Intimacy for Grades is a scandal that rocked the boat of the East African nation of Kenya. Check out this link from the BBC: what do you think about it in the nation you live in and what does it mean when it spreads to developing nations? Will it hinder the womens’ movement in post-colonial countries?
The tutor from the BBC article notes that “The students can be tempting… all dressed up and looking saucy. ” — Immediately the first sentence is infuriating as if he is implying that men are naturally tempted and cannot help themselves and it is thus up to us to make sure that we do not tempt them.
Education for women in Africa in general had been something that was denied. My grandfather was scorned because he put my mum in school when she was younger: so for African women to be able to go to higher education is a great achievement for the womens’ liberation movement. Wangari Maathai, Nobel Prize winner 2004, was the first woman in East and Central Africa to get a doctorate degree. Thus, education is something that is revered and prized: it is commonly believed where I am from that if you speak English well, you are educated and thus have a better chance of getting a job. So in reference to the intimacy for grades situation, on the one hand for the women who offer intimacy for grades, the allure of being educated and getting ahead to help their families may override other implications like self-esteem and the objectification of women. However, what about the women who are given propositions by professors? I think it is a terrible and sad situation to be in and our bodies are still the bargaining point to get ahead despite of the steps made in the Occidental world.
There is also another scandal in the rural areas of Kenya known as intimacy for fish. HIV/AIDS is spreading like wildfire because of this and shows that the plight of women is amplified by poverty and the inability of the government to protect these women. What can be done? There are many womens groups in Kenya that are doing formidable work yet they need support from the government. I hope things change soon but life can only change when attitudes decide to change. This intimacy for grades/fish situation needs the help of progressive male lobbyists so traditional male voices in African will listen.
Aulelia, I agree that the sex for grades in Africa is a horrible scandal, which should never have happened. However, does he really imply that men can’t help themselves, as you claim? He does admit to being tempted and have to concentrate harder on his job. But, after all, when he had the opportunity he actually didn’t do anything.
I’m a male postdoc at a UK university with some lecturing and teaching tasks and I would lie if I said that I never noticed or paid attention to how the female students here dress. I’m quite certain that is does not affect my grading, as I mainly do lecturing, so I really don’t know the students as individuals, only as a large group.
I’m originally from Denmark and back in high school some of the female students openly admitted that for the oral examinations they would dress up (or down, depending on how you look at it) and hope for a male external examiner. They figured it could never lower their mark to dress up. Ideally, the examiner should not be affected by that, but I’m sure sometimes they had a hard time focusing on what the student said instead of the students body. I know for sure that I would. I also – silently – hoped that the fact that the external examiners were seasoned high school teachers with 1000′s of examinations behind them would mean that they had seen almost everything and were less inclined to give higher marks to the good-looking ones. But to this day I still don’t know if that was the case. Anyway, if it happened, whose fault is it – the student or the examiner?
That article was ALL from the male person in power’s point of view. We did not get any interviews with young women who have been pressured for sex and/or threatened. Notice how the article’s headline about women being pressured quickly (immediately) shifts to the plight of men – the poor dears. How can the BBC get away with such shoddy reporting? Oh yeah, the patriarchy…
Ole – better looking professors and lecturers also get better student evaluations. Better looking job applicants are more likely to get a job. They dress up for job interviews. Whose fault is that? How does that connect to sexual harassment of vulnerable students, exactly?
Aulelia, thank you again for bringing such a horrible situation out into the open here for discussion- I can’t imagine the sheer desperation these women must feel to make such a choice. To bargain with their own bodies and health for the sake of food or education… and given their current limited options, they really don’t HAVE else they could do. But perhaps awareness can bring enough outrage worldwide to bring reforms.
And the BBC tutor should be kicked for his opening comments, how tempting it is due to the women’s “saucy” clothing. BAH… Disgraceful.
I’m reminded of an old “Bloom County” cartoon where the local Moral Majority leader is sitting alone on a bus stop bench. Along comes a young woman, wearing shorts and a T shirt, who also sits on the bench. When he places his hand on her knee, she protests, and he replies, “If you were a truly virtuous woman, you would not create lust in the hearts of men. Shame on you!” She stomps off, to have the same scenario play out with another woman in the following frame.
Ole, I teach at a university too, and my classes are often small enough that I can get to know some of the students a little more than I would if I were “only” lecturing.
It’s perfectly normal for an instructor, of any gender and any sexual orientation, to notice that some students are attractive people. Furthermore, there can be a sexual dynamic at work during teaching (something I think female instructors generally understand better than their male colleagues).
I’ve never experienced, and I’ve never heard of any of my colleagues experiencing, a situation in which a student intentionally tried to improve her grades by dressing in a particular way or through similar behavior – though I may be just too naive to notice it. It’s manipulative and a shitty thing to do, but the bottom line is that as instructors, it’s our job to have the self-control to ignore/resist that kind of behavior. It’s simply unethical to do otherwise.
