Category: Featured Stories

By Tamsin Hinton-Smith, University of Sussex; Fawzia Mazanderani, University of Sussex; Nupur Samuel, O.P. Jindal Global University; Anna CohenMiller, Nazarbayev University; and Ruth Goodman, University of Sussex 

In January 2021 as an interdisciplinary team of feminist academics from participating universities in five countries, we embarked on a research project seeking to interrogate and increase gender inclusion and sensitivity in the focus and approach of higher education teaching in universities across five participating countries: India, Morocco, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, and UK. Set against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic and with technology as the only bridge between us, our journey as a research team was not always smooth. In this blog we reflect on the challenges faced as a research team and our developing learning from being part of the research process. Gender on the Higher Education Learning Agenda Internationally is a 2-year British Academy funded research project funded as part of the Global Challenges Research Fund, with a central focus on equitable collaborative partnership between global north and global south countries to advance the Sustainable Development Goals.  

Reflections on the research journey 

The formal research design from the outset focused around online survey and interview data collection with university students and staff across partner institutions. However, as we undertook this research underpinned by principles of equitable collaboration, as feminist researchers we became increasingly aware of the need to focus more on reflecting on the research process and challenges within this, alongside the substantive focus.   

Through our mutual reflections on our research journey, four themes emerged: communication styles and expectations, our sense of connectedness, the embodied and emotional dimensions to carrying out the research, and ethical considerations in terms of where power sat across countries and individuals. 

We hope this blog provides interest to anyone concerned with the promotion of more equitable ways of researching collaboratively across intersections of gender, ethnicity, country context and academic seniority. 

Complex communication 

The research took place during the Covid-19 pandemic and so communication, and the majority of data collection, took place online. With all aspects of the research being conducted remotely, the ‘digital divide’ became apparent with inequalities arising both in access to internet but also confidence and experience using technical tools. Internet access and power outages compromised some colleagues in participating fully in all online meetings resulting in frustration and compromising opportunities for people to have their voices heard.  

 
Research outputs were translated into local languages to support equity of access of research insights. However, reflecting colonial legacies, English was the first language of two of the partner countries (UK and Nigeria), the language of academia in India, and third language after French in Morocco, and after Russian in Kazakhstan, and so was the common project language shared by all research team members.  The use of English as the project language represented uncomfortable communication inequalities, placing additional burdens on team members communicating verbally and in writing in a second or third language.  

Beyond the need to translate languages there is also the challenge of translating cultural understandings. As the Morocco based research assistant expressed, ‘we don’t usually have the same interpretation, and this causes sometimes problems of understanding and problems of progress.’ For example, assumptions about what is meant by gender in different international contexts, for instance, whether ‘non-binary’ was a relevant and appropriate gender option for our surveys, resulted in difference of opinion and reinforced the need for clear and explicit communication and to create a space where clarifying understandings and reflecting together were encouraged. Differences in assumptions and understanding existed for research practices more broadly including frequency and conventions for communication.  

Connectedness and humanisation of research process 

Conducting international research as feminist scholars, connectedness and humanisation of the research process, was of strong importance influencing the way sought to carry out the research. Not all of the co-investigators had met each other in-person, and the research assistants were appointed specifically for the project and had no prior connections with any other team members, so actively creating online spaces to get to know each other was central to the success of the project as a collaborative endeavour. We met regularly as a Team via zoom, including space for informal as well as project management discussion within this, and made sure that all stages of the research process were developed as a team in a consultative manner.  

Embodied experience and affect 

Online research design brings the potential to disrupt the privileging of embodied presence that favours able bodies, geographic proximity and monetary access to education. Yet, working in this way brought with it challenges to managing time zone conflicts and pressures encompassed in the collapsing of work and home, that virtual communication brings about.  

The pandemic required all team members to adopt new working patterns in terms of homeworking and researchers experienced intense experiences in the lifecycle of the project including childcare; illness of loved ones; and the emotional impact of fulfilling pastoral responsibilities for students in the context of the pandemic. The latter was particularly acute in India in Summer 2021 when pandemic conditions made continuing with the research in any meaningful way temporarily impossible. A humanising approach was vital to making sure that our continuation of the research through these challenging times took place in a way that recognised and supported what the research team and participants were negotiating in their wider lives.  

