Gender Equality in Changing Times: Multidisciplinary Reflections on Struggles and Progress [1st ed.] 9783030265694, 9783030265700

Table of contents :
Front Matter ....Pages i-xi
Introduction (Angela Smith)....Pages 1-14
Front Matter ....Pages 15-15
Female Role Models in a Male-Dominated Workplace: Do We Still Need Their Influence Today? (Stephanie Atkinson)....Pages 17-38
“Oh, it’s actually quite nice up here”: Reflections on Prejudice, Partiality and Division and Moral Challenges to Inclusivity Created by Gender, Class and Region (Bridget Cooper)....Pages 39-60
Prisoners of Inclusivity: Perspective on Spirituality, Humanism and Place (Juila Janfeshar Nobari, Paul-Alan Armstrong)....Pages 61-81
A Critical Analysis of Masculinity During Mentoring in Contemporary Schools (Kim Gilligan)....Pages 83-106
Understanding Gender Categorisation in a Binary Society (Katie Ward)....Pages 107-127
Front Matter ....Pages 129-129
“Enough of this PC-crazed Nonsense”: The Backlash Against Gender Equality as Personified by Emma Watson (Angela Smith)....Pages 131-151
Agreement and Disagreement About Social Changes Regarding Saudi Women on Twitter (Wjoud Almadani)....Pages 153-180
“Straight Man Cancer”: The Discursive Representation and Backlash of Sexism on Chinese Internet (Xiaoping Wu)....Pages 181-201
Gender and Media Representation: Politics and the “Double Bind” (Fiona McKay)....Pages 203-225
Smart, Casual, Unisex: Can We Have Gender Equality in Twenty-First Century Fashion and Dress? (Janet Pearson)....Pages 227-245
What Next? Some Concluding Thoughts (Angela Smith)....Pages 247-253
Back Matter ....Pages 255-264

Citation preview

Gender Equality in Changing Times Multidisciplinary Reflections on Struggles and Progress Edited by  Angela Smith

Gender Equality in Changing Times

Angela Smith Editor

Gender Equality in Changing Times Multidisciplinary Reflections on Struggles and Progress

Editor Angela Smith Department of Media and Communication Studies University of Sunderland Sunderland, UK

ISBN 978-3-030-26569-4    ISBN 978-3-030-26570-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26570-0 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

1 Introduction  1 Angela Smith Part I 

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2 Female Role Models in a Male-­Dominated Workplace: Do We Still Need Their Influence Today? 17 Stephanie Atkinson 3 “Oh, it’s actually quite nice up here”: Reflections on Prejudice, Partiality and Division and Moral Challenges to Inclusivity Created by Gender, Class and Region 39 Bridget Cooper 4 Prisoners of Inclusivity: Perspective on Spirituality, Humanism and Place 61 Juila Janfeshar Nobari and Paul-Alan Armstrong

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5 A Critical Analysis of Masculinity During Mentoring in Contemporary Schools 83 Kim Gilligan 6 Understanding Gender Categorisation in a Binary Society107 Katie Ward Part II 

 129

7 “Enough of this PC-crazed Nonsense”: The Backlash Against Gender Equality as Personified by Emma Watson131 Angela Smith 8 Agreement and Disagreement About Social Changes Regarding Saudi Women on Twitter153 Wjoud Almadani 9 “Straight Man Cancer”: The Discursive Representation and Backlash of Sexism on Chinese Internet181 Xiaoping Wu 10 Gender and Media Representation: Politics and the “Double Bind”203 Fiona McKay 11 Smart, Casual, Unisex: Can We Have Gender Equality in Twenty-First Century Fashion and Dress?227 Janet Pearson 12 What Next? Some Concluding Thoughts247 Angela Smith Index255

Notes on Contributors

Wjoud Almadani  is Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at Shaqra University, Shaqraa, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. She has recently completed her PhD in the School of Culture at the University of Sunderland. Almadani is conducting her research on the speech act of refusal and gender in Saudi Arabia. She holds degrees in English (BA, King Abdul Aziz University) and TESOL (MA, California State University, East Bay). Her research interests include pragmatics and discourse, gender and minorities studies. Paul-Alan Armstrong is Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management and Leadership at the University of Sunderland, UK. His teaching is in the areas of management learning, professional development and equality in the workplace. His research interests and publications are in arts-based methodologies, professional development, digital reflection and gender issues in the workplace. Armstrong is a VC Teaching Fellow and has presented at a range of regional, national and international conferences on professional development, digital reflection and arts-based methodologies. Stephanie Atkinson  is from the University of Sunderland, UK, and has recent research interests, PhD and Masters supervision, and publications concerning issues within science, technology, engineering and ­mathematics (STEM)-related subjects both in higher education and in schools. This has included the demise of design and technology within an vii

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Notes on Contributors

educational context, factors that have influenced woman’s continued underrepresentation in STEM education and subsequent careers and the place that role models have played in the hope of improving that situation. Bridget Cooper  has taught in schools and adult education for 15 years and has researched and taught in various higher education (HE) institutions since 1995: the Open University, Leeds University, Leeds Metropolitan University and University of Sunderland, where she was the Director of the Centre for Pedagogy and is now Emeritus Professor of Education. She has written on a wide range of research issues in teaching and learning including affective issues, moral education, information technology, the impact of OFSTED and issues of equality in education and society. Kim  Gilligan  is Principal Lecturer in Teaching and Learning at the University of Sunderland. Her PhD explored areas of gender, class and culture in YA fiction. Her current research is in teaching and learning, social justice, class and gender. Fiona McKay  is a lecturer in Journalism at Robert Gordon University (RGU) in Aberdeen. During her undergraduate course at the University of Glasgow, she studied English Literature; she obtained an MLitt in Journalism Studies from the University of Strathclyde, where she proceeded to pursue her PhD in Journalism. Her research focused on the mediated representation of gender in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum and was funded by the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland. McKay’s research focus is at the intersections of gender, media, politics, and journalistic practice. Her professional experience includes working as a journalist, mostly for the Herald and Times Group (Newsquest) in Scotland. Juila  Janfeshar  Nobari  is Lecturer in Accounting and Finance in the Faculty of Business, Law and Tourism at the University of Sunderland, UK. Her research interests are broadly within the area of social accounting and reporting in relation to accountability and business ethics issues. More specifically, her current research involves financialisation of daily life and history within the focus on the workings of finance and gender.

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Janet Pearson  is an independent researcher interested in ideas pertaining to individuality and identity. An experienced teacher, and former designer-dressmaker, her research interests include art, language and literature (especially German literature), history of ideas, narratology, gender and psychology of fashion. She wrote her doctoral thesis (University of Sunderland, 2015) on the theme of mass culture and individuality in the work of Austrian-Jewish intellectual Hermann Broch (1886–1951), focusing particularly on his magnum opus The Death of Virgil (Der Tod des Vergil). Pearson has presented research papers at several international conferences and has written journal articles on the themes of time and crisis in art, in Broch’s work. Angela  Smith  is Professor of Language and Culture in the School of Media, Journalism and Communication Studies at the University of Sunderland, UK. She has research interests in language and gender, media discourses and children’s literature and has written widely in these areas. With Dr Claire Nally at the University of Northumbria, she edits the Bloomsbury International Library of Gender in Popular Culture. Katie Ward  has recently completed her PhD in Language and Gender Identity from the University of Sunderland, UK.  Her area of research interest is language and identity in which she has explored the lexicon of gender diversity and its use in society. Ward has worked with schools and LGBT societies to explore the impact of language on gender diverse people. Xiaoping  Wu is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Communication, University of Macau, China. She has published in Discourse Studies, Media, Culture and Society, Discourse, Context and Media, Language and Intercultural Communication and Babel in the areas of social media discourse studies, new media and translation studies, and intercultural studies. She is a member of the Editorial Board of Discourse, Context and Media.

List of Figures and Tables

Fig. 9.1

Table 4.1 Table 4.2 Table 8.1 Table 8.2

Internet meme of “straight man cancer”. Translation of the verbal message: Let’s listen to what “straight man cancer” says: hi, beauty. How old are you? Young sister, you should not wear makeup at such a young age. I think you look better without makeup. Don’t wear makeup when we are together. Send me your selfie, young sister. Why do you buy so many lipsticks? Women should be diligent and thrifty. Do you do housework? I don’t like lazy women 186

Outline of conversations Keys themes and explanation Date of creation of hashtags and number of tweets Percentage of Saudi men and women expressing agreement and disagreement Table 8.3 Percentage of Saudi men and women expressing agreement and disagreement Table 8.4 Percentage of Saudi men and women expressing agreement and disagreement

63 64 160 161 167 173

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1 Introduction Angela Smith

This book offers a collection of chapters that explores and interrogates gender equality issues, through both the personal experiences of people themselves and the representation of gender and sexuality. Gender equality has been at the heart of feminist campaigns throughout the twentieth century. The early First Wave Feminist campaigns had crystallised around the call for universal suffrage, with most Westernised countries achieving this by 1930. This gave women the platform to raise issues of equality from inside the political system, a process that continues to this day. As Karen Boyle (2019) points out, at the time of writing this book, we are in a moment when feminism’s popularity is once more resurgent. At the same time, Sarah Banet-Weiser (2018) has argued that this coincides with popular misogyny. And it is not only the binary male/female backlash that is apparent, as other issues of gender and sexuality show a tension between liberation and oppression. A. Smith (*) Department of Media and Communication Studies, University of Sunderland, Sunderland, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Smith (ed.), Gender Equality in Changing Times, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26570-0_1

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By the 1980s, the political activism of feminists spanning the twentieth century appeared to achieve the goals of equality. Laws were in place in Westernised societies that gave women and men equal rights to employment, education and legal powers. A vocabulary of “empowerment” and “choice” crystallised into what became known as “post-­ feminism”, a term which implied we no longer needed feminism: we were beyond that. However, many feminists challenged this post-feminist utopia. For example, Angela McRobbie (2009) challenged the basic assumption that feminism had “ended” in a scathing critique of the myth of female empowerment that post-feminism apparently offered. The various strands of post-feminism shifted in dominance from the “ladette” who apparently embraced the opportunity to behave as a young man would in terms of drinking, socialising and general rowdiness to the retraditionalisation of femininity that offered women the “choice” to be domesticated and traditionally feminine. This fluctuation between aspects of post-­ feminist choice can be seen in action in reality TV programmes such as the internationally franchised “Ladette to Lady” (2005–2008) (see Smith 2011). Diane Negra (2009) has also explored the concept of having-it-all post-feminism of popular culture, with the underlying dissatisfaction in the consumerisation of female aspiration. As we will see later, the demonisation of feminism in the post-feminist concept led to the assumption that feminists are joyless and anti-men, contrasting with the deluded post-feminist woman who has been conned into believing that the sexualising of her body is empowering (Whelehan 2000). Stéphanie Genz and Ben Brabon (2010) offer a more nuanced view of post-feminism, suggesting that it does have scope to be celebrated and at the very least that it is a transitional point between the political gains of Second Wave Feminism and what is yet to come. It is this transition that chapters in this book explore. One-hundred years after some women first gained national suffrage in Britain, gender equality is firmly back on the agenda. The attention given to issues of gender equality achieved international recognition through the #MeToo social media campaigns of 2017 and 2018, which saw the arts and entertainment industries rocked by accusations of sexism and sexual harassment. These claims were led by women, but included the stories of gay participants too, who felt that they had been exploited or

1 Introduction 

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assaulted by powerful men in the industry. Gender equality in the twenty-­ first century now encompasses multiple sexualities in its reach, offering evidence of how far equality campaigns have actually come in that there is now a general acceptance of non-binary sexuality, both legally and socially. That said, there remain parts of the world, including the Westernised world, where attitudes, if not the law, continue to discriminate against those who are not binary, heterosexual identified. This book seeks to explore how these attitudes persist, despite decades of legal changes towards inclusivity, particularly over the last 50 years. Legislation towards gender equality has been enacted throughout the twentieth century but most recently since the 1960s. The Second Wave Feminist movement in Westernised countries saw campaigns that were broadly grouped under “seven goals” as outlined by the UK’s Women’s Liberation Movement: • • • • • • •

Equal pay now Equality education and job opportunities Free contraception and abortion on demand Free 24-hour nursery care Financial and legal independence Equality irrespective of sexuality End to all discrimination against lesbians and women’s rights to define her own sexuality

It is telling that, half a century later, there is still legislation being developed even in Westernised countries to act on these goals. For example, from 6 April 2017 employers in Great Britain with more than 250 staff were required by law to publish statistics detailing staff pay by gender, annually on their own website and on a government website. The first full report of this appeared in April 2018 and showed that even 48 years since the passing of the Equal Pay Act (1970) in the UK, women consistently lag behind their male counterparts when it comes to pay. According to the Office for National Statistics, in 2017 the gap between what UK male and female workers earned, based on median hourly earnings, stood at 18.4%. This had risen from 18.2% in 2016.

