tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44524835406597212122024-02-06T20:23:23.501-08:00An Open Letter by a FeministFeminist Avatarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03364456372396228106noreply@blogger.comBlogger176125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452483540659721212.post-69889199736996770492011-11-05T21:50:00.000-07:002011-11-05T22:04:26.572-07:00The Universities Today<div><div><a href="http://www.historiann.com/2011/11/05/tony-grafton-on-the-higher-education-crisis-and-your-turn-to-talk-back/">Historiann</a> has tagged me to engage in a discussion about how our universities work and the problems we see in them. I am currently in the unusual position having just moved across the world from one university system to another, so I am going to try to speak to both with the enormous caveat that I know the UK system a lot better than the one downunder. For a bit of perspective, I have only ever worked in the equivalent of R1 institutions in research contracts; I do minimal teaching (and most of that is just to keep my hand in and is mostly voluntary and low pain); and minimal admin. I am relatively well-paid and well-resourced. Reflecting the value placed on research money, I tend to have big offices, good access to inter-library loans, and books, and money for research. I do have to publish a lot, but hey that’s my job, so can’t complain. Most of my day is spent researching and writing in various forms. In short, I am among the most privileged of the privileged. The only meaningful complaint I can make is that the short term nature of the contracts has meant having to live separately from my spouse and also living under a lot of pressure to ‘get the next job’, which means working long hours, publishing like crazy and barely having a personal life.<br /><br />I am going to begin by engaging with <a href="http://reassignedtime.wordpress.com/2011/11/05/the-epic-fail-or-failure-as-the-ultimate-four-letter-word/">Dr Crazy’s response</a> to this meme. In her post she argues that while universities have problems, discussing the ‘failure’ of the university system is unhelpful and probably inaccurate. And, from my perspective, this is true. In the UK, in the last twenty years, the number of universities has exploded and with it the number of people with degrees. Now, like in many places where this has happened, such expansion has led to a concern over the ‘value’ of a degree (if everyone has one, what’s it worth?) and whether we have enough skilled jobs for such a huge number of skilled workers. Are people just wasting time in higher education, when if they are going to work in the service industry anyway, they might as well just get straight on the career ladder? Now, these are all interesting questions, but as someone who came from a family that held no degrees before the late 1990s, and now has numerous spread out among various family members, and as importantly, different generations of family members, I think this has been a crucial advancement in democracy and equality. Perhaps, there is now more competition amongst graduates, but at least most of us now get to compete. For me, to move back from this position is a retrograde step in social equality – especially because the school system is not equitable. Children at state schools do not get an equal education to those privately educated. And, while it is true that children from disadvantaged areas tend to filter into lower-ranking institutions, we are at least starting to work towards a fairer system for social opportunities and advancement.<br /><br />From both a research and teaching perspective, universities are now big business like never before, and with that their social and economic influence is unprecedented. Now, we might argue that universities that have always produced the political elite have always been influential, and that ‘ties with industry’ and other community engagement initiatives (an increasing pressure for all research projects) are just reflecting that ‘who is powerful’ is now much more broadly based than in the past, which required universities to adapt if they want to stay powerful. This may well be true, but a) an optimistic reading might see this as a win for democracy and b) a more cynical reading acknowledges that the universities have sold out to the megacorpocracy of capitalism, but also that they have remained major players in this game. Moreover, they now get to exercise power as institutions in ways that were not possible in the past, where political power was held by individuals and not large corporations. They might whinge that they now need to play harder and faster, but are they ‘failing’? This seems unlikely at the moment (at least at a group level; at an individual institutional level, this is more complex, especially for those who have difficulty accessing research money and servicing disadvantaged social groups).<br /><br />Now, what about the problems? It seems to me, like for many other workers, the main issue here has been the increasing need for universities to compete in the global capitalist economy. Now, while I reckon they are doing alright here, like many industries, the way they have tried to remain competitive is by fucking over their staff and their students, and measuring everybody’s worth in monetary terms. This means that increasingly your value to an institution (and this is true in Oz and the UK), your value is literally measured by how much money you bring in to the institution. Projects with big money get to command big resources and make significant demands on the institution that those who do not bring in the money cannot. This can disadvantage different subject areas, as it literally costs less to do a literary analysis than to cure cancer. In an R1 context, this is to the detriment to teaching. While all the institutions I have worked in have emphasised the importance of teaching, offering prizes to the best teachers and placing an emphasis on student satisfaction scores, people who are good teachers get no extra benefits. You cannot use your teaching success to argue for a bigger office or an assistant. You cannot even use the fact that you are picking up the teaching, but especially the admin, slack of the bigwigs on research leave to argue for a pay raise or really any sort of benefit (perhaps apart from lower expectations on your research output, which tends to work against you as you then limit your ability to win those big research funds). This creates a cycle in many institutions where the same people win the research money and the same people concentrate on ensuring students get taught.<br /><br />In the UK, this situation is also operating under a government that has no regard for the Humanities as a subject area. It will only fund teaching and research in areas where there is an obvious and applied outcome (preferably economic). This is despite the fact that much research needs to happen at an abstract level, before its applications can be worked out and that our most useful advances have often come from some very esoteric research. As a result, it has removed the teaching budget for students in the Humanities and other theoretical areas, requiring the introduction of tuition fees. It has also cut the funding for humanities research and, moreover, requires researchers to prove ‘the social and economic impact’ of the research, before granting the money. Now, as someone with huge faith in the Humanities, I tend to think that even the most seemingly blue skies thinking can be seen as valuable if sold in the correct way, but the need for such spin is reflective of the devaluing of the Humanities as a social asset. In the short term, this policy has also created some particular problems.<br /><br />The main one is Humanities subjects are strapped for cash. This means absolutely no permanent jobs in the UK and it is unlikely there will be before tuition fees start to kick in, in 2012 (In Scotland where fees will not kick in, when this will end??? Who knows?). It also means that whereas when previously permanent staff took time off for research leave or maternity, they were covered by temporary staff hired on full time contracts with full benefits, now, their courses are increasingly covered either by people hired on part-time contracts, or by adjuncts, covering particular courses at an hourly rate. This has screwed with the nature of the university advancement system in the UK. In the last few decades, most PhDs worked in full time but temporary contracts for a number of years until they achieved the golden goose of the fulltime job. While temporary, these contracts allowed PhDs to be paid to work on their research and to gain experience of teaching and admin. Now, not only will many PhDs experience long periods of unemployment, when they work they will be poorly remunerated and in part-time positions. They will have no support for research (even in the form of a wage), despite the fact that they will not be employed on the next contract if they don’t have a research profile. Despite this, their research will be used by the said government in making policy and to the benefit of society, and by the universities in proving research outputs.<br /><br />The alternative to this is the lucky few, like myself, who end up on research contracts, which are at least full time and well paid. There are different ways these contracts can work. Some invite you on to a project as a full partner, where you will get to write and be acknowledged on all publications. Others use you as a well paid research assistant, contractually limiting how much you can publish from the said research, and not giving you credit on other publications. The latter suck not only because of the lack of credit, but because you don’t get to count the research towards your own profile and so have to do your own research in your ‘spare time’. I have done both of these types of contracts. Very occasionally you can apply with your own project, which will form part of a bigger project, or as part of a career development postdoc (these however are the Holy Grail). I have also had this type of contract.<br /><br />In Oz, much of the broader context is similar to the UK, with a few differences. One, the government supports the humanities, and boy does this make a difference. When you can be employed to work on not only a Humanities project, but an early modern one, that still got 8-digit funding, then you know you have a supportive government. This is not because there is less focus on money in Oz, but rather because they believe that Humanities has something to offer of value – at a very minimum this makes Oz a happier place to work. From the jobs I have seen advertised and the posts I know about, they also see research contractors as people who need to get some publications out of the projects they work in, and are structured around that, which is also a lot less stressful. At the same time, many of the other pressures, including a shortage of permanent jobs are much the same. There is also a sense that the pinch is coming, with increasing discussion of how to make our PhD graduates more marketable and what we need to do to make that happen.