance as government office buildings. It doesn't take a spifty, state of the art building to keep us on pace in our educations, but it helps if they aren't visibly crumbling
We just came out of an election year, where educa
change what society expects from students today, which is a degree. Most good careers jobs at marketing firms, newspapers or medical facilities require a college education. Unfortunately, the government treats education like something to look at when they are bored of arguing about funding bridges to nowhere, or what to do with women who are not going to come out of comas.
All of this begs the question: Is there something wrong with our collegiate system? If so, why is its importance so stressed to us in our teenage years? "Education" needs to be recognized as something more than a buzz-word for aspiring Congressmen, or all of the time we spent worrying about applications and degrees will have been wasted.
Cohen is a Topea sophomore in pre-journalism.
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as anti-Christian abound. Printing cartoons of Muhammed? Insensitive and Islamaphobic. Putting a crucifix in a jar of urine? Good enough to earn art grants. Protesting homosexuality as sintul? Homophobic. Having a drag queen fair on campus? That's fun and entertaining. Ask people to return to traditional families and lifestyles on campus? Intolerant and homophobic. Promoting abortion and open sexuality with whomever you please? Still accepted. Protesting a blood drive because the Red Cross understands the statistical likelihood of AIDS among homosexuals? Almost reason enough to not give blood. Flushing a Koran down a toilet is also bad, but getting angry about the people who hand out New Testaments on campus is acceptable.
Brandon Rush just paid for IHOP with a hundred dollar bill.
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A girl just farted and tried to cover it up with a cough.
Ihat NASCAR
GUEST COMMENTARY
as anti-Christian abound. Printing cartoons of Muhammed? Insensitive and Islamaphobic. Putting a crucifix in a jar of urine? Good enough to earn art grants. Protesting homosexuality as sintul? Homophobic. Having a drag queen fair on campus? That's fun and entertaining. Ask people to return to traditional families and lifestyles on campus? Intolerant and homophobic. Promoting abortion and open sexuality with whomever you please? Still accepted. Protesting a blood drive because the Red Cross understands the statistical likelihood of AIDS among homosexuals? Almost reason enough to not give blood. Flushing a Koran down a toilet is also bad, but getting angry about the people who hand out New Testaments on campus is acceptable.
dr
Remove the stigma of ideas of tolerance
In my tenure at The University of Kansas I've witnessed all varieties of opinions, protests, and outlooks. Whether it's a war protest, advocating a lifestyle, or calling to end some injustice; the apparent, overarching goal is that of the so called "tolerance movement." Some call it being "politically correct" while others label it as "liberal." No matter its name, a trend to promote tolerance and inclusion as a virtue does exist. The tolerance movement provides so much lip service to acceptance and respect of other ideas and people, but it's time that it actually took its own advice.
I'm referring in part, to the "phobias" and other terms that are becoming more commonplace to label people. "Homophobic," "Islamaphobic," "bigot," "racist," "intolerant," "old-fashioned" and others are used to apply a stigma to anyone not agreeing with the goal of accepting everyone. The problem with these terms is that they go against what should be the true ideals of the tolerance movement.
Examples of the tolerance movement as socially liberal ideas doubling
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, the North American Man/ Boy Love Association, the LGBT community, pro-abortion groups, and other socially liberal organizations promote "tolerance" and "inclusion" as their goals and motivations. However, their actions speak against them.
Ultimately, people should understand that not everyone will agree with them. There will be people who think homosexuality is sinful, or people who practice Wicca and there will always be someone who doesn't think as you do. The best is to not segregate and outcast certain views in the name of tolerance. Just come out and say it. If you don't like it, that's fine. Labeling tolerance as something it's not is just hypocritical. If you don't agree that just makes you intolerant of my beliefs.
What I ask is that inclusion and tolerance apply to everyone. If people in the LGBT community want to be tolerated and included, I would hope that they'd be tolerant and inclusive of the people who disagree with their behavior. Similarly, those who say the TV show "24" is bad because it portrays Muslims as terrorists seem to have no issue with entertainment that mocks the Catholic Church. If this is the meaning of tolerance, it's far from ideal.
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