Co-Convenors: Dr Emily Gray (RMIT University), Dr Anne Harris (Monash University) & Professor Julie McLeod (The University of Melbourne)

Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne

234 Queensberry Street, Parkville, Melbourne, Australia

The Gender and Education Association (GEA), in association with the University of Melbourne, Monash University, and RMIT University, is inviting abstracts for the 2014 Gender and Education Biennial Interim Conference

We would like to invite you to the Gender and Education Association Biennial Interim Conference, which is being held in the southern hemisphere for the first time. The conference focus reflects the complexities of Australia’s geopolitical location in the Asia-Pacific region, its history as colonised and coloniser, and its current position as part of both the ‘global north and the global south’.

The conference themes underscore the breadth of concerns and questions within the field of gender and education, the diversity of current challenges and emerging possibilities, and the pressing need to consider the relevance of context, place and history in understanding these matters.

We welcome abstract submissions for individual papers, symposia as well as ‘non traditional’ presentations, such as performance pieces, poetry and pecha kucha: http://www.pechakucha.org/.  Abstracts for single papers should be 250 words; and for symposia 250 words for each paper. For symposia, please include an overview rationale of up to 200 words.  Performance pieces and pecha kucha should also submit a description of the proposed presentation of 250 words.  All abstract submissions need to include the name of presenter/s, affiliation, title of presentation, a brief biographical statement of up to 50 words, and up to 5 keywords to describe the focus and themes of the presentation.

For more details including submission please visit the conference website: http://education.unimelb.edu.au/go/GEA2014#papers

or

e-mail enquiries or abstracts as Word documents to: gea2014@gmail.com

Deadline for submission: 30 April 2014

Confirmation of participation: by 16 June 2014

Call for Papers PDF

By Yvette Taylor, GEA Member

I was excited to be invited to speak at ‘The Rebirth of Feminism’ conference, with the title posing potential… and, perhaps, problems or even pain. A ‘rebirth’ is loaded with prospects and (re)production, as enduring feminist labour. This is messy and, while something (and someone) ‘arrives’, the potential, problems and pain arguably carries on (see ‘feminist failures’).

Intrigued, I wondered what (and who) was being re-birthed, pondering on the newness implied, and the feminist lines and lives continued, renewed or rejected.  Feminism(s) have long articulated and circulated the language of ‘family’, of ‘sisterhood’, and generational ‘waves’, suggestive of a generational inheritance and ‘passing on’; these notions can veer between a ‘never had it so good’ to a ‘failing the future’ sentiment. As the recent Gender and Education Association 2013 conference variously considered, I wondered ‘who gets to inherit and what is accumulated and lost in renewing feminism?’

I considered these questions as I searched for an object’ to bring to the conference, as instructed by the organisers. The chosen object was intended to foster discussion, deliberately deviating from a stand-and-speak format of knowing-feminist speaker versus feminist-in-training audience. Conscious of these knowledge exchanges, often bound up with generational positions, I chose to speak about my own retrieved school report cards, marking my own educational trajectory. Which I wouldn’t easily describe – or feel – as an ‘arrival’ (see here).

Report cards are something we’ve all likely experienced (arguably continued and self-audited as our own academic CVs). We’ve all been evaluated, and as educators, we all evaluate, celebrating potential and lamenting failure. When the question of our own academic biographies intersects with questions of women’s entry into the world of employment and education more generally, questions of potential can quickly become problematic – even recast as feminist failure.  As Angela McRobbie highlights in the Aftermath of Feminism, women’s entry into the workforce, as beneficiaries of and achievers in education, has become a sign of ‘arrival’, that she has found her place in a (post)feminist world. But she can also go ‘too far’ and (some) women’s achievement has also been seen as a cause and symptom of a male-underachievement and ‘crisis of masculinity’ (even with his pay differential).

In presenting, I hoped to remind everyone of this story beyond me, even as I placed my report cards on the floor, in the group circle; as we report on feminist potential (and failure) we must, of course, move beyond our own stories. But here is mine: I rediscovered my school report cards, held as valued and treasured objects, even though what they conveyed on the pages was frequently a ‘failure’ rather than a ‘success’. In reading these educational (mis)representations of me, my initial curiosity moved to an anger and even dismay as I realized the emotional (and material) pull these stories still had for me as an adult.

