genderanded Issues

C2C: Creating Peaceful Dialogue Through GEA 2016 & 17

This post is part of our new Countdown to Conference (C2C) series. We would love to feature a brief blog post from you too! Visit our main Countdown to Conference page for details!

C2C: Creating Peaceful Dialogue Through GEA 2016 & 17
by Yaron Schwartz

Although I just got my degree a year and a half ago, I’ve been involved in teaching gender classes for boys for 14 years. In the last 4 years I have written and coordinated gender programs for both religious and secular primary, middle, and high schools in Israel. This also includes social programs which work on elements like healthy sexuality as well as self defense. I will be speaking about one of these special programs at the 2017 conference.

For me, GEA 2017 is an opportunity to share how a dream can become a reality. In this sense, this conference is a direct continuation of GEA 2016. Back then, I came to the conference with a friend of mine. We both live in Jerusalem, we both just got our Ph.D’s, we both have an interest in gender and education and we share many other similarities.

But, we are different our genders. She is a woman and I’m a man. And there is another important difference between us. I am Israeli, representing the Jewish community, and she is an Arab. Her name is Dr. Dianna Da’abul and she represents the Palestinian community.

Yet another thing we shared is a common dream, to try and use our skills and deep belief in gender and education to generate a dialogue between our communities, the Jewish one and the Palestinian one. Every person who reads the daily newspapers knows that today there is almost no dialogue between Israeli and Palestinians citizens, especially not between Israeli and Palestinian educators, and especially not in Jerusalem, which is the heart of the misunderstanding between the two sides.

We started sharing this dream two years ago, and when we heard about the GEA 2016 interim conference, which took place in Sweden, we decided to come, listen and learn about what exists outside of our own area of conflict.
We wrote a brochure in which we explained our plan for peace through gender and education dialogue, and we invited researchers to participate in any way they would like in our program. We gave the brochure to many wonderful researchers we met at GEA 2016, but we didn’t get the feeling that people were too impressed by our ideas. Still, it was a good opportunity for us to declare out loud that we believe in peace, and that it can achieved.

Later, as we sat in on all of the conference lectures and listened to many interesting stories about including minorities in the processes of educating to gender equality, we were very surprised by what we learned. It was a “bad” surprise, but it gave us a fulcrum for our own work. We discovered that many European countries find it very hard to navigate the tension between gender equality and religious traditions. One central story mentioned was about Yasri Khan, the Swedish member of parliament who had to leave the parliament after refusing, based on his religious convictions, to shake hands with a woman reporter who interviewed him. The decision whether this is “good” or “bad” differs between countries and societies, but in our area of the Middle East, you can’t even dream or say something critical about religious tradition. One needs to do everything that he does with the understanding that the people with whom you work will always have some kind of religious path which must be taken into account. And if you are working with school students, as a teacher – you can’t ignore it, or deny it, nor can you say that gender equality cannot coexist alongside religious tradition (In fact, I am writing this paper while sitting in a conference in Israel listening to an ultra-Orthodox woman explaining what it mean to be an ultra-Orthodox feminist …)

So, for me, the GEA 2016 conference gave us the energy, the information and the basic understanding that if we want to create a dialogue between Israeli and Palestinian educators and students we need to base its fundamentals on coexistence between “gender equality” and “religious tradition”. We don’t have the luxury of separating them, and in fact, we have a tool that we can use to begin speaking with one another. This year, I return to GEA 2017, without my friend, Dr Diana Da’aboul, but with the full story of our J-A-G-E-C Project (Jewish Arab gender and education collaboration project), in which we eventually created an opportunity for Jewish educators to work together with 70 male and female Palestinian educators,  in which the basic shared assumption was the need to consider the importance of religious tradition in the context of gender education.

Anyone who is interested in knowing more about our peace program is very welcome to hear my lecture, which will be the last one of this conference ?.

 

genderanded Issues

C2C: Raising a Generation of Hope

This post is part of our new Countdown to Conference (C2C) series. We would love to feature a brief blog post from you too! Visit our main Countdown to Conference page for details!

C2C: Raising a Generation of Hope:
Showcasing sisterhood among adolescent girls of color that transcends borders
by Nina Nagib

I am excited to join the GEA community and honored that I get to attend conference during my first year as a Ph.D. student! As a former school counselor, I have always been passionate about working with girls, especially adolescent girls of color regarding worth and identity, including all the internal factors that affect them, both in the US and in the Global South. A few years ago, I watched a documentary that changed my life. Girl Rising chronicles the lives of nine girls from nine different countries and their respective barriers to global education. Watching reporters and activists interviewing the girls in their villages made me think, “I want to be her.” So, I planned to visit Malawi that summer, through a connection at my church, and run a girls’ empowerment program (co-facilitated with their leaders), Rise Malawi: Raising a Generation of Hope (RAGOH), a nonprofit initiative in the rural village of Madisi. While planning for the trip, I took my middle school students to Philadelphia to see Girl Rising. As I was educating them about the human rights issues that many of their global peers face, I saw something click within each of them. I witnessed girls known for getting into fights or skipping class, begin to take ownership of their education and choices. Not only did they begin to see how much they were taking for granted in their lives, but they also became aware of how much their actions, or lack thereof, impacted others. The girls attending the anger management groups at the beginning of the school year were now initiating fundraising projects for their disadvantaged peers! My experience in Malawi was life-changing. Hearing firsthand how child marriage, HIV, poverty, and cultural norms directly impact lives, I knew I would not return the same. I wanted to devote my life to fostering education and raising hope for girls everywhere, from urban communities in the U.S. to the most remote villages across the world. Hence, RAGOH was born. On May 31, 2014, RAGOH became a fiscal sponsorship project of Germantown Life Enrichment Center (GLEC), a 501(c)(3) public charity, which led me to my current situation.

