Commenting on feminism and fashion and the recent story about Cambridge female undergrads’ scantily clad photos, Berry commented that:

“Girls can be highly intelligent and interested in being seen to be attractive – the two aren’t mutually exclusive”

For starters, not really a problem. Perhaps the idea of ‘being seen to be attractive’ is problematic (to me this suggest pampering to the rest of society’s/men’s version of what this means) but I do support the move away from the ‘blonde-bimbo’ vs ‘ugly geek’ dichotomy.

And then Berry claims:

“We must resist the impulse to judge women, to judge them harshly and judge them narrowly”

Lovely. Again, an idea I can get my head around.

But then when an article in The Guardian titled Girls should be ‘realistic’ about careers and motherhood – schools group head appears, the plot thickens…

Teenage girls need to be taught a heavy dose of realism – that it may not be possible to be a perfect mother and a career woman, the president of the Girls’ Schools Association (GSA) will say next week.

Berry is now implying that girls need to be realistic about their futures. That there is ‘nothing wrong’ with mothers not working once they have children. Firstly, what kind of empowering message is that to young women? That they can be all they want to be but will have to re-think all that once they think about starting a family? Why are we telling girls to be ‘realistic’? Why are we accepting that as the reality that women are often placed into positions in which they are pushed back into the private sphere once they give birth? Instead of telling the generation of tomorrow to wise-up about the way the world is, how about educating them on how to change that world?

And you know that what lies beneath this is a discourse of ‘bad working mothers’. Considering we weren’t meant to be judging women for their choices Berry…

Laura

Links to the two articles:

Fashion not a betrayal of feminist ideals
Girls should be realistic about motherhood and careers

Whilst watching the programme several issues arose for me. Firstly is the continued stress on the gender binary of female and male. During my Women’s Studies course I lept on material which discussed the possibility of a third gender, even a third sex. Discussion of this still seems firmly cemented in academic discourse as I felt the programme further promoted the idea that you can either be female or male and this is what it means to be female and this is what it means to be male. A lot of emphasis was placed on the toys the children were playing with – they were either “boys’ toys” or “girls’ toys”, no allowances were made for gender neutral material which could perhaps avoid placing such an importance of such gender stereotypes. And what was the real issue at hand? Throughout the programme the link between sex and gender was explicitly expressed as well as an array of traditional roles. In the case of Josie, it seemed pretty clear that having male genitals was a major concern for her – but why then take this as an opporuntity to reinforce female qualities with her as she clearly retained “boy things” such as stereotypical boy hobbies and interests. Is there no room in medical discourse for the concept of sex dysphoria* – why the need to have ‘gender dysphoria’ when gender arguably is a social construct?

Overall I did really appreciate the attitude of the families concerning their children’s feelings but one worry was the language Josie’s mother used with her. Her mother referred to Josie’s penis as a ‘birth defect’, a suggestion which I felt reinforced further Josie’s negative feelings towards her genitals (was that really necessary?) as well as raising concepts that perhaps a child of eight would not, and perhaps should not have to, understand. During Feminism in London I attended a workshop about raising children in the age of porn, hoping to glean what we should be informing our children about – how do you address an issue like porn with them? What language do you use? What concepts would they understand? This is relevant here as how do we raise our children to be aware of identities such as transgender, transsexual, or even hermaphrodite?

My last comment is briefly on ethics. Another child featured in the programme (whose name completely escapes me, I am sorry) who was born a girl but living as a boy talked of having girlfriends. His mother acknowledged that yes, he did have girlfriends but at this point (still fairly young) they were not telling his girlfriends about him being born a girl. For me that posed moral issues - should you really be withholding such detail? Is this almost like deceit? Is it right only to disclose such information when those involved are odler and such relationships hint at becoming physical?  

Comments, as always, are welcomed.

Laura

*If there is literature on this please let me know, I would be most interested!

Taken from the piece over at The Guardian:

A council spokeswoman said: “West Dunbartonshire Council has installed nine sets of hair straighteners within the changing facilities at each of the council’s three new flagship schools…The falling rate of female participation in sport was a key issue discussed by pupils and improvements to changing and showering facilities, including the installation of hair straighteners, was considered important in reversing this trend. The installation amounts to a total expenditure of less than £1,000 to encourage more girls to participate in PE and support positive self-image.”

So to support positive self-image in girls we are providing them with hair and beauty facilities to encourage them to participate in PE…surely this is merely reinforcing the message that it’s all about how we look? How about promoting positive self-image through demonstrating that physical appearance isn’t the be all and end all?

Laura

In The Guardian write-up, Mary Bousted (general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers) is quoted as saying:

The problem has been that in the 1960s and 1970s boys were getting 12-13% more O-level passes than girls and no one really talked about it. When girls started to do better there were Panorama programmes and inquiries and a national debate. There’s a national panic if girls and women start to be successful. Girls have been more successful at GCSE and A-levels but that hasn’t closed the gender pay gap. Even if they do better they don’t get paid as much.

This is exactly the points I have stressed again and again in any writing on the gender gap in education – firstly this completely unjustified panic over girls ‘doing better’ than the boys and secondly the fact that despite what the qualification statistics show, better attainment at GCSE/A-Level does not equate with the better pay. Why can’t female students be seen as ‘doing better’? And why this stress on the “gender gap”? What about differences according to ethnicity or socio-economic background? Because I’m sure as hell that it’s not every girl ‘doing better’ – what about those who aren’t?

