Post colonial feminism

[Diaryofamadwoman]

I'm not sure if I'm posting in the right place here - but I'm having trouble understanding some post colonial feminism. What does "attempting to advance a gendered analysis by overcoming constructed binaries reiterated by structuralist approaches to gender" actually mean and in what way does that benefit women in the global South? Maybe it does - can someone explain it like I'm 5 or direct me to somewhere to learn more about this

I completely understand the need to listen to women - particularly those who have been double colonised. But why then do a number of journal articles I've read on post colonial feminism not centre the voices of the actual women but seem to be imposing western Liberal feminist values on them?

If anyone can offer some thoughts on this, I find this all really confusing and the language doesn't help

Western Colonialism did bring imported values with it, carried by administration, commerce and religion. Britain brought bureaucracy to the sub-continent, an introduced plant that has run wild like knotweed and continues to strangle enterprise and innovation, paralyses the legal system and creates addiction to subsidies and price support such as the Indian Farmers' protests.

Right now we have the new Anti-Gay Laws in Ghana, which are promoted by claiming that homosexuality is unafrican and did not exist before the British brought it with them, but whose very wording is taken verbatim from the texts of US evangelicals who lobby the equally imported pentecostal churches.

Christian missionaries have a lot to answer for, trampling over local cultural traditions, teaching that Jesus wants you to wear a cotton shirt and eat your dinner with a knife and fork, etc, all available from your friendly Western trader.

There's a really interesting section on sati and it's abolition here www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b05xdcvk

Trying to place it in context of India, British colonisation of India and the beginnings of international awareness of various human rights at the time.

Yes absolutely jay.

Lobster- Scotland would be the obvious place they don't have fees. I don't know though not looked into it.
Agree the contract thing will have a big impact. I didn't know that. And it's s very major change.

Yes, blame Balir.

The result of expansion has been more thick middle-class kids with pushy parents. And now even Lunn Poly is the University of Lunn, that class divide that meant so much has gone, and these once heavily proletarian institutions have fallen for the quodos of mortar boards and gowns and all that bollocks.

The whole desire to smush together technical and university education really comes from a terrible snobbery that sees a university type of education as having more cachet.

I've spoken to lots of American parents about this and it's very weird. They are dead set their kids will go to college on the one hand, but not to study anything like literature or history or philosophy, and maybe even not pure sciences. They want their kids to have a clear path to a good job. SO on the one hand they are really seeking out technical education while also trying to situate themselves up the class ladder, which is the US is in some ways worse than the UK because it supposedly reflects your merit.

There is no reason technical skills like lab work or engineering or IT, or work in trades, should be less respected than the traditional academic disciplines. The latter only directly supply work for a few individuals who have the most talent in that kind of thinking, and while they can give a lot of value to some others most of those will not work directly in that area.

It's great when the children of bricklayers find they are suited to academia and are able to get there. But it should also be recognized as great if the children of bricklayers find they like to work outside with their hands and become bricklayers. It's not like we don't need those kinds of workers.

The Germans and Swiss have it right. They have a separate strand of Technical Education which is not academic, not called a University, and has status in its own right.

As I may have alluded to earlier, it was the exclusion of the dissenters from English universities that saw so many of them go into engineering via the univsersity of life and the school of hard knocks. That is now deeply culturally embedded in this country.

Also, I worry about the uses of History in the school curriculum, persuing diversity and the promotion of positive images etc.

If by that you mean study the world and not just one little corner of it, then fine. But not if you want to turn historical figures into, god help us, role models.

This latter view is exemplified by the drive to promote Mary Seacole as the equal of Florence Nightingale, which she never was. She contributed nothing to modern nursing practice, good thing too because she liked to get the boys drunk and charge them for it, hic.

She has been rehabilitated of late as a pioneer of therauputic care and support for troops with PTSD, which is a fairer call.

The 50% target was actually formulated by the Major govt as part of their international competitiveness targets, and was inherited by Blair as AAE existing policy. It was also widely misrepresented by the right-wing media as 50% at university, when in fact it was actually 50% of the cohort having had some experience of tertiary level education, including all further vocational education at FE colleges, higher level NVQs, Modern Apprenticeships, 1 year diplomas and trading courses and also included anyone who’d done a short course of a couple of weeks in a further education setting. Not really such a massive ambition really when you think about how many Far East Asian countries send far higher proportions of their young people into HE. Remember that the school leaving age was 16 at the time and we were a nation of hugely underskilled young people with flagging productivity. It wasn’t ever 50% doing degrees.

I worked as a contractor on that policy for the (then) DfES at the time and it was totally misrepresented just so that the Mail and Express could have a go at the Blair government, so you might want to row back on the blame game. It doesn’t seem to me a dreadful policy to have at least half of our young people skilled in technical, vocational or academic training to even a small amount beyond school level. Perhaps if we took this more seriously our economy wouldn’t be so dependent on skilled labour from overseas.

*training courses not trading courses! Autocorrect madness today.