<br /><br />This has been a very faculty-orientated, R1 perspective, but my sense is that universities are having to adapt to an new, harsher global economy. More depressingly, they are giving very little pushback to this process. Instead of taking the lead on what the relationship between research and the economy/ society should be, they are buying into the narrative that ‘growth’, ‘money’ and ‘the economy’ should be our social drivers. But, what is the point of the universities, if not to question these things? And what good the power of our institutions if we aren’t willing to, if not frame, then at least debate the terms in which we operate in the world? Perhaps if the Humanities hadn’t been so sidelined, there might be more of us able to ask and answer these questions?</div></div>Feminist Avatarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03364456372396228106noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452483540659721212.post-1841702545467028302011-05-31T03:39:00.000-07:002011-05-31T03:51:59.740-07:00Scotland's City Councils are Clearly in a Competition for 'Feminist Fail'.Last week, it was Edinburgh; this week <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-13601917">Glasgow's city counci</a>l is behaving as if they had never met a feminist, let alone employed one! In a letter to the parents of children at a local secondary school, GCC stated that children's shouldn't wear short skirts or tight trousers as it might attract paedophiles. Yes, you read that correctly - it's children's clothing that makes the vulnerable to paedophiles. Does this sound familiar?<br /><br />Well, fortunately, the Chief Exec at the Scottish Parent Teacher Council had the sense to point out that this was very unhelpful advice as it blamed children for the activities of paedophiles. And, even more interestingly, directly compared this to discussions of adult women's dress and their 'responsibility' for rape.<br /><br />Time for the local councils to send their peeps on some rape awareness/ gender sensitivity training, me thinks.Feminist Avatarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03364456372396228106noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452483540659721212.post-79618223176997033682011-05-19T11:16:00.000-07:002011-05-19T11:23:40.278-07:00WTF?Edinburgh's <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-13456306">Reclaim the Night Walk </a>has been rescheduled by the council - get this - because it might be dangerous for the marchers!! The march, which is designed to reclaim the streets as safe spaces for women, will walk through an area full of pubs, during the Champions League football final, and the council is worried that the marchers will be in danger from drunken fans.<br /><br />Instead of making the streets safe for the marchers, the council has asked the march to move their route and time. The organisers have rescheduled an hour earlier, but are refusing to change the route.<br /><br />What would I have given to have been at that meeting! 'Er, we need you to defeat your own political aims and move the march, because, well, the streets aren't safe for women.' It would be be funny, if it wasn't so terrifyingly sad!Feminist Avatarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03364456372396228106noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452483540659721212.post-67139560936715330522011-05-08T12:18:00.000-07:002011-05-08T13:09:15.999-07:00Jobs for Labour? Some Random Election ThoughtsSo, if you have been watching, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/election2011/overview/html/scotland.stm">Scotland had an election </a>at the end of last week, which saw dramatic changes to Scotland's political map. Traditionally, a Labour heartland, many long-held seats were lost to the SNP, raising questions about what happened and why? We might wonder whether Labour policies over the last decade, which promoted higher education, employment, house-purchasing, and other middle-class ideals in their own electoral areas, may have back-fired as a new (and in the current recession, now rather tenuous) middle-class's horizons changed. Can we say that the legacy of the death of the coal and steel industry (the heartbreak over which, no doubt, helped sustain Labour votes over the last few decades) is now finished in Scotland? Are Labour's traditional voters feeling the pinch of jobs losses, cuts in university places and in the public services, that will see them slide once more down the social mobility ladder, and buying into the blame placed on them by the Tories and LibDems? The questions are numerous?<br /><br />Perhaps, less surprisingly, is the massive losses sustained by the LibDems- losses that even their own party recognises came from a coalition with a party that their supporters hated? I hate to say, I told you so- but I did, in a letter to them after they made this decision. The complete lack of regard, or awareness, of their party's new-won supporters values is quite breathtaking. Do we think we'll get through four more years at Westminster? Do we want to?<br /><br />The new Scottish parliament has a historic majority for the SNP, but more disappointingly, the number of women sitting in it is still only 34%. Up 0.8% from 2007, but down from the all time high of 39.5% in 2003. Even more concerningly, the losses of several Labour seats held by women saw a reduction in female seats at the constituency level; we only got to 34% because Labour has gender balanced lists and they made it up at the regional level.<br /><br />As the SNP stood together after their wins in Glasgow, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-13305577">Nicola Sturgeon</a>, the only woman among them, commented that the SNP is more gender balanced than this- I am a wee bit sceptical (the list of 2011 MSPs' names are not yet compiled in one place, or I'd have counted!!), given that only 1/3 of their constituency candidates were women and their lists were not gender balanced (in fact heavily male)- but the very fact she noticed is why Nicola should be First Minister!!Feminist Avatarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03364456372396228106noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452483540659721212.post-85954648661392624412011-05-01T10:05:00.000-07:002011-05-01T10:30:08.152-07:00Women's History in the Public Arena.This is a response to a post by <a href="http://science-professor.blogspot.com/2011/04/gentle-woman.html">Female Science Professor </a>on the way female academics are presented in public.<br /><br />Recently, I was interviewed for radio on the topic of my research, as were a number of other academics. The focus of the radio was on my topic of expertise - let's call it the history of women in chocolate-making in fab country in x period. The other people interviewed weren't really experts in the field, but did have some overlapping interests. So, one female academic was interested in women in fab country in another context, while another male academic was interested in fab country in x period, but knew nowt about women (and if fact is slightly notorious for this). The reason for interviewing a range of academics appears mainly to be because listening to one person talk for 30 mins is a dry approach for public radio, and of course, when you dilute history for the general public, a good general knowledge of the field is all that is really needed - so I am not criticising this decision by the radio crew.<br /><br />However, when the show was broadcast, the various interviews were edited together, so that different voices spoke at different points, interspersed with some readings of historical sources. And it went it bit like this Male Academic gave the legal context in speech form (ie no interviewer) (something, btw, which I am a leading expert on and which he is not); I give nice anecdotes about women in chocolate-making in conversation with female interviewer- lots of pleasant conversation and jokes; Male Academic gave more legal context in speech form; female academic gives nice anecdotes about women in fab country more broadly in conversation with female interviewer; Male Academic summarises the implications of this for women, etc etc. And, the overwhelming impression was that the <em>ladies</em> do the fun stuff with the pretty anecdotes, but the <em>men</em> do the serious business of history- providing the FACTS to back up the fun stories.<em> </em>The effect was really striking, as this was the only male voice on the entire show, and it was used in such a different way from the women's voices.<br /><br />The interesting thing is that the production team was entirely female and, moreover, the underlying drive of the show was broadly 'feminist'- in that it was women's history created by women who held a belief in the importance of both broadcasting women's history and reflecting on the significance of women's past experiences for the present.Feminist Avatarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03364456372396228106noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452483540659721212.post-22931139155902508092011-03-22T09:10:00.001-07:002011-03-22T09:19:40.707-07:00In SolidarityOver the last few days, university staff across the United Kingdom have been striking over cuts to our pensions, with a national strike to be held this Thursday. For more information, see here: http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=5395<br /><br />In addition, Glasgow Uni finally decided to evict it's long-standing student sit-in today. This has led to a mass protest and the occupation of the main building and the demand for the principal to resign (something that many of the staff would gladly get behind at this stage!).<br /><br />If you want to follow this check out: http://twitter.com/#!/glasgowoccupied and http://twitter.com/#!/glasgowguardian<br /><br />I especially enjoyed this tweet from the glasgowguardian: 'Head of campus security requests that occupiers keep to only two rooms to help continued running of Uni. Occupiers decline following vote'<br /><br />HA!<br /><br />I also appreciated <a href="http://www.patrickharviemsp.com/2011/03/news-release-attempted-eviction-at-the-free-hetherington/">reading</a> that Martha Wardop (Green councillor and women's rights campaigner) phoned up GU's principal to tell him off! Got to love it!<br /><br />In solidarity with everyone. NO TO CUTS! NO TO TUITION FEES! NO TO HIGH RATES OF UNEMPLOYMENT! NO TO A SOCIETY FOR THE RICH! NO TO THE TORIES SCREWING THE POOR!<br /><br />STRIKE!Feminist Avatarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03364456372396228106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452483540659721212.post-44153519293679515562010-12-08T06:19:00.000-08:002010-12-08T06:50:15.441-08:00Dear Government, Please get a reality check.<div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">Is anybody else sick fed up hearing about how if the poor don't play along they will 'lose their benefits'? Today, it is<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11943958"> drug addicts </a>who don't get help. Last week, it was the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/conservative/8124769/Benefits-shake-up-work-shy-to-lose-benefits-for-three-years.html">'work-shy' </a>i.e. those who refuse 'reasonable job opportunities' whatever that means. And before that it was those who don't want to participate in 'work-fare' type programmes. It's the government's new stick- do what we say or lose your benefits.