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This is against a background of more women being in paid employment than ever before. As Myra Macdonald (1995) and many others have pointed out, this leads to a double bind where women are damned if they go out to work (implicitly neglecting their domestic duties) or damned if they stay at home (implicitly rejecting the hard-fought-for rights for women in the workplace). Whilst Second Wave Feminist campaigns led to equality in terms of the legal obligations of employers, cultural expectations also needed to change. For example, in her 2017 autobiography, UK Labour MP and former Minister for Women, Harriet Harman, recounts that her mother, who had qualified as a barrister in the 1940s, had felt obliged to give up work when she had her children in order to fulfil the role of housewife. Harman laments that her mother’s barrister’s robe and wig ended up in the dressing-up box, and uses this ignominious act to highlight the inequality in pre-1970s’ society that deprived the world of the brains and skills of highly educated women purely on the basis of the compulsion to conform to domestic gendered expectations (Harman 2017). It is not just the university-educated women whose skills and knowledge were confined to the family on marriage through cultural expectations. My own mother had qualified as a nurse in 1961, becoming one of the youngest women of her generation to be promoted to the rank of ward sister when she was just 21. However, like Harman’s mother, on giving birth to her first child, my mother also gave up her profession, and the costume associated with her job—her nurse’s watch, registration badges and silver-buckled belt—also found their way into our dressing-­up box. The inequality of the system affected women at all points of the social class scale, although working-class women were less prominent during the Second Wave Feminist movement. Bridget Cooper explores this in her chapter. It is now commonplace for women to continue working after becoming mothers, and in many European countries the State has increasingly stepped in to fund childcare (although in post-2008 austerity Britain, this has been sadly diminished). According to the Office of National Statistics data in the UK, the female employment rate has increased steadily from 52.8% in 1971 to 70.8% by the end of 2017 (ONS 2018a). This contrasts with the statistics for male employment over the same period, with 92.1% of men in employment in 1971 (overall employment

1 Introduction 

5

rate of 72.2%) falling to 79.8% in 2017 (overall employment rate of 75.4%) (ONS 2018b, 2018c). These statistics alone show how far we have come from the social context of the Second Wave Feminist movement which pushed for equal pay legislation and equal access to employment opportunities across Westernised countries. A greater parity in the employment of both men and women is used by some to claim that women are “taking over” and “doing men out of work”, but this argument seemingly ignores the parallel decline in heavy industry over this period, an area where vast numbers of men were employed prior to the 1980s. Statistics also show that women are now more likely than men to go into higher education (the UK University Admission Service reported young women were 36% more likely to start a degree course than their male peers in August 2017), a trend that emerges across Westernised countries (PA, The Guardian 2017), and 2018 saw the ban on female soldiers serving on the front line lifted from all UK armed services. This is a pattern that extends across many Westernised countries, yet the gender pay gap is also prevalent. The converse side of the legal acceptance of women in traditionally male occupations, and in the public sphere more generally, has been an increase in sexual harassment. In the context of post-feminist culture, where certain strands existed to endorse the self-sexualisation of women as a means of empowerment, this was largely unacknowledged. To do so, it seemed, would be too close to the killjoy legacy of the perceptions of the Second Wave Feminism. Second Wave Feminism is coded as angry, humourless, ugly but, most importantly, ineffectual and unnecessary and so most post-feminist texts represent a battle of wits between the older feminist woman and the young post-feminist girl. As Imelda Whelehan and others have argued, the epitome of self-sexualisation is the deluded embodiment of the ladette, or in US culture, riot girl. The ladette offers the most shallow model of gender equality; it suggests that women could or should adopt the most anti-social and pointless of ‘male’ behaviour as a sign of empowerment. The Wonderbra, unsurprisingly, remains the essential style statement for a wannabe ladette. (Whelehan 2000, p. 9)

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This self-sexualisation as a means of exhibiting gender equality is an extension of the broader aims of the Second Wave Feminism for women to achieve equality by essentially adopting male behaviour in the workplace. In other words, women are misguided, or misinformed, about just what “gender equality” is. The ladette of the 1990s was rejecting the feminist ideals of her mother a generation before as children have always done in their desire to rebel from parental influence. As with Whelehan’s argument, dissatisfaction with this state of affairs developed into anger and eventually protest. Initially, this was articulated through the voices of established feminists. The first decade of the twenty-first century saw increasing attention paid to the notion of “feminism”. Susan Faludi’s Backlash (1992) has been an early warning of the demise of feminism as a desirable or necessary political force. It appeared to exist at the level of common sense: it was hegemonic. A survey of 1000 readers of Cosmopolitan in the UK in 2007 reported the vast majority (96%) of respondents believed in equal pay and the right to a career over motherhood, and only slightly fewer (85%) believed women should have the right to choose an abortion. However, the same survey found that only 25% of respondents said they would describe themselves as “feminists”. Thus the adult women responders of this and many other similar surveys at this time show that the feminist aims of the 1970s have largely been achieved and equality exists, but they were alienated from the movement that had fought to achieve these. Moseley and Read had highlighted this in 2002 when they pointed out: [t]he lucrative, 18-34 female market, a generation that has grown up taking for granted the feminist victories won by their mothers and thus for whom feminism exists at the level of popular commonsense rather than at the level of theoretical abstraction. (Moseley and Read 2002, p. 238)

Coupled with this, the 1990s had seen the emergence of a new social emphasis on individual gains at the expense of social collective action that had seen the Second Wave Feminists achieve so much a generation before. Women were growing up with the opportunities won for them in Western societies but in an increasing consumerist and work-obsessed

1 Introduction 

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world where a good work/life balance is desired. As Moseley and Read commented, This is a generation who have found that despite the best efforts of feminists, you cannot just wish femininity away, relegate it to the dustbin of history as the bad ‘other’ of feminism. This is a generation for whom ‘having it all’ means not giving things up but struggling to reconcile our feminist desires with our feminine desires. (Moseley and Read 2002, p. 238)

Thus it would seem that for the Cosmo readers, “feminism” as a concept is both taken for granted and “over” and also associated with anti-­ feminine tropes such as hating men, dressing in an androgynous (“unfeminine”) way and often linked with social collectives that are “last century”. Writing in her Guardian column in 2003, Zoe Williams argued that feminism “was as noble and important as any other civil rights movement, and yet we seem to take no pride in it. We are crazy to disown it like some sort of embarrassing old aunt” (Williams 2003). Unlike the participants in the Cosmo survey, Williams was highlighting the importance of feminism and its relevance in the twenty-first century. If the collective voice Williams’ Guardian readership implies is that of the older age group who would have emerged from the cohort Moseley and Read highlighted in 2003, then what of the younger age groups, the so-called millennials? In the same year, 2007, Girlguiding UK found that 65% of their members would describe themselves as “feminists” (Ward 2007). This offers more hope for the future of feminism and in fact is what we have come to see as Fourth Wave Feminism from around 2010 onwards. Judith Williamson (2003) observed that “the problem is that sexism didn’t go away, we just stopped talking about it”. “Sexism” had come to be mocked or hijacked by the media with the close associations of perceptions of unfashionable Second Wave Feminism. By the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, gender relations in Westernised societies were starting to re-emerge with issues of political and social relevance. Throughout this first decade, there had been a developing argument that was highlighting the gaps in gender equality. Catherine Redfern and Kristin Aune had set up The F-Word blog in 2001, making the most of emerging forms of social media. This

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blog explores contemporary UK feminism and continues to be edited by young British feminists to this day. Ten years later, Laura Bates set up the Everyday Sexism blog to collect and disseminate stories of the minor, seemingly routine examples of sexism that she and other women encountered on a daily basis. The arrival of Twitter had allowed the individual voices of women to be heard in a much wider context; thus, the individualism that Redfern and Aune (2010) claim had seemed to deter women from engaging with feminism in the early part of the century became instrumental in the formation of what became known as Fourth Wave Feminism. This appears in popular culture with increasing frequency, including in 2014 Beyoncé’s performance against the giant, illuminated word FEMINIST at the MTV Music Video Awards, and actor Emma Watson’s speech at the UN Women #HeForShe campaign launch (Banet-­ Weiser 2018). The inherent sexism in the film world in particular came to public attention in late 2017 through the use of the #MeToo hashtag and saw unprecedented changes occurring in that business as seemingly untouchable sexual preditors at the top of the industry found nowhere to hide. Harvey Weinstein in particular became symbolic of the lack of tolerance of sexist behaviour that had previously been treated as common knowledge without anyone paying much attention to the implications (legitimised sexual abuse) or consequences (patriarchal power enacted through the threat of sexual abuse). Gender equality is not just a Westernised nations’ issue. It is a global issue, and as mentioned above in relation to Emma Watson, this was explicitly recognised in the United Nations’ formation of the HeForShe campaign in 2014. This has the mission statement: The world is at a turning point. People everywhere understand and support the idea of gender equality. They know it’s not just a women’s issue, it’s a human rights issue. And when these powerful voices are heard, they will change the world. The time for that change is now. HeForShe is inviting people around the world to stand together to create a bold, visible force for gender equality. And it starts by taking action right now to create a gender equal world.

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Unlike previous campaigns, this one explicitly aims to recruit men, as reflected in its title. Whilst the earlier Second Wave Feminist campaigns had relied on collective voices through co-present demonstrations, HeForShe makes effective use of social media to reach more people than ever attended even the largest feminist rally. However, the very name of the campaign has been the focus of criticisms of its ethos, with Cathy Young (2014) in Time magazine arguing that the “He” for “She” is actually drawing on stereotypes of stronger men needing to support female victims. She further argues that this campaign sidelines men and in fact discriminates against them at the expense of gender equality. This article was accompanied by a series of quotations from women in the entertainment industry, responding to the question, “would you call yourself a feminist?” Most of the responses were positive, but several were along the lines of actor and environmental activist Shailene Woodley’s response: No, because I love men. I think the idea of “raise women to power, take the men away from power” is never going to work out because you need balance. … My biggest thing is really sisterhood more than feminism.

This reflects the misunderstanding of feminism as man-hating (triggered here by “I love men” as a statement which appears to reflect the assumption that feminists hate men) and the associated assumption of women wanting to gain power at the expense of men. In other words, it is a view that rearticulates “equality” as “disparity”. However, this is not entirely without an element of truth, as is commonly found in such rejections of equality arguments. As Kim Gilligan’s chapter here shows, the perception of men as being inappropriate primary school teachers is one that runs deep into the culture of British schools. This is based on the underlying stereotype of the caring, nurturing women who is best suited “naturally” to be responsible for young children. This gendered stereotype then is conflated with the male sexual predator who we see emerging in the #MeToo campaign, someone who can’t be trusted around vulnerable young people. Such is the complexity of issues relating to gender equality, it is difficult to entirely dismiss the misguided assumptions about gender equality that are embodied in Shailene Woodley’s comments above.

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The use of social media to campaign for recognition or equality for disadvantaged or invisible groups is not just a Western phenomenon. In parts of the world where gender equality issues have a very different history, social media is hastening change. For example, as Wjoud Almadani shows in her chapter, in Saudi Arabia the ultra-conservative laws governing gender in that part of the world led to women being confined to the domestic domain and patriarchal rule, unable to leave the house without the explicit permission of a (male) “guardian”. With the arrival of a new ruler, Prince Salman Bin Abdul Aziz, in 2016, the slow move towards a more Western notion of gender equality has been hastened, and social media has proved a very interesting source of data relating to these changes. This is not least as it is one of the few places where women’s voices can be found in an unmuted context. Similarly, in China, there is a very different approach to gender equality than is found in the Western world. Xiaoping Wu offers us a brief history of gender in modern China before exploring the way social media has been deployed to denigrate women’s rise in the public domain. The responses on social media to such objections have many similarities with what we find in Western society when equality issues receive public attention (see also Smith 2018). Again, we see that social media has enabled the disadvantages and discriminated against to gain a voice in ways that our grandmothers could never have imagined possible.

