Eton College has a Feminism society

[GabrielleNelson]

... and they had an outing recently to a girls' school to explain gender theory to them. Not a joke, it seems.

www.etoncollege.com/newsarticle/etons-feminism-society-meets-with-students-at-st-marys-ascot

Glosswitch has a good thread building on Twitter about this. Julie Bindel says she is going to use it for the start of her next book.

The short version is: until you have a son at Eton, don't start pontificating about it

chippy much?

anything else I'm not allowed to have an opinion on unless I have a blood relative involved?

It is perfectly possible to know about a place without having a son there. Many of us have friends and family who have been to Eton, or our sons do. We are all capable to reading, of listening, of looking at the Etonians we j who or who are in public life.

I would commend Professor Selina Scott's (Oxford) recent speech to all parents of children interested in feminism.
It is incredibly significant and a valuable resource for any teaching staff (private or state) for discussion with their pupils.
One hopes that the boys at Eton will have the opportunity to study it.

It is an important part of feminist history already!

link here:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3592866-Professor-Selina-Todds-brilliant-important-inspirational-speech-Feminism-postmodernism-and-women-s-oppression-WPUK-London-20-5-2019

You're trolling aren't you, EtonianMother? You must be very invested in this school to feel the need to defend it to randoms on an internet chat board. Don't they have a PR department for that kind of thing?

We're not allowed to have an opinion unless we can afford the £14,000 a term fees. Obviously.

Of course you are. However, it's a bit like me having an opinion on all sorts of stuff that I only know second hand or by hearsay (and I do have opinions about a whole load of second-hand and hearsay stuff, obviously).

Not chippy at all. I will wade in and defend Eton, though, as it has been so stupendously brilliant for my DS (who hated school and was miserably bullied until he went there, and is now happier than he has ever been at school).

I don't pay full fees, @Erythronium. DS has a scholarship and bursary. Not trolling - just grateful that he is at an outstanding school where he is thriving.

I'm pleased your son has been happy at the school EtonianMother

I'd suggest that may be blinding you to the fact that it is a bastion of privilege that is closed to women.

it may also be blinding you to the fact that when a single institution is responsible for forming and educating so many influential and powerful people, it is completely reasonable to expect people to have an interest in and an opinion about it, even (gasp) if their sons don't attend

EtonianMother you are just making it worse, can't you see that?

If a school society my son attended published this on their news page, he and I would be having a very serious discussion about the fundamentals of feminism, 300 mile distance or not.

You have come on this thread guns ablaze without once even pausing to express concern at the gravity of the situation. Your child was discussing whether women need erasing and you haven't expressed any shock or surprise or anything at all really.

That is bonkerosity

I think EtonianMother is a little bit overexcited at her son’s success. Well done him, obviously- a scholarship is an achievement- but a clear eyed consideration of the politics (with a small p) is important.

Well it's a huge opportunity for a boy to go to Eton isn't it? The fact that girls don't get the same chances is clearly neither here nor there even if it is the school's feminist society we're talking about.

Professor Selina Todd (Modern History Oxford)

from the WPUK speech linked peviously:

(relevent extract)
"Among our demands are women’s right to same-sex spaces, and to self-organisation. They are vital in themselves, but also as means of destroying women’s oppression by men – an oppression that is based on our biological sex, and which socialises us in gendered ways. Working collectively to change this, is what feminism is all about. And as feminists, we have a long and proud tradition to draw on, which I want to talk about tonight.

But feminism, like the definition of woman, is an object of suspicion for the opponents of women’s sex-based rights. I want to talk briefly about where this hostility comes from, drawing on what’s been taught in UK and US universities over the past thirty years. Some of what I say may sound esoteric, but two, almost three generations of students have been educated to see the world a certain way. They are now the teachers, journalists, civil servants and politicians seeking to negotiate the current debate over women’s rights. We need to understand how their education has influenced their worldview, if we are to set the record straight. " (continues)

womansplaceuk.org/2019/05/21/feminism-postmodernism-and-womens-oppression/

Lots of feminists support sex segregated education. It's pretty disingenuous to suggest that they can't.

It's also disingenuous to suggest that women's reproductive role is not connected to their social role. That's a huge part of the argument for sex protections in the law.

