Thinking about Body and Mind in the 21st Century

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.’

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.

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).)

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.

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.

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.

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?

brief interviews with hideous men- some thoughts

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]

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.

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.

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.

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?

Train Tales, Part 2.

So, same journey as last post, but on a different train. Two men, aged 23 an 25, were sitting behind me. They were strangers to each other, but making small talk about their lives and why they were on the train. The 23 yr old had left school at 16 with no qualifications and tried various jobs, before becoming a carpet-fitter to a man who was close to retirement and would let him take over the business in the near future. The 25 yr old was a university educated, newly qualified music teacher, who until recently had been a 'freelance musician'. He was going to visit his girlfriend who worked in a very specialist occupation that requires you to live in certain places in the UK [in the interests of anonymity I won't say what it is, because it actually is that specialist- there are 24 sites in the UK where such a person could work]. They had been dating since high school and had frequently lived separately- for example during university and now. They discussed how this was hard, but 25 yr old, commented that if you made it work, it could work. At which point, 23 yr old asked why doesn't SHE get get a job near you. 25 yr old got a bit flustered and explained that well, she had trained for years at university to do this job. 23 yr old interrupted and said, yeah, but she could work at X [Similar site slightly further south- which was actually laughable as like in academia, I wouldn't imagine these jobs are that common or easily got]; 25 yr old even more flustered tried to explain it was a newish job and maybe in the future... He then changed the subject. At no point, did either man suggest or discuss the fact that as ex-freelance musician was a teacher, HE might find it easier to move near HER.

I thought this conversation was interesting for a number of reasons. First, because I think 25 yr old genuinely respected his girlfriend's career choices and had no expectation that her life would resolve around him, but that he also was unable to articulate that to another man. In fact, he became flustered, slightly defensive, and eventually changed the subject. There was no assertion that the choice they made as a couple was valid. There was also no discussion whatsoever that a man might move for a woman, despite the fact his occupation might point to this as a more obvious choice. 23 yr old to my mind was slightly immature and I don't think he was being intentionally sexist, rather I think he just couldn't envision the alternative options available to this couple. He afterwards commented that he was meeting his 18 yr old sister that night and she was bringing her friends, which was said in such a way as if to suggest she was bringing him a large box of chocolates. And, 25 yr old did the uncomfortable, aren't you lucky laugh, which showed he didn't really agree, but didn't want to offend his conversant- but which subleties the 23 yr old totally missed- as demonstrated by his elaboration of this topic. In some ways, I think this was about two different types of masculinity meeting and not really knowing how to connect- both assuming that the other shared their worldview, and then getting confused when the other wasn't interpreting the conversation in the correct way. But, it also demonstrated the different ways that female autonomy is dealt with by different men. Make of that what you will.

More tokenism.

Women have been practising law in Britain since the 1870s and called to the Bar since the 1920s, but despite several generation of women lawyers in Britain, we could only find one qualified enough to sit on the brand-spanking new Supreme Court. SIGH.

But, actually, the content of this post is a complaint about the website. In the UK, there are three equal and distinct legal systems, operating in England and Wales, in Scotland and in Northern Ireland. The Supreme Court is to be the final court of appeals for all three systems, so the judges are meant to reflect all three systems. There are eight lawyers representing the English system, two for Scotland and two for Northern Ireland, which given population differentials is not hugely unfair. However, if we read the website, two of the judges practised law in Scotland, two in Northern Ireland, and eight just practised 'law' or were called to regional bars, with no mention that they represent the English and Welsh system.

The effect of this is to imply that the English/Welsh system is the default/the norm, and Scotland and Northern Ireland are exeptional. This denies the equality of the three legal systems and as such devalues the Scottish and Irish systems, making their representation tokenism. Let's hope the practice of law in the Supreme Court does not reflect this.

Thinking About Class…

Polly recently started a discussion about how and why people identify with the class of their childhood, rather than their current social position, and points out that social mobility doesn’t always remove the markers of your working-class roots. Now, I am middle class- I have three degrees, I work in academia and I’m married to a teacher. But, I was raised in the west of Scotland. My family have been on the cusp of upper working class/ lower middle class for several generations. In my history I have bakers, furniture makers/fireman during the war, factory workers, miners, clerks, missionaries, female teachers and nurses, midwives, district nurses and more nurses. I came from a social group that were working very hard to make themselves middle-class, but didn’t approve of certain middle-class behaviours, such as university education [waste of time]. This led to an interesting situation where the women in my family, who all worked, were often more ‘qualified’ than the men, although the only appropriate career paths for women were teaching and nursing. I was not the first person in my family to get a degree, but only because my mother started university the year before I did. Since then, an uncle and an aunt and my sister have degrees (and my mother, uncle and sister also have Masters degrees), while my brother and two of my cousins are at university. At the same time, my other brother is a builder, like my dad; one of my cousins is joiner. Several cousins are at college doing vocational courses. In a very real sense, my family’s attitude to university has been transformed over a period of about a decade and it has impacted on several generations at one time.