I wanted to devote my life to fostering education and raising hope for girls everywhere, from urban communities in the U.S. to the most remote villages across the world.

The more I learned about girls’ barriers to education in the Global South, the more I began to speculate how centering the experiences and voices of our girls could transform them and their environments. For instance, creating partnerships between my girls in Philly and Malawi could be transformative for both of them. How do we develop a sense of protection in our girls that can act as preventative measures? How do we center the voices of girls of color into our work with them? How do we develop a critical consciousness within them, through which they and the society would see them as the solution, rather than either the recipients of programs or delinquents (both of which are equally dehumanizing, in my opinion)? How do we equip and train educators and schools to develop these factors in our girls? How do we empower and equip them to see the power in their own voices? Pursuing my PhD in Education with a concentration in Counselor Education, my research focuses on restructuring RAGOH as a school-based sex trafficking prevention program for girls of color, grounded in Critical Race Feminism with the development of critical consciousness in our girls.

Adolescent girls of color who have experienced trauma face unique challenges globally in their pursuit of education. As minimal attention is paid to the modern-day slavery crisis of human trafficking and a host of other injustices that girls face globally, I am honored to join GEA in my first year as a Doctoral student. I decided to come from Philadelphia because I knew I wanted to be a part of the global community of scholars committed to fighting these injustices in different ways. I am most excited about learning from every scholar there and building connections, which, undoubtedly, will transform my future research.

I want to focus my career and center my research on answering the questions I have listed above! My poster at the conference will display RAGOH’s core of centering everything we do regarding creating spaces for the existence of the voices of this marginalized group. RAGOH equips teen girls to raise their voices as leaders, advocates girls’ access to education in the Global South, and develops a critical consciousness to view and impact their community and the world. I hope you’ll take the opportunity to stop by my poster, “Raising a Generation of Hope: Showcasing a sisterhood among adolescent girls of color that transcends borders” to see and hear their words for yourself!

In closing, I have never been to London before and plan to stay through June 28th. Any tips or advice on places to stay, visit, or experience would be greatly appreciated!

Looking forward to meeting you all and joining this community of scholarly activities soon!

If you are attending conference, let us know on Twitter using the hashtag: #GEAconf2017

genderanded Countdown to Conference

C2C: Your guide to the #GEAconf2017 Keynote Speakers

This post is part of our new Countdown to Conference (C2C) series. We would love to feature a brief blog post from you too! Visit our main Countdown to Conference page for details!

C2C: Your guide to the #GEAconf2017 Keynote Speakers
by Kate Marston, GEA Social Media Intern

We are delighted to have six amazing keynote speakers presenting four keynote sessions at the 2017 GEA Conference: Generative Feminism(s): working across / within / through borders.

Below we offer a brief overview of our speakers and what is in store for #GEAconf2017!

Professor Kerry Robinson, Western Sydney University
(Day 1 – 10:30 – 12:00)

Schooling, gender and sexuality: Children’s and young people’s narratives in an era of global conservative backlash.

Despite notable gains for feminist, queer and trans politics in Australia, the global expansionism of conservative right-wing politics in recent years has led to a culture war as key institutions see the reestablishment of heteronormative social orders and dualistic conceptions of sexuality and gender. Framed by this unfolding Australian experience, Professor Robinson will discuss several qualitative and quantitative research projects conducted over the past six years: exploring schooling, gender and sexuality with children, young people, parents/carers and educators. She will consider what we are learning from children and young people about gender, gender diversity and sexuality in the early 21st century and how this knowledge is being received in an era of global conservative backlash. Drawing on feminist, trans and queer theory, this keynote will be looking for ways forward offered by generations of feminist thought.

Kerry Robinson is a Professor in Sociology in the School of Social Sciences and Psychology at Western Sydney University, Australia. She is the director of the Sexualities and Genders Research group in the School and her expertise lie in the fields of gender and sexuality studies; childhood; children’s sexual citizenship; diversity and difference; sexuality education; sociology of education; and sociology of knowledge. She has published widely in these areas, including: lead co-author of Growing Up Queer; monograph, Innocence, Knowledge and the construction of childhood: The contradictory relationship between sexuality and censorship in children’s contemporary lives; a co-edited collection Rethinking school violence; and is the co-author of Diversity and Difference in Early Childhood Education: Issues for Theory and Practice.