Teacher training courses emphasis the importance of differentiation and using a variety of techniques for learning and assessment in our lessons because no-one learns the same. We are told that coursework is becoming a problem because of plagiarism but then is that really a reason to remove what is potentially an effective assessment method for a large number of female students (if indeed we take the slightly deterministic argument that coursework benefits girls, exams boys)? Isn’t reliance of assessment through exams not differentiating?

A side thought (not properly investigated or backed): I think it’s telling that coursework is being removed at the educational stages where firstly girls are ‘doing better’ and secondly where girls and boys are present in proportional figures to the population when, for instance, no-one would dare suggest the removal of essays (or even dissertations!) at undergraduate level. It would be interesting to see whether such gendered patterns are present at this educational stage and the ratio of female to male undergraduates.

Laura

Onto Harman’s initiative and the body of the article itself…I can immediately see benefits and problems to this. When TDM reports that

Pupils as young as five will be taught about the evils of ‘wife beating’ and the need to form healthy relationships. The lessons are part of a controversial drive, unveiled today, to reduce violence against women and young girls. They will include teaching boys that they must not beat their partners or any other female.

I think hey! This doesn’t sound so bad! What is there not to like about a) teaching children about forming healthy relationships and b) reducing violence against women and young girls. Slightly off-putting the way it is deemed a controversial drive (because the notion of combating violence against women/young girls is way out there with, I don’t know, outlawing McDonald’s…) but so far looking good.

Last night, critics warned that ministers are cramming the already over-stuffed National Curriculum with lessons that should be taught in the home or in the community.

This has been an ongoing battle with PSHE. A colleague of mine, when speaking of the subject, would call it “PSHE…or things your parents should be teaching you”. In all honesty, yes it is things you should be taught at home/in the community as an important part of your growing-up but the argument is that this isn’t always being done. PSHE evolved from the early notions that education should be producing ‘good’ citizens socialized into the shared norms and values of our society (so New Right) and so of course when it was deemed that the family was not doing their part (government would cite rising statistics of single mothers/offenders as their proof for this) then the education system should pick up where the parents left off (or even out). I acknowledge that, yes, PSHE is largely what you should be taught at home/in the community (and which a number of us still are taught there) but that until we can ensure this is being done, the education system does appear the only means of attempting to ensure such teaching.

Putting it into practice further, the idea becomes less appealing:

The lessons will be part of the National Curriculum and are likely to be taught in Personal, Social and Health Education classes, which are attended by children from the age of five. Teachers will also be given new guidance on tackling ‘gender bullying’.

Now I am not particularly convinced that firstly this would work in practice and secondly that it would have the desired effect. My first concern comes from my experience of teaching PSHE in Key Stage 3 (ages 11-14 approximately) which has demonstrated that the learners, on the whole, dislike the subject. It is not deemed academic; it is not an option which they pick for GCSE; it is not formally assessed as such – all these things contribute to learners not seeing any potential value to the subject (again, on the whole, as there are always a handful who put in the effort/work regardless). So my concern is that this may work in practice for a small minority, but not for the larger majority. Factor into this the impact the introduction of such lessons/curriculum has on teachers, and the education establishment as a whole. An added concern here is how such a sensitive issue would be approached. A year or so ago OCR removed the topic of Child Abuse from their AS-level Sociology course because of the implications of teaching such a sensitive topic and possible impact on learners. Wouldn’t this warrant similar concerns?

The most eye-catching proposal in the document is the one to force schools to introduce statutory lessons in ‘educating children and young people about healthy, nonviolent relationships’.

I love the idea of children and young people learning about healthy, nonviolent relationships but here we come to how I don’t think such lessons would have the desired effect. Making children and young people aware of violence against women may have positive aspects but as these lessons will not cover violence against men then I believe such lessons will run the risk of further instilling gender differences in young girls and boys. By acknowledging only violence against women and valuing this above violence against men, I believe we would only be purporting that violence against women is justified. If as young children we are brought into a discourse of violence against women I think this could potentially be internalized and acknowledged as we grow older that such violence happens against women, and not men, because of something fundamentally different in them. And though I am not saying this will mean the next generation committing violence against women as a result, I think this will result in further justification of women’s inferior position and treatment.

They pointed out the new classes will not cover violence against men, who are far more likely to be the victims of violent crime. This is despite evidence showing that boys and young men are more than twice as likely to fall victim to violence, and that young women are becoming increasingly aggressive.

I do agree with the criticism of the initiative not covering violence against men. Not because they are far more likely to be the victims of violent crime but firstly because of the argument I have expressed above and secondly because I think the commonly held assumption of, say, domestic violence as violence against women by men needs to be addressed. This is not going to be addressed by navigating away from discussion of violence against men in lessons focusing on healthy, nonviolent relationships. This then suggests that such violence is not important. Not only is domestic violence underreported by women, it is underreported by men who have been victims. Surely keeping the discussion of violence against men behind closed doors is not helping to correct such misrepresentation?

Laura

End Note: I am aware that I have focused my line of thought predominantly on domestic violence and it is slightly presumptuous (and hypocritical) of myself to have done so when talking about an initiative combating ‘violence against women’ (which was not expressed as merely
domestic violence) and criticizing others for their assumptions on the same issue.

Images by Susan Anderson

Charlotte