Ethical concerns and considerations 

Finally, we faced ethical challenges in moving beyond hierarchical approaches to knowledge production where research on the Global South is conducted by researchers from the Global North, to achieving equitable partnership in practice.  

However diligently we sought to attend to feminist ethics around voice, power and collaboration; practicalities including technological inequalities around access, reliability and confidence continued to challenge the potential to meet the goals of equitable participation. Requirements to lead ethical approval, data storage, video conferencing hosting, and paying of budgets, all through UK lead organisations, provides a constant reminder of hierarchies of participation. One researcher expressed how:  

‘Research, which is being done in the countries of Global South, it can be funded by international organizations or it can be funded locally, but what we have at the end of the day, the research outcomes, they are not widely circulated in the local communities.  They go to the Global North…’ (Kazakhstan Research Assistant). 

It is with this in mind that it has been particularly important in this project to ensure translation of key outputs and for the research team to support development of outputs identified by international team members as important to local agendas and audiences. 

Conclusion 

In this blog we have reflected on the process and experience of undertaking collaborative feminist research into gender equality in higher education, as an interdisciplinary, international research team. Through our reflective practice we hope to generate a wider understanding around the challenges of carrying out research equitably in practice, alongside our substantive focus on understanding gender (in)equality in higher education.  

An in-depth reflexive exploration of the process and experience of undertaking collaborative feminist research into gender equality in higher education, as an interdisciplinary, international research team can be found in the forthcoming publication:  

Hinton-Smith, T., Mazanderani, F.,  Samuel, N., and CohenMiller, A. (2022) ‘Co-creating cross-cultural approaches to gender mainstreaming in higher education: experiences and challenges in developing an interdisciplinary, international feminist knowledge-exchange research approach’, in CohenMiller, A., Hinton-Smith, T., Mazanderani, F., and Samuel, N. (Eds.) Leading Change in Gender and Diversity in Higher Education from Margins to Mainstream. Routledge: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003286943 

GEA SOCIAL MEDIA Internship

You will be working in a fast-paced, intellectually demanding environment where the primary goal is to enhance visibility of GEA activities through the website, twitter, Facebook and any other relevant social media platforms.

The core duties for the post include:

1. Creating content for the Gender and Education Website: http://www.genderandeducation.com
2. Creating content and providing support for managing GEA Twitter @GenderAndEd
3. Creating content and providing support for managing Facebook Gender and Education Association https://www.facebook.com/groups/164123763599032/
4. Providing social media and web support for GEA events and conference

 

Click here for more details about the role

This internship will cover up to 10 hours per month at £15 per hour for 6 months. You will liaise with GEA Executive Member for Social Media Dr Jessica Gagnon Jessica.Gagnon@port.ac.uk content for the website. You will produce a brief report for the billable hours and send to GEA treasurer (covered presently by Claire Maxwell c.maxwell@ucl.ac.uk ) who will pay you monthly.

To Apply

Submit a CV and brief covering letter detailing your interest in the internship and the skills you have that make you suited to the responsibilities of the post to Dr Jessica Gagnon Jessica.Gagnon@port.ac.uk by 28^th April 2017

 

In the run up to Halloween, we are proud to publish this fantastic piece co-authored by Professor Jessica Ringrose, Emilie Lawrence, Hanna Retallack and Siri Lindholm which challenges the inherent sexism apparent in the costume choices open to young girls and women and the complex set of unwritten rules surrounding their behaviour during this holiday. 

 

“In the regular world, Halloween is when children dress up and beg for candy. In girl world, Halloween is the one night of the year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it,” explains Lindsay Lohan in the 2004 cult teen movie, Mean Girls. This statement is testament to the existence of a set of complex unwritten rules that girls must navigate and negotiate with on a daily basis, to avoid being shamed by adults and peers.

Even small children aren’t immune from these pressures; the tweet quoted in the headline asks us ‘has Halloween become slutoween even for toddlers?’ Whilst the tweet poses ‘toddlers’ as the subject of debate it is immediately clear that it is girls we are dealing with here. There is no mention of young boys looking like sluts or skanks on Halloween; instead we are told to question why toddler girls are dressed up as cops and cats – opening up dialogue about their bodies and the ‘wrong’ choices being made – before they are even aware of the minefield ahead. We are subjecting these toddlers to scrutiny and failing them before they’ve even had a chance to understand the rules of the game.