 

Dr Iris Van Der Tuin, Utrecht University
(Day 1 – 17:00 – 18:00)

The Generative Curriculum: On the Past, Present and Future of Feminist Teaching and Learning

Re-directing generational logics of feminism away from phallogentricism and simplistic ideas of conflict, Iris Van Der Tuin paves the way for a more complex notion of generationality. In this keynote she will address the generative approach to generational feminism as it reconfigures exchange of women in patriarchal societies, the mother-daughter plot in feminism, and correspondence theories of truth and method: providing a theory and practice for 21st century feminist teaching and learning. Reading generative generational feminism specifically through the growing phenomenon of Liberal Arts & Sciences (LAS) education in Europe, Iris Van Der Tuin explores a developing feminist education for, and of, the future.

Iris van der Tuin is an associate professor in and program director of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Utrecht University (The Netherlands). Trained as a feminist epistemologist, she specializes in gender studies and new materialisms (especially pertaining to humanities scholarship that traverses “the two cultures”). She co-authored New Materialism: Interviews & Cartographies with Rick Dolphijn, and edited Gender: Nature for Macmillan Interdisciplinary Handbooks. Her book Generational Feminism: New Materialist Introduction to a Generative Approach inspired, in part, the theme for #GEAconf2017.

 

Professor Emma Renold, Cardiff University;
Professor Gabrielle Ivinson, Manchester Metropolitan University;
& Jên Angharad, Future Matters Collective
(Day 2 – 12:30 – 13:30)

Moving with the not-yet: choreographing the political with young people in space, place and time

Extending a long tradition of feminist work on the marginalised position of minoritarian Others (Irigaray, 1984; Braidotti, 2006) and new materialist feminist philosophy (particularly Manning 2012, 2013, 2016), Emma Renold and Gabrielle Ivinson will present aspects of their on-going pARTicipatory research with young people (aged 12 – 18) living in the ex-mining/coal/steel towns of the south Wales valleys. Working with choreographer Jên Angharad they will share a series of dartafacts (Renold 2017) created across a range of research creations and contribute an interactive performance piece that brings to life new materialist feminist research methodologies. The intention is that through creative research practices the team will demonstrate the means by which educational research can transcend conventional boundaries and expectations to put the in-act into enacted activism.

Emma Renold is a Professor of Childhood Studies at the School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University. Her research explores gendered and sexual subjectivities across diverse institutional sites and public spaces across the young life course. She chairs the Welsh government’s expert advisory group on healthy relationships and recently led the production of Wales’ – and the UK’s – first online toolkit to support young people to raise awareness of gender-based and sexual violence in schools and local communities (in collaboration with Welsh Women’s Aid, NSPCC Cymru and the Children’s Commissioner).

Gabrielle Ivinson is Professor of Education and Community in the Faculty of Education, Manchester Metropolitan University. She is interested in how the specific habits, practices and gender worlds that supported dangerous work in industrial locales can be regenerated as social and educational resources for children and young people today. She leads the BERA Poverty and Policy Commission, which aims to influence and broaden public debate on the role of education to improve the life chances of children & youth living in poverty.

Jên Angharad trained in Dance Theatre and Advanced Performance at the Laban Centre for Movement & Dance, London. Her career began in performance before building a portfolio of work independently as a bilingual choreographer, workshop facilitator and movement director in education, community, theatre and television. She is a member of the Future Matters Collective in Cardiff and collaborates with Cardiff University colleagues and artists on research projects as movement facilitator, choreographer and performer.

https://vimeo.com/160137856

 

Professor Ann Phoenix, Institute of Education, University of London
(Day 3 – 14:40 – 16:00)

Generating feminisms? Negotiating intersectional borders and boundaries over time

The power struggles that result from intersectional differences between women have been central to the generativity of feminisms, fuelling new ways of seeing and shifts in relations between women and new claims to feminist theory. Whilst it can be easy to romanticise these histories, fissures within feminisms in and out of the academy have been intense in some sites and ignored in others over the last few years. At the same time, borders have proliferated as migration, concerns about terrorism and state responses to it have made many citizens contributors to the policing of national borders in their everyday lives (including in the academy).

In this closing keynote, Professor Ann Phoenix will examine some of the ways in which feminisms, through intersectional lenses, are currently generating new ways of seeing and working across borders. This process is often a heated and painful one, where new generations of feminists, multiply positioned in terms of ethnicisation, racialisation, genders and sexualities, find their own ways of taking up affordances from feminisms and resisting exclusionary practices within and outside feminisms. Professor Phoenix will consider the ways in which old issues (e.g. of racialisation, genders and sexuality) are both recursive and take new forms. Her presentations explores how disciplinary practices in the academy serve to (re)produce hierarchical gendered inequalities by shoring up old borders that sometimes exhaust generative energy and examines the psychosocial impact of this in policy, practice and research.