I am deeply skeptical of the story of meritocratic promise, of working really hard (and, romantically, ‘against all the odds’) and so I certainly didn’t want to convey a problematic beginning, transformed by an educational ‘becoming’. Instead, I wanted to query these official stories, which seem profoundly marked by classed and gendered terms and anticipated trajectories. My own reports are littered with ‘lapses into idle chatter’, of being ‘easily distracted’ and rather ‘slap dash’ in approach: the phrase ‘continual underachievement’ is, for one subject, underlined and in my physical education report a rather harsh judgment is made that I have, in fact, ‘not mastered the basic skills’ (of badminton).

So, when the ‘girl with potential’ becomes celebrated, anticipated and lamented, as a sign of feminist future/failure, we need to be attentive to the re-birthing and recirculation of enduring inequalities, so as to report feminist potential for everyone.

Dr Kate Reynolds, an Executive Member of the Gender and Education Association has been appointed as a Trustee for the National Union of Students.

The role includes ensuring the NUS acts in accordance with good corporate governance.

Kate is Chair of the HR committee and is taking a lead role on equality and diversity issues.

Kate said ‘I’m delighted to be a Trustee for the NUS.  I’m particularly pleased to be a Trustee during the presidency of Toni Pearce, the first NUS president from an FE college”.

nus logo (blk)

“Write this down.”

When I first began participant observation in India’s anganwadis –free, government run early childhood care and education centers that form the backbone of India’s Integrated Child Development Services scheme (ICDS) – this was a common refrain.  That, and, “Put this in your book,” “Make sure you tell people,” and, “You’re taking this to Delhi, right?”

These were the words of anganwadi workers, the all-female workforce recruited from India’s poorest communities to run angnawadis. Workers are often low caste and low income; many are the primary breadwinners in their extended families. They are also some of the most skilled advocates I have ever met, lobbying local councilors for space and resources, navigating families past obstinate bureaucrats and mountains of paperwork, and crusading for girls’ education by breaking up early marriages, enrolling daughters in school, and implementing schemes designed to counteract female infanticide.

And yet, the workers I observed were overwhelmed with invisibility. No one knows what we do, they told me.  No one asks our opinion. No one respects us. The extent of the problem became apparent in Bangalore, my primary research site, when workers began calling each other to say, “Mathangi madam is here. She’s writing a book. Shall I send her to you?”

Feminist scholar Mohanty (2003) argues that the invisibility of women’s work – and, in particular, the work of low-income women of color – is a byproduct of patriarchy, both because it is the result of devaluing all that is female and because invisibility allows for the perpetuation of financial male-domination.  Women’s work (defined as both the work women do and work associated with women such as cooking, cleaning, and child care) is positioned as nothing more than the daily tasks required for men to do the “real” work of capitalism.  It is easy to justify unpaid labor if you insist that it does not exist.

For anganwadi workers, invisibility is institutionalized.  The Indian government labels the women “voluntary” and pays them “honorariums” even though they work seven hours a day, five days a week, plus a half day on Saturday.  Even when the media covers issues relevant to ICDS, anganwadi workers are almost never mentioned; instead, articles invoke their colleagues (like health workers), superiors (like Ministers) or un-appointed spokespeople (like non-elected union leaders). Yet, I have not to meet anyone in India who is more intimately familiar with the realities of child poverty, or better equipped to make recommendations about its alleviation. But you cannot ask the opinions of those you cannot see.

Dismantling this invisibility, Mohanty (2003) argues, means dismantling patriarchy. She writes,

“Making Third World women workers visible in this gender, race, class formation…leads to thinking about the possibilities of emancipatory action on the basis of the reconceptualization of Third World women as agents rather than victims.” (p. 143)

It was this call to action that inspired me to work with professional photographer Greeshma Patel to develop Picturing Change, an attempt to literally render anganwadi workers’ work visible. This July, using a grant from the Fulbright Foundation and funds crowdsourced on Indiegogo, Greeshma and I purchased digital cameras and began training five anganwadi workers – Geetha, Sujatha, Sumitra, Varalakshmi, and Yashoda – in photography. In the past three months, the women have produced and curated an exhibit that will be on display at Thalam gallery in Bangalore from September 28 – October 12.

Already, there have been sparks of the reconceptualization Mohanty (2003) precits. Visitors to Picturing Change’s Facebook page tell us the photos have disproved their preconceived notions that government workers are lazy, submissive, and corrupt. Senior ICDS officials who viewed the photos said they did not realize the range of activities anganwadi workers implemented in their centers, or the creativity with which they approached their jobs. A local NGO that is influential in national early childhood policy asked if the workers could speak at a community forum about reforming ICDS. Such shifts reposition women’s work as skilled, as well as important, and women workers as experts in their fields.

