Will hard work pay off?-University of Tokyo Entrance Ceremony-Chizuruko Ueno's speech
author：Cave culture
On April 12, 2019, at the opening ceremony of the University of Tokyo, Chizuruko Ueno, a professor of sociology at the University of Tokyo, delivered a wonderful speech, which caused great repercussions in Japanese society.
In her speech, Chizuruko Ueno said, "This is a society where hard work does not necessarily pay off. In this world, there are many people who have worked hard but have not been rewarded, and who want to work hard but can't. The idea that hard work pays off is in itself due to your surroundings, not to the result of your efforts."
In front of the more than 3,000 new students who had been screened through various levels, Ms. Chizuruko Ueno also warned them, "Don't be too strong, have the courage to admit your weaknesses, and support each other."
Broadcast an important news: Since the WeChat public account has been revised again, even if I post on time every day, you may not receive the message, and you may even lose contact permanently. The only way is to star the "Philosophical Thoughts" official account, so that you can ensure that you receive the article as usual every day.
Lectures in Philosophy 2.3
Boredom and the meaning of life
The German philosopher Schopenhauer once said, "Boredom is the subjective experience of one's own life time." "Boredom, often thought of as a negative emotion, is a manifestation of a lack of excitement and meaning in life. However, if we dig deeper, we will find that boredom is actually an integral part of life, and it reflects the deep life conditions and psychological needs of human beings.
The English philosopher Russell once emphasized: "Boredom and idleness are the cradle of imagination." ”
True inner peace and wisdom come from accepting and exploiting boredom, not escaping. From a philosophical perspective, boredom is a basic emotion of life. It floats between self and the world. It is in a state of deep boredom that people can see their truest selves. In Heidegger's view, if one can bravely face one's most authentic groundlessness, rather than trying to eliminate boredom in an evasive and recreational way, as is usually the case, then when deep boredom occurs, one can look at everything in life with new eyes, and experience strange and vivid feelings from things that are previously taken for granted.
As Heidegger said, "Boredom is freedom, and we exercise our freedom as human beings through our decisions." ”
Congratulations on entering the University of Tokyo, all of you have come out of the fierce competition, and there is no doubt about the fairness of this selection exam, and if it is unfair, I think everyone will be outraged.
However, last year, Tokyo Medical University was exposed to an admissions scandal, and the fact of discrimination against female candidates and repeat students was made public.
According to a survey conducted by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Science and Technology of 81 medical universities and medical schools nationwide, the average admission rate for female students is 1.2 times that of female students, 1.29 times higher than that of Tokyo Medical University, 1.67 times higher than Juntendo University, and other private universities such as Showa University, Nihon University, and Keio University.
On the other hand, the medical schools of local national universities such as Tottori University, Shimane University, Tokushima University, and Hirosaki University are relatively easy for girls to get into.
In addition, the pass rate of male students in the third category of science at the University of Tokyo is 1.03 times that of female students, which is lower than the average, but still more than doubled. How do you interpret this data?
Statistics are very important, and data is the basis for further research. Is it because the acceptance rate for girls is much lower than that for boys?
The head of the Ministry of Liberal Arts, Science and Technology, who released the results of the survey of medical schools nationwide, said: "There is no other college where male students have better grades, and both science and engineering and liberal arts have female students who excel. ”
In other words, only medical schools have barriers to female students, and as for why medical schools have such a phenomenon, the public must be explained anyway. Various data can prove that the deviation value of female candidates is generally higher than that of male candidates.
First, female students tend to choose schools that they are more confident about in order to avoid repeating their studies.
Second, there is a huge disparity between male and female freshmen enrolled at the University of Tokyo, which has been less than 20% female for a long time, and has fallen to 18.1% this year.
Third, there is also a huge gap between men and women in terms of the admission rate to four-year universities.
According to the 2016 Basic School Survey, 55.6% of boys and 48.2% of women go on to four-year colleges, a difference of seven percentage points, but the difference of seven percentage points is not due to the difference in academic performance.
"It's good for a son to go to a good university and a daughter to go to a short college (the general duration of 'short college' is 2 or 3 years, which is equivalent to a domestic junior college)" is caused by the parents' unbalanced expectations of their children.
Recently, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yusuf Zai visited Japan and called for the importance of women's education, and there were always voices such as "women's education is very important to Pakistan, what does it have to do with Japan", "It's just a girl, after all, it's a girl, what's the use", and similar rumors are endless. This phenomenon is technically called aspiration cooling down, which means pouring cold water.
Malala's father was asked, "How did you raise this child?" He said, I just didn't break her wings.
That's a good point, there are too many daughters whose innate wings are broken alive and lose the right to fly.
What kind of environment will you enter when you finally come to the University of Tokyo after many years of hard study? Male students at the University of Tokyo are always very popular in networking with other universities.
When someone asks her what university you're from, she just says, "University in Tokyo." "Why don't you just say it's the University of Tokyo, I'm afraid you'll scare people away.
Why is it that at the same University of Tokyo, male students can be proud of it, while female students have to hide it in every possible way? It is because for male students, good grades are an asset. For girls, good grades do not mean attractiveness. Because everyone from childhood to adulthood only wants them to be "cute", what kind of charm is "cute", the subtext of "cute" is to be loved, chosen, and protected, implying the meaning of obedience. Therefore, the girls did not dare to say that they had good academic performance and were students at the University of Tokyo.
At the University of Tokyo, five male students from the Faculty of Engineering and the Graduate School committed a group of sexual violence against female students at a private university, and the male students were expelled from school (3 students) and suspended (2 students).
