Now saying genius ‘can alienate female students’

CAMBRIDGE academics are being discouraged from using terms such as genius, brilliant or flair in feedback for fear of alienating female students.

It is one of a series of moves lecturers say will help women – including changing exams and even removing portraits of men from the library.

Dr Lucy Delap, lecturer in modern British history, said ‘vague talk of genius, brilliance [and] flair carries assumptions of gender inequality’. She said some women ‘don’t find it very easy to project themselves into those categories’.

Some female students suffered ‘imposter syndrome’ – where they feel they don’t belong – in a ‘maledominated’ environment, said the academic. Dr Delap revealed exams were being overhauled in a bid to tackle a ‘gender differential’ which sees women outshone.

This could mean more coursework, take-home exams, group work or a portfolio of essays.

It follows Oxford University’s decision to allow students to take a history exam home in the next academic year, in order to help more women get top results.

Reading lists are being reassessed to include more female his- torians, and there are plans to replace some portraits of men with women in the library.

Discussing the ‘male-dominated environment’ at Oxbridge, Dr Delap, deputy director of history and policy at Cambridge University, told Radio Four’s Today programme: ‘If you look at just something as simple as the art on the walls of a college, they’re often by men and they depict men and often they’re white men as well.’

The academic said they also tried to avoid words such as ‘flair’ in feedback as ‘students don’t understand what flair means’.

But Professor Alan Smithers, of Buckingham University, said: ‘It seems to me wrong to look at this from the point of gender – imagine the outrage if we were adjusting things for the sake of men.

‘It’s patronising and wrong to think they have difficulty with terms such as genius.’

In 2015-16, 31 per cent of women gained firsts in history at Cam- bridge compared with 39 per cent of men. A university spokesman said it was reviewing subjects to see how it could address ‘variations’ between different groups.

Oxford academics yesterday lost a fresh attempt to challenge rules forcing them to retire at the age of 67. Staff voted down a call to axe the ‘ employer- justified retirement age’. Campaigners are now expected go to one of the university’s regulatory committees to argue their case.