</span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"></span> </div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">Well, today I'd like to ask the government- have you ever met a drug addict? Not a middle-class pothead that smokes a bit of weed at the weekend, but a heroin addict from a socially deprived community? Because I have. And, do you want to know when? When they were robbing me. Oh, I don't mean in some scary mugging in a dark alley- although that does happen to lots of people (indeed on the street that I used to live, there was once ten muggings in a week- but let's not go there). No, when I worked in my local co-op and eventually made it up the ladder to supervisor, I regularly had to kick the local drug addicts- or their young children- out of the shop I ran. I knew them by name- we used to chat as we did it. It was ritualistic, an almost everyday occurrence. Because everyday they came in to steal either food, or goods to sell. If we caught them, we called the police- who often never responded- but you have to see them put the goods in their bag or pocket to get that far. On one occasion after we caught someone red-handed, we waited three hours before my shoplifter exerted her legal right not to be restrained by me and left- the police showed up sometime later. But, after being continually being barred from the store, it was more usual for our local drug addicts to idle up an aisle and hope we didn't notice them, and for us to kick them out with a catch-up on the daily gossip, when we did. On one occasion, I even offered to call an ambulance for my most regular shop-lifter after he came in heavily-bleeding to steal bandages. </span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"></span> </div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">If you get anything from this story- I want it to be the extent to which this was something that happened EVERYDAY in my store- and it was something that was distressing (there was more than one occasion where we considered looking the other way when small children stole food to eat!), that could be dangerous (like the time a drug addict attacked me), and was just soul destroying for everybody- do you really think I want to throw poor people out of my store when they are just hungry (even if they are spending their benefits on drugs)? And, if you take away benefits not just from drug-addicts- but lots of other poor people as well-, this will just get worse. Because people have to eat- and to be quite frank, I'd rather you paid people their benefits than make the lives of hundreds of shopworkers miserable in having to face the consequences of social deprivation at work, every fucking day. </span></div><br /><div align="justify"> </div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">(And dudes, while we are at it- have you ever been to Dublin? And seen all the homeless people who sleep rough on the streets- do you really want that to be Britain?)</span></div>Feminist Avatarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03364456372396228106noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452483540659721212.post-9066016405607373242010-11-24T06:58:00.000-08:002010-11-24T07:30:33.532-08:00‘Mon the Students! In Solidarity.<p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt" class="MsoNormal" align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Today, </span><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11829102"><span style="font-family:georgia;">in London and other parts of the UK</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">, students are holding protestant against the proposed tripling of tuition fees in our universities; the cuts to government funding of universities that effectively mean that university teaching will only be paid for by student fees, and the cuts to bursaries to school children to encourage them to stay in education past the age of 16. First, as an academic, as somebody who spent more time than most as a student, and a member of staff at a UK university, I applaud and celebrate the willingness and enthusiasm of students to stand up for their rights, for the rights of a future generation of students, and for the principle of education for all. </span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt" class="MsoNormal" align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11819799"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Nick Clegg, </span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">as he tries desperately to scramble out of a cowardly volte-face, has said that before we protest, we should listen to his proposal, which “make[s] higher education open to everyone". Even if this is true- and I don’t think it is- it certainly won’t make Britain a fairer or more equal society. The removal of EMA- payments to young people from socio-economically deprived areas aged 16-18- to encourage them to stay in school are paid because historically these young people had to contribute to household incomes as soon as they were old enough to work. In a time of recession, with increasing rates of unemployment, the need for young people to start contributing to households will once more become a pressing issue (not to mention that for some young people this pressure has never went away). Without qualifications, these young people will be directed into low-paid, low-opportunity jobs, reifying existing class inequalities and destroying the potential for upward mobility. They certainly won’t be going to university- because they won’t have the qualifications to do so. </span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt" class="MsoNormal" align="justify"><span style="font-family:georgia;color:#000000;">The proposal for tuition fees is that every student will pay fees of £9000pa, but that they will be given loans to do so- so the fact they don’t need cash up front should not act as a discouragement to people from any background. What’s more, it is argued that these fees will also be used to help provide bursaries for those from low-income backgrounds to ensure that these young people don’t get left behind. But, if he thinks that the potential of leaving university with around £50,000 in debt (by the time we add loans to live on) won’t put people off going to university, then he must be living on another planet. That is just a breath-taking amount of debt to be saddled with. </span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt" class="MsoNormal" align="justify"><span style="font-family:georgia;color:#000000;">Even if he is right- and students from all backgrounds are willing to take the hit, the long-term social consequences are not being considered. As somebody with only a measly £13,000 in student debt, I only started earning enough to make repayments THIS YEAR- 7 years after my u/grad degree finished. I now get £100 a month deducted from my wage- the best part of which goes towards interest payments- with no signs of when that will stop (ok I could do the math, but it ain't any time soon). It is effectively a graduate tax that I will pay for the best part of my working-life, or until academia becomes significantly better-paid (ROFL). This will be the same for all future generations of students- only the amount of debt they will be trying to pay back will be significantly higher. </span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt" class="MsoNormal" align="justify"><span style="font-family:georgia;color:#000000;">So, big deal you say. It’ll just be like paying income tax, or national insurance. Except, that income tax and national insurance are paid for by everyone. Student tax will only paid for by a few- and by that I don’t just mean students- but by a small proportion of students. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"></span>Students with rich parents will have their fees paid by mum and dad, ensuring that they will not be saddled with debt for the rest of their lives. This means that they will have more money to buy bigger houses, fancier cars, and then of course, a bit more cash if they want to send their kids to private schools. They will also have extra money each month to save towards paying their children’s university fees- ensuring that they too will start life debt free. This will reinforce social boundaries, because better resourced children tend to do better in life- money breeds money.</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt" class="MsoNormal" align="justify"><span style="font-family:georgia;color:#000000;">It will also cause a retraction in the number and types of people going on to graduate degrees. Because without state funding, the fees for Masters and PhDs will have to go up too- and these aren’t covered by student loans- or really any type of loan. So, like now, people will have to find the money to pay for these degrees themselves- but whereas finding £3000 for a Masters (especially part-time) is achievable for many middle-class people, fees of £9000 or £10,000 will price most people out of the market. As a result, only the very richest will continue in education, ensuring that the top and best paid jobs will only go to the rich, and academia will once more be the playground of the social elite (with all the implications for equality and democracy in research models and findings).</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt" class="MsoNormal" align="justify"><span style="font-family:georgia;color:#000000;">What this decision does is entrench class divisions. It removes the social mobility inherent in the idea of education for all- in the claims of this government that they wish to promote ‘equality of opportunity’. Even if- and it’s a big if- paying for university will open up more places at universities (really, has anybody done the maths on this?), it will not make British society fairer or more equal. </span></p>Feminist Avatarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03364456372396228106noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452483540659721212.post-49690827368078869022010-11-18T06:48:00.000-08:002010-11-18T09:01:21.607-08:00Who knew that one government could cause such blog fodder? (This is a rhetorical question).<div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">So, along with just generally making it structurally impossible for the poor to succeed, the Con-Dems have now <a href="http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2010/11/equality_legisl#comments">enshrined it in law </a>(or, more accurately they have taken away the law where it was enshrined). Because, apparently, 'some people' don't think equality is fair- in fact 'equality' alienates 'some people'. </span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">Don't really know where to start with that one really... oh, no wait I do. The only people who think equality is unfair are people who have power, and who feel that their power- their right to exploit and benefit at the expense of others-shouldn't be eroded. Well, this is a fucking democracy- get over it. </span></div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">To make this even more problematic, Theresa May, the home-secretary, claims that the problem with the idea of equality is that "it has been seen to mean equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity". Er, well, yes, because one is not possible without the other- or at least not as long as we live in a system where people continue to give birth and raise children in nuclear households. You see, your 'opportunities' are determined by your parent's 'outcomes'.