Fame, Folk devils and Generation X-Factor

In recent months a number of articles have appeared in the UK national press, reporting renewed concerns about the impact of celebrity and consumer culture on young people’s aspirations. Celebrity culture features in these as a contemporary folk devil, conjured up as the source of various societal ills, and diverting attention from the structural causes of inequality. Continue reading “Fame, Folk devils and Generation X-Factor”

Girls, Graduate Jobs and the Gender Chasm

Reports from across the world last week were claiming that we are no longer facing a gender gap but rather a gender chasm. Drawing on a new gender gap’report these articles claim that even though a number of countries see more young women going to university than young men, it is men who tend to end up faring better in employment (rising to higher levels of seniority and earning more than their female counterparts). Continue reading “Girls, Graduate Jobs and the Gender Chasm”

Celebrating the Feminist Within

DECERe, University of East Anglia
22 September 2010

Feminist academics in leadership positions report difficulty pursuing feminist ideals, often preferring to leave their ‘radical’ feminist identities at home with some professing desires to unite their dual identities of scholar and activist. Black feminists are particularly marginalised within academia, although the increased diversity of the student population in the UK brings hope for a new generation of black feminists entering the academy. Continue reading “Celebrating the Feminist Within”