Do you think feminism should be taught as part of the curriculum in schools?

[IheartJKR]

If you think feminism should be taught in schools, how do you think it should be done? What age range would you start?
What do you you think the benefits would be for both girls and boys?

@Mintjulia

Thanks for posting, it is really helpful to have hear conflicting opinions.

Some PHSE lesson plans do actually include toxic masculinity which I think is very important. Any understanding for each other that we can facilitate through our young people can only be a good thing.

I agree with need for specialist teachers. This includes the basic rule of objectivity and critical thinking. At the moment we have a heavy bias to personal testimony, 'authenticity' and single issue pressure groups etc with no mechanism to challenge.
Children need to learn the importance of freedom of speech as well as respect and tolerance.

They need to learn about bias in social media and about how humans are fallible and susceptible to group think, the way propaganda works, the power of advertising and now social influencers. The pressures of conformity and punishment of dissent.

This is really a mix of philosophy, psychology, political and sociological theories and is about giving children the tools to withstand indoctrination.
What it isn't is giving children mantras to chant or pushing any 'brand' of thought. But it does have a basis in Human Rights and the need to address that some groups have been seen as less than fully human and still are in some places and circumstances. And that includes woman in every society from the earliest records that we have.
Children should know about Milgram's expts (obedience to authority) and about the Chinese Cultural revolution as well as the holocaust etc.

Not sure if that answered your question, but don't want to clog up the thread / get into a bunfight, truthfully.

Neither do I. Here's where I struggle with conflating trans rights with women's rights... during the fight for women's suffrage, how did they know who to fight for? Who was oppressed and why were they oppressed? Likewise the Married Women's Property Act, why was that needed? What was the historical context and who did it affect? How do we discuss any of these periods of history without talking about women's biology and how that affected their lives and their opportunities?

Here are some more anti-suffragette posters, went down a bit of a wormhole!

Thanks mrscarbonara, it wasn't a trick question or an invitation for an argument. I think that woman's history is really important, especially as you mention the fight for the rights of women to vote and own property. These were all rights denied to female people on the basis of their sex however. Presumably from your POV many men (transmen) were also denied the right to vote and own property, whilst many women (transwomen) were always permitted to. These forms of oppression were therefore just things that happened to some people in general, not to women. If (under your beliefs) these rights were denied to some people of any gender or none, and permitted to others of any gender or none, and women are a specific gender group, then I'm not sure on what grounds you consider this a history of womens rights. Do you have any other examples of womens rights? Once which describe women's rights and history as a group defined by gender rather than by sex.

Someone upthread mentioned RE teaching; I'd be fine with feminist theories being taught in this way in secondary (though obviously including data the analyses are built on, rather than framing it all as unevidenced faith). I'd say the same about race theories.

The trouble, though, would be that the dominant mainstream view - which does nothing to liberate women&girls&transmen from patriarchal norms and requirements - is likely to be taught as objective fact.

In fact it already is. Queer theory isn't taught as 'just a theory', as just one interpretation of the data, but as verified and objective, morally superior, truth. I'd like to move away from that sort of teaching of ideologies.

Anti-stereotyping should be covered from day one onwards; schools are already theoretically supposed to protect kids from harmful stereotypes, aren't they?

If it were up to me I'd want improved training for teachers in the maintenance and reproduction of male-supremacist classroom behaviours, but it would probably need phrasing differently.

I think it should be expected to teach feminism of the “women are people too” and “your sex doesn’t have to determine your interests” and “it’s ok to break from stereotypes” variety. This imo is a core of “feminism” nearly everyone can all agree on.

Similar for racism and equal rights stuff. We can all agree I think that individuals shouldn’t be mistreated or bullied on the basis of their religion, ethnicity or nation of origin.

I'm not a scholar but if something needs to be explained or made explicit I think it's misogyny itself, which is a form of prejudice. Feminism is a response to it. (Perhaps feminism would have been better termed 'anti-misogyny'.)

I'm not sure about giving schools the job of teaching everything but if there's time to teach about other prejudices a share of that time could address the rich history of misogyny and possibly the male psychology/biology behind it. Individual instances and the structural oppression it leads to. Use examples of events, beliefs and practices as discussion points to examine others' and one's own beliefs. Suffragism and feminism can be mentioned in context as examples of recent responses to misogyny and patriarchy.

On the micro level, I would also like to give every girl a copy of books like The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker and Why Does He Do That? by Lundy Bancroft as a guide to avoiding or swiftly terminating abusive relationships. Perhaps a PSHE lesson with key points distilled from this type of book or from the Freedom Programme.

So within PHSE teaching I see, diversity, relationships, friendships, puberty, sex ed etc. Some touch on porn use and social media but I don’t see any that contain feminism.
It won't because the role of PSHE isn't to promote specific social and political agendas.

Many of the topics contain feminist principles (for example, when discussing SRE the idea of freely given consent comes up, when porn is discussed a range of perspectives are given). There is a large focus on equality, anti discrimination, issues of sexism etc throughout our PSHE programme, but we don't sit students down and say "this is the correct version of feminism and you must follow it".

It won't because the role of PSHE isn't to promote specific social and political agendas

But we’re not promoting porn use or peer on peer bullying by addressing it in PHSE?

I’m certainly not advocating that we sit young people down and tell them we should all be feminists. It is not my purpose to push an agenda, regardless of my username!
So maybe feminism is the wrong term. There has been lots of different examples on this thread that are valuable.

I definitely think misogyny is really important and maybe that has a focus that would serve the purpose that I’m considering.