</span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">If your parents are poor, then you will not have a fancy private education- taught in a class of 6 or 8, with the opportunity of tutors to support you, practically guaranteeing the grades you need for university; you may have had a poor diet and a lack of access to books, resources, the internet, that prepare wealthier children to succeed in later life. You might have went to schools where resources were over-stretched, teachers were tired and over-worked, and there was no expectation- let alone training or socialisation in- the idea of pursuing a career in further or higher education that would allow you to get one of those fancy middle-class jobs. You probably don't have parents that understand the university system and realise that universities are in fact ranked- and it does make a difference where you go (and I'll be up front in admitting it was pure serendipity that I picked a top uni, cause nobody sure as hell told me there was a difference, perhaps beyond 'avoid the ex-polytech'). When you go to univeristy, you don't have the allowance from the generous parents that stops you from having to work every hour God sends just to get by- and all that means for time available to spend studying. Then when you are an adult, you don't have parents who know or understand those fancy middle-class jobs and can give you career advice, or introduce you to their contacts- making it much harder to know when to take risks, when you are being exploited, what you should be paid. You might not even know a 'professional' (defined as lawyer, clergy, civil servant) to write you a 'personal reference' for your job application (and don't laugh at the ridiculousness of this, cause that happened to my sister- because despite her first class Masters degree, her family background did not provide those contacts). You probably won't know the right language- play the right sports, read the right books, listen to the right music- to mix with those people socially and in places where the networks vital to success are really made. You might not have realised that you should probably change you accent if you're 'from up north' (or even west)-and don't say this doesn't happen, just watch the BBC with their beautifully refined 'regional accents'- let alone talk to Oxbridge grads with their strangely uniform accents regardless of regional upbringing (and their ability to switch back when at home with their families). Don't tell me it makes no difference to your opportunities when you inherit the family business, rather than start it from scratch with no help- and now with no loans from our increasingly tight banks. It certainly can't be easier to take entrepreneurial risks knowing that you have rich family members to bail you out if it all goes wrong, to lend you money at low interest rates and not having to worry about losing your home or feeding your children if you fail. </span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">Do not sit here and tell me that you can have equality of opportunity without equality of outcome- and certainly don't tell me I can have 'fairness' without equality- cause it just doesn't seem very fair to me that some people can buy <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/gmt/9185149.stm">£43million vases </a>and others have to worry about finding an <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11741766">extra £6</a> a month to heat their homes. </span></div>Feminist Avatarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03364456372396228106noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452483540659721212.post-64725354906270572242010-11-16T06:51:00.000-08:002010-11-16T06:54:49.596-08:00This time I think the word I am looking for is ‘immoral’.<div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">In what is becoming a series of acts that might be better labelled ‘how to fuck the poor 101’, the Con-Dems have now <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11741289">announced cuts of £350 million</a> to the legal aid budget in England and Wales, which effectively means that legal aid will only be available to protect life and liberty- i.e.it will provide criminal aid, but only limited aid for particular types of civil suits. It is thought that this will mean that there will be 500,000 less civil suits every year. Now, the government claim that this won’t hurt anybody because ‘we’ are all too litigious anyway, and ‘we’ will be forced to find other ways to resolve disputes.</span></div><div align="justify"><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Except ‘we’ doesn’t mean everybody, does it? No, it means those who would have to use legal aid to get justice- aka the poor, or even just ‘the not enormously wealthy’. The rich on the other hand are still free to sue each other- and also the poor- with impunity. This is nothing more than the removal of justice from those without money; it is a fundamental infringement on any claim that we are a democratic, equal society. And, in that vein, I don’t think it is too dramatic to call this both disgusting and even immoral. In a week where we are supposed to be celebrating Armistice Day and where – as I heard on the radio- one veteran noted that we are supposed to stop and remember our freedom and liberties, we see our own government taking away those same freedoms and liberties. Because justice is the centrepiece of any claim to being a democratic nation. </span><span style="color:#000000;"><br /></div></span><div align="justify"><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Now, I now know that there will be common complaints that we are too litigious and we are wasting money on nonsense suits- but the reality is that England has always been litigious. In 1640, two Westminister Courts alone dealt with 28,000 cases in one year (and remember there are more courts both in London and across the rest of the country), when the population of England was only about 4 million. Forms of legal aid- whether from the Church, the State or from employers and patrons- were available across this period. The ability- and the also the choice to- participate in the legal system was a marker of the public’s recognition of the centrality of the exercise of justice to good governance and increasingly democratic society. Indeed, a lot might be said about the way in which the increased impartiality, independence and legal sophistication of the court system progressed simultaneously to the growth of parliamentary power and civil society. Access to justice through the courts is as central to democracy as access to the vote.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"></div></span><br /><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">What’s more, it is a bit problematic to claim that either legal aid- or for that matter the court system itself- supports any and all legal claims. Complaints have to meet a threshold of competency to progress- usually a good lawyer will throw you out her or his office before it gets to that stage, or it will get thrown out by a judge before trial. Indeed, most legal aid lawyers are careful about what cases to proceed with- because they know money is limited and that the decisions of what cases they proceed with are open to a high degree of public scrutiny (from Legal Aid administrators, politicians and the public). In other words, there is already a check on what cases proceed through the court system. What this decision by the Con-Dems does is to say that they as politicians now decide what cases are valid and who should receive justice- and in what form it should be received. This is a fundamental infringement on the independence of the justice system and so a direct attack on our liberty. </span></div>Feminist Avatarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03364456372396228106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452483540659721212.post-15299219270789655682010-11-13T04:07:00.000-08:002010-11-13T04:18:31.484-08:00Why the Tories should read a history book (and then perhaps take a course in ethics).<p align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11704765">This week the Con-Dem’s </a>have announced that the long-term unemployed will be forced to work by putting them on 30 hour a week placements. The work under discussion is labelled ‘manual work’ and includes ‘gardening’ and ‘litter-clearing’. Those who do not show up will have their benefits cut. </span></p><p align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">This decision is, of course, hugely controversial for lots of reasons- but it is a fascinating decision from a party who claims to want small government and limited public services. The Con-Dems are certainly not the first people to come up with this idea- the Americans did during the Depression of the 1930s; the Germans tried it around the same time and again more recently; the French did it after WW2. It still continues in many ‘Third World’ countries today. And, in every single case, the cost of running the programmes so outweighed any benefit to society, or to the unemployed themselves, that they became unsustainable. For good or bad, it is cheaper to let the unemployed sit in their houses on benefit than to make them work for those benefits- that is the historical reality.</span></p><p align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">And, so the question then arises, why does a government who is trying to massively cut costs- who is making people unemployed left, right and centre- want to plough huge amounts of money into such a programme? Do they seriously think that no one has thought about this before? One might presume it is because they have never read a history book. (Perhaps if they hadn’t so dramatically cut spending to universities, they could have asked an expert for their advice. As it is, we are waiting for our invitation to cut grass for free).</span></p><p align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">Given the types of work that the unemployed will be directed into that is being spouted by the government, it also raises huge issues about the ethics of such a programme. Why is it ok to make our grass-cutters (paid at minimum wage) unemployed, and then ask them to come back and do the same job for less than minimum wage now that they are on benefits? This is the very definition of exploitation. Today, modern volunteering good practice recommends that volunteers should not do the work of a paid employee for this very reason. Volunteering roles can support those in paid position; they can run projects that would not be feasible without volunteers- but they should not be used as unpaid labour or as a way to save money. This is believed to be exploitative and unethical.</span></p><p align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">Now it is very unlikely given historical precedent that a scheme that forces the unemployed to work will save anybody money- but, the question should still be asked- how is it morally justifiable to replace paid workers with the forced labour of those working- if not ‘for free’- at least, not on the same terms as paid labour? How can they justify taking away people’s jobs- claiming that they were not necessary or a drain on the economy- if our poorest and most vulnerable are going to be forced to do those same jobs? How will you feel when your job is taken away and then given to somebody else- or worse back to you, for less money and more stigma? And, we might even ask, how is it ethical to ask our unemployed to work in any form for less than minimum wage? The reason benefit is set so low is because we are not asking our unemployed to work. If they are out doing a job that a person in other circumstances would be paid at least minimum wage to do, why are they not entitled to that same reward?