Book Structure This book is roughly structured around two basic concepts: the experience of gender equality issues in the contemporary world and the representation of gender equality as an ongoing battle. In Part I of the book, we find experiences of equality and inequality being discussed. This includes some accounts that are built from their authors’ personal reflections on their own experiences and circumstances. Such accounts are at the heart of much feminist research, where the “personal is political”. This allows for first-hand accounts of the changes in society that are at the heart of this book’s focus. Whilst there are risks attached to such accounts, researchers such as Hammersley (2006) point

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out that the perils of such methodology are generally outweighed by the potential for great rewards to be gleaned from such data. With this in mind, the experiences of two women who have lived through the fight for gender equality since the 1960s are recorded in the chapters by Bridget Cooper and Stephanie Atkinson. Atkinson in Chap. 2 offers a unique view of someone who has been a role model for women throughout her working life. As the first female woodwork teacher in England, she has worked in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects all her life and witnessed the incremental balancing of gender participation in these traditionally masculine fields. With more than half a century’s experience of this, Atkinson reassesses the part role models have to play in encouraging young women into STEM-based careers. Cooper in Chap. 3 offers an historical view of the issue of inequality in general, and gender in particular, in respect of her own life experiences. She argues for the inclusion of geographical location in any discussion of gender equality and ultimately offers the view that we learn nothing from history when it comes to tackling inequality. Linking into Cooper’s call for geographical location to be included as a factor in discussing gender equality, Chap. 4 by Juila Nobari and Paul-­ Alan Armstrong explores “place” as a factor in identity. Their conversation explores their identities in terms of spirituality and humanism, questioning the place of gender in this framework. The occupational stereotyping that Atkinson writes about in Chap. 2 highlights her own experiences. We return to the context of education in Chap. 5, with Kim Gilligan’s study of the experiences of primary school teacher training. Like the female politicians McKay discussed later in her chapter, who are “out of place” because of their gender, here we find that male trainees in a stereotypically female occupation face a number of complex challenges and their own version of the “double bind” that McKay and others have highlighted as part of the experience of women in politics. All four of these chapters explore gender equality in terms of its position in relation to traditional gender stereotypes and expectations. Chapter 6 investigates this in the context of sexuality, with Katie Ward

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looking at the lives of people in the trans community, in particular how they identify themselves. Part II of this book explores gender equality in terms of its representation. The first three chapters look at how the campaigns of gender equality are fought in different international fronts. Chapter 7 by Angela Smith looks at the Western HeForShe campaign and its links with “political correctness” where it is challenged by those who see any change to gender imbalance as being a step too far. Whilst the focus of many of the chapters in this book is on Western issues of gender equality, Wjoud Almadani in Chap. 8 and Wu Xiaoping in Chap. 9 look at active campaigns of gender equality in other parts of the world. Wu’s chapter explores the rejection of gender equality activism in China, where “straight man cancer” is roughly synonymous with “male chauvinist pigs” in Western culture. She discusses the ways in which this anti-feminist trope is found in popular culture, despite there being a very different history of gender equality in China than we find in the West. Almadani focuses on the recent liberalisation of gender relations in Saudi Arabia, exploring the Twitter arguments about specific changes in the liberalisation of the Saudi women’s lives. One of the issues that recurs in these chapters is that women are “out of place” in the public sphere. Chapter 10 by Fiona McKay explores the phenomenon of there being two leading female politicians in the UK at one time: Nicola Sturgeon in Scotland and Theresa May in England, as prime minister of the whole UK. McKay’s chapter looks at how these two powerful women are reported in print media and how the concept of the “double bind” sees them criticised for being either too feminine or not feminine enough. Finally, Chap. 11 by Janet Pearson discusses the concept of “fashion” and asks the question: can fashion ever be gender neutral? Against a backdrop of encroaching equality in employment, and advances in technologies that allow for experiences and behaviours to be reshaped, fashion itself has adapted over the years. However, with the articulation of equality comes the offer of choice, and it is this which is central to Pearson’s chapter. In all, the contributions to this book seek to explore how issues of gender equality are experienced and represented in the world and map some of the ways in which progress has been made whilst also pointing at work yet still be done.

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References Banet-Weiser, Sarah. 2018. Empowered: Popular feminism and popular misogyny. Duke: Duke University Press. Boyle, Karen. 2019. #MeToo, Weinstein and Feminism. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Faludi, S. 1992. Backlash: The undeclared war against women. London: Chatto & Windus. Genz, S., and B.A.  Brabon. 2010. Postfeminism: Cultural texts and theories. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Hammersley, M. 2006. Ethnography: Problems and prospects. Ethnography and Education 1 (1). Harman, H. 2017. A Woman’s work. Milton Keynes: Allen Lane. Macdonald, M. 1995. Representing women: Myths of femininity in popular media. London: Edward Arnold. McRobbie, A. 2009. The aftermath of feminism: Gender, culture and social change. London: Sage. Moseley, Rachel and Jacinda Read 2002. ‘“Having it Ally”: popular television (post-) feminism’ in Feminist Media Studies, vol 2, no 2. Negra, D. 2009. What a girl wants? Fantasizing the reclamation of self in postfeminism. Abingdon: Routledge. Office for National Statistics. 2018a. Female employment rate (age 16–64, seasonally adjusted). Jan 1971–Dec 2017. Available at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/ employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/timeseries/lf25/lms. Accessed 23 Apr 2018. ———. 2018b. Male employment rate (aged 16–64, seasonally adjusted). Jan 1971–Dec 2017. Available at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/timeseries/mgsv/ lms. Accessed 23 Apr 2018. ———. 2018c. Employment rate (aged 16–64, seasonally adjusted). Jan 1971– Dec 2017. Available at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/timeseries/lf24/lms. Accessed 23 Apr 2018. Press Association. 2017. University gender gap at record high as 30,000 more women accepted. The Guardian, August 28. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/aug/28/university-gender-gap-at-recordhigh-as-30000-more-women-accepted. Accessed 23 Apr 2018. Redfern, C., and K. Aune. 2010. Reclaiming the F word: The new feminist movement. London: Zed Books.

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Smith, A. 2011. Femininity repackaged: Postfeminism and Ladette to Lady. In Women on screen: Feminism and femininity in visual culture, ed. M. Waters, 153–166. Basingstoke: Palgrave. ———. 2018. Gender in “crisis”, everyday sexism and the Twittersphere. In Crisis and the media, ed. M. Patrona, 231–260. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Ward, L. 2007. Girl Guides see a future blighted by sex bias and pressure to be thin. The Guardian, February 27. Whelehan, I. 2000. Overloaded: Popular culture and the future of feminism. London: The Women’s Press. Williams, Z. 2003. What women want. The Guardian, July 1. Williamson, J. 2003. Sexism with an alibi. The Guardian, May 31. www.cosmopolitan.co.uk/index-php/vi/Do_you_use_the_F-word %3F. Young, C. 2014. Sorry, Emma Watson, but HeForShe is rotten for men. Time. com. Retrieved 10 April 2018.

Part I

2 Female Role Models in a Male-­ Dominated Workplace: Do We Still Need Their Influence Today? Stephanie Atkinson

Introduction This chapter focuses on gender representation inequalities. Specifically, it concentrates on the under-representation of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education and workplaces across the world and whether or not “good” role models can positively impact upon the situation. My personal story as a STEM professional for over 60 years, discussing the influence that specific role models have had upon me in developing my passion for everything STEM related, and my I dedicate this chapter to the two role models that influenced the direction of my life and career based in mainly male-dominated workplaces. To Miss Darcy Thompson, my craft teacher at school who introduced me to making things from wood and encouraging me to strive for perfection in all that I did and never to be satisfied with second best. And Brian Braithwaite the craftsman from my college days who, by example, showed me through his own love of designing and making wooden artefacts how to achieve that perfection, alongside instilling in me a belief in myself and the wish to pass on the passion I have for everything STEM related to those I have taught throughout my career.

S. Atkinson (*) University of Sunderland, Sunderland, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Smith (ed.), Gender Equality in Changing Times, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26570-0_2

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influences as a role model myself are woven into the examination and discussion of pertinent literature. In terms of apposite literature, the chapter first analyses and discusses factors from relevant writings that have influenced woman’s continued under-representation in STEM education and subsequent careers in what is, and always has been, very heavily male-dominated workplaces. This is followed by an analysis and discussion of role model literature concerning the positive and negative effects that exposure to role models has had and the forms that such role models have taken in order to try to improve women’s representation in STEM. The final section sums up the findings and provides some conclusions concerning whether or not role models have been beneficial and whether or not they are still required today and in the future.

Women’s Under-Representation Gender equality is a human right, and yet gender inequality has and still is affecting both men and women today. Under-representation and inequality have been seen as complex issues and a great challenge even for those wishing to overcome them (Joshi et  al. 2015). A lack of gender equality is a global issue researched in many countries, and a topic which will be revisited later in this chapter. Stereotypes or “rules” about how women and men and girls and boys should be begin in early childhood and continue through to adulthood. Although it is recognised that there are dangers of overgeneralisation inherent in this issue, gender inequalities are shared by all and are so ingrained in society that adults are often surprised to realise how early in childhood children internalise these ideas (Martin and Ruble 2004) and how embedded they become. Inequalities are mainly associated with health, education and ridged gender norms. However other inequalities such as unequal opportunities, unequal empowerment, under-representation and a lack of economic independence are all evident in many aspects of daily life and are rightfully more often attributed to female inequality traits, all of which are aspects that impinge upon the theme of this chapter. Although seen as an important human rights issue, gender inequality is also seen as an important

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economic issue specifically in terms of women’s under-representation in STEM in both education and careers across most industrialised countries around the world (Blinkenstaff 2005). Ashcraft cited in Wright (2019) researched the underlying issues (Çağatay 2001) associated with low numbers of women working in STEM and identified three key issues: societal influences and biases, school education and workplace systems. This under-representation is not something new (Kanny et al. 2014). When I decided to study to become an industrial designer in 1960 I was the first female to apply to my university. Studies recognised this and discussed it as a serious problem by the early 1980s (Kelly et al. 1981; Smail et al. 1982), with unequal participation in STEM remaining virtually unchanged for the past 35  years (Smith 2011; Ceci et  al. 2009; Noonan and Laffarge 2017). In 2002 Baroness Greenfield et al. (2002) in her Report on Women in Science, Engineering and Technology had indicated her concern: The under-representation of women in science, engineering and technology threatens, above all, our global competitiveness. It is an issue for society, for organisations, for employers and for the individual. (Greenfield et al. 2002, p. 9)

This under-representation has been evident despite a plethora of initiatives such as the introduction of comprehensive education, equal opportunity legislation and many interventions specifically targeted at encouraging female participation in various aspects of STEM, for example TVEI, Technical and Vocational Education Initiative in 1982; WISE, Women into Science and Engineering in 1984; GIST, Girls into Science and Technology in 1985; and jumping to more recent times, Girls in Tech in 2007, Technovation in 2010, Little Miss Geek in 2012, Campaign for Science and Engineering in 2014 and 1000 Girls: 1000 Futures in 2015. Added to these in the UK has been the compulsory participation of all pupils in STEM subjects in primary and lower secondary level since the introduction of the National Curriculum (DES 1990) and a willingness by many STEM teachers to tackle the gender imbalance. However, shortages witnessed in girls’ take-up and their levels of success in STEM subjects during secondary education have continued to the present day

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(Bauer 2017) even though girls have been shown to generally do better than boys in secondary education across the globe (Drury et al. 2011; Voyer and Voyer 2014). This state of affairs has been debated by many others over the past two decades (e.g. Darmody and Smyth 2005; Shin et al. 2016; Smith 2011; van Aalderen-Smeets and Walma van der Molen 2018) and remains an area of political priority and concern (Government Equalities Office 2010; Smith 2011) in terms of education and the current and future job market (Bauer 2017; Noonan and Laffarge 2017). Lawless and Pearson (2008) although referring to the difficulties of women progressing in politics provided support for the widely held belief (e.g. Meyer et  al. 2015) that whatever male-dominated field is being referred to: Women must be stronger candidates, or at least candidates who are willing to endure greater challenges, and more challengers, than their male counterparts face. Women, in other words, have to be ‘better’ than men in order to fare equally well. (Lawless and Pearson 2008, p. 78)

As reported in 2018 there is still statistical evidence of a very large gender gap of 72% in terms of female A1 professionals compared to male A1 professionals (World Economic Forum (WEF) 2018). The WEF also reported specifically on the STEM skills gap, where only 14% of women in OECD countries chose science-related subjects in universities, compared with 39% of men (WEF 2018). In recent research van Aalderen-Smeets and Walma van der Molen (2018) unpicked some of the complexities associated with under-­ representation using three factors: self-efficacy beliefs, stereotypical thinking and motivational beliefs, to describe the potential relationships between the viewpoints that students held regarding the malleability of their STEM ability and their intentions to pursue a STEM career. While they agreed that on the one hand, STEM could be considered the most creative and fulfilling of subjects to study and work in, on the other hand, STEM could also be seen as a dry, statistical and isolating discipline. Breaking this stereotypical view and correctly representing the opportunities of studying and working in STEM they indicated was a vital step

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in attracting more women into the field (van Aalderen-Smeets and Walma van der Molen 2018). On a more positive note in terms of STEM education, there has been evidence of an increasing understanding by many teachers of the fact that different students cope differently with the perceived challenges in STEM subjects (van Aalderen-Smeets and Walma van der Molen 2018), with many teachers providing more pertinent curricula to meet differing learning styles and interests. When I taught in secondary schools between 1965 and 1985 I recognised these differences. I allowed pupils to develop their own design briefs to encourage their excitement and ended up with more girls winning national design prizes than the boys in my classes. In terms of performance in mathematics in particular, research carried out by Guiso, Monte, Sapiensa and Zingales (2008) indicated that social conditioning and gender-biased environments (which they referred to as cultural inequalities) were seen to have a large effect on students’ results. Interestingly, their data showed that in gender-equal countries, such as Norway and Sweden, the mathematics gender gap in performance witnessed in many other countries was negligible. This leads one to wonder why in the UK with all its equal opportunity legislation that the mathematics gender gap in performance has also not diminished, suggesting that it is not the legislation that can make the difference but changing the ingrained beliefs of UK society. However, in terms of interest in STEM subjects, further research carried out more recently in Sweden by Tellhed, Backstrom and Bjorklund (2017) implied that even in Sweden’s gender-­ equal society, the labour market was still gender segregated during the secondary phase of education. Their research also suggested that gender differences in interest to study STEM subjects were strongly related to women’s low self-efficacy to succeed in STEM careers and to a lesser degree to their lower social belongingness expectations with other students on STEM degree programmes. Their conclusion was that to reduce horizontal gender segregation in the labour market, there was a need to make men more interested in working with people and women with things and that it was crucial to assure women that they had what it would take to handle the demands of a STEM career. In my own experience, from early childhood I was always interested in how things worked whilst also being empathetic and understanding about the differences

