How to be a feminist father ...

[MarriedDadOneSonOneDaughter]

My girl is at primary school. I think I probably have no idea of the sort of inbuilt "patriarchy" stuff I do that might adversely affect her but I do read this forum and go to a few lectures to try to keep my self awareness up. Out of the blue accusations of being patronising (usually from my wife) are the tell tale that I'm not what I should be to my daughter (or my wife, but she's very able at setting me straight whereas my daughter might defer to my authority).

I want her to be happy and ready to take on the world and all the idiots she will meet.

Are there any tips you might give, books (not too long please , I'm not a great reader) etc?

Perhaps you have a husband/partner that does stuff and you wish he didn't as it has some negative effect on your daughter. I'm not talking about clearly abusive behaviour as I am 100% sure that's not me. The more subtle stuff that most men won't be aware of. You experiences would help me.

Thanks in advance for guidance etc and sorry if I've turned up offering nothing but a begging bowl. At least other men might read this too and benefit?

Gina

Sorry, been caught up in mega birthday party and family reunion hosting weekend. I'll get to it ....

Gina111

As really interesting report which I confess not to have fully absorbed on first reading. There seems a lot in it. I'd be interested to see the UK research they referred to (quick google didn't yield it).

I assume there is an element of subjectivity in determining whether teaching was either a) sexist or b) not sexist with the possibility of error both ways, but I would guess the trend of the results is indisputable and also "feels" right.

This para stuck out for me and I wondered what others thought about either teaching girls "aggressively" too or teaching all in a different way. Not sure I really know what "aggressively" means.

"Boys' schools. The very nature of all-male schools has been the standard for independent schooling for centuries. In boys' schools, aggressive teaching, usually by men, encourages boys to state and defend their views and to expect their interpretations and opinions to be subjected to intense intellectual scrutiny by teachers and peers. Only rarely did this type of teaching occur in all-girls' and coeducational classes. The antithesis of the "relational" view expounded by Noddings (1990) and Gilligan (1982), aggressive teaching represents a classic "male-centered paradigm" (Tetreault, 1987). An "individualist" view would, however, support extending this sort of academic experience to girls, either in single-sex or in coeducational environments. Modifying this type of teaching so it would be vigorous enough to draw students into intellectual interchanges with one another and with the teacher yet less confrontational and more amenable to an all-female setting is not impossible. Our observations led us to conclude, however, that compromise between the individualist and relational views around the adoption of this teaching style would be difficult to achieve. We saw little of this style outside the boys' schools."

And some women like to beat others (I do) so I find it offensive when people say women like to be all agreeable and never want to beat others. I think that assumption in itself is sexist. It leads to women at women who take charge being called bossy when a man would not.

I hadn't thought of Google Scholar - thanks!

I found this book touches on the idea of competition and collaboration:

books.google.co.uk/books?id=9eCQAgAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&ots=cyI5TjyVUW&dq=uk%20education%20feminism&lr&pg=PA9#v=onepage&q=uk%20education%20feminism&f=false

I've cut and paste a couple of key paras from the intro that caught my eye. Disclaimer on taking out of context applies as I haven't read the whole book!

Buffy

Let's say I was able to influence the head teacher of an "elite" boys school. Let's say the head was receptive to the idea of reviewing their curriculum, teaching methods and staff training with a view to improving the outcome, from a feminist/egalitarian perspective, for their students.

With all that said, is there a paper you have seen that might provide a head teacher with guidance?

Bit of a wide ball ask, but you are obviously well informed in this area.

There was a lot of pre and post amble to the actual study, but I thought the results were very interesting.

It was notable that in boys schools almost all examples of sexism were initiated by the teachers in contrast to other settings, that only 17% (Caroline Criado-Perez did mention something about 17% !) of the staff was female and that all examples came from male teachers.

In the co-ed schools, if gender domination (asking boys over girls, letting boys dominate conversations) was reduced, they would be doing fairly well. Gender reinforcement and embedded discrimination, described in the appendix, were not as problematic here as at single sex schools. It seems as if it would be reasonably easy to raise awareness of gender domination, probably something that escapes most of us (I don't know if this is part of teachers' training or not).

The point about boys schools becoming coed with a sizeable minority of girls and the problems this produces for the girls is something I hadn't considered before but I am currently seeing this in action.

Buffy I don't think the age of the study necessarily invalidates it as it has been well conducted according to methods and in the absence of any significant interventions (perhaps other than social media) since it has been produced it is still likely to be relevant. Also the people this system has produced are now in positions of influence to society.

Married that paragraph is interesting. I know my school (co-ed)was of the spoon feeding type and it is interesting to see that the male schools in this study encouraged more debate and challenge. I think most women would be up for that as long as it is not done in a humiliating or bullying way.

Getting a bit behind here. Re providing rationale for the head teacher of a boys school; it would be desirable but difficult (because of a large number of confounding factors) to research the effects on boys / men of reducing sexism in their schools. Ideally that would be provided through large, long term longitudinal studies looking at endpoints such as quality of relationships with women, marriage survival, quality of family life etc. I also don't think anything exists at present.

Ha Ha Buffy, I thought you hadn't read it, but noticed you still commented on it :-)