Ann Phoenix is a Professor in Psychosocial Studies based at Thomas Coram Research Unit, Department of Social Sciences, UCL Institute of Education and she is the Principal Investigator of the research network NOVELLA (Narratives of Varied Everyday Lives and Linked Analyses). She has over 200 publications which include work on narratives, theoretical and empirical aspects of social identities, gender, masculinity, youth, intersectionality, racialization, ethnicisation, migration and transnational families. From 2016-7 she is the Erkko Professor at the Helsinki University Collegium for Advanced Studies.

 

 

If you are attending conference, let us know on Twitter using the hashtag: #GEAconf2017

genderanded Countdown to Conference

C2C: Science, Social Justice, and ‘Southern Discomfort’

This post is part of our new Countdown to Conference (C2C) series. We would love to feature a brief blog post from you too! Visit our main Countdown to Conference page for details!

C2C: Science, Social Justice, and ‘Southern Discomfort’
by Dr Leslie S. Jones

I am not much of a blogger, in fact this is my first blog post EVER, but I am willing to give up my status as a “virgin blogger” in the spirit of the upcoming conference.

If there were a gene for feminism, I would be absolutely certain that I have it. My earliest memories are constant battles with my mother over being forced to do things because “that is what girls are supposed to do.” I hate dolls, pastel pink dresses, and lacey anklet socks to this day, since they symbolize the gender roles I found so oppressive as a child. I know she meant well, considering it her duty to socialize me properly so that I would fit into the prescription of a “nice girl” that my two sisters found so easy to accept. The more she tried, the wilder I got, and the more I grew to resent ridiculous cultural boundaries, some fifty years ago, that kept me from doing things I wanted to do. When she told me “not to beat a boy” on a golf or tennis date because “they would never want to marry me,” I thought she was crazy. I have never been able to understand how a well-educated woman who majored in mathematics at a very prestigious college could wonder, “Why you girls insist on over-educating yourselves?” when my sisters and I went to graduate school leading to two MBAs and a PhD. My wonderful father, who came from a much less-privileged childhood, was tremendously proud of us and always defended my right to grow into whatever I wanted to be.

I hate dolls, pastel pink dresses, and lacey anklet socks to this day, since they symbolize the gender roles I found so oppressive as a child.

My first conscious exposure to racism was in 1961 when I saw 3 bathrooms and 2 water fountains with signs for “colored people” at a gas station on a visit to Mississippi. I insisted on an explanation, and my parents must have been terrified that the Ku Klux Klan was going to appear if they did not get their out-spoken child in the car. I spent a large part of my childhood in Hawaii, learning island cultural values including the fact that the world is full of different people. Growing up during the Civil Rights Era I could never accept any justification for what was happening to African Americans. The ugliness of both racial segregation and gender roles in the latter part of the 20th century were so obnoxious throughout my secondary, university, and early graduate schooling in the natural sciences that by the time I chose a dissertation topic, it was “The Impact of Racism and Sexism in Post-Secondary Science Education.”

I learned the word intersectionality twenty years after I had completed that research on racism and sexism in the natural sciences, but I had always said that the most profound conclusion I could make from the study was that Women of Color are treated worst, because these forms of discrimination are compounded when they both come into play. I had learned why my mother had pushed me to be compliant when I was punished in subtle ways for being smarter or a better athlete than males. However, more importantly, I consider what racism continues to do to African Americans is much crueler than the gendered discrimination I had experienced. I teach in a Biology department and trying to get white men to recognize the stubborn persistence of sexism in a department that is 50% women is almost a waste of time. Therefore, I devote most of my energy to challenging racism and other discrimination because nobody can dismiss that diversity work as being in my own self-interest. As a white woman, people listen when I speak about scientific racism and “race” being nothing more than a cultural artifact. As a scientist who studied reproductive physiology, I get plenty of respect when I challenge heterosexism within the complexity the influences of nature and nurture on human sexuality. Finally, with the academic freedom we have in the USA, I can teach biology in a deliberate manner to promote social justice as long as what I say is scientifically legitimate.

I wanted to share the link to a film that my friend and former colleague just released, Southern Discomfort (2017) because it sets the backdrop for the talk I will be giving at the conference. This is shocking, but no exaggeration.

http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/southern-discomfort-2017/

If anyone has any requests for American things you would like me to take over to the UK, I should have room in my suitcase.  Sweets?  or any foods you can’t get easily even with the web? I am going to take some candy-covered pecans to pass around because they are the big treat from my current home in Georgia.

I know I am going to be on a search for a special English hard candy that is honey-flavored and has very tart lemon powder inside.

See You Soon – I am psyched to visit England again!

If you are attending conference, let us know on Twitter using the hashtag: #GEAconf2017

genderanded Countdown to Conference

C2C: #FEAS are coming to GEA! (And looking forward to it)

This post is part of our new Countdown to Conference (C2C) series. We would love to feature a brief blog post from you too! Visit our main Countdown to Conference page for details!