</span></p><p align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">And, if we are going to start paying them an ethical wage for their labour, why are we cutting public service jobs in the first place?</span></p>Feminist Avatarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03364456372396228106noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452483540659721212.post-60112371019381904822010-11-13T02:59:00.000-08:002010-11-13T03:04:33.506-08:00It turns out most days, I am a man...<span style="color:#000000;"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-11746280">It news that isn't really news,</a> an English local authority has reverted to calling a Christmas-related food product 'gingerbread men', rather than 'gingerbread person'. </span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"><blockquote><span style="color:#000000;">Local Preston MP Mark Hendrick said he was pleased the council had "reverted to common sense". "I thought daft political correctness had gone out of the window but obviously it's still out there," the Labour MP added. "They were clearly men - they were not wearing skirts."</span><br /></blockquote></span><span style="color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Ah, yes. No skirts; clearly a</span><span style="color:#000000;"> man then?</span>Feminist Avatarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03364456372396228106noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452483540659721212.post-63812014941843890352010-11-03T08:33:00.000-07:002010-11-03T08:43:59.612-07:00Vive la revolution.<span style="color:#000000;">So, you may have seen that the Con-Dems have</span> <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11677862">proposed tuition fees </a><span style="color:#000000;">of up to £9,000 a year to pay for university education. So obviously I think this is a travesty for social justice and class equality- but</span> <a href="http://www.excellencegateway.org.uk/page.aspx?o=100889">this statement </a><span style="color:#000000;">by Michael Gove really made me laugh:</span><br /><blockquote><span style="color:#000000;">'Someone who is working as a postman should not subsidise those who go on to become millionaires.'<br /></span></blockquote><br /><span style="color:#000000;">So, postmen's taxes shouldn't subsidise students paying for university education- but it's perfectly ok for their physical labour - paid at not much above minimum wage- to subsidise the capitalist system that allows people to become millionaires in the first-place?</span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Do you want to know another way of making society fairer- higher rates of income tax for top earners and higher rates of corporation tax- because the real question is what entitles a rich few to be millionaires when such wealth is paid for by the labour and the purchasing power of a poor majority?</span>Feminist Avatarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03364456372396228106noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452483540659721212.post-26563189670063426232010-10-07T05:41:00.000-07:002010-10-07T05:46:44.879-07:00Scots men save more than women<div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">A </span><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-11488906"><span style="color:#000000;">new study </span></a><span style="color:#000000;">has shown that Scots men are more likely to have savings than Scots women- 36% compared to 33%. And that when asked why they did not save, 85% of non-saving women said they could not afford it compared with 73% of non-saving men.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">What is </span><a href="http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/172901/0048232.pdf"><span style="color:#000000;">not mentioned</span></a><span style="color:#000000;">, of course, is that women are more likely to earn less, live in poverty and be the sole support of dependants than men.</span> </div>Feminist Avatarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03364456372396228106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452483540659721212.post-36231356244575939702010-09-21T10:04:00.000-07:002010-09-21T10:14:35.829-07:00Dear Small Government,<div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">I do not care that <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10200387">170 civil servants </a>get paid more than the prime minister, because I believe that the work of public servants is valuable and its remuneration should reflect that. I believe that if we want to live in a capitalist system and if we want good people to manage public services (which presumably we do if you want to keep the costs down) then you need to pay a price comparable with that in the private sector for such work. I think that the work of public sector employees helps make Britain a safer, fairer, healthier, and better managed country and to talk about their wages as something that should be ‘held down’ or to ask the public to get angry at paying YOUR employees a fair wage is deeply disturbing. It tells your employees that their work does not matter- or perhaps it does, but it should be done out of the goodness of their hearts? Presumably putting up with all the bullshit (and trust me, there is a lot) that comes with working in the public service industry and rarely earning anything comparable to what your skills would make on the open market is worth it for the knowledge that you make Britain a better place? </span></div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"><br /></div></span><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">The manner in which public service employees are being discussed- as if asking for a fair wage is greedy or unreasonable- as if complaining about their increased workloads as their colleagues lose their jobs around them makes them selfish- as if questioning cuts that are unthoughtful, expensive to implement, and potentially hugely damaging to the economy makes them disloyal- effectively creates a hostile work environment. You have and are showing no respect for those people who have worked hard for this country, implying that they should be fortunate to have jobs in the first place and should just shut up and take it. </span></div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"><br /></div></span><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">This is even more hypocritical when the very anger that you hope to rile in the public is based on their low wages that comes from the exploitation of big business, which pays its fat cats huge wages. It is hypocritical to complain about high wages in the public sector when they are driven by high wages in the private sector, which you not only do not restrict, but actively promote. (I mean if you seriously believe that PM is the most important job in the country, surely NOBODY should earn more?) You talk about this as if this is driven by necessity- but this is nothing more than political spin as you pursue a strategy of small state, big business that does everything for a small number of rich elites and nothing for the population whose labour makes that wealth. What is worse you then have the cheek to criticise that labourforce when they complain about the untenable burden that you place upon them to keep a few rich people happy. To quote the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11278570">TUC general secretary</a>, ‘These are not temporary cuts, but a permanent rollback of public services and the welfare state. Not so much an economic necessity as a political project driven by an ideological clamour for a minimal state [...] Cut services, put jobs in peril and increase inequality, that's the way to make Britain a darker, brutish, more frightening place’.<br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">This is not a country that I want to live in. </span></div><div align="justify"><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Sirs, I am angry.<br />Feminist Avatar.</span></div>Feminist Avatarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03364456372396228106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452483540659721212.post-82450146121910200132010-08-11T13:24:00.000-07:002010-08-11T13:41:59.851-07:00Feminist Veggie to the DEATH WarsGrowing your own veg; the new feminist activism. Because if <a href="http://blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com/2010/08/10/spinster-aunt-posts-place-holder/">Twisty can do it</a>, so can I.<br /><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5504254405555665922" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIBupCh-OGHDJEc16-YUJjSmGT2eiuA_ge9FXjIb9ZtedlEnxDCrWKUqSgy-2RsFOm4Qrg7V5SvXZBRCYdT1XcW-KL1_DDVgz3TNE9rc-UvwDTfn3KqE4J_U8UuS7MwVh2bx9KjXY4k1A/s320/DSCF0646.JPG" /><br />Okay, it's only a baby- but I went away on a research trip and came back to this- so proud!<br /><div></div><br /><div><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5504253795312188242" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCze8bd7v3BNkc6NN6svrBNj_kbO77-UYDDpwt_xq6TglPEMWx-RjvoSCW4PP1sP0BV8SE0PRBdWtTJGxHpyKKbaJUwjjdvxQKqVI5IAeTXHYYcSChGTgq00cLiviqJ1n67HtSdM6WZqU/s320/DSCF0645.JPG" /><br />Broccolli too- when do I get to harvest them?<br /><br /><br /><div></div><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5504251930348232226" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtCLRYJqPlQiw1J7wFSsaerGT9pXTIborsX9WqxvtLrGPkYtX19_rWHIOFLsBoUrbvTR3KLwkrjytPzg23qr9dL4n242ArREE-xGMT-TGLwHIRvB6f5IfUr9CBgOTHgPrKx0tDzft2YXU/s320/DSCF0643.JPG" /><br /><div>Growing tomatoes outside in Scotland- they might never go red, but they ain't dead!</div><br />This is almost as satisfying as blaming the patriarchy, but is good for your stress levels.<br /><br /><div></div></div>Feminist Avatarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03364456372396228106noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452483540659721212.post-27217487481735675712010-07-13T09:26:00.000-07:002010-07-13T09:57:12.754-07:00The value of motherhood<div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">Flicking through my free Tesco magazine, I came across an article that calculated how much it would cost to pay professionals to do the work of a mother. They did this by using a survey of average time spent on various childcare tasks by mothers and then taking the average pay of a professional in that particular occupation and multiplying the two. Childcare tasks included driving children places, nursing, preparing food, cleaning (only for children not the household), cooking, helping with homework, laundry, counselling, PR, party planning and more. And, they calculated that to pay professionals to take on these roles would cost <strong>£1,425,105</strong> per child. </span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">This is fascinating for many reasons- first, because economists claim that it is impossible to make this calculation as it would be impossible to value such work in any meaningful way (but clearly what is difficult for economists is straightforward for journalists! ;) ). Second, it is valuing the work at quite a high rate, because if we divide this number by 18 years (and the survey took account of the fact that not all childcare tasks would be required throughout a child's life in its calculation) a mother's work is valued at almost £80,000 a year. If we were then to calculate the value of mother's work to the national economy, it would be a fairly significant chunk. Yet, we don't do this, because well it's only women's work...