And here is where we part ways! And is a massive and different topic!

I have so so much to say. Erm where to start!

From my experience and reading around etc. In no particular order.

1. When roles that had been trained and qualified on job (relevant, actually doing the job with supervision so practical real life etc) changed to needing degrees that was. I can't remember there being problems with the way it was. Nursing springs to mind. Loads of other roles as well. So many people.

Along with this change where it became much more usual to go to uni.

And then in turn loads of entry level jobs started wanting degrees.

It all just spiralled.

I have strong beliefs about uni and inequality etc and have done for ages.
But what happened was... Not for the better!

Eg in my sector. Part of financial sector. Loads of opportunity for progression, great salaries, international travel or secondment if that's your thing, generally superior benefits packages etc.

You tend to start in these very big offices locally. Often temping. And if you are good up you go. School leavers a level or GCSE were common. Women returners etc. Plenty of reliable people, some v clever, driven, etc and they would zoom up the ranks.

Then all degrees? Erm. Nah. Some specialist roles needed. V lucrative. Bog standard? Why?

Plenty are finding uni leavers expect handed to on plate. And have started recruiting from a- level up. And recently seen looking for trainees GCSE up. In the part of the sector that the really successful go. Prime city location etc.

So that was bizarre and IMO really had a negative effect on social groups v unlikely to go to uni.

Next.

Getting young people to stay in long term education as long as poss, changes the employment/ unemployment stats. Loads who would be working/ looking are now vanished from that cohort. Came with changes to benefits system. Meaning those stats not comparable to before. Etc.

That imo was political rather than to help anyone.

And then fees.

So regressive re accessibllity across society.

And I read something that clicked. Contraversial prob!

Students have always been a pita for govts. Idealistic, methods of organisation, lots of politics in unis. Marching shouting chaining to things etc. No children to look after, no full time job. No mortgage etc. (In the past, generally). Annoying loud. The passion and recklessness of the young. Education important in itself, less a means to an end.

Now. So often degree is expected for many jobs. Uni is to get quals to get hopefully decent job. Overall expense = most leave with large debt before even started work. Working plenty hours and uni FT is the norm for many. Exhausting stressful. Politically active? Trying to keep head above water.

And debt means responsibility. Debt needs servicing. Back of mind. Get job earn money toe the line.

Result for govts. That's shut them up. Good for financial sector too. If you have a big debt already. Psychologically. You are more likely to borrow more. What does it matter? You're up to your neck in debt before you even get going.

Imo awful.

It’s more capitalism than government desire, I’m afraid. Before the push for higher numbers of kids in tertiary education, how did many of the non-university educated kids get jobs, pre-Thatcher? Employers took them on and trained them. A young person might not have been productive to a company for years; but near full male employment and union power (and few women in the workforce), all meant that if companies wanted to employ more workers, they largely hadn’t much choice other than to take on young people and train them up, either informally or through formal apprenticeships and vocational qualifications.

Post 1980s, that all gradually melted away. Employers now want ready-trained young people: they don’t want to pay to train them.
In-workplace training schemes these days are like unicorns. Employers found it much more pleasant to employ workers on temporary and insecure contracts than to take on school leavers and invest in training them.

The early Blair governments tried a lot of finances and structural incentives to get businesses to invest in training: they simply wouldn’t. I heard CEOs at companies and in focus groups just saying things like “I don’t want to pay to train my workforce”. Lots of the push for re-establishing technical and vocational schemes in the very early 2000s crashed and burned because despite interest from young people, employers and businesses just wouldn’t get on board. They want individuals to take on the debt to train themselves up at universities and colleges, and then just employ them all ready skilled. Cheaper and convenient and doesn’t require any long term commitment to the workforce.

On another note, it was also always a myth that (say) boomer age cohorts didn’t have large numbers with tertiary education. A very large proportion of those cohorts did study at tertiary institutions, including polytechnics, FE colleges, teacher training colleges, and so on. Obviously after 1992 many of those institutions became universities: but if you look at pre-1992 cohorts and add university cohorts to those who went to pre-92 FE institutions, you get a much clearer picture which is that those generations always did have a lot of exposure to tertiary education and training as well.

On the degree subjects - disciplines like nursing are not at all like they used to be decades ago. Many functions nurses used to perform are done now by healthcare assistants. Nursing has been a very high skill job for a long time now, with a lot of complex elements. Nurse practitioners and nurses in high-tech specialisms like ICU or chemo delivery are extremely highly skilled and require degree-level training, including in the mathematics required to calculate drug delivery and operate very complex technical machinery. I have a close friend who is a nurse and has a PhD in ICU nursing practice. Many nurses in joint practice/research roles carry out research projects at universities.

Nursing is a discipline that is rightly degree-level these days, and ought to be paid a lot more. Healthcare assistants too ought to be better trained and paid IMO as well.

Combining study with work and being paid properly is surely better? I mean IMO. For nursing etc.