The participants say the project has brought them attention and respect, giving them confidence in themselves and pride in their work. At least two are planning to write personal testimonials for local presses, and all of them are interested in producing a book after the exhibit ends.

Dyrness (2008) writes that “we cannot hope to transform social structures without first transforming ourselves,” supporting feminist scholars who have argued that personal healing is a necessary first step to radicalization. While I do not dispute that transformation is a prerequisite to change, I am reminded of Chowdhury’s (2011) well founded claim that too often, NGOs, academics, and activists who settle for individual empowerment do not do enough to fight for structural change. For me, Picturing Change has been transformational, in that it has taught me the power of images to remake identities narrowly and falsely hewn by intersecting oppressions. Most importantly, it has taught me the importance of working beside women in solidarity, rather than for women in a separate, elitist space.

Last week, I was at Varalakshmi’s anganwadi on a day when she had invited mothers to come have their children weighed to assess whether or not they were malnourished. She balanced a camera in one hand, using the other to record weights, hold babies, and steady hanging scales.

When I asked if she wanted help, she said, “No madam, I’ll do it myself.”

So I sat, and I listened, and I watched, in solidarity, as, slowly and surely, Varalakshmi’s invisibility faded away.

Written by Dr. Mathangi Subramanian

Picturing Change will be on view in Thalam Gallery in Bangalore from September 28 – October 12. You can also follow our progress on www.facebook.com/PicturingChange.

Dr. Mathangi Subramanian is a Banglore-based writer, educator, and Fulbright Scholar.  Her writing has appeared in academic and popular publications ranging from Gender and Education to The Hindu Sunday Magazine to the seal press anthology Click!: When We Knew We Were Feminists. She is the co-editor of Us Education in a World of Migration: Implications for Policy and Practice, which is forthcoming from Routledge. Her first single authored book, Bullying: The Ultimate Teen Guide, will be published by Scarecrow Press in 2014. She can be reached at ms2763@columbia.edu.

Thanks to Greeshma Patel for allowing us to use this photo

Last month the Guardian newspaper featured an article by 17 year old Jinan Younis about the sexist abuse she and her peers received after setting up a feminist society in her school.  Jinan’s story demonstrates the importance of schools as sites where feminist activism can grow and where girls and young women can safely and creatively think about and challenge sexism and gender inequality. Yet her story also, sadly, demonstrates that this space is under threat.  One of the many responses to Jinan’s brave story was the creation of a fantastic project called ‘Feminism Belongs: a collection of photo messages about why schools need to take gender empowerment seriously. GEA invited Jinan and Tanya O’Carroll (who, along with Jinan, helped create the ‘Feminism Belongs’ project) to write a guest blog about their experiences.  We hope readers enjoy their post, and are inspired to post their own photo messages!

Jinan Younis:

I am Jinan Younis and I recently wrote an article about my experiences of setting up a feminist society at my school.

I felt that my situation of girls being verbally abused, humiliated and intimidated for speaking out against sexism highlighted a very serious problem that was common in many schools like my own: there is no feminist education. There is no system or policy in place that teaches boys and girls about fundamental issues such as consent and rape, gender inequality, and body image. There is ignorance and aggression surrounding feminism and serious issues facing women. There is a huge reluctance from boys to consider issues that face women as ‘real’ issues. I was recently told that feminism is a ‘minor issue’, and one boy told me that he agreed that sexism still exists, before asking me not to tell his friends about our conversation. This apathy and hatred of feminism among young boys needs to be addressed.

As I went to an all-girls school, I have witnessed the sorts of traumas that teen girls face. There is a huge lack of self worth and self confidence among girls. I’ve had friends who were in emotionally and physically abusive relationships, and I can’t even begin to describe the pressures that face young girls concerning body image. Too many have eating disorders; too many turn that packet of crisps around to inspect the calories. Too many find their self confidence resting on whether the boy walking past checks them out. Too few are happy in their own bodies. I think schools should take an active role in creating a space where these issues are openly discussed and are dealt with. Schools should support girls in their fight against sexism, and should take a leading role in ensuring gender equality, healthy body image, and instilling much needed self worth among young girls.