C2C: #FEAS are coming to GEA! (And looking forward to it)
by Dr Emily Gray
Twitter:@FEASproject

L-R Emily, Mindy and Linda following a stand up Performance at AARE Conference, Melbourne 2016

Feminist Educators Against Sexism #FEAS are an Australian-based international feminist collective committed to interrupting, challenging and otherwise shouting out about sexism in the academy and other educational spaces. #FEAS was formed by Mindy Blaise, Emily Gray and Linda Knight in 2016 and emerged out of a funded project to develop arts-based interventions into sexism in higher education. Workshops were run with diverse women academics from all career stages and together we developed interventions that were performed at a large education conference. The interventions included sexist/anti-sexist bingo cards, pipeline myth t-shirts that display statistics about women’s employment in Australian universities, whistles to blow when no-one’s listening, butterfly nets for catching those elusive opportunities and a stand up comedy performance that used participants’ experiences as one-liners that aren’t really very funny at all, as well as deploying the literal figure of the feminist killjoy. By challenging sexism through humour, irreverence and collective action we hope to highlight the inequalities, absurdities and the dreary everydayness of sexism in the academy. From the original 3, #FEAS now number over 400 and are located in Australia and all over the world including UK, Aotearoa New Zealand, Sweden, Belgium, the USA, Canada and Saudi Arabia.

This year, #FEAS have teamed up with Gender and Education and we are busy designing a new range of t-shirts, business cards and working on a brand new stand up performance for your viewing pleasure at the conference. We will also be presenting our research-creation journey so far, including our recently formed Cite Club where #FEAS share research with each other and cite each other where we can.

Mindy and Emily are familiar faces at Gender and Education conferences, both having attended many times in the past. Linda is brand new to Gender and Ed and so we are looking forward to introducing her to our favourite conference and to sharing our ideas and interventions with you all!

If you are attending conference, let us know on Twitter using the hashtag: #GEAconf2017

genderanded Issues

Introducing the new GEA Social Media Intern: Kate Marston

Hello! I’m Kate, the new Social Media Intern for the Gender and Education Association (GEA). As a Cardiff University PhD student concerned with the intersection of young people’s digital practices and relationship cultures, I am delighted to be contributing to GEA’s work eradicating sexism and gender inequality in and through education. Over the next few months I will be tweeting, posting, blogging and sharing content that affirms GEA’s key aims of promoting feminist scholarship and informing policy and practice relating to gender and education.

Prior to commencing my PhD, I worked in the voluntary sector on a range of projects that challenged homophobia and transphobia in schools. The organisations I worked for relied on a strategic web and social media presence to reach educators, policy makers and young people in order to enhance the visibility of their work. Here I learnt the discipline of maintaining an up-to-date social media presence along with creative strategies for engaging people, but as a PhD student I have enjoyed the freedom my PhD twitter account affords me to engage with feminist, anti-racist and trans activism online. I have valued GEA’s commitment to spotlighting intersectional feminist perspectives on gender and education from academics, activists and practitioners alike and I am eager to continue this work.

As a PhD student, twitter has also been invaluable for building academic networks, tracking Calls for Papers, keeping abreast of relevant literature and supporting academic events and conferences. Having attended a variety of GEA coordinated conferences and seminars I am familiar with the dynamism of these events and the value of actively engaging with conference hashtags and handles. Social media has enhanced my experience as a conference attendee through enabling me to connect with speakers, follow the development of research projects and continue discussions online. As GEA Social Media Intern I hope to facilitate similar connections in the build up to, during and beyond events and conferences. So if you’re attending our upcoming Gender and Education Conference 2017 let us know by tweeting #GEAconf2017!

A key aim over the next few months is ensuring we signal boost the work of PhD students and early career researchers. We are hosting a dedicated free day of workshops for Early Career Researchers ahead of #GEAconf2017, as well as inviting blog contributions for our website. You can write about a publication you’ve read or one you’ve written, a film you’ve seen or one you’ve made, an event you’ve been to or one you’re hosting. Whatever it is you are working on at the moment, if it is related to gender, education and feminism we’d love to hear from you.

Overall, I am excited to learn more about the amazing work of GEA members and look forward to meeting some of you at #GEAconf2017!

 

 

genderanded Countdown to Conference

C2C: Learning from Across Borders

This post is part of our new Countdown to Conference (C2C) series. We would love to feature a brief blog post from you too! Visit our main Countdown to Conference page for details!

C2C: Learning from Across Borders: What Canadian Multiculturalism Teaches Us about Happiness
by Natalie Wall
Twitter: @mdximpact

When I was a little girl, my father told me that I could be anything; I could be Prime Minister of Canada, if I wanted to.

He was and still is… wrong.

Canada has never elected a female Prime Minister and the only woman (Progressive Conservative Kim Campbell) to have held the position attained it through hatred of the previous PM and was replaced by the Liberal Jean Chrétien within six months, and this is after having called the election because she showed a demonstrable lead in the polls. Canada has never had a non-white Prime Minister. Even as a child, I knew that my chances were not good and I can’t say that my father approved of my defeatist attitude when I explained my unlikelihood of becoming Canada’s first black, female Prime Minister. This was my first moment of being a black feminist killjoy.

Wait… can I be a black feminist killjoy?