</span></div>Feminist Avatarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03364456372396228106noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452483540659721212.post-51170716653269469252010-06-19T06:42:00.000-07:002010-06-19T07:07:20.299-07:00Thinking about Body and Mind in the 21st Century<div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">In the seventeenth century, John Locke suggested that a child’s mind was ‘tabula rasa’- a blank slate, and that children needed to be socialised and educated into their social role. This replaced the early modern model where social position was determined by God, the self was marked by original sin, and that child-rearing was a process of disciplining body and soul to restrain that sin and make a person useful to society. The ‘blank slate’ model of the mind transformed how we thought about self, leading to an emphasis on education as the basis for social order and in the creation of identity. As Jean-Jacques Rousseau commented ‘if the timidity, chasteness and modesty which are proper to [women] are social inventions, it is in society’s interest that women acquire these qualities; they must be cultivated in women.’ </span></div><span style="color:#000000;"><div align="justify"><br />So, what determined social position if the mind was an open potential, able to be shaped to be anything at all? Increasingly in the eighteenth century, the body became the determining factor in social position. Sexual difference, race, and physical features became the outward markers that determined the appropriate education that should be given to the mind that the body housed. If it was important that women played a particular social role and so received a particular education, then we could decide who ‘women’ were based on their genitals. In this sense, the mind was shaped to the body- and the mind who didn’t realise it was female just needed more discipline or education. </div><div align="justify"><br />This theory developed in two, not necessarily compatible ways, in the nineteenth century. First, there was the rise of psychology where people’s whose minds did not behave appropriately to their allocated social role could be studied, and ideally re-educated to match their biological characteristics and social expectation. Therefore, for example, someone who felt that their allocated gender did not match their sense of identity, or who was attracted to someone of the same sex, could be labelled ‘mentally ill’, and retrained. And, if the mind was a blank slate- an open potential, then why not? (This model continues into the present, although increasingly we put limits on when the mind stops being adaptable (age, 2, 3 ,7, 26 never).) </div><div align="justify"><br />Second, the emphasis on the body as determining factor in shaping identity meant that physical characteristics became increasingly seen to determine a person’s potential. This led to the rise in pseudo-sciences like phrenology, where the shape of a person’s head could be used to determine their personality- or physical profiling, where criminality and deviance could be determined by measuring the body or the distance between the eyes. Far from opening up potential then, the move to the biological began to root social characteristics in the body, limiting the potential of the mind to be educated in particular ways. Women's bodies then could be endangered by too much education, with university education leading to an inability to conceive children.<br /></div><br /><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">And, in many ways, the legacy between these two competing ways of thinking about self remain with us today. As feminists, we (mostly) reject biological determinism and argue that gender is about education and the social construction of identity. Yet, this leads to the niggling problem of sexuality- how did you end up gay if you weren’t socialised into it? Was it just bad parenting?! Similarly, those who suffer body dysmorphic disorder- which is currently mainly associated with transgendered people, but includes a variety of people, from those who suffer from anorexia to people who feel a need to correct their body with cosmetic surgery- rightly resist the implication that this is simply a case of poor mental health. </div><div align="justify"><br />In a 21st century context, the static nature of the mind starts to loom larger in the nurture/ nature debate, and increasingly, instead of ‘fixing’ the mind when we experience problems with our bodily appearance or identity, we shape the body. If we sense that our genitals look wrong, our breasts are too small, our stomach too lumpy, many of us no longer sit through hours of therapy trying to come to accept our bodies, but instead go the gym, on a diet or under the knife. We encourage this approach in our increasing obsession with obesity, body sculpting, and fitness, and also how we think about food. Whereas dieting used to be about training your mind, we now think about hormones, sugar levels, foods that release energy all day and keep you feeling full. We think about ways to satiate the body while remaining healthy. It is no longer the recalcitrant mind, but the recalcitrant body that must be re-educated and kept well. We make significantly more links between mind and body, so that poor mental health, like depression, is about hormones, not (just) emotions. </div><div align="justify"><br />In a sense then, rather than the mind being a tabula rasa, it is the body (at least as much as the mind) which is the empty canvass in the modern world, waiting to be educated or trained into shape. Yet at the same time, we retain a sense of 'biological determinism', but one that focuses on the centrality of the mind, rather than body, to self. And, what are the implications of these new ways of thinking for modern feminism? What happens to the traditional critique of cosmetic surgery- where ‘big boobs’ were viewed as conformity to patriarchal standards- when cosmetic surgery is also what gives people a sense of unity between mind and body? When we become less sure about adapting the mind (where we would have traditionally suggested retraining women to love their small breasts), and give more emphasis to ‘fixing’ the body to meet mental expectations of self. Where is the line between acceptable and unacceptable bodily adaptations, between poor mental health and the recalcitrant body? Where is the place of disability and race politics in this discussion- where bodily perfection has a dangerous tendency to lean towards conformity to particular forms of beauty and body shape, towards sameness and not diversity? And, what does it mean that technology can allow some people to adapt their bodies, but not others? </span></div>Feminist Avatarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03364456372396228106noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452483540659721212.post-62691471924080995002010-05-02T08:00:00.000-07:002010-05-02T08:02:18.545-07:00Blogging against Disablism.Having run out of time to blog against disablism- I recommend <a href="http://switchintoglide.wordpress.com/2010/05/01/independent-women-privileged-feminist-ideologies-and-ableism/">this post</a>, which rocks.Feminist Avatarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03364456372396228106noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452483540659721212.post-10185708914421707732010-04-08T11:38:00.000-07:002010-04-08T12:28:33.897-07:00brief interviews with hideous men- some thoughts<div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">So the other night my other half brought me in the 2009 film 'brief interviews with hideous men', told me it was my kind of thing, got bored after 20 minutes and left me to watch the rest. In what is probably going to humiliatingly reveal my complete cultural ignorance, before he brought it home, I had been completely unaware of this film and the book it is based on. [potential spoilers ahead- although I reckon you could watch this film knowing what is going to happen without it being a major issue]</span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"></span> </div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">So, the film begins with various men sitting behind a desk, giving narratives about their personal- and frequently sex- lives (have fun identifying the men out of all your favourite US tv shows! Is that Jim from the US Office; Stabler from SVU; dude from Leverage!- what do you mean I watch too much tv?). There is a tape recorder on the desk, but you do not see the interviewer or know the question. As the sequence of interviews continues, the interviewer (the new woman out of law and order: criminal intent) is seen and eventually the interviews are interspersed with sequences of conversations between her and other men in her life. She is a grad-student interviewing men for her studies. You never hear the questions she asks her interviewees and her conversation with other men in her life (ex-boyfriend, other grad-students, her u/grad students, professor) is very much dominated by their speaking; she is limited to brief responses and questions. The very few other women in this film have almost no dialogue- perhaps one sentence throughout. </span></div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"></span> </div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">Yet, this film is all about women. All these men, except perhaps one, are discussing their relationships with women. The women in these narratives are not human; they are objects for sexual gratification; they are wives discussed for their looks, not their minds; they are absent as much as they are present (like the interviewer). The men's narratives are relentlessly shallow, frequently misogynistic- they are truly hideous men. Yet sometimes complex questions are suggested in these narratives- one man describing his past concern that his wife may get ugly as she aged (she didn't) comments on how shallow it sounds, but asks if it could sound otherwise? One (physically beautiful) man in repeated sections that build on each other (and act as a rhetorical attack on the interviewer in their increased aggression) suggests that rape is not the worst thing that could happen to a woman- they can move on, become better because of it- but then ends his narrative by suggesting he was talking about his own rape. In one of the last narratives, the ex-boyfriend who cheated relates how his cheating began with an intention to use a women that he knew he could manipulate easily into bed and leave with no regret (he had no intent to end his primary relationship); but the woman he cheats with relates a narrative of her life and she becomes so fully human to him that he cannot leave her (and so dumps the girlfriend). Yet, in this act (and the narrative structure sets it up this way), he dehumanises the girlfriend he left behind- for one woman to become human another must be dehumanised. And then it is the end with no resolution, just hideous, shallow men and the woman who wants interview them.