The pledge ‘Schools against sexism’ aims to provide schools with a framework which will help them tackle sexism in their institutions. It states clearly the areas that need to be addressed, such as body image, respect and equality, and it allows the schools to have contact with large organisations such as End Violence Against Women. In order to gather support for this pledge, we have also set up a tumblr campaign ‘Feminism belongs in Education’. In this, people hold up a board with the words ‘Feminism belongs in schools because…’ with their own personal response. This campaign aims to acquire support from students and teachers, along with the general public, so that head teachers realise the necessity of implementing a policy of gender equality in their schools.

I believe that the only way that we can change the deep rooted sexism that is still such a huge part of our society is through education. Schools have the power to change the sexist attitudes of young boys, to encourage boys and girls to challenge gender stereotypes, to offer support to young girls and boys in the face of teenage pressures, and to instate a sense of self worth, self respect and mutual respect amongst teens. I think schools are currently leaving out a vital part of education for young girls and boys. Gender, rape, sexual consent, unhealthy body image, lack of respect and sexual harassment are all issues that are especially common among teens. I believe that schools have the power to change this.

Tanya O’Carroll:

Two weeks ago I read an article that touched me deeply. A young woman, Jinan Younis, had written an article in the Guardian explaining what happened when she set up a Feminist Society in her all girls school. Along with the other girls in the society Jinan became the victim of extraordinary online abuse and intimidation from boys in her wider social circle – so much so that the school asked the society to cease its feminist activities, citing concerns for the girls’ safety.

Did I find the boys’ attitudes to Jinan and her peers particularly surprising? Not really. I myself was at school less than a decade ago and the description of the boys’ behaviour was familiar. I think we got used to the idea that as teenagers we should ‘rise above’ constant sexual jokes and harassment, that the boys were just being boys, that they would grow out of it, and that it was harmless. The main difference is that none of us at school would have thought to openly call ourselves feminists. Should we have, I am convinced that, like Jinan, we would have come up against a much nastier and aggressive form of abuse.

However, while the boys behaviour in Jinan’s article didn’t surprise me, the school’s did. Actually I wouldn’t call it surprise. What I felt was extreme anger and sadness. Jinan’s words were deeply troubling:

We, a group of 16-, 17- and 18-year-old girls, have made ourselves vulnerable by talking about our experiences of sexual and gender oppression only to elicit the wrath of our male peer group…Without the support from our school, girls who had participated in the campaign were isolated, facing a great deal of verbal abuse with the full knowledge that there would be no repercussions for the perpetrators.

I felt an overwhelming urgency to let Jinan and the other girls know that they were not alone;  that there were many of us who agreed with her and who were living with the consequences of sexism going unchecked. For while I personally didn’t suffer the worst pressures of my gender at school they crept up on me. At Cambridge University I encountered a different breed of misogyny, where institutions such as the Pitt Club still exist and where old boy’s mentality dictates so many of the social rules.

I also came to notice it as I got older, when I discovered my six year old sister’s preoccupation and fascination with body image. Where I had previously ignored sexism in advertising and the media I began to notice it everywhere and saw the damage that it was doing to another generation of boys and girls.

I wanted Jinan’s school to know that they had failed her and so many of us when they did not promote and encourage their student’s feminist work. Many of us felt the same. I reached out to a few friends on Facebook and a group of us grew, as people added people, who added more people. We soon found ourselves with an active and passionate circle, including teachers and campaigners, community artists and social workers who wanted to send schools a message the Feminism is desperately needed in education.

We reached out to Jinan and worked with her to set-up the Feminism Belongs project, a collection of photo messages about why our education institutions need to take gender empowerment seriously. We were amazed at the rapid response. By the end of the week we had tons of entries, some coming from far away, including Estonia and Mexico. It seemed that both Jinan, and our message that Feminism Belongs, had touched a nerve.

It is obvious that gender oppression and sexism still pervade our society and it is hard to know where to begin to unpick them. One thing I am certain of is that feminist education is critical for young girls and boys growing up today. Not to teach gender divides but to open up conversations and safe spaces for both sexes to honestly explore the multiplicity of gender pressures that affect them. The struggle for gender equality is far from over and we will not have put it to rest until all of us – men and women, boys and girls – are proud to call ourselves feminists and understand the powerful idea of equality, choice and dignity that the word stands for.

