Too often in discussions about gender identity the approach taken is extremely narrow. The discourse is largely dominated by the cisgendered, binary perspective that there is ‘male’ and that there is ‘female’ – and that both of these are biologically determined, stable categories. This is further reinforced when the discourse is situated in the context of children. The prevailing attitude is that any identity, theory or social group that destabilises such assumptions are too complicated and/or too ‘subversive’ to merit acknowledgement. It is therefore unsurprising that when school staff, policy makers and academics come to discus gender identity within the classroom, that transgendered children are usually entirely ignored. What can teachers can do to support such children? Continue reading “Supporting Transgender Children in the Primary Classroom: A Reflection”
Book Review: Cordelia Fine’s ‘Delusions of Gender’
This extremely well researched book, ‘Delusions of Gender: The Real Science Behind Sex Differences’ dispels many long held and newly emerging myths about sex group difference. The book is divided into three parts: ‘Half changed world, half-changed minds’, ‘Neurosexism’ and ‘Recycling gender’. If you know the field of sex group difference well, you will be most interested in part II where Fine provides an excellent up-to-date review of the field of neuroscience which is extremely helpful in counteracting claims such as, boys and girls need separate pedagogies because they are hard-wired differently. The research reviewed in parts I and III, although also up-to-date, spans a broad range of literatures which feminist scholars will be fairly familiar with. Continue reading “Book Review: Cordelia Fine’s ‘Delusions of Gender’”
Is feminism in the UK experiencing a double dip? Call for Action
‘Clinton is proving that feminist foreign policy is possible – and works’ so headlines an article in the Guardian in which Madeleine Bunting argues that Hilary Clinton is building her political foreign policy on a solid 1970s feminist mantra that ‘Transformation in the role of women is that last great impediment to universal progress.’ Clinton has proclaimed that ‘the rights of women and girls are now core to US foreign policy’ and Bunting draws attention to the 450 mentions of this ‘signature issue’ in the first five months of Clinton’s office. Clinton argues that ‘the empowerment, protect and protection of women and girls is vital to the long-term security of the US’. In a telling remark Bunting asks, imagine any politician saying something similar in the UK now. It is, indeed, unimaginable! Continue reading “Is feminism in the UK experiencing a double dip? Call for Action”
Browne Report + the White Paper = A Murky Outlook for Educational Equality
A report by GEA’s Policy Officer Miriam David, with Jessica Ringrose and Victoria Showunmi
October- December 2010
Continue reading “Browne Report + the White Paper = A Murky Outlook for Educational Equality”
YWCA (England & Wales) becomes Platform 51
After 155 years The YWCA in England & Wales has recently re-launched itself as Platform 51. The 51 is intended to indicate that women and girls make up 51% of the UK population. Continue reading “YWCA (England & Wales) becomes Platform 51”
Fawcett Society: Challeging the Cuts
In the UK, the Fawcett Society has been actively engaged in mounting a challenge to the Coalition government’s approach to tackling the deficit. A recent high court challenge to the emergency budget demanded that there is a judicial review of the gender impact. Continue reading “Fawcett Society: Challeging the Cuts”
DIANA LEONARD: FEMINIST ACTIVIST, ACADEMIC SOCIOLOGIST AND EDUCATOR
Diana Mary Leonard, who has died aged 68 of endometrial cancer after a stubborn struggle, was a feisty and fiery feminist academic and activist. She was one of the originators of feminist sociology in the academy, organising the first British Sociological Association (BSA) conference on what was then known as sexual divisions in 1974. She never looked back from this early immersionin feminist politics and developed collaborative feminist practices in theorising, researching and political campaigning. A long and hard fight to get into and establish feminist scholarship, practices and pedagogies in the academy made her a strong and uncompromising leader of radical feminist activism and academic work in higher education. Diana was of a particular generation of activists who were first involved in the women’s liberation movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. She was also a broad-ranging social scientist, having started in anthropology before moving on to sociology, as well as education from the late 1960s to the present, retiring from her post as Professor of Sociology of Education and Gender at the Institute of Education, University of London, three years ago. But she never actually retired and, with her emeritus status, and visiting professorship at the Centre for Higher Education Equity Research, University of Sussex, from 2008, she continued actively to engage with global feminist debates, theories and practices, having established a fearsome feminist agenda. This involvement ranged across continents from her early studies on French materialist feminism, to work in Canada and the USA, to Australia, Greece, Ireland, Israel and the Gender Equity Task Force in South Africa (1997), and at the Fatimah Jinnah Women University in Rawalpindi, Pakistan (2005-7). Continue reading “DIANA LEONARD: FEMINIST ACTIVIST, ACADEMIC SOCIOLOGIST AND EDUCATOR”
Does Hit Girl Kick Ass?
Written by Jane Goldman and starring Aaron Johnson (a British actor known best for playing John Lennon in ‘Nowhere Boy’), Chole Moretz (last seen in the remake of the ‘Amityville Horror’) and Nicholas Cage, this movie was hailed simultaneously as
being ‘cynical, premeditated and mindbogglingly irresponsible’ (The Daily Mail) and, ‘a thoroughly outrageous, jaw-droppingly violent and very funny riff on the quasi-porn world of comic books’ (The Guardian). Wherever it went Kick Ass stirred emotions, fired debate and ultimately made a lot of money. The cause of the controversy? Hit Girl, an 11 year-old wise cracking, knife wielding, karate kicking female superhero-in-training. But is Hit Girl a Feminist icon for the 21st Century? Continue reading “Does Hit Girl Kick Ass?”
Cutting Women Out of Education?
The 10th of November 2010: I and 50,000 school, college and university students and staff gathered in central London to protest against the Tory-Lib Dem coalition government’s proposed cuts to education and rise in tuition fees up to £9000 per year. This placard – Don’t Cut Women out of Education – was left under the feet of the demonstrators, washed up by a tide of protest: one of a vast range of slogans on show, from the ironically knowing to the straightforwardly angry. But its message stands. Those who stand to lose out from the government’s plans are, overwhelmingly, those who already lose out. Continue reading “Cutting Women Out of Education?”
Taking action: keeping violence against women and girls on the education agenda
The Coalition Government has just published a ‘strategic narrative’ on violence against women and girls. This should be followed by an action plan next Spring.
Follow the link which provides template letters and campaign leaflets on keeping violence against women and girls on the education agenda