Growing up in this background in the west of Scotland in the 1980s meant we were poor. I lived in an unemployment blackzone (ex-mining community), where people of my family’s social status were the highest social group. During my childhood, I experienced my father being seriously under-employed and finally losing his business (but a business owner!); I remember having literally no money in the house. I remember a friend who was not much better off than me being embarrassed to go to the local shop with me as I had to count out pennies to buy bread- and I remembered being confused at her reaction. Despite this, my family didn’t believe in welfare. The marker of our middle-class background was that we didn’t sign on and that we owned our own home [well, it was mortgaged but…]. My mother once bitterly remarked that the difference between us and our working-class neighbours was that they knew how to get a free washing-maching off the social. I never received pocket money and got my first job at 11, and have never stopped working. When I went to university, I lent my student loan to my parents to bail them out. I had two jobs between the ages of 16 and 18, and two again when I was 20. Things got better for my family in my late teens as my father’s second business began to do well and my mother got a degree and a ‘middle-class’ job. The experience of my younger siblings in somewhat different to mine, but I left home at 18 and didn’t feel the impact of this in the same way.

I went to the local primary school in a very poor, rural, working-class area and as a result have a west of Scotland, working-class accent. I went to private school for my high-school education because I got a grant, which Labour has since abolished. My accent was notably rougher than my schoolmates, but because I am obstinate, and because my friends continued to be working-class, I never adapted, and in a strange way it gave me a certain kudos. While my family were resolute in their belief in their middle-class standing, I was a different type of middle-class. My parents weren’t professionals; we didn’t have the available income of many schoolmates, and to my mind, we weren’t as uptight as these people. I noticed this even more when I went to university, where I was shocked that people couldn’t understand the working-class accents of the people behind the till- and thought that this was the worker’s problem, not theirs- and they had an entirely different sense of humour, so I sometimes felt that I was holding my breath, until I got back to ‘my people’. Yet, in another sense, I also wasn’t working-class.

When I first encountered my husband’s family (who were working-class proper), I was shocked at their crude, to my mind, jokes; I was amazed that they all smoked, and they had an entirely different attitude to work- I came from a family where you went to work if you were dying; they took days off for hangovers. Almost everybody in his family had experienced long-term unemployment at some point, and they all knew how to work, and exploit, the welfare system. Every male cousin of my husband’s that is older than him has a criminal record, while in a mark of social change happening to this family, amongst his younger cousins the effect is more mixed. Many have done significant gaol time. He was the first person in his family to get a degree and he left school with no qualifications, doing the HNC, HND, degree route. I definitely wasn’t part of this community, but to be honest in many ways I felt at home there.

My working-class accent came with me into academia and I know it makes a difference. The west of Scotland accent is particularly rough, even for Scotland, and I was told at my private school that it was ugly and we should try to refine it. It is a guttural, aggressive accent, spoken very quickly, and is associated with a violent, unruly social group [check out the West’s history of industrial unrest]. To the untrained ear, middle-class west of Scotland Scots still sound rough; the working-class accent more so- unlike perhaps the more sing-song accent of the borders or the incomprehensible vocabulary of the north-east. People assume that I am working-class, which is exasperated by the fact that I went to a university with a large working-class body (and which I picked for that reason). Some people [actually I think I mean men here, as most of the women I know in academia have similar backgrounds to me] assume that this means I am very clever, having overcome disadvantage to achieve; others are extremely patronising towards me. When I walk into to a classroom of middle-class 18 and 19 year olds and open my mouth, they are scared into submission by my voice.

I have no doubt that I am middle-class; I just need to look at my job title, but the markers of my past follow me, and that label seems inadequate, and in many ways inaccurate.

The Hardman and the Page 3 Girl.

Over at Bitch PhD, there is a fascinating discussion on whether the US is more sexist (or perhaps more misogynist) than Europe. Now, because I spend my life trawling US feminist blogs that tend to display the rampant misogyny found in the US, I tend to have a very narrow experience of what it’s like to be a woman there. Whereas, as I live in the UK, I can see the misogyny and sexism, but I also know about all the good stuff too, so I have a more balanced perspective on the situation here. But more than this, I am increasingly coming to realise that, despite a shared language and television, the nature of sexism and misogyny in each country is actually very different and, furthermore, because it is so different, I weight US examples of sexism more heavily than UK examples.