I know they get experience on the ground. But it seems, I mean so much is about experience surely? With anything involving so much work of this type.

Having said that. Not my area. So happy to accept am wrong!

'Employers now want ready-trained young people: they don’t want to pay to train them.'

That isn't how it works though with many/ most jobs?

Each role is different. It needs to be learnt. On the job. How the industry works. What is the reason for doing the thing, what is fundamental and what is less so. What are the pitfalls? Usually need to learn the actual skills. Takes time. I mean so much.

A degree in financial services won't actually mean you can walk into a specific function and just do it.

I've had a lot of jobs public private and 3rd sector. None of them I could just dive in.

What I would like-

Get rid of fees

Fantasy- inequalities somehow got rid of. So those who are genuinely able and interested get opportunity for continued education. Rather than disproportionate from certain types of school etc plenty of whom in the end are not particularly able.

Uni only for roles that need it. Happy to include nursing. Etc. training on the job and being paid esp for students with less financial support makes things much better.

Try and unravel this degree requirement for jobs that totally don't need it.

Moving away from this utilitarian study to work means to an end. Further education for passion, love of subject. Is important. Plenty of important fields do not pay well. The possibility that the numbers who go into those fields. The research and new developments. Unusual specialist roles. To me the correct approach misses a massive part of what uni etc is all about.

And this awful insistence on things in schools being focused on some kind of Victorian fantasy. In particular maths. This is my personal bugbear!

The number of potentially incredible mathematicians that must be lost because of the learn by rote and recite stuff is... I'd imagine a fair few. I have my reasons for thinking that! It really gets up my nose.

Have you got a degree though Gerbil? I appreciate that everyone has to learn a role when they first arrive, but if you already have a degree and workplace experience then you’re not being trained up from scratch. The degree itself gives you skills that makes it possible for you to teach yourself the job. Pretty much no businesses want to take a 16 or 18-year-old school leaves and actually teach them a skilled career from scratch. It takes a lot of people to train them for a start!

The opportunities for working and studying at the same time are very few - compare an economy like Germany where they really do workplace-based technical and vocational education well. (On the flip side, however, German academia in the universities is sluggish and stultified, and very dominated by very slow-moving and nepotistic employment structures.)

I would remove fees too, at least to the top-up level they originally were. (I’m very left wing, but I also don’t see a problem with students paying part of the cost of the degree, as long as both government and business pay in too, to reflect that an individual’s education provides benefits three ways: to them, to the economy, and to society as a whole). But I think this ought to be the case in varying degrees for technical and vocational education too. Being trained by an employer for a very specific role? They should pay most or all of that cost. Further education in training as a nurse or teacher? The state should pay a lot of that cost. Reading for a masters in creative writing for the enjoyment of it? Probably the student should pay a lot of that cost. And all education up to a certain standard should be paid for automatically by the state - eg doing GCSE or A-level or equivalent exams in FE - but with some funding from business, because it’s in everyone’s interest to have skilled workers in the economy.

Thanks for replying! Revision this conversation :)

I think a lot of perspectives will come from own experience, friends family etc?

Just thinking that it's hard to know when eg you and I are thinking of similar situations and when we are talking at cross purposes. Just a thought I'm going to bear in mind.

I tend to be looking winded so will split points down across couple comments!

I think we agree that funding structure needs to change with much less burden on students generally. The nuts and bolts I'd be happy to leave there unless you want to talk about that more.

I always enjoy talking about this topic - I used to be a public policy analyst with a specialism in international competitiveness in high-skill business and education systems! Sadly these days I work in a different field so I rarely get to discuss it. I miss it. But I probably need to sleep now though will check back in on the thread tomorrow…

Oh wow! I'll leave it there and look forward to tomorrow!

I think it's inaccurate to say that nursing became more technical or higher level so as to require a university degree.

Nursing schools always included plenty of classes which were not easy. They also included practical work, for sure, and that work done by student and young nurses was part of the whole system of running hospitals and helped pay for the nurses own education, room and board, and often a stipend. The most able rose up to high levels of nursing just as much as they do now, including things like hospital administration.

The real difference is like so many areas, the job has been split into a managerial class and worker class, so where before the best could rise up from the bottom, now that's not possible. I don't think I've ever heard a nurse educated in the old system say that the new managerial nurses are better at their jobs for not having come up through the system, quite the opposite.

As for employers trying to put on the cost and risk of training onto individuals, yes, a great deal for them. Why it was ever allowed I don't know - I understand they didn't want to get behind it but ultimately they'd simply have screwed themselves.

Nonetheless, I don't think we can deny that the move to put technical education into universities has largely served to make it more expensive, and has also been terrible for the real role of universities. And degree inflation has been a very bad thing which mainly wastes the time and money of the students. Many jobs that now ask for undergraduate degrees don't need them really, and similarly for masters degrees.

A concern for me with degree first for things like nursing, teaching, social work I think? And more.

Is that you've got a way along before placements start.

What if, in practice. You dislike it? That's got to be a risk surely.