Inspired? Want to get involved? Here’s how:

• Take your own photos and add  them to the Feminism Belongs website: http://feminismbelongs.tumblr.com/  
• Sign and promote the UK Feminista ‘Schools Against Sexism’ pledge – and get your school or your child’s school to sign up to: http://ukfeminista.org.uk/take-action/generation-f/schools-against-sexism-pledge/
• Why not write a guest blog for GEA and tell us about your own experiences of setting up, running or being part of a Feminist Society in school, college or university; or tell us why you think feminism belongs in schools and how we can make sure that it stays that way.  Contact Kim Allen if you’re interested in writing for us (k.allen@mmu.ac.uk)

*These images come from the Feminism Belongs site. Thank you to Tanya and Jinan for allowing us to use these here.

GEA Policy Report – July 2013

Malala Day, July 12, 2013, was a week ago, as it was Malala Yousafrai’s 16^th birthday. To celebrate she was invited to speak at the United Nations in New York about her campaigns for universal and free education for all (EFA) and the speech she gave was broadcast to schoolchildren worldwide. She argued that ‘I do not even hate the Talib who shot me. If he stood in front of me, I would not shoot him…The[y] are afraid of books and pens. The power of education frightens them. They are afraid of women. The power of the voice of women frightens them…’

Readers will recall that Malala was the Pakistani schoolgirl who was shot in the face on her way home from school by a Taliban gunman in the Swat valley on October 12^th 2012. She was severely injured and flown to England for surgery in Birmingham at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. She has made a miraculous recovery and is now attending secondary school in Birmingham. Her family has moved to Birmingham to be with her.

Malala had begun her campaigning for girls’ education in 2009, under a pseudonym, writing a blog for the BBC world service. Her father was a headteacher in the area and encouraged her education. According to The Guardian (28 March 2013, p.6) her real identity became known and she frequently appeared in Pakistan and international media advocating for the right of girls to go to school. In October 2011, Archbishop Desmond Tutu nominated her for the International Children’s Peace prize and in December 2011, aged 14, she was awarded Pakistan’s first National Youth Peace Prize. It was this that eventually brought her to the attention of the Taliban in the region, given their wishes to reinforce women’s subordinate role as housewives and mothers befitting their version of Islamic texts.  

Malala’s cause has been taken up by several international celebrities, for instance the film star Angelina Jolie, who has been campaigning for women’s rights and especially health questions such as breast cancer, given her own diagnosis.

Malala has also been contracted to write a book entitled I am Malala about her life. It will be published by Weidenfeld & Nicholson in the UK and Commonwealth and by Little, Brown in the rest of the world.  She argued then that ‘I hope this book will reach people around the world, so they realize how difficult it is for some children to get access to education. I want to tell my story, but it will also be the story of 61 million children who can’t get education. I want to be part of the campaign to give every boy and girl the right to go to school.’

International politicians have also jumped on the bandwagon and tried to transform this campaign into a wider political issue. For example, the incoming Secretary of State for the US, John Kerry, replacing Hillary Clinton, argued that he would continue her fight for women. In an article entitled Malala’s vital lesson for US foreign policy published in London’s Evening Standard on international women’s day (March 8, 2013, p.14) he argued that the world should tackle ‘gender-based violence. As the father of two daughters, I cannot imagine the pain suffered by the parents of the young woman known as ‘Nirbhaya’ the 23 year old medical student murdered on a New Dehli bus simply for being a woman, or the anguish felt by the parents of Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani girl shot by extremists as she too rode on a bus, simply for wanting to go to school’. He then went on that ‘No country can ahead if it leaves half its people behind…That is why the United States believes gender equality is critical to our shared goals of prosperity, stability and peace, and why investing in women and girls worldwide is critical to advancing US foreign policy.’

Similarly, the former British prime minister and now UN education envoy, Gordon Brown, and his wife Sarah Brown have taken up her cause. They were involved with organizing Malala Day both at the UN, and through the children’s charity Plan UK, A World at School. Since Malala’s attack, the Pakistani government has passed a law making primary school education mandatory for all children. This was originally part of the UNESCO’s Millennium Development goals of 2000, to be implemented by 2010!

The goals of universal girls’ education and education for all are clearly vitally important in the world and the GEA supports both wholeheartedly. The two goals, however, confuse rather than clarify gender relations. Gender-related violence is not confined to the developing regions of the world, although it is clear that it remains a serious problem for the implementation of EFA.