Writer Kaoru Himeno wrote a novel based on the incident, "She Is Stupid, She Deserves" (Chinese title "In the Name of Love"), and held a seminar on the same theme in the school last year.
After reading this novel, you should be able to understand how the boys of Tokyo University are rated in society, and now this book has become a popular bestseller at Tokyo University. I heard that there are still clubs at the University of Tokyo that have turned away female students from the university and are only open to female students from other universities. When I was a student, there was such a club, and this was half a century ago, but I was shocked that half a century later, such blatant discrimination would remain the same.
In March of this year, Mr. Matsuki, a member of the board of directors and vice president of the University of Tokyo's Co-educational Laboratory, warned that the exclusion of female students by similar clubs "violates the concept of equality enshrined in the Tokyo Charter."
Ladies and gentlemen, every school you have been in before this is just creating a superficially equal society, although there is no distinction between men and women in the face of deviations, but from the moment the university starts admission, the sexism that has been deliberately concealed begins to surface, and when you go to society, sexism is even more strange. The University of Tokyo is not immune: 20 percent of undergraduates, 25 percent of graduate students, and 30.7 percent of doctoral students, although it seems to be quite acceptable. But if you look at the teaching staff, 18.2 percent of the faculty members are women, 11.6 percent are associate professors, and only 7.8 percent are professors, which is even lower than the percentage of women in the Diet. Of the 15 deans of studies and research there, only one is a woman. For no time in the history of the school principal, a woman has been seated in the chair of the principal.
The study of such issues was developed 40 years ago under the name "Women's Studies", which later evolved into "Gender Studies".
When I was a student, there was no such thing as women's studies, and because I didn't, I created a discipline that was born outside of the university campus and introduced into the university campus. Twenty-five years ago, I accepted an appointment from the University of Tokyo and became the third female faculty member in the Faculty of Letters, and I began teaching women's studies. Since I started studying women's studies, I have found that the world is full of unsolved mysteries, such as: Why is it natural that "the male is the outside, the female is inside", what exactly is a "housewife" for? Without sanitary napkins and tampons, what menstrual products do women use? Are there any homosexuals in the history of Japan?
Because no one has ever studied these, there are no prior studies for me to refer to. Therefore, no matter what topic you are researching, it will make you a pioneer in the field. Now here to study housewives, shoujo manga, sexology, the Tokyo Metropolitan will grant you a degree,
This is the result of our continuous expansion in new disciplines.
But researching these won't help you get a good job, and what drove me all the way to where I am today is an insatiable curiosity and anger at social injustice. Women's studies is undoubtedly an emerging discipline, not only women's studies, but also environmental studies, information science, disability studies, etc., and the changes of the times have given birth to a variety of new disciplines.
I can tell you in advance that the University of Tokyo is a university that embraces change and diversity, and that is proof of the fact that people like me are hired to stand on this stage and speak out. The University of Tokyo was the first national university to employ a Korean professor in Japan, and he was Professor Kang Sang-jung. The University of Tokyo was also the first national university to hire a professor with a high school degree, and he was Professor Tadao Ando. In addition, Professor Tomoshi Fukushima, who is blind, deaf and mute, was hired.
I can assure you that you have been selected to come here through many years, and it is said that the government invests 5 million yen per capita every year for the students of the University of Tokyo, and that what awaits you in the next four years is an unparalleled educational learning environment, after all, I have been teaching here for many years.
When you came here, you all believed that as long as you work hard, you will be rewarded, but as I mentioned at the beginning of the admissions discrimination, what awaits you in the future will be a society where "there may not be a fair reward for your efforts", if you think that hard work will be rewarded, then remember that this is not the result of your efforts alone, but also the effect of the environment, and the reason why you now think that "there is a reward for your efforts" That's because the environment you've been facing is that someone is encouraging you, pushing you forward, holding your hand, and affirming your little bit of progress. There are still people in this world who work hard but don't get rewards, people who can't work hard if they want to, people who work too hard and break down physically and mentally, and people who want to work hard but think "it won't be my turn anyway"; People like me definitely can't do it."
So please do not use your efforts in the pursuit of personal victory, but your abilities, which have been shaped by superior circumstances, are not to be above those who have not enjoyed the same resources, but to use these abilities to help them, and then not to be strong, but to admit your own vulnerability and interdependence.
Although women's studies was born in the women's movement of "equal rights for men and women", the essence of "equal rights for men and women" is not to make women become like men, nor to make the weak become strong, but to respect the weak and respect them for what they are.
You will have to deal with an unknown world that cannot be dealt with by existing theories and unpredictable in the past, and you have been living in a world with standard answers, and you will have to face a world full of unsolvable questions.
The University of Tokyo offers opportunities for study abroad, international exchange, and cross-regional collaboration within the country, as new values often arise from frictions between different systems or cultures.
Please be bold and explore the unknown, get in touch with the wider world, and don't be afraid of cross-cultural collisions. As long as there is a place where humans live, they can survive anywhere. Even if you go to a place where you don't recognize the University of Tokyo's signboard, no matter what kind of environment you have, what kind of world you have, even if you become refugees, you still have the wisdom to survive.
I firmly believe that the value of university learning is not to master existing knowledge, but to create untapped knowledge, and this kind of wisdom that nurtures knowledge is called "metacognition", and that it is the mission of the university to equip students with this metacognitive ability.
April 12, 31
NPO法人Women's Action Network理事长
Chiko Ueno
Will hard work pay off?-University of Tokyo Entrance Ceremony-Chizuruko Ueno's speech