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between how people thought and approached learning. My understanding of these differences came from having a younger sister who was a brilliant linguist who thought and learnt in an entirely different way from myself. Whilst I believe that being educated in an all-girls school from the age of eight meant that I did not realise that I was challenging the gender norms with my love of making things that worked, I was aware that I was different from other girls around me; however, the support and encouragement that I received from teachers and parents who never said that my intended career direction was unsuitable enabled me to believe in myself and pursue my goals. In terms of during higher education (HE) where the sciences and technology remain robustly male-dominated worldwide, research in four Indian HE institutions has indicated that a lack of women emanated as a function of the “patrifocal” structure of Indian society, a general “lack of critical mass” of women scientists and a lack of “universalism” in science (Gupta and Sharma 2003). A research in the USA by Moss-Racusin et al. in 2012 specifically looking at gender biases in Science Faculties in the USA found that although both male and female faculty members liked women scientists more than men scientists, they judged women as less competent even when they had identical backgrounds. Additionally, independent of their gender, faculty members’ subtle bias against women unintentionally undermined academics perceptions and treatment of female students and that this was generated from widespread cultural stereotypical beliefs. These biases affected academics evaluation of students’ work and also led to academics being less inclined to mentor female students than male students which then affected female students’ scientific ambitions and choices. Reasons for increasing female participation in STEM such as achieving “a fair and just society” and realising “public and private benefits” (Smith 2011, p. 2) have been highlighted (also, Shin et al. 2016), with the need for a change in culture being portrayed as an important way forward (Darmody and Smyth 2005). References to large- and small-­ scale interventions by parents, schools and teachers have been shown to influence and stimulate incremental beliefs about the malleability of females’ capacities when choosing whether to study STEM subjects (van Aalderen-Smeets and Walma van der Molen 2018). However, Shin et al.

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(2016) supported Rosenthal, Levy, London, Lobel and Bazile’s (2013) belief that the impact of such interventions appeared to be short-lived, which resonates with my experience when empowering diffident female students during my teaching sessions in HE and seeing that progress undermined when they were taught by certain male colleagues. In terms of STEM career choices, Smith (2011) indicated that poor pay, a lack of career prospects and a failure to respond to the changing demands of an increasingly globalised STEM market were all persistent features responsible for female under-representation. Darmody and Smyth (2005, p. 12) concurred stating that “occupational segregation” found in advanced industrial societies remained a disappointing feature. This lack of females in STEM careers has also been exacerbated by low levels of recruitment into appropriate courses during tertiary education (Ceci et al. 2009; Drury et al. 2011; Shin et al. 2016; Smith 2011) and high levels of female dropout during pertinent degree courses (Shin et al. 2016; Smith 2011; Sorb 2009) even though in general at the age of 19 more women than men attend universities (Broecke and Hamed 2008). In my case I remember that I was interviewed by the Principal of the College of Art and Industrial Design as the first and only female applicant wishing to study Industrial Design. After my successful application two other female applicants were persuaded to join the course too, but they dropped out when they became aware that they did not have the interest or predisposition in STEM-related activities, supporting the research findings mentioned above and for the reasons discussed at the end of the paragraph below. Darmody and Smyth (2005, p.  11) wrote about “preferences and expectations” in terms of female STEM career choices at the end of secondary and tertiary education indicating the importance of family involvement, in particular a father’s attitude and aspirations for his daughter which they highlighted as being influential and which resonated with the findings concerning “patrifocal” society structures mentioned earlier in the chapter (Gupta and Sharma 2003). Alongside family advice the importance of an educational establishment’s informal rather than formal sources of advice was found to be influential (Darmody and Smyth 2005). Van Aalderen-Smeets and Walma van der Molen (2018) and others (e.g. Shin et  al. 2016), including my own experiences,

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indicated that career choices needed to be a careful matching process with the choice to study STEM being matched to the personal interests and aspirations of a student, if it were to be successful. In 2005, Blickenstaff’s analysis of literature concerning the lack of women in STEM identified eight reasons for the phenomena, although he believed that some points in the list had not been adequately proven. The eight reasons with additional support from more recent research were as follows: 1. Biological differences. Early research indicated biological differences, while more recent research largely refuted the earlier findings suggesting to Blickenstaff that if differences still existed it would be dangerous to emphasise them, as that could signal that no action was required, as research indicated that biological differences could not be overcome. He and others (e.g. Darmody and Smyth 2005; Drury et al. 2011) also suggested that at times the only way a female could “infiltrate” the STEM world was to act like a “female male”. 2. Girls lack of academic preparation for a STEM career. This reason Blickenstaff believed was open to criticism as research had indicated that the opportunities for academic preparation were provided; it was just that they were rarely taken up. The other seven reasons in Blickenstaff’s list provide some explanations for this lack of uptake. 3. A lack of positive STEM attitudes and early experiences of STEM. An absence of positive attitudes was well supported by both early research (e.g. Weinburgh 1995) and in more recent times (e.g. van Aalderen-­ Smeets and Walma van der Molen 2018); although there remains strong disagreement over there being a dearth of positive early experiences of STEM being available, for example, Roberts (2016) who provided details of exciting STEM activities in early childhood and “Little Innovators” whose mission statement is to give young children across the world the opportunity to develop and showcase their creativity and problem-solving skills (https://www.littleinventors.org/). 4. Irrelevant STEM curricula. Van Aalderen-Smeets and Walma van der Molen (2018) added that girls found STEM lessons both difficult and boring.

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5. Pedagogy in STEM teaching favouring males. This was reinforced by Drury et al. (2011) who considered STEM teaching to be masculine and incompatible with female needs and ways of learning: A chilly climate in STEM classes (Blickenstaff, p. 372). This was also referred to as an unsociable environment by Drury et  al. (2011), Barbercheck (2001) and Gherasim, Butnaru and Mairean (2013). 6. An inherent masculine STEM epistemology. This is in terms of the nature of the knowledge required to be learnt, which Drury et  al. (2011) referred to as male teachers being preoccupied with male-­ orientated technologies. 7. Cultural pressure to conform to traditional gender roles. This was upheld by Shin et al. (2016) who agreed that cultural pressure could discourage females from pursuing and persisting in both STEM subject matter and careers. 8. An absence of female role models. This has been a recurring theme throughout the literature and one that is addressed in section “Role Models” of this chapter. In terms of gender differences in the ways that people learn highlighted in Blickenstaff’s list above, various researchers worldwide have discussed possible causes (e.g. Feingold 1994; Pomerantz et al. 2002). Gurian and Stevens (2004) indicated a biological essentialist approach in which there was a disconnect between teaching practice and the needs of male and female brains, while others have discussed the effect of various personality traits (e.g. Feingold 1994; Ruble et al. 1993) and that such differences remain robust across cultures (Costa et  al. 2001; Gurian and Stevens 2004). Samuelsson and Samuelsson (2016) highlighted a plethora of internal and external contextual factors, while Gurian and Stevens (2004) discussed structural and functional brain differences that many believed profoundly affected human learning while they agreed with others that recognising such differences could lead to the identification of solutions to the many challenges experienced in the classroom. In contrast Smith (2011) indicated that in terms of STEM learning the root of the problem was a cultural matter and lay in poor quality STEM education which she and others (Fraser 2014; Sorby 2009) believed was partially caused by inadequate training of STEM teachers.

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My experiences as a STEM teacher trainer, supported by several research projects I have carried out (Atkinson 2006, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2015), verify the inadequate training of STEM teachers which Smith (2011) indicated, and which she said led to negative attitudes towards STEM by primary school teachers who lacked specific STEM skills, that then caused students problems when choices had to be made during their secondary education. At tertiary level, Sorby (2009) reported specifically on a lack of cognitive skills required for engineering. She signposted, for example, robust gender differences in 3-D rotation abilities that favoured males, although her research overturned what she considered a false belief that one was either “born with or not” (p. 478) such skills as her research indicated that these skills could be improved through practice with a greater positive impact on female rather than male students. In my case I was fortunate to have inherited good spatial ability alongside good mathematical fluency which I enjoyed developing throughout my education. Many authors referred to the importance of psychological factors when considering the reason for female under-representation in STEM. As briefly touched on previously, Van Aalderen-Smeets and Walma van der Molen (2018) stressed that malleability of intelligence was an important factor. They suggested that those holding entity theories of intelligence were more susceptible to internalising gender stereotypical beliefs which then negatively impacted upon school subject optional choices and therefore career choices, while those holding incremental beliefs were affected less as they believed they could overcome gender disadvantages with hard work. This is an ethos of working hard but with enjoyment and fun, being something I have fully subscribed to throughout my life. Other authors referred to further psychological factors that could negatively affect females’ attitudes towards STEM—factors such as expectancy in terms of goals and motivation (Morgenroth et  al. 2015); the impact of natural aptitude and ability that were self-perpetuating if left unchallenged (Darmody and Smyth 2005); a lack of interest and negative attitudes (van Aalderen-Smeets and Walma van der Molen 2018); self-­ doubt (Fraser 2014) and, closely related, a lack of confidence (Cameron and Hayde 2014) and self-efficacy (van Aalderen-Smeets and Walma van

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der Molen 2018); and a lack of “belongingness” and insecurity (Morgenroth et al. 2015; Shin et al. 2016). Also, signposted as significant has been the negative effect of stereotyping. People have been shown to acquire stereotypical beliefs at a young age and then continue to be influenced by them. As early as 1988, Shavlik and Touchton (cited in Moran 1992 p.  478) commented that women were often expected to “behave just like their male counterparts rather than enhancing their roles with the new and varied talents and fresh perspectives they might bring”. Darmody and Smyth (2005) referred to female self-stereotyping, while the issue of “stereotype threat” has been shown to affect many females in a STEM context (Ashcraft et al. 2016; Bages et  al. 2015; Ceci et  al. 2009; Collins 2009; Drury et  al. 2011; Morgenroth et al. 2015; Stroessner and Good n.d.; Wright 2018). Shin et al. (2016) and van Aalderen-Smeets and Walma van der Molen (2018) indicated that stereotypical beliefs were stronger in females than males and were exacerbated by social class (Darmody and Smyth 2005). Shin et al. (2016) referred to “cultural stereotyping” illustrating this with an example from their data, indicating that only gifted, European/US white males were successful in STEM, while Darmody and Smyth (2005) referred to rural, conservative schools where stereotypical beliefs were more entrenched than in town and city schools. In 2017 Steinke argued that the media played a crucial role in the construction, representation, reproduction and transmission of STEM stereotypes and that this may be particularly salient and relevant for girls during adolescence as they actively consider future personal and professional identities. A longer discussion of these important issues causing the under-representation of females in STEM is beyond the scope of this chapter, although many of the factors already mentioned impinge upon the effectiveness of role models and are discussed in the next section of this chapter.