And really, are people really suggesting that teens in school should be told by adults what they are allowed to talk about, and what opinions are ok? Which approved opinions will those be? GC feminism today, TWAW tomorrow?

“Lots of feminists support sex segregated education. It's pretty disingenuous to suggest that they can't.“

Did anyone?

We only need sex protections for of our reproductive status because men oppress us with violence. In a world where men didn't oppress us we wouldn't need protecting because our reproductive status would be respected.

I support single sex education for girls, not for boys though, when it's about extending and reinforcing male privilege as they do at Eton. Whilst we're talking about it it's pretty disingenuous to pretend that any feminist could support the existence of Eton.

...allowing girls in would do anything to get more women in cabinet.

• I think that is exactly what it WOULD do!

Say whatever you wish about Eton: but it is an institution that knows damn well the difference between boys and girls when it comes to admission policy.

Strange, that it can be so very uncomplicated, in some cases.

Or to put it another way:
Does Eton, currently, accommodate girl pupils too? Or is Eton a single-sex / boys only school?

And if Eton can exist legitimately as a single-sex institution for boys - then why can't women and girls have single-sex facilities in this manner too, such as toilets and changing rooms and scholarships? (For a start, and for example.)

The need for sex based protections are not only about violence. It's a big mistake to hitch those things together so closely.

Privacy in changing rooms isn't only about violence, it is about privacy, dignity of person.
Separate sports for women isn't about violence or oppression.
Women's reproductive role affects they way we can take jobs, our medical care, all kinds of things that need to be accommodated in public life in some way.

As far as sex segregated schools: if you have sex segregated schools for girls, you are going to have boys in the other schools. There are also all kinds of good pedagogical reasons for single sex schools, including developmental reasons. All children deserve education that is developmentally appropriate and allows them to develop their capacities.

Class based objections to certain types of education shouldn't be conflated with sex based ones. Is it really better to have a school that privileges future opportunities for wealthy boys and girls from the right families, than it is to have it for just boys? That's just neoliberal identity politics.

In any case, even if you want to run an elite school for the best students from all backgrounds, it's pretty arguable that the separation of sexes is the cause of more of the boys going into government. Getting women into government is a problem at every level. If it were solved you might well find that the elite girls school(s) became known for producing PMs.

I think that is exactly what it WOULD do!

What makes you think that?

If you are wrong, all you have done is struck a blow against separate schooling which has a lot of benefits for girls and boys.

I agree that every child should consider feminist issues at school as part of their fundamental education needs and I hope all schools do this. They won’t because they won’t have Eton's resources and confidence.
But in principle it’s good to have a forum for feminist learning and discussion at schools. and like with all political study for young people they need some adult guidance to ensure there is plurality tolerance and balance in the scope of their studies and debates.

So any school feminist society looking at gender and sex clearly needs to consider the actual feminist issues pertinent to gender issues affecting women and men. Perhaps a feminist society who have questioned what women and men are could next debate
-if the GRA has still got legal necessity behind it now that there is same sex marriage and equal pension rights for women and men.
-Whether it’s right to experiment on children.
-Whether women should have the right to meet and talk about this without fear.
-Whether women deserve to have competitive or professional sports of their own. -What the relative values of single sex schooling is for women and men.
-Then get a biologist in to talk about the difference between women and men.
-A prison officer and lawyer talk about men prisoners getting put in with women prisoners.
-detransitioned people to talk about their experiences
-Any school society should also try opening these talks up to the public in a normal open public venue like a conference centre or community centre and see how they get on with that... if it’s unsafe for them to do so, which it is in this current climate, and TRAs try to shut it down, then that is a debate topic in itself.

"And if Eton can exist legitimately as a single-sex institution for boys - then why can't women and girls have single-sex facilities in this manner too, such as toilets and changing rooms and scholarships? (For a start, and for example.)"

They can, and do. There are some top independent girls' schools in this country: Benenden, Wycombe Abbey, Cheltenham Ladies College, Roedean, Sherborne Girls - just off the top of my head, there are plenty more.

Girls' education is a relatively new thing in this country, while schools like Eton have been going for hundreds of years.

I don't quite understand why people are attacking Eton for having such a society instead of advocating that co-educational public schools such as Marlborough, Rugby, and now Charterhouse, should emulate them.