Recently I picked up a new book by the feminist youth work collective, Feminist Webs. The Exciting Life of Being a Woman: A Handbook for Women and Girls is a riposte to the rather dreary offerings that can be found in some UK bookshops which provide a nostalgic, new take on the 1950’s children’s annuals which offered a range of sports, crafts and facts to equip young boys with the skills and knowledge to be appropriately ‘boyish’. The equivalent popular books for girls again provide range of appropriate normative gendered ideas and activities. Continue reading “The Exciting Life of Being a Woman: A Handbook for Women & Girls by Feminist Webs”
GEA 2013: Compelling Diversities, Educational Intersections: Policy, Practice, Parity
Gender and Education Association Biennial Conference 2013
Weeks Centre for Social and Policy Research, London South Bank University
Tuesday 23rd– Friday 26th April 2013
Confirmed keynote speakers:
– Prof. Lisa Adkins, University of Newcastle, Australia (What Do Wages Do? Feminist Theory After the Financial Crisis)
– Prof. Val Gillies, Weeks Centre, LSBU (From Baby Brain to Conduct Disorder: the New Determinism in the Classroom)
– Bidisha: From Eastern Primitivism to Western Decadence? Overcoming the Notion of Cultural Differences in Gender, Race and Class Politics
Plenary Panel:
– Dr Tracey Reynolds, Weeks Centre for Social and Policy Research, LSBU
– Dr Jin Haritaworn, Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies
– Dr Kay Inckle, Trinity College Dublin
– Dr Jayne Osgood, London Metropolitan University
– Dr Vanita Sundaram, University of York
Performance:
– Dr Claudia Brazzle, Liverpool Hope University
– Teddy Nygh, Director of Riot From Wrong and Co-Founder of Fully Focused
The ninth international Gender and Education Association conference, Compelling Diversities, Educational Intersections hosted by the Weeks Centre for Social and Policy Research, engages with key debates surrounding the interplay between dynamics of education, work, employment and society in the context of crisis, upheaval and cutbacks, which reconfigure axes of intersectional inequalities. In considering diversity in education, this conference will explore the relationship between new equality regimes and continued educational inequalities, exploring organisational ambivalence, change and resistance. It will ask important questions about the role of feminist research at a time when education, and its variously placed subjects (academics, pupils, students, and policy makers), wrestle with the commitments and contentions in doing diversity and being diverse.
Book your place
If you are paying by debit or credit card, please book online using Eventbrite at http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/event/4743075667
If you wish to receive an invoice or have any queries, please email enterprise-events@lsbu.ac.uk
Conference Fee
£380 – Standard conference booking fee – Member*
£420 – Standard conference booking fee – Non-member
£150 – Standard day rate
* To obtain your discount code, necessary for member discount, please contact Alice Jesmont (a.jesmont@lancaster.ac.uk)
Is university life becoming more sexist?
Undergraduate students at Cardiff University are gearing up to discuss whether life at university is becoming more sexist. As part of this Emily Parnell, an undergraduate student, reflects on Carnage UK: Pimps ‘n’ Hoes Continue reading “Is university life becoming more sexist?”
Emily Wilding Davison Memorial Campaign, Obama and Votes for Women
This year will mark 100 years since the suffragette Emily Wilding Davison was killed after running in front of the King’s horse at the Derby. A campaign has just been launched to institute a minute’s silence at the Derby in memory of her sacrifice for women’s rights and democracy. Continue reading “Emily Wilding Davison Memorial Campaign, Obama and Votes for Women”
The sexually available versus the crooks; gender and HIV prevention education in Mozambique
The cynic in me was not surprised to find that young women in Mozambique experienced sexual harassment in schools. I had thought carefully about this eventuality prior to setting out to Mozambique to gather data for my doctoral study on HIV- and AIDS-related education, and the possible action I might take if and when confronted with a situation such as this. What did take me by surprise was the extent to which the young men were put away as inherently unreliable. It seemed they were, to paraphrase one research participant not really worth ‘speaking about’. Young women and men appeared to be firmly stuck between a ‘rock and a hard place’. In a setting such as this, the potential impact of HIV prevention education seems rather questionable. Continue reading “The sexually available versus the crooks; gender and HIV prevention education in Mozambique”
Autumn Financial Statement – Uncaring and Unequal
The UK Women’s Budget Group responds to the Chancellor’s Autumn Financial Statement:
“Today’s announcement offers nothing for women striving and working hard to take care of children, disabled and frail elderly relatives. The Chancellor spoke of investment in infrastructure, but failed to mention investment in social infrastructure, such as education and healthcare, which underpins women’s paid and unpaid participation in the economy.
Some of the measures announced today will have a disproportionate adverse impact on women’s income. For instance, ending national pay bargaining for teachers will have a greater impact on women who make up the majority of the teaching workforce. Furthermore, the below inflation uprating of benefits is particularly unfair to women because benefits make up a bigger proportion of women’s income than men’s. Continue reading “Autumn Financial Statement – Uncaring and Unequal”
Inclusion and Gender Equity in Education: A Conference at the Institute for Educational Development, Aga Khan University
Dar es Salaam, 14 – 16 November 2012
GEA Policy Report Continue reading “Inclusion and Gender Equity in Education: A Conference at the Institute for Educational Development, Aga Khan University”
Into the Woods
As a practicing middle school English Language Arts teacher and researcher in the Northeastern US, I am interested in the stories adolescents tell about their lives. To this end, my research in classrooms is ethnographic and privileges the stories girls tell about their experiences of being marginalized, silenced, and punished, often by other girls. One story in particular has resonated with me, and I have come to refer to this story as “The Story of the Sluts” – thus named, however crudely, because that is how the story was presented to me by the girls who told it. It all came about when Lily (a pseudonym), an eighth grade student, was meeting with me during a writing conference about revisions for a short story she was writing in my class. During this writing conference, it came out that a party had taken place the previous weekend. Lily explained that two of my other students, Melanie and Kelly, had gone ‘into the woods’ with two boys who also attended our school. Continue reading “Into the Woods”
In Memoriam: Eva Figes
Eva Figes, the author of Patriarchal Attitudes, died aged 80 in August 2012. Her book was published to popular British acclaim alongside several other signature books of women’s liberation, including The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer and The Dialectic of Sex by Shulamith Firestone. These publications signalled a new and critical mood amongst a growing number of women becoming involved in the international women’s liberation movement. Continue reading “In Memoriam: Eva Figes”
An Update: The Women’s Library
This is to report on what is happening to The Women’s Library, a resource that was set up over 75 years ago as the Fawcett Library in central London. It moved to premises in the East End of London in the 1990s, and became part of what was then the London Guildhall University. The latter then amalgamated with North London University to become London Metropolitan University. There was a contest between the London School of Economics, amongst others, and the Guildhall for housing the library as a resource for feminist historians, social scientists and arts people, back in the 1990s which Guildhall won. At the turn of the 21st century there was a bid for lottery funds to rehouse the library in a converted women’s bathhouse nearby. This bid was successful and the library was housed in an architect-designed building that opened in 2003. Continue reading “An Update: The Women’s Library”