Role Models Cancel (2019) suggested that all high-achieving individuals have one thing in common: they all have role models that they can name. A role model is more than just a person to look up to and admire, it is someone

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that could help the individual unlock their potential, show them what is possible or provide examples of how to behave. They are worthy of imitation. However, role models mean different things to different people (Casserly 2010). Morgenroth et al. (2015) suggested that role models had three distinct functions: a behavioural model, a representation of the possible and an inspiration. Role models can be a positive example, as described above, or as an anti-role model that one would avoid following as they exemplified the negative behaviours and traits that one would not wish to follow. It is the former positive role model that is the subject of the rest of this chapter. Thomas (n.d.) believed that role models could be used as a blueprint for how people should behave in the future. They proffer a survival function designed to help people to mimic the traits of successful members of society and provide most important life lessons. While Thibodeaux (2016) suggested that they could offer a lens through which to view one’s future. There are those who suggest that role models need to uphold and display high ethical or moral values (Brown and Trevino 2014) with care taken to avoid “anti” role models, whose example could mean aspirants losing their “own moral compass” (Whitbourne 2013, p. 1). There have also been those who believed that a role model’s function was as a mentor (Collins 2009; Cameron and Hayde 2014; Fraser 2014). This belief was clarified in Advisor, Teacher, Role Model, Friend where the authors suggested that in a good mentoring relationship the mentor could be a role model through their words and actions (National Academy Press 1997). Nevertheless for many, the definitions of mentoring and being a role model are seen as different. As suggested by Abouelnaga (2013) mentors are individuals that can help with the operational aspects of life whereas role models are there to help set the aspirational aspects. In addition role models can be seen as individuals whose example is looked up to and imitated, whereas a mentor is a trusted individual with more experience than another person, who then in a one-to-one situation can personally help guide that person. Another difference would appear to be that in terms of mentors, both parties have an understanding that the relationship exists, whereas in a role model situation the role model may not even know of the aspirant’s existence. However, whether considered interchangeable or not, all writers have signalled their agreement

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concerning the usefulness of “good” role models in regards to motivating others, and pertinent to this chapter, their efficacy in encouraging females in under-represented situations to believe that their goals are achievable (Cameron and Hayde 2014; Drury et  al. 2011; Fraser 2014; Shin et al. 2016). The importance in terms of what a role model represents has been shown to be key. Successful role models tend to come from domains or groups to which the aspirant belongs (Lockwood and Kunda 1997). These include groups such as family networks, those in the same educational or work environments and those in similar sociocultural situations (Ceci et al. 2009; Darmody and Smyth 2005; Morgenroth et al. 2015). In my case the two role models that inspired me were from my school and university days. They were a female art and craft teacher during my school days and a male lecturer from when I was a student studying industrial design. These teacher role models were both excellent crafters and I was inspired by their ability and encouraged to develop not only craft skills but also a thirst for new knowledge, an appreciation of working with materials and a need for accuracy in all that I did, while still allowing me space to grow, make my own mistakes and be creative and innovative. They helped me believe that I could meet all challenges head­on and that through hard work I could achieve whatever goals I set myself. Their example encouraged me to try to achieve excellence in all that I did. They enabled me to believe in myself and my ability. During my school days at an all-girls school being interested in subjects that in a mixed school environment would have been male-dominated was not an issue, but on entering an Industrial Design department for my tertiary study a totally male-dominated environment I very quickly became aware that as the only female I needed grit and determination, so my belief in myself and my ability to learn new skills that had developed because of the example provided by my secondary teacher role model, supplemented by my woodwork lecturer role model at Art College, paved the way for the challenges I met in my exciting journey to become the very first qualified female woodwork teacher in England in 1965 and winner of several design prizes in competition against all male competitors. My family network was extremely supportive of my ambitions and proud of my successes. They even bought me my own Meccano set when

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I was young and were happy to allow me to play with the boy down the street who had a steam engine which I was allowed to watch and learn from, although not touch! However, neither of my parents could act as career STEM role models, as their occupations were far removed from STEM, although interestingly enough in his spare time my father made model trains and railways starting from scratch, cutting parts out of brass sheet, and my much younger brother went on to become a civil engineer. When asked recently if my success in a STEM-related career had influenced him in his choice of profession, he admitted that I had indeed acted as a role model for him when choosing his direction for university. The literature concerned with highlighting attributes of successful role models has supported my understanding of pertinent characteristics. Authors have variously described role models as needing to be hard-­ working, creative, free thinking and moral (Thomas, n.d.); motivating (Casserly 2010; Cameron and Hayde 2014; Morgenroth et  al. 2015); attainable, otherwise the aspirant may feel demoralised or incompetent in comparison to a “superstar” (Bages et al. 2015; Lockwood and Kunda 1997; Shin et al. 2016); relevant, indicating that if not relevant by not being in the same field, then the person being inspired would just be “proud” to be associated with the superstar without that positively affecting their motivation to succeed in their own field (Bages et  al. 2015; Lockwood and Kunda 1997; Morgenroth et al. 2015); inspirational, in terms of being inspired by, or inspired to (Cameron and Hayde 2014; Fraser 2014; Lockwood and Kunda 1997; Morgenroth et  al. 2015); desirable, suggesting that the aspirant had a shared sense of “group membership” (Morgenroth et al. 2015) and therefore a sense of “belonging” (Rosenthal et al. 2013, p. 470); compatible, so that the aspirant was able to contradict the perceived or actual stereotypical gender incompatibility (Rosenthal et al. 2013); similar in social standing, which researchers have linked to interests and values (Ceci et al. 2009; Lockwood and Kunda 1997; Morgenroth et al. 2015); and confident in themselves and their ability to achieve their ambition (Fraser 2014). It has also been shown to be important that a role model’s success could be explained by effort rather than innate ability or talent (Bages et  al. 2015). A role model’s ethical, subject knowledge (in the case of this chapter’s topic, subject knowledge associated with STEM) and professional behaviour all leave a

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strong impression on an aspirant as does the role model’s attitude towards their work. A good role model is a good communicator of their feelings about their profession, their excitement and their passion and at the same time they are able to share frustrations as well as enthusiasms for their subject. In terms of being a role model myself, I believe that throughout my career I have been seen to possess some of these positive characteristics, with my zeal for all things STEM related and my ambition to pass on that fervour to others being a visible aspect of my persona. In my early days as a teacher of woodwork I was inspired to write an article about encouraging girls to study woodwork as the classes I taught were all boys. I very quickly managed to encourage some girls to join a lunchtime woodwork club and soon found girls asking to join the formal lessons. In the 1970s and 1980s when teaching A-level students in Leicestershire, a forward-thinking county in terms of equal opportunities for girls and boys in STEM-related subjects, I was able to inspire many girls to take STEM-related career paths and continue their love for designing and making into either industry or a university education. I have inspired students from their earliest study of design and technology through to achieving PhDs in aspects of the subject and even have a past student as a member of the Cabinet Office championing design-related activities for the government, alongside many young women who are now acting as role models themselves in schools both in the UK and in various countries across the world. Research has indicated that it is not just the type of role model that is important in the relationship. The aspirant’s own characteristics are also important. A role model is only likely to inspire if the aspirant already has a well-ignited spark of interest in the role model’s field of expertise, so I cannot take all the kudos for my past students’ success. If aspirants believe that their intelligence and ability are stable, controllable and malleable then they will believe that the success achieved by a role model is attainable (Morgenroth et al. 2015). In contrast, if an aspirant believes that intelligence is fixed and unchangeable then they will believe that the role model’s success is not achievable (Bages et al. 2015). They must also believe in self-­enhancement, having trust in their own capabilities (Lockwood and Kunda 1997) and that even if the goal is not achievable immediately, there is a possibility of

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attaining success in the future (Lockwood and Kunda 1997). All these attributes need encouragement to help overcome the lack of confidence and sense of pessimism witnessed amongst females particularly within a STEM context. During a period of my school-based teaching career in the 1980s I was head of girls’ boarding in a state school as well as the person responsible for A-level design activity in the school, and in my role as housemistress I was able to pass on my “you can do anything you set your mind to” ethos and to this day I hear from many of the girls who have gone on to do great things because they believed that they could. Previous research has indicated that the gender of a role model is also important (Bages et al. 2015; Darmody and Smyth 2005; Drury et al. 2011). In the case of female aspirants, inspirational female role models and not male role models have proved more successful (Rosenthal et al. 2013). Unfortunately, research data also indicates that there have been, and still are, a lack of suitable female role models (Drury et  al. 2011; Fraser 2014; PwC 2017) and a shortage of women taking to public platforms to share their journeys (Wright 2018). This is self-perpetuating and cyclical. If there are not many females studying STEM subjects in schools and taking up STEM careers then there will not be enough such females, who can become the future role models encouraging the next generation of young people to take up STEM careers and in turn become the next influential role models themselves.

Conclusion “Not only is the gender gap an ongoing reality, but certain driving factors are still very much in play” (Holman et al. 2018, n.p.). The latest research carried out by the Department for Education (2019) points to there still being more work to do to change perceptions and close the gender gap in STEM. While Noonan and Laffarge (2017) specifically picking up on the important place of role models suggest that “Conformity to social expectations, gender stereotypes, gender roles and a lack of role models continue to channel girls’ career choices away from STEM fields” (Noonan and Laffarge 2017), all of which support the author’s belief that

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role models are and will continue to be of paramount importance in the fight against gender inequalities for many years to come. The two quotations above admirably sum up the conclusion to this chapter concerning women’s under-representation in STEM, the part role models have played in the past and whether or not we still need them today. Having been in a privileged position, as a female teaching a STEM-­ related subject for the past six decades, I hope that I have acted as a positive role model throughout my career. I have certainly tried to encourage all the females that I have come into contact with to have confidence in their ability to study and take up careers in various aspects of STEM. I have relished helping them to develop their capability and achieve success and above all to enjoy and become passionate about what they have learnt. STEM needs as many female advocates as possible if we are to overcome the problem of female under-representation. If we do not, there will continue to be serious consequences for STEM and it will remain an area of global concern. So, the answer is “Yes”; we still need good, relevant, genuine, confident and yet humble, successful, passionate, encouraging and generous role models today, and for the foreseeable future.

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———. 2012. What constitutes good learning in technology education: How can we ensure that technology education graduates can provide it? In 7th Biennial international conference on technology education: Explorations of best practice in technology, design and engineering education, 1–12. Brisbane: Griffith Institute for Educational Research University. ———. 2015. How secure are design and technology trainee teachers in their understanding of designing, as portrayed in the latest national curriculum documentation? In PATT29: Plurality and complementarity of approaches in design and technology education, 35–41. Marseille: Marseille University. Bages, C., Verniers, C., and Martinot, D. (2015). Virtues of a hardworking role models to improve girls’ mathematical performance. Psychology of Women Quarterly 40 (1): 55–64. Barbercheck, M. 2001. Mixed messages: Men and women in advertisements in science. In Woman, science and technology: A reader in feminist science studies, ed. M.  Wyer, M.  Barbercheck, D.  Giesman, H.  Ozturk, and M.  Waynes, 117–131. London: Routledge. Bauer, M. 2017. Foreword. In Microsoft STEM Whitepaper: Why Europe’s girls aren’t studying STEM, ed. K. Noonan, and S. Laffarge, 4. Available at: https:// ncmedia.azureedge.net/ncmedia/2017/03/ms_stem_whitepaper.pdf. Accessed 27 Mar 2018. Blickenstaff, J. 2005. Women and science careers: Leaky pipeline or gender filter? Gender and Education 17 (4): 369–386. Broecke, S., and J. Hamed. 2008. Gender gaps in higher education participation: An analysis of the relationship between prior attainment and young participation by gender, socio-economic class and ethnicity (DIUS Research Report 08 14). Available at: http://dera.ioe.ac.uk/8717/1/DIUS-RR-08-14. pdf. Accessed 27 Mar 2018. Brown, M., and L. Trevino. 2014. Do role models matter? An investigation of role modelling as an antecedent of perceived ethical leadership. Journal of Business Ethics 122 (4): 1–12. Çağatay, N. 2001. Trade, gender and poverty. New  York: The United Nations Development Programme. Cameron, B., and R.  Hayde. 2014. Desperately seeking female role model. Available at: http://w.w.w.huffingtonpost.co.uk/bexy-cameron/female-rolemodels_b_4964416.html. Accessed 25 Mar 2018. Cancel, D. 2019. The three types of role models everyone needs in their careers. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbostoncouncil/2019/01/02/ the-three-types-of-role-models-everyone-needs-in-theircareer/#11ae053a408d. Accessed 20 May 2019.

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Casserly, M. 2010. The world’s most inspiring women. Available at: https:// www.forbes.com/2010/07/17/role-model-oprah-winfrey-angelina-michelleobama-forbes-woman-power-women-jk-rowling.html#67347a9e8956. Accessed 25 Mar 2018. Ceci, S., W. Williams, and S. Barnett. 2009. Women’s under-representation in science: Sociocultural and biological considerations. Psychological Bulletin 135 (2): 218–261. Collins, S. 2009. When it comes to role models for women business leaders, some women don’t like what they see. Available at: http://aspirewomen. co.uk/index.php/aspiration_archive/2009/11. Accessed 26 Mar 2018. Costa, P., A. Terracciano, and R. McCrae. 2001. Gender differences in personality traits across cultures: Robust and surprising findings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 81 (2): 322–331. Darmody, M., and E.  Smyth. 2005. Gender and subject choice. Dublin: The Liffey Press. Department for Education, (2019). Attitudes towards STEM subjects by gender at KS4: Evidence from LSYPE2. London: HMSO. Department of Education and Science and Welsh Office. 1990. Technology in the national curriculum. London: HMSO. Drury, B., J. Siy, and S. Cheryan. 2011. When do female role models benefit women? The importance of differentiating recruitment from retention in STEM. Psychological Inquiry 22: 265–269. Feingold, A. 1994. Gender differences in personality: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin 116: 429–456. Fraser, H. 2014. Young women need female role models to inspire success. The Guardian [Manchester], [online]. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/ women-in-leadership/women-leadership-blog/2014/oct/22/women-rolemodel-penguin. Accessed 25 Mar 2018. Gherasim, L., S.  Butnaru, and C.  Mairean. 2013. Classroom environment, achievement goals and maths performance: Gender differences. Educational Studies 39: 1–12. Government Equalities Office (2010). Equality Act 2010: Women’s Representation: Fact Sheet. London: Crown Publications. Greenfield, S., J. Peters, N. Lane, and G. Samuel. 2002. Set fair: A report on women in science, engineering, and technology. London: Department of Trade and Industry. Guiso, L., F. Monte, P. Sapiensa, and L. Zingales. 2008. Diversity, culture, gender and math. Science 320: 1164–1165.