For example, in the US, abortion is a much more contested and heated topic that over here. While I have pointed to the anti-abortion discussions that arise in UK culture, they are not yet mainstream and they are often quite far from influencing government. Part of why they are so frightening to me is, I suspect, because they seem so regressive and so unusual. In the US, it is the government’s restrictions on abortion that feminists are fighting against. To me this is mind-boggling and quite scary. Commenters at Bitch PhD, however, pointed to the fact the page 3 girls are so common in British newspapers as evidence of how much more misogynist we are in the UK. I thought this was interesting as I see this as a really complicated issue, rather than simply a wildly misogynist act.

The appearance of highly sexualised, naked women in the press is, of course, hugely problematic. It perpetuates the sexual slavery of all women and condemns women to being seen as sexual beings for the pleasure of men and little more, rather than fully rounded, complex individuals for whom sexuality may or may not be important. As it perpetuates the idea of women as only sexual beings, it leads to differentiations between pure and sinful women, commodifies women, holds women to a very narrow standard of beauty, encourages a rape culture, sees women as only on earth for the benefit of men, and has a tendency to closely associate women with their biology. I absolutely see the problem.

So why, you may ask, do I not campaign against these images? I think that the reasons for this are multiple and complex. First, while I think these images are problematic, I don’t find them any more problematic than how women are presented on television or in the mainstream press. I don’t think this is any worse than the models of femininity presented in Cosmo, in the Daily Mail or Guardian, or on numerous television shows. They are more overtly sexual, or more directly aimed at men as wank material, but ultimately they are just a slightly less subtle part of the pressure on women to conform to particular models of beauty and behaviour. You may argue that the nature of such work is more exploitative of the women models, in the same manner that any porn is more exploitative than mainstream acting, and this may be true. But this is complicated by the fact that nudity is not of itself wrong or demeaning. It is not the nude women that is itself the problem, but the context in which her image is read. Objectification is in the eye of the beholder. And in our culture any visual representation of a woman can be used to objectify her.

Second, and this is where the ‘hardman’ comes in, women in the UK are expected not to care about such images. Now, as a feminist, I recognise that this is a problematic response, but I think that is why page 3 images are not shocking to me, in the way they are to Americans unfamiliar with our culture. One of the commentators over at Bitch PhD alluded to the hardman culture that is prevalent, at least in some, communities in the UK. And I think there is also a ‘hardwoman’ culture. In many ways, when women entered the public sphere in Britain, as workers in male industries and as readers and makers of the press, there was an expectation that we needed to learn to live in a male culture and those who could not were too weak to succeed. Some of those issues have been addressed through sexual harassment lawsuits and maternity leave, but if you, as a man or a woman, want to succeed in most work cultures you are expected to work long hours, learn to drink ‘like a man’, learn to swear and to not be walked over.

Part of this hardening is learning to immunise yourself to jibes and put-downs and to accept the common sexism, racism and classism that is part of that culture. Teasing and jibing are a really important part of UK culture, perhaps especially in Scotland, where being teased shows your acceptance and knowing how to respond shows your awareness of the norms of the social group. This is not especially problematic except that the focus of such teasing can be closely related to issues of disability, class, gender and race. Being able to look at naked women without cringing at their exploitation, to listen to sexist jokes, to overlook the boy’s mags lying on the toilet floor, is part of demonstrating your ability to survive in the public sphere. It shows that you are not just a man, but a hardman.

Now I do not believe that women are delicate flowers that must be protected or that the hardman culture must change to protect them, because I see everyday that women are capable of living and working in that world. This culture must change because it is unhealthy for men and women, and because such a culture perpetuates a world-view that sees women as less than men. This is bad for women, but it is also bad for society. Unfortunately, it is far more ingrained in our culture than we like to admit and banning page 3 wank material would have only a minimal impact, as long as we continue to view such images in that way.

Because Racism Disguised as Science Annoys Me.

Dear Phil Woolas,

If you are going to criticise cultural practices in the Pakistani community under the guise of science by suggesting that cousin marriage increases the risk of having disabled children, please do your research first. This study of the high incidence of ‘recessive disorders’ amongst the British Pakistani community suggests that the picture is far more complex than a simple correlation between cousin marriage and the birth of disabled children. A couple of points that leap out include: cousin marriage over many generations actually reduces the incidence of ‘recessive disorders’, so the Pakistani community cannot be marrying their cousins as frequently as you suggest; cousin marriage is popular amongst the Muslim community, but not amongst the Sikh community, which is almost exclusively exogamous (although there is marriage within caste), yet both have a similar rate of recessive disorders; that some studies have shown that recessive alleles (which cause inherited disability) are similar in both white and Pakistani populations, yet the incidence of disability amongst Pakinstani infants is ten time higher. The study cannot explain why the Pakistani population has a greater incidence of disability than the white population, but, whatever the answer is, it’s more complicated than cousin marriage.