</span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"></span> </div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">Yet, the (this) viewer can't help but question all of these narratives. Yes, they fulfil every stereotype of masculinity presented in the media- they are the 'bad guys' that are popularly represented to haunt feminist narratives. These are how feminists are seen to conceive of men. Yet, the viewer knows that they are not men; they are empty shells as unhuman as they woman they describe. The question that these hideous men raise is not where are the 'good' men- but where are the 'real' men- the 3-dimensional men; those who are good and bad and ugly at the same time. In this sense, this is not a feminist narrative- it undermines the feminist (the interviewer) by suggesting that this is not masculinity- and if it is not masculinity, then what are feminists fighting against? Because if real men are not hideous, then what is feminism all about? In essence, the film both creates a false masculinity and a false construction of what feminism is in order to undermine feminism. </span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"></span> </div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">What is perhaps the more complex question, is what is the film's ultimate intent? Is it to undermine feminism- or are you meant to recognise that this is the intent of the narrative, because if you do, it then raises the question, if this is not feminism- what is?</span></div>Feminist Avatarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03364456372396228106noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452483540659721212.post-11453825333490571232010-04-04T04:13:00.000-07:002010-04-04T04:22:24.243-07:00The Privacy of the Home.<div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">There is a myth that the home is a ‘private’ space that should be free from state intervention or the intrusions of the ‘public’. The importance of this belief has been brought to light most recently in debates over whether B&B owners should be allowed to refuse service to gay people (or any other people) due to their belief system. Is the home a private space where people should feel free to discriminate or is it a public space open to state control? I want to suggest that this division of public and private is a myth- that the home has never been a wholly private space- and that to frame this debate in a discussion of private homeowner rights acts to remove the rights of gay people and other ‘undesirable’ groups. </span><span style="color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"></div></span><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">Far from being a private space, for the last 500 years in Britain, the home has been intrinsically linked to social control. The early modern household (1500-1750) was conceptualised as the state writ small. The ideal early modern home was headed by its married patriarch who exercised control over his wife, children and servants-both ensuring that they behaved in an orderly way and having to personally answer to higher authorities if his household behaved badly. In a time before an extensive state apparatus and police existed to manage social behaviour, this function fell to the head of household. The household was conceptualised as a miniature state and in fact, the relationship between a monarch and his or her kingdom was understood to mirror that of the household. The home provided a model for the operation of the state. </span></div><div align="justify"><br /><span style="color:#000000;">From an alternative perspective, it is also worth considering that the Royal Court- from which the monarch governed the state- was actually part of the private household of the monarch. Separate buildings for ‘public’ or ‘state’ functions were only beginning to be thought of in this period- and most were related to the operation of trade (like Guildhalls). In practice, elite households in particular could double as ‘public’ buildings with their large halls or courtyards being used to hold markets, public meetings and demonstrations. </span></div><div align="justify"><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Furthermore, the home was not conceptualised as a private space. Indeed, openness to the scrutiny of others was essential to social credit and social reputation. The household that had something to hide was clearly up to no good and should be treated with caution. In a world where cash was limited and access to goods depended on reputation, the transparency of the household was vital to its survival. The awareness of prying eyes was meant to enforce good order- both making sure the head of household kept control of his family and ensuring that he did not abuse his authority. It offered a system of checks and balances to the head of household’s power. </span></div><div align="justify"><br /><span style="color:#000000;">At the same time, the household was a fluid entity with a constant stream of changing servants, visitors, lodgers, travellers needing a bed for the night, belying any sense of a contained family unit. Even lower down the social scale where households were smaller, neighbourliness and patronage systems meant that homes were equally open to public scrutiny and to inspection by social superiors. Poor households could be even more socially diverse with lodgers and travellers common means of income and multiple families could live in the same household to save money. Most households also had an economic function meaning that they were not just homes but places of business with all the public functions that entailed. </span></div><div align="justify"><br /><span style="color:#000000;">In the eighteenth century, the concept of ‘privacy’ (which had started to filter through since the 16th century) became increasingly culturally important seen in the separation of servant and family quarters in wealthy homes; the invention of ‘public’ and ‘private’ rooms in family homes; and the eventual removal of the economic functions of the household off into separate buildings. Yet, it should be noted this was a long process that happened to different households at different rates and the importance of home-working today suggests it was never completed. Even in the Victorian period, where it might be argued that the ‘private’ home was in its heyday, it was recognised that the home had both private and public functions- not surprising in an era where visiting relatives for weeks at a time was fashionable. </span></div><div align="justify"><br /><span style="color:#000000;">For eighteenth-century philosophers on this subject, the key distinction between a public and private space was still not whether it was located in or out of the home- but its function. Therefore, public space was economic space- the workplace, rather than places outside the home. Even the world of politics was not initially thought of as ‘public’, although this idea was to arrive quickly when the concept of public became increasingly associated with power. Public space was where people exercised power; private space was without power. </span></div><div align="justify"><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Despite this complexity of meaning, the changing functions of the household did lead to its increased association with the ‘private’ in the early nineteenth century. Yet, this phenomenon did not happen in a vacuum- it was mirrored by the rise of the ‘state’. As the household became more private and the separation of home and work made it more difficult to monitor the behaviour of individuals through household hierarchy, the state was created to ensure social order. The state expanded with an increasingly large and elaborate civil service, a police force, a more formal court system and, by the twentieth century, state controlled welfare systems. This state apparatus was always interested in the workings of the home and the prying eye of the guid neighbour was replaced by the beady eye of the officious state worker. </span></div><div align="justify"><br /><span style="color:#000000;">And from a feminist perspective, it was vital that the state existed. While the functions of the household and social order had changed, the belief in the right for a patriarch to manage and discipline his household had not. Yet, without the prying eyes of the guid neighbour, who was to act as a check and balance of that power? Many of the initial debates and court cases that defined the rights of the state to interfere in home life were brought by women trying to protect themselves and their children from violent or controlling patriarchs. In a sense then, not only was the rise of the state a response to the changing functions and increased privacy of the household, but the invitation to the state to interfere in the operations of the household was both a demand of feminists and required for good social order. </span></div><div align="justify"><br /><span style="color:#000000;">The home then has never been a private space, exempt from the rules of social behaviour or the requirements of society. It is not and has never been the last stronghold against state interference. On the contrary, its ‘private’ nature is predicated on the existence of the state and the right for the state to interfere in its operation. The two cannot exist separately. In this sense, the privacy of the home is an illusion- if one held dear to us. This is particularly the case when you use your home in public ways- such as when you run a business from your home. Because at that stage (whether you realise it or not), any sense of your home as private is removed and its public functions (always present) are once more made explicit. </span></div><div align="justify"><br /><span style="color:#000000;">To argue then that your private rights to discriminate are founded on the privacy of the household is to misunderstand the place and role of the household and the state in society. The question then becomes whether your right to discriminate is greater than the right of other people not to be discriminated against. While discrimination actively hurts people- and so damages society- you being asked to curtail your discrimination does not hurt you. Given that the protection of its members is the first duty of the state, that the law finds in favour of the right not to be discriminated against is lawful, logical and good for everybody.</span> </div>Feminist Avatarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03364456372396228106noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452483540659721212.post-2291460740699785402010-03-13T06:33:00.000-08:002010-03-13T06:46:47.826-08:00Interesting Fact of the Day.<div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">As you may have noticed, I like facts- especially facts that undermine arguments that promote bigotry and discrimination. And, usually I like to save said facts until a topical news story comes up, and then show how people, usually politicians, are talking nonsense. But, I found this one and I thought it was too good not to share (plus it is something that I and probably most of you have long suspected).</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"><strong>There are more British living abroad than foreigners living in the UK.</strong> </span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">In fact, 1 in 10 Brits live all or part of the year abroad.</span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">So, next time somebody complains about immigrants taking our jobs, why not ask whether they'd prefer that all the British come home (which surely is only fair?) And for that matter, next time the BNP suggest that all coloured people should be 'repatriated' -do you remember when they used to make those demands- ask them whether we really want our diaspora (you know the Australians, the Americans, New Zealanders, Canadians, South Africans etc etc) to be repatriated too? </span></div>Feminist Avatarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03364456372396228106noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452483540659721212.post-45983637405105614502010-03-08T06:41:00.001-08:002010-03-08T07:09:04.682-08:00Happy International Women's Day!