Tiny – Aulelia asked ‘ what do you think about it in the nation you live in’. And that’s what I tried to do. I don’t think there’s much sexual harassment of female students in Denmark or the UK, but I do think some of them try to improve their grades by using their looks.
louise – I think (some of) the female students I teach look tempting because of the way they dress. Is it wrong to think that? If so, how the h*** do you suggest I can not think that? And is it wrong to admit to thinking it? I agree it would be wrong to act on it but if any male lecturer ever said to me that he never had noticed how the female students dressed and looked he would lie. We all do. What is wrong is acting upon it. You can kick us for that.
[...] ulelia, the excellent African guest blogger (for this week) at Feministe, writes about the Intimacy for Grades scandal in Kenya, and more generally about encouraging educati [...]
I agree with Aulelia about this, Ole- that’s all. Not kicking anyone. The statement made by the BBC distracts from the content following.
When I was in the Peace Corps in Africa (but not Kenya), I was a teacher at a secondary school, and the rumors about sex for grades were rife — to the point where “rumor” doesn’t describe it very well; it was just known that some teachers required many of the female students to sleep with them.* (Bribes were common also, from both genders of students). In fact, by 8th grade only about 20% of our students were girls, and one of the main reasons I heard for that was that protective parents took their girls out of school when it became apparent that they’d have to sleep with the teacher in order to pass. (That, and the parents found it less cost-effective to invest in a girl’s education than a boy’s, partly because they bought into the widespread cultural belief that girls were just dumber, and partly because “she’ll just get married and have kids anyway” — and not to defend that attitude, because there are villians enough to go around, but most of these were extremely poor people for whom the few-dollars school fees and uniforms represented a real financial hardship – and opportunities were scarce enough, even for boys, that their perception wasn’t obviously wrong).
Anyway, the point of my comment was that, when the “sex for grades” thing was defended, it was always on the grounds that the girl “looked slutty” or “wanted it” or “was asking for it.” Yet in my school, Everyone wore the same (unrevealing) uniform. So, contra the BBC article, it’s not about the uniform, or how they dress: that’s just the most convenient justification.
* As an aside, I never quite knew who exactly those teachers were, though I had some strong suspicions based on who were total sleazebuckets and who were spoken of disapprovingly, if obliquely, by the teachers I respected — and I certainly never heard any information along the lines of “name of girl + name of teacher.” I was always outspoken about my distaste for the practice, and I’d like to think that if I heard something more concrete I would have tried to have it stopped, but in hindsight I’m a little upset with myself that I didn’t try to be more proactive. On the other hand, this was really the tip of the iceberg of things that I found saddening and horrible; and I was uneasily aware that there was so much I didn’t understand about the culture, and that interference by well-meaning but ignorant white people was, historically and deservedly, not a good thing; plus, as a total newcomer, and a young unmarried outsider female, I wasn’t respected all that much myself. Basically the whole situation was one were every option was a bad one, as far as I could tell — and also one where the causes and consequences of everything were so entangled in a vast complex mesh, that I was never really sure how much I understood of it in the first place.
Oops. Just reread the comment, and I wanted to clarify:
When I said “their perception wasn’t obviously wrong”, I meant the perception that girls wouldn’t have the opportunity to use their education — NOT the perception that girls are dumber.
In response to women trying to improve their grades by using their looks:
The fact is, the (male) professors have ALL the power in a situation like this. So even if a female student were to try to get better grades by “using her looks,” the prof. could immediately make her feel silly by refusing to go along. But in my experience (in the U.S.) it’s male profs. who start this sort of thing. And if women play along at all it’s because we’re made to think that’s the only way to succeed–i.e. it’s because of scandals like this in the first place. I guarantee a woman who is actively trying such a strategy is none too happy about it in private.
A student in one of my classes recently claimed that women shouldn’t complain (about oppression) because “they can flirt with people to get jobs.”
Thanks for all the interesting comments and anecdotes.
Forza — Your story is very interesting. Perhaps because people think that it is ineffectual to invest in a girl’s education, her mind is seen as disposable as her body? It is infuriating but I think trying to change those attitudes will take time. I hope I see that day when people stop judging a woman on the basis of her sexuality.
Jim — Male powers have the right indeed to say no. Power is about creating change > yet would certain men want to change a systm that ultimately works in their favour? (Certain men because of course men are not monolithic).
I think in general the person who is in the position of power must bear a great deal of responsibility because he/she is entrusted with a responsibility. That responsibility to a certain extent includes being a good example to students. Allowing intimacy for grades to occur does not fit as a good example in my opinion.
Ole — I think he implies that men cannot help themselves by the fact that he notes that the women are dressing saucily and looking tempting. By bringing up what a woman is wearing, he appears to be defining her by her image — ultimately one that hypersexualises women from what they are wearing. And in my view the subtext here is that certain men cannot overcomes their “urges” when dealing with a sexually attractive woman.