Scientist brands online training session ‘sexist’ because it shows a man getting a question right – but three women getting it wrong
- Stock photo showed people dealing with sensitive data, three women and a man
- Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, professor of cognitive neuroscience at UCL was irked
- The esteemed scientist tweeted: ‘#everydaysexism hits GDPR training!’
You might have thought the only problem with a training session on data regulations would be making sure you stayed awake.
But one presentation has been branded sexist by one of Britain’s most distinguished scientists – because in one hypothetical example the sole man is shown getting the answer right, while three women get it wrong.
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London, was taking part in an online training session when she spotted the offensive material.
A stock photo showed four people dealing with sensitive data: ‘Yvonne’ used an unencrpyted memory stick, ‘Suzie’ printed everything out, and ‘Nicole’ used a mobile phone which did not have a protective password or PIN. Only the man got it right, with the slide stating approvingly: ‘Michael is storing customer data on an encrypted work laptop.’
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London
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The training session was organised by Prof Blakemore’s college on the new general data protection regulation (GDPR) introduced by the EU. She tweeted: ‘In the GDPR online training that we at UCL are all enjoying, the girls are all rubbish at encryption but of course Michael nails it. #everydaysexism hits GDPR training!’
Other Twitter users echoed her outrage, with one saying the photo showed how society ‘just carries on producing gender stereotypes’. The hashtag ‘everyday sexism’ refers to a long-standing project founded by feminist author Laura Bates in 2012, collecting casual examples of women being shown as inferior to men.
But some observers hit back at Prof Blakemore’s comments.
Frank Furedi, emeritus professor of sociology at Kent University, said: ‘There are a growing number of people who are continually on the lookout to be offended, even when no offence is intended. They should be more generous and tolerant and not try to make a mountain where there isn’t even a molehill.’
It is not the first time that Prof Blakemore – the daughter of the eminent neurobiologist Sir Colin Blakemore – has gone on the attack to combat sexism.
In 2016, she criticised the Science Museum for an exhibit which appeared to suggest there are fundamental differences between the sexes, asking visitors to test whether they had a male ‘blue’ or female ‘pink’ brain.
She said it was ‘out of date, to say the least’, adding that she ‘was pretty shocked by the misleading message, which doesn’t correspond to the evidence’.
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