A senior member of the Pakistani Taliban has written an open letter to Malala ‘expressing regret that he didn’t warn her before the attack, but claiming that she was targeted for maligning the insurgents…and ‘smearing’ them rather than for her campaign for girls’ education.’ (The Guardian, 18 July 2013, p. 3). In other words, he argued that the use of the gun was legitimate in the battle for a ‘proper’ form of Islam in the region. Thus violence, and gender-based violence in particular remain legitimate.

It is also the case that the campaigns for education ignore gender-based violence which are still rife in the UK and USA and elsewhere. We must continue to argue for a more appropriate form of education for all that tackles issues of gender, gender based sexual abuse, as part of child sexual abuse as well as including violence against women (VAW) as part of a proper education for all.

Miriam David,

GEA Policy Officer

July 19^th 2013

GEA Policy Report – June 2013 – Reporting from AERA

The American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual meeting held in San Francisco in late April-early May 2013 held much of interest to GEA members, targeted as it was on “Education and Poverty: Theory, Research, Policy, and Praxis,” and to other critical issues in education. Other critical issues to education, for once, included gender, as well as race, ethnicity and class. Policy and praxis were also treated as expansive concepts and not confined to governance or government only. Interestingly, too, the conference meetings were truly digitized and there was much use of social media such as Facebook and Twitter and we were invited to see conference highlights each day with a daily email reminder through our own programmes and emails etc.

At times, it began to feel as if paper and the presentation of papers might be from a bygone era. This did not quite happen as there were a multitude of paper sessions and presentations, mostly using power point in one form or another. Nevertheless, whilst sessions were in progress people would be tweeting and commenting into the ether, making for a much wider, richer and fuller experience (although I still have not [yet] mastered the intricacies of twitter and so do not know quite how widespread the practice has become).

Most importantly, however, there were several sessions by GEA members, and associates, including regional representatives from around the world. One of the co-organisers of the next interim GEA conference and co-editor of Gender and Education – Julie Mcleod – also gave presentations, making it feel as if our presence was well and truly on the map. Advance notice of our interim conference to be held in Melbourne Australia at the University of Melbourne in November-December 2014 was made, making it feel as if it was already becoming a reality and would be both a virtual and a real experience if AERA is anything to go by.

Feminist activism and pedagogy in diverse contexts: revisiting the paradoxes of feminine educational ‘success’ became a critically successful session, chosen as it was for special review and evaluation by the AERA team. It was organized by Jessica Ringrose (a GEA executive member) and included in the Women and Education sig (special interest group). It reprised and extended the symposium presented the previous week at the GEA biennial conference at London South Bank University. It was an altogether bigger event than in London, although the room allocated was probably much smaller it was packed full of feminists, and over 100 attended the session, despite the early (Monday) morning start of 8.15 am. It did feel a bit as if we were going back to school!

Jessica presented an extremely lively and spirited argument about the objectives of the session being about the politics and practice of gender equality in education in the 21^st century (despite her severe illness). The papers were to, and did indeed, range across the challenges surrounding and sustaining feminist engagement in educational spaces, given ‘post-feminist’ assumptions that feminism has already achieved its aims in the ‘global north’. Together we were to and did explore diverse femininities and how different girls face different paradoxes in negotiating the reactive discourse of feminine educational ‘success’. We also all engaged with a mass of empirical data on women and girls from a range of international locations and the panel presenters included contributors from international projects. As Jessica argued collectively the papers demonstrated how feminist activism is challenging a range of raced, classed, gender and sexual inequalities and the dilemmas facing different girls and women as they struggle to achieve and succeed in the new global marketplace. The question of understanding and challenging what is meant by success is becoming increasingly problematic in a commodified and commericalised marketplace of education across the board and sexualisation.

In the US, the panel included Ileana Jimenez, a feminist high school teacher from New York who had been unable to afford to come to England, and Marnina Gornick, the Canadian feminist educator, was the discussant of all the papers (who had also not come to the UK). Neither Jane Kenway from Australia nor Debbie Epstein from the UK were well enough to come to the US (although Debbie had presented the paper in London at the GEA conference) to present on Classy girls and not so classy politics from their international (Australian-funded) ethnographic study of 9 elite independent schools with 2 girls and 1 boys, and the rest co-educational. The schools are located variously in the UK, South Africa, Australia, Argentina, Barbados, Hong Kong, India, Singapore. (I therefore presented the paper that Debbie had given in London).

