Exam board "gender in literature" considered

[tobee]

According to The Times, the exam board is considering changing its English topic "women in literature" to "gender in literature"

‘Women in literature’ topic may be renamed as exam boards order diversity shake-up

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/women-in-literature-topic-may-be-erased-as-exam-boards-order-diversity-shake-up-gq5p5r32k

Sorry don't know how to do share tokens

• exam board ocr is considering that should read

The bit about a wider range of authors is good.

The bit about gender in literature instead of women is not.

What do they mean by gender in this context?

Women wrote about their lives and pov through the years from their perspective and it was sex based. About their experiences in a society which restricted female people in this way or that.

What do they mean and what changes will they make? Do they even know or does it just sound progressive to them?

I can only read the first para, but the way they’ve thrown in Bernadine Evaristo as the illustrating photograph seems a bit editorially muddled. The headline is about the sex/gender issue. I ended up googling Evaristo to see if she was trans, but no, she is female so that’s pertaining to a separate -commendable- move to add more BAME authors to the syllabus.

Why does it always feel like the controversial stuff is being smuggled out using some other minority as a human shield?

So studying literature written by men? That will make a change.

Following the example of women's studies becoming gender studies. That's worked well for women.

I've just been listening to the WESC committee on changing male attitudes to VAWG. One of the witnesses said organisations were asking for courses/training covering all types of violence/discrimination not just women. She clearly said this failed because it didn't address the specific issues around sexism and misogyny deeply enough to be effective.

This is just another example of window dressing which ends up with women being erased as the central focus. There are already a wealth of black women writers who deserve to be studied so what exactly is the problem with the word woman, or aren't they really women as TRAs insist on implying.

I've just been listening to the WESC committee on changing male attitudes to VAWG. One of the witnesses said organisations were asking for courses/training covering all types of violence/discrimination not just women. She clearly said this failed because it didn't address the specific issues around sexism and misogyny deeply enough to be effective.

all lives matter

Is Evaristo not non-binary?

Apologies, it appears not.

Interesting. When I took my a levels we did indeed look at gender and language in society and gender in literature.
Of course this was the noughties so everyone assumed gender meant sex. Plenty of examples of gender swapping and expectations in Shakespeare. I suppose they are trying to teach that Viola and co are all trans now.
It'll be interesting how they portray every characters' inevitable detransition at the end. Get ready to hear 'Shakespeare was transphobic' a lot.
And it won't be very inclusive since Gove tried to shoehorn only British Empire writers into the curriculum a few years ago.
Bet 1984 has scooted off the recommended reading list.

I think I prefer gender as "women in literature" solidifies our status as outside of the norm in literature.