Yours sincerely,
Feminist Avatar.

Adulthood, Debt and Family Responsibility.

The BBC Magazine today discussed different social attitudes towards inheritance and it brought to mind the not unrelated issue of parental responsibility for adult children. When I went to University at 17, it was the year after the abolishment of the student grant, the first year of means-tested loans and the year before bursaries were established for children from poor backgrounds. I was ridiculously independent, having worked at since I was fourteen and saved up a reasonable about of money. I did not receive pocket money, but used my own money to make any purchases that I needed. My parents, at that time, were not particularly wealthy, and so when I applied for a student loan, I received the full loan and my parents were not expected to supplement it. Meaning the debt was all mine. My parents supported me by providing free accommodation and food, but I paid for all my university expenses, including books, lunch and the travel costs of a two hour commute by public transport (each way!). At eighteen, I bought my own flat, nearer university, using the money I had saved as a deposit, mainly because I couldn’t keep up with working 30 hours a week, four hours commuting and university. Later that year (when I was nineteen) I got married (my husband was also a student and from a similar background, so his debt was all his too!!) meaning that I was classified as independent by the student loans company (SLC), and so from that point my parents were no longer expected to contribute to my upkeep.

I had been raised with a strong work ethic and a belief that adults did not look to their parents for financial help. That my parents had to be ‘means-tested’ at all really bugged me. If I wanted to take out loans, why was that my parents’ responsibility? Going to University was my decision, not theirs. When my younger siblings went to university, my parents were earning more and so deemed rich enough to contribute. What this meant in practice is that the SLC takes the amount of loan that you are entitled to and deduct the amount your parents are meant to pay and then give you the balance. You are responsible for asking your parents for the money or taking them to court if they won’t pay. Now this is a LOAN, we are talking about, not a grant. It is not like the state is paying for this; it is just how much debt they will allow you to take out. For children, who consider themselves adults, this can be a very difficult thing to do. Especially as your parents are considered liable to means-testing until your 26!

What’s my point? I think that there is a disconnect between the social values of certain social groups and what is expected by the government and I think that this problem is affected by nationality. Adulthood in Scotland comes at sixteen. At that age, we can leave school, work, get married, sign contracts, and make decisions about our future (although we can’t smoke, drink, or drive). In England, where the legislation on student loans was passed, although people can leave school at sixteen, they are not adults and cannot get married without parental consent or sign contracts. Furthermore, whereas in England, the university system is designed for people aged over eighteen (and it used to be the case that some universities had age restrictions, although this may have changed in light of recent legislation), in Scotland, while many people now wait until they are eighteen by taking a ‘sixth year’ at school, universities are designed for students coming from Higher, at age 17. I think that these social differences create considerable cultural differences about what we expect from young adults and affects perceptions of parental responsibility.

I think that cultural difference is more pronounced amongst certain social groups, especially the working class and lower middle class, where money and success is hard earned and not inherited. Children are taught, both verbally and by example, that financial independence is part of being an adult and we are uncomfortable with the ‘child’ status that results from us taking money from our parents (possibly more so when we are just becoming adults than later in life where our adulthood is established in other ways). To be honest, I think that we are more comfortable asking the state to support us than our parents. I think that the government and the SLC should take those cultural differences into account before bringing in systems that are resented, and as a result, unworkable by parts of the population.

There are also real drawbacks to this way of working. First, what do students whose parents won’t pay do? They either have to sue them (you know with the free cash that students have lying around and all the related tensions and family wars that may result) or become declared independent adults, which involves getting the social work department to declare you independent (which is difficult if you have never been in care); proving that you have been economically independent for three years; or get married. All of the latter options can be time-consuming to evidence and, in the meanwhile, no loan. Second, it can lead to parents controlling their children’s behaviour when they are meant to be adults making decisions about their future. What good is a degree that you didn’t really want in the first place? I think this is especially problematic amongst social groups that associate adulthood with financial independence as logically if this is the case, then if they are paying for it they should have a say. Finally, it leads for odd situations where I am married so am independent but my sister lives with her boyfriend in their own flat but is still dependent. Where is the consistency?

Different understandings of adulthood and responsibility do not only effect student loan awards, but have bearing on a lot of ‘hot potato’ issues of the moment, including discussions of teenage pregnancy, compulsory schooling until age 18, raising the age of smoking, apprenticeships for all, and how we view young people and their place in the world. For legislation to work, it has to be meaningful to all social groups and reflect the different national attitudes across the UK.