<div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">Happy International Women's Day to everyone. </span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">It seems that everybody is a bit down right now- everyone I know has a story of redundancy and restructing woe and if politicians are taking note, we need a morale boost! Yet, rather than seeing economic downturn as an opportunity to reform a clearly broken system, it is repeatedly being used as an excuse to curtail women's rights and social equality. It seems, whatever party you support, recession is an excuse to be conservative- to claw back money from our poor, to reinforce the structures of the wealthy, to ignore principles of fairness and equality because it seems easier than structural change. Every day is another story of lay-offs and doors closing in the media (and often closer to home!) and yet at the same time, we hear politicians moaning about getting people off unemployment benefit as if the poor just weren't taking the opportunities being offered. Even those people who are using redundancy as an opportunity to retrain are finding doors closed, as the government reduces spending in universites, which has led to a drop in numbers of places, despite unprecedented demand.</span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">To blind us to this situation, the parties seem to have unanimously agreed to make this election about 'family' not economy- clearly because they don't have any economic policies- yet, the family they are selling to us is antiquated model with no relevance to the modern world, and only reflects a very small minority of people's lives. It's as if politicians are trying to pretend the recession didn't happen and if we just ignore the reality of the best part of the population's lives, we can try and sell a story of a non-existent golden age and hope that people are tired enough to buy it. </span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">Well, I am tired- so tired that I find it difficult to celebrate this International Women's Day- but I am not so tired that I am going to buy this bullshit that is being fed to us during the least inspired political campaign in history (and I AM HISTORIAN SO I SHOULD KNOW DAMMIT). So political parties, it's time to get your ass in gear and gives us some real policies. Policies that:</span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">- have social equality for all at their heart</span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">- that see social equality and a sharing of wealth as the key to a nation's stability and prosperity</span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">- that understands and celebrates social difference and does not try to push us into a white, middle-class mould of imagined family life</span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">- that understands that real choice for all is at the heart of modern democracy and understands that choice does not mean conforming to a middle-class vision of normality</span><br /></div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">- that recognises that we have historically sold women, children, ethnic minorities, the disabled, the gay community, the working-class, and every one who not a white, middle-class man down the river, and we need to change</span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">-that recognises that our wealth is based on the exploitation of the poor in our own country and on the material and labour resources of the rest of the world</span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">-that recognises that we believe in the sharing of wealth, in recycling and looking after our planet, and that we do not want our comfort to be based on the poverty and exploitation of ourselves or other people, the destruction of our natural environment, or short-changing of other cultures</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">-that see that WE WANT CHANGE, RADICAL CHANGE AND WE WANT IT NOW</span></div>Feminist Avatarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03364456372396228106noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452483540659721212.post-17347095757737197852010-03-03T05:06:00.000-08:002010-03-03T05:11:35.909-08:00Women's History Month<div align="justify"><span style="color:#330033;">March is women's history month. That is, a month dedicated to the study of women's history and with making people aware that women do have a history, that is is an important history and that women, alongside men, made the world what it is today (something that was remarkably forgotten in traditional histories). I have been involved in a project to celebrate women's history month and we have created a blog with posts every day this month (and hopefully beyond) on a topic of women's history. Please go <a href="http://whn.jones5publishing.co.uk/blogs/">check it out</a>.</span></div>Feminist Avatarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03364456372396228106noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4452483540659721212.post-25010385522855738992010-02-17T04:24:00.000-08:002010-02-17T07:43:06.420-08:00Life Courses<div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">In wake of the ‘<a href="http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2010/02/the_case_of_the">OMG’ teenagers have children</a>; oh wait, they’re having less, no, they’re not, yes they are debate, I thought it might be a good point to think about life-courses (or life-cycles as they were known before historians decided a cyclical model was too simplistic). A life-course is the experiences that a person goes through in the course of her or his life. For historians and social scientists generally, life-courses are interesting for studying group behaviour, so we like to compare what age people get married at, or what age they have kids, whether they leave school at 15 or 18 and whether they retire at 60 or not at all. As people in the same society often experience changes in the life-course at a similar age to their contemporaries, we can chart a ‘typical’ life-course experience for particular societies or sub-groups within those societies.</span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">Now, that sounds all very academic, but what’s the point? The argument is that people who behave in the most ‘typical’ fashion are generally the most socially stable, or at least, are unlikely to receive criticism for their behaviour. People who do things at the wrong time or in the wrong order- such as having a child as a teenager, when this is socially unacceptable, or having a child before marriage in a society where this is unusual- are likely to face social consequences that limit their life choices. This is because society is set up to respond to people who follow a particular life-course. If you fail to do this, the support mechanisms offered to other people aren’t there for you. This in turn can affect the ‘non-typical’ ever becoming ‘socially stable’ or achieving the normal goals of their contemporaries, leading to life-long poverty, social ostracism, poor education and/or unemployment. Conversely, sometimes doing something in the wrong order can have unexpected benefits, perhaps bringing new opportunities or forcing people to make unexpected decisions with good pay-offs (perhaps emigration in the past or setting up a successful home business to fit around child-care arrangements). The interesting issue at stake here is not that there is an ideal life-course for everyone in all times and places, but that each society has its own ‘typical’ life-course which it uses as a standard to judge the behaviour of others.</span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">Historically in Britain, people’s experience of the life-course was a lot more diverse than today. The advent of national education, where children start school at five and leave at 16 or 18, then perhaps go to university or some sort of apprenticeship system, before starting work, where they are often forced or at least encouraged to retire at a set age, has made the life-course significantly more regimented that in the past. Previously, parents may have sent their children to school (if at all) anywhere between the ages of 3 and 8, the number of years spent in schooling reflected a combination of social class, the need for childcare and the availability of work for children (the average for the poor was about 2 years in the late 18th century). Only a very few went to university and depending on the century, they may have went at any time between the ages of 14 and 20. If you weren’t very rich, you may have only done a year at university, which would have made you applicable for a number of professional and clerical jobs without breaking the bank. Others went into apprenticeship (usually for five or seven years) or service (ie working as servants in households and farms) until you earned enough to set up on your own.<br /></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">Depending on the region, the availability of housing and land, and alternative employment opportunities, this meant most people didn’t get married and start having families until their mid to late twenties (a phenomenon that changes dramatically after WW2). But, perhaps more interestingly, is the diversity of ages that people married at. In the 1970s, not only would 95% of women in Britain marry, 80% of them would marry between the ages of 17 and 25, a distribution of only seven years. In contrast, in 1851, the age of marriage was much more widely distributed with a range of 20 years for the central 80% of women. Furthermore, up to a third of women and men wouldn’t marry at all. The typical life-course in the past then was much more varied than today.<br /></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">So what is the relevance of this for teen pregnancy? The problem with teen parents is not really that teenagers have children, but that having children as a teenager is increasingly socially unacceptable (whereas previously the focus was on marital status, rather than age). In fact, the number of women having children under 20 in Scotland has halved since the 1960s and 70s and similar numbers of babies are born to teen mums today as in the 1940s, without accounting for population increase. So, this is definitely a problem of perception as much as numbers. If we want to deal with the ‘problems’ of teen pregnancy, we also need to deal with the fact that it is our perspective that made it a problem in the first place. It is because these girls and women are failing to be ‘typical’ that is the social problem. And, perhaps a healthier and more inclusive response to this ‘problem’ is not to condemn girls and women who have children at a young age or worry about the pregnancies, but worry about our responses. If girls and young women end up socially ostracised and living in poverty due to having children, then that’s because our society isn’t set up to deal with them- perhaps we should be. Because the real question is why does being ‘typical’ mean that you are right or your choices are more valid?</span> </div>Feminist Avatarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03364456372396228106noreply@blogger.com3