Killing Joy and Taking Names

Sara Ahmed tells us that the feminist kill joy “is an affect alien for sure: she might even kill joy  precisely because she refuses to share an orientation towards certain things as being good” and that “[w]e can place the figure of the feminist kill joy alongside the figure of the angry black woman.” Let us suppose that the angry black woman and the feminist kill joy can exist in one body, so that I can become a black feminist kill joy. In fact, let me assume the mantle of black, Canadian feminist kill joy.

Crossing Borders and Becoming Foreign

Over the course of my PhD, I have become foreign. However, I have never felt so Canadian as I have once I became foreign. My foreignness makes me nostalgic for a home that never was, a place to which I never really belonged. I am a black Canadian woman whose father was an immigrant who moved from Trinidad to Canada in the seventies and whose mother grew up on in a country house in rural Cape Breton. I belonged to a group of friends who all shared the common experience of being first generation Caribbean Canadian black women. We were antiracist activists living in West Toronto where my high school was lauded as a stellar institution despite my memories of white supremacists handing out hate literature on site and girls being told that they should not speak out against the sexual harassment from faculty members. My antiracism and feminist sensibilities grew in this environment and were intrinsically linked to my self-identification as a black Caribbean Canadian woman.

But, I have become foreign.

As I have become foreign, so has the world around me.

Brexit campaigners told us that the British population needed to “take back control” and control was taken back. And where did Brexit campaigners find inspiration for taking back that control? Michael Gove cites Canadian and Australian immigration policies when pressed about migration on Question Time.

What Can We Learn from Canada?

After the introduction of Donald Trump’s Muslim Ban on January 28th, 2017, the Prime Minister of Canada’s Twitter account (smugly, one might argue) posted the following:

 

Amid a flurry of criticism and, yes, some popular approval, the Muslim Ban opened up an opportunity for Canada to remind the international community that it holds the line in North America for diversity and hospitality.

I started my PhD examining multiculturalism in Canada under the Harper government, at a time when the Conservative government was taking liberties with its population’s human rights and making Canada a less tolerant environment than it has traditionally painted itself. See Human Rights Watch’s “World Report 2016” where among other concerns are the refusal to conduct an inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and the Anti-Terror Act of 2015, “law that imperils constitutionally enshrined human rights, including the freedoms of expression and association.”

I am finishing it up under a Justin Trudeau government, a Liberal Canada expressing itself through its proclaimed feminist and hospitable Prime Minister. Trudeau’s likeability and international popularity are reflective of a system of government that always works best when portrayed as idealistic and inclusive. It is a Canada that benefits in real, marketable, ways from its reputation as a multicultural utopia that operates to oppress and manage non-white bodies by using them as objects to parade before other, international and white, audiences.

What’s Multiculturalism Got to Do with It?

Multiculturalism, both official and idealized, works to help define the culture of Canada, by offering a gesture to diversity that has become synonymous with Canadian identity, but also offering a mirror against which Canadian identity can articulate itself. The trope of multiculturalism in Canada works to define culture in two ways: policy that has become a part of the fabric of Canadian self-construction and the persistent differentiation of citizens so that there are real Canadians and the others that help to demarcate the relationship between real and marginalized.

Canada was the first country in the world to integrate idealized constructions of multiculturalism into official policy.  Multiculturalism is intrinsic to Canada’s understanding of citizenship: the Government of Canada says on its website that “Canadian multiculturalism is fundamental to our belief that all citizens are equal. Multiculturalism ensures that all citizens can keep their identities, can take pride in their ancestry and have a sense of belonging.” However, we also have to understand that immigration serves the state’s purpose, “national immigration policies are seen as mechanisms to supply workers for various industries” (Satzewich and Liodakis 62). As state policy, that is to say, multiculturalism can never be purely without benefit to the host state. In fact, immigration is part of nation-building project, where multiculturalism is both reliant upon that immigration and one of the methods with which the nation ensures the obedience of its subjects, allowing them their cultural identity so long as it is subsumed under their identities as productive Canadian citizens. The success of Canada’s multiculturalism policy is rooted in its marriage of ideology and policy into the very fabric of how Canadians understand what it means to be and act Canadian.

So, while “Canada has its own historical graveyards of shame which are routinely relegated to the footnotes of history” (Mullings et al.), including genocide, Chinese Head Tax, missing and murdered Indigenous women, just to name a few, Canadians are not willing to go on record as xenophobic bullies. In the end, Canadian’s identify so strongly with multiculturalism that Trudeau won against Harper’s xenophobic campaign in 2015. Canadians supported freedom of cultural identity instead of anti-muslim rhetoric, going so far as to wear traditional mummer’s costumes to the polls in protest over the niqab debate. The focus on the niqab in tandem with the enacting of the Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act, which focused unduly on Muslims, was the Conservative government’s undoing.

Alternatively, in the UK, multiculturalism is dead at the hands of home grown terrorism. Immigration fears largely influenced the Brexit vote and continue to make headlines as we head towards 8 June, 2017. As Ahmed tells us, “multiculturalism becomes a problem by being attributed as the cause of unhappiness. When we are ‘in’ multiculturalism, we are ‘out’ of our comfort zone.” As we head into another General Election, I am wondering to what degree the British public is voting for a happiness that stems from having neighbours that look like you, sound like, and think like you. Is multiculturalism the root of all unhappiness?