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Noonan, K., and S. Laffarge. 2017. Microsoft STEM Whitepaper: Why Europe’s girls aren’t studying STEM. UK: Microsoft Publications. Available at: https:// ncmedia.azureedge.net/ncmedia/2017/03/ms_stem_whitepaper.pdf. Accessed 27 Mar 2019. Pomerantz, E., E. Altermatt, and J. Saxon. 2002. Making the grade but feeling distressed: Gender differences in academic performance and internal distress. Journal of Educational Psychology 94 (2): 396–404. PwC. 2017. Women in tech – Time to close the gender gap: A PwC UK research report. Available at: https://www.pwc.co.uk/women-in-technology/womenin-tech-report.pdf. Accessed 10 Apr 2019. Roberts, P. 2016. STEM in early childhood: How to keep it simple and fun. In This is childhood: Pedagogy and practice in the early years. Paper presented at Early Childhood Australia National Conference 2016, Darwin. Available at: http://www.ecaconference.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/ Roberts_P_STEM.pdf. Accessed 10 June 2019. Rosenthal, L., S. Levy, B. London, M. Lobel, and C. Bazile. 2013. In pursuit of the MD: The impact of role models, identity compatibility, the belonging among undergraduate women. Sex Roles 68 (7–8): 464–473. Ruble, D., F. Greulich, E.M. Pomerantz, and B. Gochberg. 1993. The role of gender-related processes in the development of sex differences in self-­ evaluation and depression. Journal of Affective Disorders 29: 97–128. Samuelsson, M., and J. Samuelsson. 2016. Gender differences in boys’ and girls’ perception of teaching and learning mathematics. Open Review of Educational Research 3 (1): 18–34. Shin, J., S. Levy, and B. London. 2016. Effects of role model exposure on STEM and non-STEM student engagement. Journal of Applied Social Psychology 46: 410–417. Smail, B., J. Whyte, and A. Kelly. 1982. Girls into science and technology: The first two years. School Science Review: 620–629. Smith, E. 2011. Women in science and engineering? Gendered participation in higher education STEM subjects. British Educational Research Journal 37 (6): 993–1014. Sorby, S. 2009. Educational research in developing 3-D spatial skills for engineering students. International Journal of Science Education 31 (3): 459–480. Steinke, J. 2017. Adolescent girls’ STEM identity formation and media images of STEM professionals: Considering the influence of contextual cues. Frontiers in Psychology 8 (716): 1–15.

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Stroessner, S., and C. Good. n.d. Stereotype threat: an overview excerpts and adaptions from reducing stereotype threat. Available at: http://diversity.arizona.edu/sites/diversity/files/stereotype_threat_overview.pdf. Accessed 26 Mar 2018. Tellhed, U., M. Backstrom, and F. Bjorklund. 2017. Will I fit on and do well? The importance of social belongingness and self-efficacy for explaining gender differences in interest in STEM and HEED. Sex Roles 77 (1–2): 86–96. Thibodeaux, T. 2016. 4 role models who inspire girls to pursue tech careers. Entrepreneur. Available at: https://www.entrepreneur.com/topic/girls-intech. Accessed 8 Apr 2019. Thomas, M. n.d. The importance of role models. Available at: https://www. healthguidance.org/entry/13288/1/the-importance-of-role-models.html. Accessed 10 May 2019. Van Aalderen-Smeets, S., and J. Walma van der Molen. 2018. Modelling the relation between students’ implicit beliefs and their abilities and their educational STEM choices. International Journal of Technology and Design Education 28: 1–27. Voyer, D., and S. Voyer. 2014. Gender differences in scholastic achievement: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin 140 (4): 1174–1204. Weinburgh, M. 1995. Gender differences in student attitudes towards science: A meta-analysis of the literature from 1970 to 1991. Journal of Research in Science Teaching 32 (4): 387–398. Whitbourne, S.K. 2013. We all need role models to motivate and inspire us. Psychology Today. Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/ fulfillment-any-age/201311/we-all-need-role-models-motivate-and-inspireus. Accessed 1 June 2019. World Economic Forum. 2018. The global gender gap report 2018. Davos: World Economic Forum. Wright, S. 2018. Analysis: More female role models can change business for the better. Herald Scotland [Glasgow]. Available at: http://heraldscotland.com/ opinion/15598060.Analysis_More_female_role_models_can_change_business_for_the_beter/. Accessed 26 Mar 2018. Wright, L. 2019. Why are women under-represented in the Tech Industry? Available at: https://www.business2community.com/tech-gadgets/why-arewomen-under-represented-in-the-tech-industry-02160286. Accessed 10 June 2019.

3 “Oh, it’s actually quite nice up here”: Reflections on Prejudice, Partiality and Division and Moral Challenges to Inclusivity Created by Gender, Class and Region Bridget Cooper

Context Since my previous writing on inequality (Cooper 2017), division in the UK and many other countries has sadly increased. In 2019, the UK is awash with anger and hate over the Brexit issue, in a way I have certainly never previously experienced. Food banks pepper our cities and towns for those who, despite being in work, cannot afford to feed themselves or their families. America continues to be plagued by gun-fuelled massacres, most often perpetrated by far-right extremists and aggressive leaders are gaining power in many countries. If the rise of the fascists in the late This chapter is dedicated to four excellent, but very different, female role models, all Professors of Education who gave me their time, encouragement and support earlier in my career. They were Kathy Hall, Pat Broadhead, Sue Clegg and Anne Campbell.

B. Cooper (*) University of Sunderland, Sunderland, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Smith (ed.), Gender Equality in Changing Times, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26570-0_3

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1930s and the horrendous consequences that ensued, were fuelled by the deprivation and insecurity of the Great Depression, why do our leaders fail to see the parallel with our own times since the financial crash of 2008, or is this level of division in society what they actually want? Why do ordinary people believe in and vote for those who create and extend inequality, promote greed and individualism, and breed hatred and insecurity and division? Especially, when all the evidence suggests that the most equal societies are the most secure, harmonious and happiest for all members (Wilkinson and Pickett 2009). In the era after the Second World War, the UK government worked to provide housing, healthcare and education for all its citizens whatever their status or wealth and to combat Bevan’s five evils of Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness, which went a long way to creating greater equality in this country at least. The continued austerity policies since the financial crash of 2008, coupled with the ideologically driven, creeping privatisation of our health, education and other services and the ignorance and propaganda fuelled by some sectors of the media, have pushed back the protections of the welfare state. Although we have nominally high rates of employment, very wealthy people’s wages have risen astronomically, but 14 million remain in poverty and many others remain on low wages while homelessness increases. The crucial public services they all rely on, struggle daily on the limited resources provided under austerity policies. The UK’s social safety net has been “deliberately removed and replaced with a harsh and uncaring ethos”, a UN commissioned report stated recently (UN Report, March 2019). Prof. Philip Alston, an author, argued that “ideological” cuts to public services since 2010 have led to “tragic consequences”. Austerity to this extent was an option, not a necessity, and alternatives are always possible (Stuckler and Basu 2013), though the government at the time portrayed it as unavoidable. Our recently resigned Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, said publicly that he could not see poverty around him, but does this mean he is in denial because he lives in wealthy, sheltered circles, for poverty and inequality is evidently rising. As many studies have shown, austerity has affected women disproportionately (Rushton and Donovan 2018).

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Clearly, not everyone can influence people like politicians or media moguls, but human beings can open their minds to what is really happening. We can read in depth about the problems our society faces and possible solutions. We can think for ourselves and question statements we believe are not accurate. There has been so much misinformation over Brexit, however, that finding the truth now is an increasing challenge and Boris Johnson, the current prime minister, continually avoids rigorous questioning by the media, which inevitably creates suspicions about his plans. Johnson appointed an extremist cabinet who believes they are entitled to a good life and that working people are just lazy (Kwarteng et al. 2012). They would prefer to increase division and increase unregulated competition for the benefit of the wealthy, increasing inequality and their own power. They do not perceive or do not care about the selfish limitations of their policies and the lack of investment in our industries and infrastructure, which some other European countries manage to commit to. British society needs evidenced-based policies to make progress and must hold politicians accountable to maintain our democracy and continue to influence how the UK is managed, to ensure a strong, cohesive, more equal society. People feel insecure if their livings and security are threatened, and because politics and international relations are complex issues, they welcome easy targets to blame for their discontent, which can then be manipulated by the media and the politicians. Social media, developed by gigantic companies, has also fuelled this division and anyone who bears a grudge feels free to express it directly and aggressively online. This is an extremely negative outcome of inequality, coupled with inadequately supervised communication via technology. Having recently moved to the countryside, I have been surprised by how fearful some people are here. Some fear for their possessions, others their survival, but right now people seem to be pro-Brexit, voting for conservative policies which are quite likely to reduce their economic circumstances and threaten their livelihoods. Although the government and elements of the media blame the EU, the Irish, the Scots, immigrants and anyone else who is not uniquely English, as well as the working class, for any problems the country has, most of the problems are directly caused by the austerity policies instituted by the same Conservative party of the government.

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This is the context in which this chapter was written. Division and propaganda exacerbate prejudice and partiality and indeed has led recently to increased racist language and racist attacks (Guardian, May 2019). When the wrong people are blamed unjustly for problems society is experiencing, they too become fearful and angry, causing further fear and division. Manipulation of people’s fears and the lies perpetuated by extremists is immoral but morality is currently taking a back seat in politics. A divided, intolerant society increases other forms of prejudice too, and in this chapter, I discuss the partiality and prejudice of gender, region and class, all of which I have experienced personally, which threaten recent societal developments in inclusivity. In a previous chapter on gender issues (Cooper 2017), I argued that for many women in the UK, gender bias had developed a more covert nature in some situations. If something becomes illegal, it often moves underground. However, more recently I worry that misogyny is more overtly on the increase, exemplified by people like Trump and Weinstein, along with other intolerant attitudes and it is vital that children are educated and we educate and inform ourselves, so that encultured bias does not prevent large parts of our society from achieving their true potential. A society which denies certain people basic opportunities in life cannot progress or develop fully, and for our planet to survive without another world war, we need to develop a harmonious global outlook, which is inclusive and continually combats Beveridge’s five evils at home and abroad. Of course, societies and attitudes do evolve but mindsets need to progress and adapting is not always easy, because it involves revising long-held beliefs and, for some people, that is more difficult than for others. Frightened people often find it harder to change. Governments need to be responsible and support people’s development and not exacerbate fear and encourage prejudice and antiquated views for their own advantage. Inner emotions and anger need to be calmed by better opportunities and wages and living conditions, so everyone feels valued and valuable, not marginalised and left behind (Wilkinson and Pickett 2014). People need valid explanations and reasoning to understand their anger and to recognise the real causes, rather than apportioning blame to the wrong people. Politicians and the media could help enormously with this but they

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continually refute any blame, oversimplify problems, stoke anger and pursue their own agendas. Right-wing politicians, it seems, are really not interested in a harmonious society, only their own short-term self-interest and prosperity.