Interesting thread. The reason I'm a feminist is largely due to a couple of teachers at school who were very vocal feminists. I remember an English teacher telling us not to give up our given names if we marry because it was an outdated patriarchal tradition (she also told us the best age for women to marry is 82). She didn't convince everyone but definitely challenged thinking. This was the 70s.

I'm in Scotland and I'd be very worried about the "brand" of feminism we'd get from the current Scottish government if it was to feature in the curriculum now.

I really hope that mrscarbonara (or indeed anyone) answers my question. I'm genuinely intrigued to know how feminism can be meaningfully trans inclusive or indeed meaningful at all if we describe women as a gender and not a sex class. I've asked variations on this question a lot of times and the only person so far to answer me told me to go to the Reddit group "witches vs the patriarchy" for some good examples. I thought it sounded cool but when I got there all I found was lots of women (?) who seemed to think they were literally witches attempting to place curses on Donald trump. I mean, sure, I see no reason why that sort of feminism shouldn't also include Transwoman, and it's certainly logical that a group convinced by one kind of magical thinking should be easily pursuaded by another, but I'm not sure we'll see it bringing down the patriarchy any time soon. In fact I think that if feminism was based around women trying to brew anti patriarchy potions and cast spells, the vast majority of men wouldn't have a problem with it. So I'm looking for an example of trans inclusive feminism that's slightly more reality based. Preferably one that's internally consistent.

IheartJKR
Discussing social issues that form part of the curriculum is different to telling students there is way to think.

When religions are taught it is very much 'here are what some people believe' and when teaching politics there has to be great care to present different political parties in the same way. When doing this with religion and political parties theres doctrines and manifestos to use. With something as open ended as feminism there isn't so it's left wide open to be whatever the person teaching it wants it to be, which is problematic.

I don't think you're trying to push and agenda, but teaching and seeing how it could be used in that way.

You're right about needing to challenge misogyny though. I agree with what you want to achieve, but think it's best achieved through other means.

Great advice @LolaSmiles thank you

I’m going to reflect on everyone’s opinions and advice.

iheartjkr the list of organisations you quote were not listed by the dfe as ones to avoid. They were listed in a letter by Emma Palermo and circulated by Baroness Nicholson. I am with you on this fight but we can't say the dfe have warned against specific organisations because they haven't.

I teach pshe (not my main subject) and I despair at some of it. We teach from bought in schemes mainly as we are all non specialists. Very much focused on e.g. Judging girls for sending nudes rather than boys for pressuring girls into it. I haven't seen a single lesson that addresses porn or new phenomena such as Onlyfans. I also think RE should include feminist arguments. E. G. I teach at a Catholic school: they learn the Catholic view on abortion and the humanist view on abortion, but not the feminist one.

I teach a unit on feminism as part of my subject and it goes down really well. I teach in a girls' school though. To be honest I'd be more nervous about teaching it at a mixed school.

@ValancyRedfern

Thanks for the correction and I do share your concerns about teaching to mixed groups and I’m not quite sure how that would work.

It sounds like you deliver very interesting classes.

@IwishNothingButTheBestForYou2

some radfem views had me very strongly like "wtf"

What views?

The answer came back:

... it's predominantly to do with radfem views on transgender issues I don't agree with personally..

Colour me shocked!

I'm allowed my own views, @IwishNothingButTheBestForYou2

@mrscarbonara

I'm allowed my own views, *@IwishNothingButTheBestForYou2*

...and I'm allowed to pretend to be shocked.

There was an event at dd's school - held annually for the GCSE year - where at one point the year is split into boys who go off and do men's health, and girls, who do make up. It was shocking and when I rang the school and spoke to the teacher who'd organised the day he said he'd never thought of that and it was meant to be a fun day for everyone (so men's health is a bit of fun for the boys then is it? I asked, hmm he replied).

I think a weekly class in the first years on respecting each other and finding points of commonality with others, developing more depth and breadth as you go up the school would be good. Showing people the red flags of abusive relationships, what to do, who to go to.

Reiterate consent all the time. Even Reception year kids would enjoy the cup of tea cartoon and it would stick in their minds.

Thank you @Jux that’s shocking but unfortunately not that unusual I’m afraid.

Just a reminder that ''radfem views on trans issues'' (i.e. women benefit from single sex spaces and services) are based in material reality and in line with current equality law.
Single sex is also considered best practice for most kinds of trauma and addiction therapy.

I've always found that as most teachers are women there's always been a slant to trying to squash sexism etc, certainly among the schools I've taught in.

I think feminist ideas need to be included but defined as feminism as that's when you get mra pushback.,

In a lot of RSE stuff and other areas of the curriculum there's references to tackling sexism and coercive control etc. Gender stereotyping is defined and challenged in a lot of materials. (Obs there's cognitive dissonance with the gender bread stuff though.)

I know subjects like art and history have tried to make sure that more women and people of colour are included in study; this has naturally arisen from teaching forums and Facebook groups, leaders in the areas etc.

Stem/ steam facilitators have been trying to focus on raising interest in the areas for women and girls for many years.

There's a lot that's subtly going on. There could always be more.

What I do think is missing is focussed discussions when it comes to thinking about careers and relationships and families and households.

A friend with teen girls noted there's lots of career fairs and discussions but nothing about thinking about who might look after children if they choose to have them, where women's roles and careers come into that and whether the boys ever factor child care in too? Roles in house work and house management- old style home ec and budgeting etc.

In my experience (and my friend with the teen girl's experience) not fully seeing that side of things is what can fuck you over as a woman and could be discussed more at school. Or even the crazy idea that to be a stay at home parent (of either sex) is a career choice. And how is that then funded? How does the relationship navigate that?