Or is there a lesson to be learned from across the pond?

A harsh and pragmatic lesson to be sure, but a lesson to be learned nonetheless. Because that’s what being a feminist kill joy is all about…

“Generative Feminism(s): working across/ within/ through borders”

At the upcoming Gender and Education Association Conference, titled “Generative Feminism(s): working across/within/through borders,” researchers and practitioners will be coming together to think about demarcation and delineation as feminists who are building new, innovative spaces that impacts the world around them.

The 2017 conference is being organised and hosted by Middlesex University, London and runs from run from Wednesday 21st until Friday 23rd June, 2017. As a member of the organising committee, I am excited by the breadth of topics and how disparate the backgrounds of the presenters. You can see the conference programme here and register using the following link.

If you are attending conference, let us know on Twitter using the hashtag: #GEAconf2017

 

genderanded Cite Club

Introducing #FEAS Cite Club

Introducing #FEAS Cite Club
by Kate Marston, GEA Social Media Intern

The first rule of Cite Club is: You do talk about Cite Club! Feminist Educators Against Sexism (#FEAS) are an Australian-based, international feminist collective committed to developing interventions into sexism in the academy and other educational spaces. One of their most recent interventions is Cite Club, an e-mail group where #FEAS members send their works to one another and cite one another where possible.

#FEAS Cite Club is inspired by Sara Ahmed’s (2013) call to be mindful of ‘who appears’ within feminist work, to not necessarily go to male theorists to understand women’s diverse lives but to cite feminist work to do so. Cite Club is also inspired by the Citational Practices Challenge issued by Eve Tuck, K. Wayne Yang and Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández (2015) on the Critical Ethnic Studies blog, and their call to, “consider what you might want to change about your academic citation practices. Who do you choose to link and re-circulate in your work? Who gets erased? Who should you stop citing?” We aim to develop a network of feminist scholars with diverse identities and research interests and to build an archive of work that we can draw upon.

In collaboration with #FEAS, GEA will be profiling a Cite Club publication on this blog each month. To start we are introducing a paper by Kerry H. Robinson, Elizabeth Smith & Cristyn Davies (2017) that explores parents’ perspectives on children’s sexuality education in Australia. Kerry Robinson is one of the keynote speakers at the upcoming GEA conference 2017, and this paper addresses #GEAconf2017’s interest in exploring key issues in the field of sexuality education. Cite Club is in its infancy, we are excited to see where it takes us! If anyone would like to join the Cite Club mailing list please e-mail Emily Gray: emily.gray@rmit.edu.au

 

May 2017 #FEAS/GEA Cite Club Featured Publication

Responsibilities, tensions, and ways forward: parents’ perspectives on children’s sexuality education

To cite this article:
Kerry H. Robinson, Elizabeth Smith & Cristyn Davies (2017) Responsibilities, tensions and ways forward: parents’ perspectives on children’s sexuality education, Sex Education, 17:3, 333-347, DOI: 10.1080/14681811.2017.1301904

Children’s sexuality education lives under the burden of societal anxieties around sexuality as a developmentally inappropriate, risky and dangerous topic for children. Informed by socio-cultural discourses of childhood ‘innocence’, sexuality is often deemed too ‘adult’ and something from which children should be protected. Despite the notable benefits of sexuality education to children’s health and wellbeing, policy-makers can be wary of sparking controversy with parents on this matter.

Exploring these tensions Kerry H. Robinson’s, Elizabeth Smith’s & Cristyn Davies’ paper provides insights into parental perspectives on primary sexuality education in New South Wales (NSW) and Victoria, Australia. The authors note that despite the recent development in Australia of a National Curriculum with a Health and Physical Education syllabus, children’s experiences of sexuality education varies considerably across schools, states and territories with content decisions left to individual schools and teachers. Parents/carers generally have the right to remove their children from sexuality education classes. Additionally, sexuality education policies in NSW and Victoria point to the need for collaboration and communication between parents/carers, schools and community health organisations. Therefore, parental attitudes have significant implications for sexuality education policy and practice.

Undertaken as part of a larger research project on ethical and respectful relationships education in primary schools, this study set out to identify what and how discourses affect parents’ concerns, anxieties and perceived responsibilities concerning sexuality and relationships education for their children. A sample of 342 parents/carers were recruited (60.5%, n = 207 women and 39.5%, n = 135 men) and asked to participate in an online survey, interviews and focus groups exploring their perceptions and experiences of a variety of topic areas related to sexuality and relationships education. Whilst the findings indicated that the majority (71%) of parents/carers surveyed did consider sexuality education to be both important and relevant to the lives of primary school children, attitudes differed on how this should be delivered and a third of parents indicated that sexuality education was not relevant or were unsure of it’s relevance.