The lead up to Halloween is a good time for parents, schools and young people to think more closely about debates over girls’ sexualised dress. Sexualisation is fast becoming a key aspect of protection and safe-guarding in social welfare and schooling. Some psychological research is claiming a direct causal link, with the implication that sexualised dress leads to psychological and social harm in girlhood (Zurbriggen and Roberts, 2012). In fact so powerful is the force of sexualisation said to be, that it is credited with causing anything from self-harm to human trafficking.

Critical sociological and feminist educational research suggests, however that it’s more complex. Positioning girls’ bodies as inherently suggestive or sexual can actually place them atmore risk and perpetuate a cycle of victim blaming that has long been common in public responses to rape and sexual assault. When schools participate in or fail to challenge what has been called ‘slut shaming’ they are perpetuating gender based inequality (Dobson and Ringrose, 2015). Education, starting at primary ages, needs to target the wider culture of sexism that promotes sexual objectification and violence against girls and women. Directing attention to the wider cultural values around (hetero)sexuality and sexual double standards, particularly masculinity and boys’ and men’s attitudes towards girls and women is also crucial.

Teenage girls face particular pressure and surveillance regarding their clothing ‘choices’. Halloween is a tense time. Girls are offered a dressed-up version of the same decisions they face every day: will they be a ‘sexy kitten’ ready to be objectified? Or the un-(hetero)sexy un-desirable witch? Girls often talk about extreme pressures, saying “you can’t win” when describing the minefield of both formal and informal rules that face them.

Issues of sexualised dress have had recent wide-spread media attention as young people have challenged school uniform dress codes as sexist, claiming they unfairly target girls’ clothes and bodies. The historical measurement and control over girls’ school uniform skirts have been joined by new debates over whether girls ought to wear trousers to avoid being a ‘distraction’ to male teachers and students

With occasions like Halloween, what constitutes ‘skanky’ fancy dress is vague and the social rules can be impossible to interpret correctly. Expressions such as ‘slutoween’ and ‘skankoween’ do not help on the path to a happier girlhood. There is a sexual double standard embedded in the term ‘slut’, with girls or women deemed bad and shameful through their dress, which is read as branding them sexually aware or active. Skank, slag, ho and slut are class-based labels also – they tell some girls that their tastes are poor, their behaviour wrong and that they are ultimately at fault for having made the wrong ‘choices’.

So this Halloween let’s look at the facts of sexism facing UK girls. The recently released 2015 Girls Attitudes Survey, a nation-wide survey that canvassed the views of 1,574 girls and young women from 7 to 21, found that three quarters of girls aged 11 to 21 (75%) report anxiety about experiencing sexual harassment that in turn affects what they choose to wear, where they go and how they feel about their bodies. Clear damage to girls’ wellbeing is evident. Almost half (46%) were found to have personally needed help with their mental health. A commodifying and sexualising consumer culture provides such conflicting messages around sexual appearance, which is seen as linked to sexual conduct. This causal link is the root of ‘rape culture’ myths of victim blaming that encourages girls to blame themselves when something goes wrong (Mendes, 2015).

One of the key issues here is the way in which adults engage with girls about their mental health and its link to ‘sexualisation’ and sexuality. According to the Girl Guiding Survey, girls feel adults are out of touch with the new threats to their wellbeing, ‘leaving them struggling to find the adequate support and information they need to remain resilient in the face of increasing pressures’ with 82 per cent of girls aged 11 to 21 saying adults don’t recognise the pressure they are under.

Projects such as Gender Equalities Leadership in Schools (GELS), led by researchers at the UCL IOE, connect up organisations like the Gender and Education Association and UK Feminista, who are working to tackle sexism in schools. GELS supports school-based activities such as feminist lunch and after-school clubs that provide young people with safe spaces in which to discuss conflicting messages and pressures around gender and sexuality. GELS is helping girls and boys with tools of critical thinking necessary to engage with dominant media texts on womanhood and ‘appropriate’ femininity and masculinity, as well as the chance to realise that the complexities they face are not only personal, but political. Watch this space for updates.