Problems with Bias Gender bias affects half the population negatively, class bias also affects a huge section of the population and so does regional bias too. The term bias is a very gentle word for the more extreme outcomes of prejudice and partiality in society and can be both conscious and unconscious in origin. Such bias can result in covert inequality, where a particular group is disadvantaged through a mix of economic and social inequality, often revealed through research into wage or status opportunities (Cooper 2017) but bias can result in very blatant partiality, when particular groups are openly attacked or belittled and made to feel inferior, even worthless. Bias against groups of gender, class and region will be discussed here in relation to my own experience, although they are often interrelated and sometimes difficult to completely distinguish. However, it is also true that although each particular group is disadvantaged by the way it is treated, every person in society suffers as a result. At the worst level, the anger felt on both sides creates disharmony, which disrupts society generally, causing tension, arguments, dispute and even physical aggression and ultimately wars. Battered or abused women, the worst victims of gender bias, require healthcare and social services, often for both mental and physical illness which costs society dearly. A recent UK study reported that the murder of spouses is at its highest for five years in the UK (BBC News 13/9/19); three quarters of these were women. The children in instances of domestic abuse also suffer both physically and psychologically and the lack of resource and support means they are disadvantaged and can find it harder to contribute to society more positively in other ways. Even the abusing spouse suffers too from the guilt, shame and the loss of family when relationships dissolve, and dysfunctional families nearly always incur financial costs both personally, for their families and for society. Spouses also suffer if they

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actually feel superior in their abuse of another because it creates a false sense of self and power, which can distort and damage all their relationships both at home, work and in leisure. More generally, feelings of superiority of gender or class or geography can endow people with a sense of false entitlement to a better life. They often feel that they deserve better and are better, simply by dint of their gender, class or geography, when this is simply not the case. Having a false sense of superiority can only come through thinking badly of others and too often this type of bias is based on an encultured ignorance about exactly those people who they feel superior to. The wealthy often have a mistaken sense of their own intelligence, skill and hard work, labelling poorer, working-class people as idle or stupid. Advantaged politicians can often be guilty of this type of bias, but also more ordinary people who believe they have worked harder than everyone else, often for no apparently good reason. A book written by leading members of the current Conservative party cabinet (Britannia Unchained 2012) criticises the British workers’ ethic at a time when many cannot afford to feed their families and when the government themselves should consider their own work ethic and values and ensure that wages are kept high enough to prevent the need for food banks. Nurses working twelve-hour shifts are among the people who have to turn to charity for food. The value we attribute to public services can be a marker of a humane or less humane society. Sometimes the poorest individuals in society have to work the very hardest, often in less stimulating jobs and yet cannot feed their children, which must be incredibly depressing and demotivating. The irony of Britannia Unchained is that effectively these ministers want to chain working people to their jobs and bosses, reducing benefits and union support and wages and the quality of services, to compete with countries even poorer than the UK. The authors are happy to take the benefits of working in a society which rewards them, but clearly do not want the same for others. Only the executives and the wealthy will really be unchained in this sort of economy. Similarly, the rising homelessness and decline in the quality of housing and living conditions for the very poorest in the UK, as the amount of social housing has declined and the numbers renting have risen, again leads us to question government

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ethics. Dorling (2014) gives a severely critical analysis of housing policy in the UK under Conservative governments. Myths and legends build up about certain groups due to bias, which are then circulated, perpetuating ignorance and untruths. Sexism is an everyday thing according to Bates (2014) and as women we feel it and experience it daily, but many other biases are usual too. Sometimes the selfishness involved in bias can be as damaging for the biased individual as the victim, because their false sense of superiority makes their lives extremely difficult and they become less successful, ultimately, in their relationships. Instead of inhabiting an ambiance of collaboration in their work and private lives, they continually exist in an ambiance of negativity about others and suffer the effects of resentment and dislike from colleagues and family. Sadly, for some this sense of superiority is a defensive strategy to protect their own low sense of self-esteem, often created in their childhood, sometimes accidentally, sometimes by environment, sometimes by another’s deliberate design. Thus, their search for power and superiority is powerfully driven by their desire to prove themselves. They really need psychological help but their lust for power can also make them dangerous and unpredictable leaders, who wreak havoc on their organisations and communities.

Gender Bias The Handmaid’s Tale (Attwood 1985) is gripping and horrific in its treatment of women but engages us, not just because it is well-written fiction, but because it has continuous resonance with events that have happened or do happen in the world and because, with a US president in power, who so easily disparages women, it is frightening to contemplate how easily such a society could develop in America or elsewhere, in particular circumstances. People argue that their sexism is just “locker-room banter” or a joke but in truth words can reveal thoughts and thoughts lead to actions, either by themselves or by people influenced by the propaganda of role models. In 1850, Hawthorne wrote the classic, The Scarlet Letter. Set in Puritan New England in the seventeenth century, it portrays cruel treatment of women, which has many resonances with The Handmaid’s Tale, the double standards and hypocrisy and

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outright oppression and humiliation. In The Silence of the Girls, Barker (2018) writes of the horrendous treatment of women in the Trojan wars. Men were glorified for their battle prowess and women passed on as trophies or reduced to mere existence, in the most horrific of circumstances. The female perspective is revealed at huge variance with the male. “Great Achilles, brilliant Achilles, godlike Achilles. How the epithets pile up. We never called him any of those things: we called him; ‘the butcher’”, says Brisei, the female protagonist, whose life is shattered when she is awarded to Achilles as a prize of war (pg. 3). Again, these fictional characters have resonance with real life, as we begin to understand in depth their experiences. We think of the wicked treatment of the Yazidi women by Isis or the prevalence of rape and abuse of women in wars across the globe, and still in the UK, a supposedly developed country, abuse and violence against women is commonplace. The three books mentioned above and the real examples all portray extreme examples of sexual inequality but bias frequently recurs in societies in transition and such stories remind us of how fragile the state of gender equality is and how easily hard-won freedoms can be lost. Of course, very often today in the UK and much of the Western world, the circumstances are not usually so extreme, but nevertheless women’s daily experience can still be of vilification, belittling, limited opportunity, lower pay and status. Social media abuse of women has become common and attacks on women normalised. In the privacy of the home, women have often been beaten, humiliated and killed or imprisoned for daring to fight back against oppression. Where people think they can escape justice, abuse still occurs and role models in society and senior managers in institutions and companies must be aware of the effect of their attitudes, words and actions on others. I have never suffered any extreme physical or verbal abuse and only use social media very minimally which may help, but I have often experienced negative treatment in my education, work and at leisure from biased, aggressive or incompetent men. For my own part prejudice against region, class and women have affected my life. Probably oblivious to bias at school, where I learned alongside children of my region, class and at least 50 per cent of the same gender, I first noticed different treatment at university, when I encountered obvious bias in some classes, where female students were practically ignored by male tutors and I was left bewildered and feeling lost, as I was

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unused to being ignored, either by my family or by my teachers. However, I gradually began to recognise it for the prejudice it was and grew angry and fought not to be ignored. I also remember how surprised a male tutor was at one of my essays, which he obviously thought contained ideas which impressed him but neither could he believe I had written them. I think he thought I had obtained the ideas from someone else. Working as a teacher I felt mainly equally treated and only experienced the stealing of my writing and research once by a man who inserted his own name on a paper I had written about my research. He presented it to a meeting that we both attended, which shocked me and I called him out in public in the meeting. As a teacher I often noticed overt sexism which affected students badly, especially when parents totally favoured their male children over their female children, even to the point of on one little girl’s birthday, parents showering their son with presents. They seemed oblivious to the issue when I raised it. Similarly, with two five-year-old twins I taught, the boy was praised and judged to be very clever by parents, while the daughter was ignored or derided. As the teacher, I knew they were both quite capable and kept reiterating it. The little girl obviously felt ashamed and was very reserved and clung to me when I visited her home, because she knew I would treat her more positively. Seeing the effects of sexism on young children is very disturbing and must be continually addressed. When away from her family, this child grew visibly taller, smiled more and even laughed and was extremely capable. Such is the power of positive affirmation. Shame or oppression quickly destroys people. I was a naïve when I began to work in universities, coming as I did, from a working-class family, which initially made me vulnerable to unscrupulous individuals in positions of power and several times I found my work purloined by others, who had few scruples, when it came to their own advancement. I warn all my postgraduate students of this potential hazard now. In one university, I was placed in an invidious position by a weak, incoming male manager, who basically reduced his share of teaching, so he could do more research. When reprimanded by his line managers, the new manager usurped me from my established teaching role, by email, which was particularly insulting and cowardly, in order to rectify his mistake and appropriated my planned and established teaching

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for himself. Luckily, he could not usurp me from my research contract. When I objected and called in the union, I was hauled before senior management and humiliated and threatened for daring to question decisions, despite being a longer-standing, hard-working and highly experienced employee. I heard from a reliable source, that the institution kept a list of people who consulted the union. I never forgave the people involved but left at the first opportunity. Why would anyone want to work in that kind of culture? If only these institutions realised the damage to their reputation, their staffing and their standing. They keep the inadequate staff and lose the better ones. As someone who later had substantial influence over younger staff members, I would recommend they avoided that particular university department at all costs. I assume other staff members who were treated unfairly did likewise and consequently their potential staffing pool and their reputation were damaged. Academia is, after all, a very small world. I found in that particular institution that my personal values often clashed badly with some of the values I encountered there. The institution, governed by the old-boy network, was harsh, self-­ serving and arrogant and basic tenets of moral treatment of people were ignored. This was an awakening in one sense, but in another it was no surprise because my research focussed on the issue of values and values formation and the differences between male and female values, as argued by Gilligan (1982). Experiencing it in reality was, however, much more disconcerting than reading the theory. In another institution, I applied for promotion. I knew I was a well-­ published lecturer, with successful grant funding, mainly because my previous role had been predominantly research, unlike many colleagues. I did not expect success on my first application, but was horrified when I went for feedback, that the managers had rather obviously not even read my application, which apart from being extremely lazy also showed appalling bias because I had been rejected without knowledge or consideration, despite my strengths, for this particular role. The manager patronisingly told me that I had to have publications to be considered. I enquired whether he had read my application, because it included a long list of publications. He admitted he had not, which I could not believe, because how could he pretend to give me feedback without having read it. A supportive female colleague spoke to him and explained I was

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eligible for such promotion. He promised to consider me if I reapplied. To say I was angry and shocked would have been an understatement. When I applied again the following year, I was promoted, but effectively my career was delayed for that year. Although this bias or possibly incompetence, was a disadvantage to me at the time, in the long run such bias really damages the department’s and the manager’s reputation and the quality of staffing. Despite gaining the promotion, I chose not to stay there or to advise others to apply there at that time. Thus, biased selection reduces the choice of applicants and appoints those who are less able or qualified. Academics move in a small world of subject interest and conferences. News spreads quickly about departments and individuals with problematic reputations. My feeling was it was their loss, if they behaved badly, and I chose to forge my own path in other more equal institutions, less infected with the bullying old-boy or male-dominating networks, which shamelessly preserves and favours its own. Women may be criticised for their garrulous nature by men, but it certainly ensures that they know who and where to avoid when they move on.

Regional Bias It was a full London to Edinburgh train, packed mainly with academics en route to a conference. Some sat in whole groups, some in pairs, some alone, but many knew others on the train or knew of them. The views through the window on the East Coastline as we travelled up the coast beyond the vibrant city of Newcastle were, as ever, spectacular. A female academic, sitting with colleagues, and gazing at the dramatic coastline close to the tracks, commented in a London accent, “Oh, it’s actually quite nice up here”, with a tone of surprise. She did not elaborate on her expectations but it was good to see her preconceptions challenged, even in such a simple way by the scenery. One changed perspective can lead to others and travel in itself can be a fantastic catalyst for broader understanding and awareness. Spending time in a different environment, language and culture enables us to appreciate difference and, in some small way, some of the challenges faced by migrants or refugees for

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example. Taking delight in new foods, drinks, customs and culture can open up new worlds of experience and understanding. However, this is not always the case. Sometimes travel reinforces prejudices. From the woman’s comment she clearly had not travelled to the north of England before. The unknown can, of course, create fear and false expectations. Did she think it was all heavy industry and grime? What had she been told? Where did she get her information? We northerners and our various accents are used to ridicule in the media, on TV or in films, but if people are encultured into believing strange truths about northern England why indeed would they ever visit, apply for jobs, go to university there or encourage their families to go there? The reality in the northern regions, before the banking crash and austerity, for those who had a choice of work and home, was actually a better quality of life and cheaper housing and cost of living. Northern cities were being revived after industrial decline and the countryside has always been beautiful. However, increasingly in recent years, and despite fine words by politicians, under austerity policies, the north has been deprived of council funding, transport and infrastructure funding and funding for schools and health, and despite or partly because of all these, most asylum seekers are being housed in the cities in the midlands and north (BBC Newsnight, Feb 2019) where accommodation and living costs are cheaper. Beliefs can produce self-fulfilling prophesies over time. Now, as life quality and standards in certain areas decline, and much state money is funnelled into private companies and to shareholders for health and education services, ordinary people are left with much less support, especially in the north of the UK. There are less welfare benefits, schools, doctors, hospitals, libraries, colleges, adult education, buses or trains, children and youth services. There is less of everything since austerity, to ensure high standards, quality of life and social cohesion. Another example of regional bias I encountered was in a PhD student’s viva when a young academic from the south of the UK questioned the use of the term “ibid”, saying, “This might be [northern place name] style—I’ve never used ‘ibid’”. She assumed it was a peculiarly northern phenomenon, with the implication that it is an exclusively northern eccentricity, when in fact it is a widely used convention.

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For both this academic and the female academic on the train, they will be aware of and have had to argue for gender equality but they may have never considered their own partiality in terms of regional discrimination. This is how discrimination works. We absorb narratives, both truths and myths from our earliest days and from the people and environment around us. We easily come to believe simple myths, consciously and unconsciously. We learn to prefer or fear certain people and places, often because we know little about them. Sometimes this constitutes more concrete discrimination, such as a politician’s expressed fear when listening to people speak other languages, but other times it is simply wariness of the unknown. This can be engendered by the look or raised eyebrow someone offers when encountering something or someone a little different or by their tone of voice when referring to someone outside their normal experience, for example “that school”, or “that estate” or “those people”. We learn to be wary, to know the familiar and our own places. Of course, such wariness can be useful if we are really under threat, but tribal differences ended centuries ago. If we strongly reject or fear other people, other groups, other places, we limit our horizons and above all our understanding, which prevents society being harmonious and cohesive. Right now, due to inequality, poor management, a divisive referendum and political manipulation, our society in the UK is incredibly riven.