The paper goes on to explore why parents did and did not consider sexuality education relevant; views on who should be responsible for sexuality education; and aspects of sexuality education considered more appropriate for families to address than schools or other sources. In doing so, it provides an overview of some of the opportunities and challenges facing families, practitioners and policy-makers who wish to see more effective sexuality education available for children. Challenges include the persistence of profound fears around sexuality education as developmentally inappropriate amongst some parents, whereas potential opportunities for development were evident in the recognition amongst many parents that they have a responsibility for their children’s sexuality education, but often feel unconfident instigating these conversations at home.

Suggesting ways forward the authors note that sexuality education as a health and wellbeing issue should continue to be recognised as a shared responsibility between families, schools and health organisations, but with greater support in place to address the gaps in adults’ learning in this area. For example, community sexuality education programmes could provide evidence-based information, skill development, resources and support to parents/carers in regards to best practice. They argue that such community programmes could also support school-based sexuality work and offer valuable signposting to children and young people. Furthermore, better communication from schools about the sexuality curriculum and pedagogical approaches may help address any parental concerns. Finally, they argue that greater consistency and monitoring of the implementation of sexuality education could ensure equitable access for all students.

This paper offers valuable insights into how particular socio-cultural discourses and narratives shape parental approaches to primary age children’s sexuality education. For further information about the wider project exploring teacher attitudes and approaches, as well as children’s understandings click here.

If you are attending the GEA conference, and looking forward to hearing more about the work of Kerry Robinson, Cristyn Davies or #FEAS members, let us know on Twitter using the hashtag: #GEAconf2017

genderanded Issues

Imagining the Body in France & the Francophone World – CfP

We are delighted to support our members and events they host that may be of relevance to our readers; today we bring you details of a fantastic conference to be held at The University of Birmingham.
We are delighted to announce the release of a call for papers for ‘Imagining the Body in France & the Francophone World’, a bilingual conference to be held at the University of Birmingham, 19-20th January 2018, with the generous support of the IMLR and SFS.  Through this cross-cultural and interdisciplinary conference, we hope to facilitate dialogue and debate about the body and its representation in French and Francophone culture and society.
 If you are interested in submitting a proposal, abstracts of 300 words in either French or English should be sent to us at imaginingthebody@gmail.com.
Please do visit our twitter page, facebook event and/or blog for full details and a call for papers, and if you know of any PG(R)s or academics interested in representations of the body in French and Francophone culture and society, please do pass this information on! We hope to hear from you very soon,
with warm wishes from the organisational team (Antonia Wimbush, Maria Tomlinson, Polly Galis).
@imaginingbody
imaginingthebody.wordpress.com
genderanded Countdown to Conference

C2C: What feminism’s got to do with dance

This post is part of our new Countdown to Conference (C2C) series. We would love to feature a brief blog post from you too! Visit our main Countdown to Conference page for details!

C2C: What feminism’s got to do with dance
by Tamara Borovica
Twitter: @Blackie_in_Ozz

As a PhD candidate researching gender and the body, I find the key themes of this Gender and Education Conference – working through temporal, spatial, material and disciplinary borders – as appealing and challenging at the same time. My interest in the body as an active and agential assemblage comes from witnessing some of the extremes of human suffering, violence, hope and resilience when I was growing up in now ex-Yugoslavia, in 1990s. While most of these experiences carried a strong affective and emotional charge and made many of us irreversibly different, I got curious about the ways people continue to ‘become’. When as an adult I begin working with young people in Balkans and across Europe, my interest was in noticing complexities, contradictions, open-endedness and unevenness in their continuous becomings, even when situated in what appeared to be a grip of social structures. The same interest led me to discover and eventually start teaching dance as a form of embodied inquiry and to how the idea of this research was born.

My interest in the body as an active and agential assemblage comes from witnessing some of the extremes of human suffering, violence, hope and resilience when I was growing up in now ex-Yugoslavia, in 1990s.

In my work on the embodiment of womanhood, I imagine embodiment as relational, interconnected, always in flux and becoming, as a part of various assemblages and in numerous encounters (some of which are increasing and some decreasing bodily potentials). To explore young women’s embodiment, I have conducted a performance ethnography with a group of Melbourne University students interested in creative methods and feminist issues. We were a group of non- dancers who danced to produce and explore new feelings, thoughts, ideas, sensations and/or creative artefacts about embodied womanhood, in order to, potentially, open up ‘the affective economy’ of our bodily beings. The paper I will present, ‘Dancing the strata- affective flows of moving/dancing bodies and the possibilities for becoming otherwise’, will illustrate my approach to researching the embodiment of young womanhood where I aim to engage with the materiality of (human and more-than-human) bodies while attuning to movement, rhythm, fluidity, multiplicity and flows.  This paper will focus on one encounter of dancing bodies where we danced with the strata (categories such as sex, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, age, and ability) to look at what embodiment of these categories produces for young women’s lives and how our bodies take an active role in this production.

At the beginning of the third year of my Candidature, I can profoundly benefit from presenting at conferences such as Gender & Education, where a number of academics are engaging in similar kinds of work. More than a few of G&E scholars have been influential in informing my approach to this research, and I am looking forward to being further inspired by their work presented at GEA2017. Until we meet in London!

If you are attending conference, let us know on Twitter using the hashtag: #GEAconf2017