“The dentistry scandal made me more aware of how women often don’t have as loud a voice as men, and the fact that with the dentistry scandal that men put out demeaning information and made terrible suggestions on the Facebook group, made me realize that we need to hear more from women, especially women in university,” she said in an interview Monday.

“Because I could see in a way how powerless they seem to be in the question of the Dal dental students.”

Within her own classroom, something she’s noticed “quite often” in more than a decade of teaching, is “there is some bullying that goes on, there are tendencies (towards) competition and to one-up (each other), which tends to discourage women from participating. So if women speak first, it sets a different tone. Even in the last few weeks.”

She has tried her experiment in both of the courses she teaches. She calls on women first during a discussion or question period, and will ask the class if a woman would like to speak first, if only male students have their hands raised.