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

GEA Policy Report Autumn 2012

UK Feminista is a relatively new organization of ‘ordinary women and men campaigning for gender equality’. Founded just over 2 years ago, it has wide and international aims, namely a ‘vision of a world where women enjoy all the rights enshrined in CEDAW – the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women – otherwise known as the ‘women’s bill of rights’. Continue Reading

A Conference Report for GEA

At the end of last month I started my week with a colleague from Sussex University, a few of our new masters students and a trip to the CLF theatre in Peckham Rye. We were there to watch The Girls – a play based on the lives of the four young people who performed in the play. The play was set at a group counselling session in South London. Four young people turned up and waited for the counsellor who never arrived. And as they waited, London started rioting and as the news of the looting and violence poured in via their mobile phones, the on-stage drama followed each young person’s story – the mistakes they had made, the anger and pain they had experienced and the hopeless, stuck position in which they found themselves. This was a harrowing welcome to child hood and youth studies for the new students. As a youth practitioner and researcher I think I am pretty hardened to harrowing tales of young peoples’ sexual exploitation, domestic violence, neglect, hunger, gang violence, anger, loss and pain, but the raw emotion and hopelessness of this play still hit me hard.

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A Conference Report for GEA

The working title for my research is: ‘Learning to Serve Time: troubling Spaces of Working Class Masculinity in the U.K’. It aims to explore, through the in-depth study of a group of young adult prisoners, the ways in which the construction of a particular version(s) of masculinity operate as a factor in the academic (under)achievement, economic marginalisation, subsequent incarceration and later disadvantage of this particular group of young adult men. This research area links to some of the main themes presented at the conference including gender, youth and education. The day was packed with interesting and stimulating presentations, and thought provoking panel discussions. I was encouraged that the conference organisers gave space to community organisations, postgraduate students and established academics. Continue Reading

A Conference Report for GEA

I work as a post-graduate research associate on a research initiative focused on young men’s experiences of unemployment in the UK during a time of austerity: ‘Diaspora geographies and generations: spaces of civil engagement’. This is a collaborative research endeavour directed by Professor Linda McDowell and in collaboration with Dr. Esther Rootham. This research has particular relevance to gender and education as we look at gendered experiences of unemployed young men in the UK with specific interest in how their formal education and skills training map onto their structured experiences of precarious work and unemployment. Continue Reading

A Conference Report for GEA

Recently I had the pleasure of attending Collisions, Coalitions and Riotous Subjects:The London Riots one year on. The riots in August 2012 came just as I was preparing to begin my teacher training; I was fascinated by the reporting of the disturbance and violence as emanating from a disenfranchised, feral youth, unconnected to the society around them and wondered if I would see this in the teenagers I was about to embark on teaching. Throughout the course of the year I explored concepts of privilege and power with my pupils. Though my postgraduate research predominantly focuses on narratives of sexualities within the law and I was keen to combine my education background and current sociological perspective in order to explore further the narratives created around youth and misrule. Particularly interesting was the focus on riotous bodies and the idea of them as both dissonant and representative of specific groups or perceptions.

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Dear Colleagues,

We are writing to you to update you on recent developments with regard to the future of the Women’s Library, which is housed at London Metropolitan University.

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The Nordic Educational Research Association (NERA) is the main Nordic organisation for educational researchers and it has had a Gender and Education network for some 20 years. At this year’s NERA conference held in Copenhagen (8-10 March), the network organised paper sessions, roundtable discussions and a Gender and Education meeting which was attended by 23 delegates from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Estonia and Japan.

The conference followed an active year for NERA’s Gender and Education network. They organised a symposium at AERA’s 2011 conference, updated their website and launched a network email list, which currently has 60 members. These members are predominantly based in Sweden and Iceland where NERA’s 2013 conference will take place. Further information concerning this can be found on NERA’s website. Alternatively, join NERA’s Gender and Education email list by contacting Jukka Lehtonen (jukka.p.lehtonen@helsinki.fi).

The Women’s Budget Group (WBG) has released its latest assessment of the Coalition’s economic strategy. It considers the UK’s Autumn Financial Statement which underpins the UK ‘budget’ to be announced in the spring of 2012, against the backdrop of Government policies about gender equality. It shows how the Government has ignored its own policies in presenting a gender impact analysis; and how the Government’s policies will impact adversely on women, particularly its public sector policies. Instead of promoting Plan A or even Plan B – an alternative Labour plan, it argues for Plan F – a feminist strategy that promotes equality, jobs and growth. This includes a specific focus on women and educational and family policies. The GEA could contribute more specifically to this Plan F by developing a stronger analysis in terms of schooling and education across the lifecourse. Continue Reading

Olive Schreiner (1855-1920) is one of the world’s great feminist writers and social theorists, with her novels including The Story of an African Farm and her political treatises including Woman and Labour among many other writings. She also wrote c4800+ exceptionally important letters between 1871 and 1920, a period of momentous changes in the world which her letters are concerned with, and which also brought changes regarding letter-writing and literary practices too. Schreiner’s letters – all of them, in full, detailed and easy to read transcriptions – are now available electronically world-wide. Continue Reading