In both the US and UK, I set the scene with my paper on my forthcoming book entitled Feminism, gender and universities: politics, passion and pedagogies. I reflect upon feminist activism in global academe over the last 50 years to consider what has been achieved by academic feminism as both a political and educational project. Has feminism transformed women’s lives in the direction of gender equality and gendered power relations? What remains to be done, given paradoxical social and political transformations in neo-liberalism, and what should be undone and refashioned towards a more feminist-friendly future?  I have developed a collective memoir and life history drawing on the stories and narratives of over 100 international feminist academics and activists from the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, USA etc and drawn into social and feminist networks, including education feminism through AERA. The stories together mount a critique of what can now be seen as a misogynistic numbers game with the claim that gender equality in education has been achieved in higher education, given the majority of women undergraduate students in universities in the global north as shown by UNESCO’s Atlas of Gender Equality in Education (March 2012).

Ileana Jimenez followed with a most engaging presentation on her work on Teaching Feminism In High School: Moving from Theory to Action. She showed how teaching theory provides students with scholarly frameworks for understanding systematic oppression along lines of race, class, gender and sexuality and gave us numerous examples of how she succeeded with doing this in her classrooms in NYC and Washington. She also added examples of creating partnerships with local and national women’s and girls’ activist groups to allow students to apply intersectionality as a feminist theory to real-world issues, including the sexualisation of girls in the media, the commercial sexual exploitation of children, as well as street and school harassment. She argued that students not only learn to analyse these issues but also act on them by leveraging a variety of platforms, ranging from blogging to direct advocacy and activism. She also showed us how these practices impact upon student empowerment, as they find both their written and activist voices as social change agents on the ground, online, and on air.

Emma Renold (also a member of the GEA executive) presented the joint paper with Jessica Ringrose entitled ‘Disengaged’ girls doing teen feminism: mapping the contradictions in a feminist pedagogical-research assemblage (Jessica having presented it in London). They show the limitations and possibilitiers of a girl power group in a Welsh school that was organized to raise the achievement of ‘disengaged’ girls. They presented an analysis of the group activities which included girls’ teaching about domestic violence, ‘sexualisation’ and healthy sexual relationships to younger students, as well as participating in activist events and conferences. They also showed the contradictions and difficulties girls face in doing and becoming teen feminists and becoming part of a feminist pedagogical assemblage. They also illustrate the ‘schizoid’ condition of being positioned simultaneously as ‘underachievers’, ‘feminists’ and ‘teachers’ but also having to teach about healthy sexuality whilst simultaneously being embroiled in their own complex ménage of gender and sexual teen relations/hips.

Victoria Showunmi from IOE London gave the final presentation of the AERA session on her work entitled Using feminist critical race theory and intersectionality to explore Black girls’ narratives about the British education system. She presented another extremely lively and thought-provoking paper about how the continuous surge of focus on boys’ [under]achievement and girls’ success has erased the classed, racial and gendered complexities of educational achievement. From a research, policy and activist perspective this has left a significant gap in understandings around Black Minority Ethnic (BME) girls’ experiences in the UK education system, she argued. She therefore explored why some BME young girls appear to succeed and achieve in education, whilst others may find the pathway too stressful and ‘drop’ out. She took the opportunity to explore the issues raised to find a way of creating a voice for BME girls in UK schooling, challenging the longstanding myth that ‘all black girls’ are achieving in education.  Her paper provided some wonderful examples of these contradictions. (At GEA in London Emily Henderson also gave a spirited presentation on her thesis work on gender theory replacing Victoria who was unable to attend).

Marnina Gornick drew the threads together of the session by asking several pertinent questions about feminine educational ‘success’ in the current neo-liberal context and inviting further contributions. The session ended on an inconclusive note as we were out of time, but excited by how we were bringing together theory, and praxis around these challenging and difficult issues for the future.

Miriam E. David

June 7^th 2013

Women’s under-representation in education settings, and especially in their more powerful or influential posts is well established. In 27 countries of the European Union women occupy just only 20 per cent of A grade (full professor) (She Figures, 2012). In UK universities, men outnumber women by a margin of four to one in senior academic positions while women are over-represented in lower teaching grades and temporary research positions (Morley, 1999; Bagilhole, 2002). The under-representation of women within the academy extends to editorial board memberships (Metz & Harzing, 2009) and research funding bodies (European Commission, 2008). Finally, of the 24 research-intensive universities comprising the Russell group, only one namely, The University of Manchester is led by a woman.

global gender index

These gender differences are even more pronounced in science and technology as the Times Higher Education’s Global Gender Index shows (Times Higher Education) but these differences are also evident in business and management schools. In my recent article I have analysed the data from the top 10 business schools around the world using the Financial Times rankings to show that women rarely exceed more than a quarter of all academic staff and that their representation in leadership positions is even lower (Fotaki, 2013). However, statistics do not show the informal processes of exclusion, devaluation, and marginalization that constitute major impediments to women faculty members’ achievements. These strike at the very heart of the academic enterprise, posing questions about the gendering of meritocracy. The absence of women from senior roles in management education settings may also have a potentially detrimental impact on promoting different role models for future operatives and leaders.

