It's an irritating article. As a prole who was the first of my family to go to secondary secondary school, and who stumbled into an equally Old Boys Arf Arf Wearing my Great-grandfather the Eighth Duke's Dinner Jacket Oxford college, I could not feel more strongly about university fees and the form of social engineering which currently operates (let's not forget) at Oxford. But, for God's sake, make an argument for the correction of the situation, Tanya G., rather than pen this kind of self-indulgent nonsense which has no point other than that it's supposed to make us feel all warm and glowy and vindicated that An Insider Also Thinks Oxford's Shit. Bad writing and lazy stereotypes. Everyone is miserable at university, intermittently or permanently - I remember sobbing in the toilets in the Rad Cam basement, but that's not an argument for the abolition of the university - in fact, the one (possible) suicide I knew of at my college was that of a triple-barreled youth who was somewhere (distantly) in line to the throne.
It's a small detail, but I thought a significantly lazy one - what you wear to formal hall isn't sub fusc, just a gown, because it's, you know, formal. (And optional. You can always go to informal hall in pyjama bottoms.) But presumably it wouldn't have sounded so neat if she had to acknowledge that everyone, not just Bullingdon members, has to wear sub fusc for matriculation and exams etc. It makes me furious that someone who herself studied in privilege, and is reaping the undeniable benefits, is promulgating lazy stereotypes, when part of the problem is precisely that poorer kids are put off applying by this kind of sub-Brideshead nonsense. This kind of crap has an effect.
It's a small detail, but I thought a significantly lazy one - what you wear to formal hall isn't sub fusc, just a gown, because it's, you know, formal. (And optional. You can always go to informal hall in pyjama bottoms.) But presumably it wouldn't have sounded so neat if she had to acknowledge that everyone, not just Bullingdon members, has to wear sub fusc for matriculation and exams etc. It makes me furious that someone who herself studied in privilege, and is reaping the undeniable benefits, is promulgating lazy stereotypes, when part of the problem is precisely that poorer kids are put off applying by this kind of sub-Brideshead nonsense. This kind of crap has an effect.
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