The dramatic increase of numbers of students and university lecturers in higher education, and management schools in the UK in particular, has hardly altered the nature of gendered work relations in the university. The majority of women academics occupy lower-paid teaching posts and temporary research positions and their unequal pay and career prospects are well documented. Gender inequalities and various forms of discrimination are also experienced by students at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. For example, women remain a minority on MBA courses, and there are very few programmes aiming to develop female business leaders (Ibeh et al., 2008).

Gender discrimination is culturally embedded and ideologically-informed stereotypes prove particularly difficult to shift. Researchers indicate how ‘feminine’ roles from outside professional life seem to continue to disadvantage women’s careers, and how their careers limit their personal life choices. However, complex considerations affecting women’s position in academia extend beyond marital status and the presence or absence of children or the existence of institutional policies aiming to promote gender diversity. Since gender stereotypes are ideological and prescriptive, their influence on academic employment processes is unlikely to diminish simply with the passage of time or with accumulating evidence of women’s capabilities. Women’s relative absence from senior academic positions is not simply a result of poor policy or erratic implementation, but a deep-seated issue requiring cultural and generational change.

Tomorrow’s one day research conference  – ‘The Unequal Academy’  – will explore these issues, bringing together scholars from across a range of disiplinies and institutions to interrogate the nature and effect of these gender inequalities within academies. The aims of the one-day conference are:

(i)                 To examine in-depth the causes of such discrimination from a comparative perspective by drawing on a variety of theoretical approaches and empirical evidence;

(ii)               To understand the reasons for discrepancy between university policies which are aimed to preclude discrimination and the lived experiences of women

(iii)             To propose evidence-based ways of counteracting this phenomenon.

Speakers include: Prof Mary Evans London School of Economics and Political Science, Prof Rosalind Gill Kings College London, Prof Valerie Hey Sussex University, Prof Rosemary Deem Royal Holloway University of London, Prof Helen Gunter University of Manchester and Prof Marianna Fotaki Manchester Business School.

The event, sponsored by Jean Monet Interdisciplinary Research Centre, is organised on 5th of June in Manchester Business School Manchester Business School (MBS West room 3.97 9.30-17.30). Attendance is free but registration is required –please contact Sophie.Thomas@mbs.ac.uk to book your place!

The event is organised by Marianna Fotaki, Professor in Health Policy, Organisation Theory and Ethics in People Management and Organisations Division, Manchester Business School, The University of Manchester. Marianna.Fotaki@mbs.ac.uk

References

Bagilhole, B. (2002). Challenging equal opportunities: Changing and adapting male hegemony in academia. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 23, 1, 19-33.

European Commission (2012). She Figures. Women and Science. Statistics and Indicators. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.

European Commission (2008). Mapping the Maze: Getting More Women to the Top in Research. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.

Fotaki, M. (2013). No woman is like a man (in academia): The masculine symbolic order and the unwanted female body. Organization Studies (forthcoming)

Ibeh, K., Carter, S., Poff, D. & Hamill, J. ‘How focused are the world’s top rated business schools on educating women for global management?, Journal of Business Ethics, 2008, 83:65–83.

Morley, L. (1999). Organising Feminisms: the Micro-politics of the Academy, Basingstoke, McMillan.

Times Higher Education, (2013) The Global Gender Index published on 2^nd May 2013.

The ninth international Gender and Education Association conference, Compelling Diversities, Educational Intersections, will take place in London this week. Hosted by the Weeks Centre for Social and Policy Research, papers, keynotes and symposia are set to consider ‘diversity’ in education, exploring the relationship between new equality regimes and continued educational inequalities, and the role of feminist research at a time when education wrestles with the commitments and contentions in doing diversity and being diverse. Continue Reading

Reporting back from the 2013 Young Sexualities Postgraduate Conference at Cardiff University Continue Reading