Class Bias Sometimes my voice and accent simultaneously denote both region and class (working class, northerner) so it might be hard to distinguish whether any discrimination experienced is specifically one or the other, but it has been clear over the years that the sound of my voice has generated amusement, pleasure, and often produced an underlying snobbery from more middle-class individuals. You see someone subdue a smile, or reply in a very authoritative voice with a disparaging remark and an air of superiority and you know that class or regional bias is at work. Sometimes people are not aware of their own behaviour and equally some do not care how they behave, but as a close observer of people, whose area of research has been about human values and interaction, it is often obvious.

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I have discussed elsewhere (Cooper 2017) some of the equality problems in education and educational work which still pertain for women, despite so many years of established equal opportunities policy and legislation. But the problem is indeed more general and actually quite understandable. People can be taught to love through receiving love and given models of loving relationships but can also be taught to despise and given models of despising or discriminatory, even hateful relationships. Groups can develop attitudes of group belonging which are not antagonistic towards other groups but alternatively can develop a culture which simultaneously excludes and reviles members of other groups, regarding them as a threat. The “others” may present a challenge to status, power, resources or custom or even be a focus of derision or ridicule. If groups are encouraged to compete aggressively, rather than collaborate and the seeds of division and superiority are sown by family, community, politicians or media, then the emotional feelings of threat and despair in that atmosphere of competition are channelled rightly or wrongly against “the other” group, whoever they may be. We may be at a football match or discussing Brexit. The “other” team, referee, linesman or indeed all the other countries of the EU become the “opposition”, and if angry or unhappy with our current position, we have an easy target to blame it on, whoever’s fault it actually is. The so-called ‘left behind’ of Britain has not been left behind by the EU, ironically many deprived areas have benefitted massively from EU funding, but by harsh and continuous austerity policies enacted by our own government. Attitudes can become hardwired and difficult to change, when continually reinforced, whatever the evidence presented one way or another. We have learned how deep divisions can be throughout the Brexit debate, when programmes such as BBC1’s Question Time or even political panels frequently descend into aggression and ridicule or belittling of opposition. The Brexit argument currently seems to cut across gender, class and regional bias but examples of all three can be heard from both politicians and the public. I have argued elsewhere (Cooper 2011) that the culture of the American dream and intense individualism creates such an atmosphere of competition, deeply embedded in society, that by default, anyone who does not become wealthy is considered bad and or feckless and those who succeed are considered both good and hard-working. These attitudes pertain also

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in the UK and class often plays a part. On the right and centre, the myth of the “feckless poor” is perennial and is revived whenever political necessity arises. However, we should also acknowledge that people can work incredibly hard and still earn very little and some people are less obsessed by wealth and power and prefer to work for and with others. Housing, education, health, water and power all are vital to our lives and increasingly less accessible due to rising costs. Bevan’s five evils are back (Guardian 2017) and if not addressed could give rise to civil unrest, possibly dictators. In times of inequality, bias increases. Though the lines are not clear cut, it seems that privilege breeds privilege and working-class people struggle to achieve the same levels as their wealthy counterparts. According to Friedman and Laurison (2019), the privileged always have a benign prevailing wind which helps to carry them forwards, whereas working-­ class people experience the opposite and gain more unequal rewards in a system which disadvantages those with poorer social origins, who lack the networks and backing of family money, which wealthier people rely on. It is ironic therefore that the working classes often trust wealthy people to govern the country and believe they will improve their lot. Poverty and inequality is actually quite widespread and very apparent where I currently live. Our small local town has two increasingly used food banks, large amounts of new expensive housing built for the wealthy and increasing problems for people with seeing consultants and GPs. Our library, essential for working-class people, is rarely open; our schools are under tremendous financial pressure to academise, and dangerously short of teachers and resources. These phenomena are now commonplace countrywide. Research shows that the most unequal societies have many more social problems and much less happiness. This affects everyone in society, not just the poor (Wilkinson and Pickett 2009, 2014). This simple dichotomy of deserving versus undeserving or hard-working versus idle is pervasive in the media and highly damaging and designed to be divisive. Just as former Education Secretary Michael Gove gave simple definitions of good and bad schools and good and bad teachers, the message was simple but based on untruths. This is highly destructive because for some people, groups, organisations, schools, hospitals and communities, the playing field is not just uneven but precipitous and life consequentially

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precarious. Fear for survival becomes a daily reality, hence the term “precariat” (Standing 2014) whose existence and mental health is daily and dangerously under threat producing volatility, since the financial crash of 2008. Even those for whom life was once relatively stable and safe are under threat, teachers, headteachers, health workers, carers and social workers, due to lower wages and aggressive and punitive systems of accountability and increasing levels of corruption as services are privatised. People who work hard on “zero hours” contracts never know what the next day brings, like some throwback to the 1930s and the Great Depression, people stand in line each morning or wait in their vehicles miles from home, for work to be offered. Delivery drivers hurtle around the country distributing hundreds of purchases on their long shifts. In this brave new world of volatility, female MPs suffer constant abuse and fear of physical threat on social media, resulting in one example linked to Brexit, with the violent death of MP Jo Cox. These are all signs that our society is becoming more inhuman and less happy. Not being able to cope is becoming normalised and the mental health of young people in particular is in a perilous state, pressured both by an aggressive testing regime in schools and incessant social pressures to be perfect on social media. For some groups and individuals these pressures are life-­ threatening and life-changing and traditionally oppressed groups, such as the working class or women, or regional groups, are likely to have even fewer opportunities for good quality work, education, health and a decent quality of life. Though my first university was still in Yorkshire, where I had been brought up, I first encountered students from other parts of the country there and some with very different values to mine, which in some instances left me stunned. Many of my hockey-playing friends at university were extremely middle class. I found them very competitive and sometimes unpleasant. I felt uneasy in their company but nevertheless played whatever position I was asked because I loved playing and twice received my university colours. Sometimes the bias of class and gender comes together and it is not always clear how they interact. One very aggressive middle-class male, privately educated, who I did not know and who did not know me, took great exception to me buying a round of drinks after a Sunday game of

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mixed hockey and called me “a slut”. Nowadays, I would probably just have told him that I found that remark very offensive, but at the time I was simply shocked and silent, having never encountered such attitudes before. Having always been used to paying my own way (very much a working-class value) I thought nothing of buying a round. His comment seemed horribly sexist but also very snobbish and moreover extremely unfair. Of course, this kind of aggressive, everyday sexism has been well documented (Bates 2014) and is now commonplace on social media, where anonymity seems to breed a total lack of fear about the most hateful and threatening of speech. In terms of class, that was also a factor and I assume that in the circles this young man moved, women just simply never bought drinks. There are various reasons for this aggression; for some, the attitudes have been encultured at home, some from peer groups at school and male, middle-class-dominated workplaces but also by more subtle enculturation by the media of all kinds. Clearly, gender bias is embedded deep in society, and whatever progress has been made, it is insufficient and as the abortion laws in the USA have revealed, can be reversed at any point. That the American people can elect such a personally egotistical and misogynistic, often racist, leader such as Trump says much about the divisions in their society. His racist rallies have just hit the headlines as I write this chapter and indeed the Conservative party have just elected Boris Johnson as their leader and he is consequently now the UK prime minister. Johnson has also made some very prejudicial remarks about various groups of people. He was publicly humiliated in parliament because of this recently, when the whole of one side of the parliament chamber stood up and clapped an MP who called him out for this behaviour and its subsequent effects. Such behaviour shows an enormous lack of empathy for the people affected by his behaviour. It must be very poor judgement by voters, which considers such people to be worthy of high office and reinforces the pervading air of self-satisfaction, smugness and entitlement of the upper classes and the wealthy who believe in their right to rule, when they have done little to deserve it and, moreover, gleefully set appalling examples to the rest of society. Basically, they do not care, at a time when the country should be desperate for leaders who do care. Recently, the TUC (Trades Union Congress 2019) has requested new

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legal measures against class discrimination, like the law against gender discrimination, arguing that graduates from wealthier backgrounds are more than twice as likely to start on £30,000 as working-class peers and that Britain is “wasting skills and talent”, because of this discrimination. As a northern, working-class woman, I have always been surprised I eventually gained a professorship. I had never expected to complete a PhD, become a lecturer, reader or subsequently a professor; I just worked hard, enjoyed my work at each point in my career and found it stimulating. I am convinced that when academics met me and I spoke in my northern working-class accent, they were surprised at my various roles and some, of course, just assumed a different role. One lecturer when he entered an office, which I shared with two men, assumed I was a secretary, when in fact I was the senior of the three incumbents. Even a young relative, when told I was a professor, said, “You don’t sound like a professor”. I believe working mainly in northern universities helped my career, because class and region were less of a disadvantage than they would have been in southern England. But even middle-class shopkeepers and other people I sometimes meet, even in the north, treat me with snobbishness, when they hear my working-class accent. I have friends who deliberately changed their working-class accents but I was never interested in this. I am not sure I could do it. As a school teacher, I made an effort to speak clearly because I wanted to communicate and to be understood and because I worked in many different parts of the country. But both in schools and universities, I have always tried to support all people, both staff and students, whatever their background, to progress and develop and to aim high, by offering explicit guidance and encouragement whenever I could. Sometimes, the kind of prejudice discussed here is against anyone that is different, sometimes it is just against one particular group and sometimes several groups. Some people belong to a mixture of disadvantaged groups and are subject to prejudice from different quarters, which can reduce their self-esteem, their life chances and their achievements.

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Conclusion Bias and prejudice can begin at the personal level in interaction which is fashioned by past and current culture and environment and also our response to it. Personal prejudice favours one individual over another, one particular group over another and effectively silences and disadvantages others, either by avoidance, working around them, ignoring them or deliberately oppressing them. Even when rigorous policies are in place to try and ensure equality, some individuals bypass them deliberately. They find routes to get what they want. They intimidate “in private” orally, so no record is kept; they “persuade” others to do what they ask and abuse their power or offer favouritism to friends or suggest developments in social situations outside the workplace. When these avoidances become the norm, then cultures can be developed where bias is perpetuated, often becoming more open and aggressive, sometimes corrupt and then bias becomes institutionalised. The biased individual both contributes to the culture and is shaped by it. The less favoured person or people gradually become aware that they are not heard, treated fairly, promoted or given equal wages. This realisation can happen quickly or very slowly; indeed some people never realise they are being oppressed. They become so accepting of a secondary, inferior status that they internalise it and blame themselves for their status and others like them, thus perpetuating the oppression. This internalisation happens with women suffering domestic abuse and was vividly portrayed by Roddy Doyle in The Woman Who Walked Into Doors (1998). Unequal practices have to be challenged both by policy and by individuals. We have to speak out when we see inequality at work, either on our own behalf or that of others, and resist the perpetuation of prejudice when it reveals itself. Bias and prejudice can lead to much more severe outcomes than covert and devious inequality. At worst they can lead to humiliation, shame, subjugation, oppression, violence and even ultimately annihilation of one group or individual by another, which has occurred at various times throughout world history. Hierarchies of power and inequality lead to more division and discrimination. Societies with more inequality lead to greater unhappiness,

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poorer mental health, more shame. More emphasis on the individual means less collective emphasis. More unregulated competition produces less collaboration. Increased shame produces more fear, greater hate, produces less love, kindness and tolerance on all sides. Accepting difference does not reduce morality, but increases it. Creating, encouraging and enforcing division leads to immorality. There have been many instances in history and experiments which show the effect of division on groups with unequal power, such as the Stanford prisoners and warder’s experiment in 1971, where groups rapidly develop entrenched attitudes and develop a desire to subdue, oppress or hurt other groups. We need to teach our children in families, in schools and in universities to listen, understand, develop and share and respect people who are different or have different views, rather than reject, hate, despise and build walls between groups. We have to model positive behaviour and fairness in our interactions but even more importantly insist on it from others, valuing everyone and enabling opportunities for all different groups. While ever we thrive on hate and tolerate those who promote hate and prejudice, we will find it hard to love ourselves and others and struggle to create harmonious, cohesive relationships and societies and a harmonious world. The old adage, “Don’t care was made to care” still holds good. At some point, if we continue to permit unfair, unkind, selfish behaviour, then we will all reap the rewards. This applies on a personal, local, right through to a global scale. The more we care about others and raise and educate our children to care, and moreover insist that our leaders and bosses and organisations and businesses care, the more we extend the breadth of responsible human beings. Climate change is an extreme example of the effects of selfishness and inequality. Global warming has been on a slow burn compared to some human crises but bias, prejudice and selfish behaviour breeds itself eventually, and though humans have fantastic communication skills and the ability to work and collaborate for a better world, with vast knowledge gained over millennia of human development, we have still been sufficiently selfish to force our planet along a destructive path. Many now understand the selfish way that resources have been wasted and overused, that seas, the land and the atmosphere have been polluted. We have destroyed our own planet to the point where the ice caps are melting and

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the weather is becoming increasingly unpredictable and our fragile world is overheating. We can pretend this is not happening and continue to be selfish for our own lifetimes, allowing destruction of forests, overeating and wasting food and other resources in our competitive, consumerist world but eventually everyone, including our children and descendants, will suffer if no joint action is taken to reverse the damage. Hurricane Dorian strikes Florida as I write this, after devastating parts of the Bahamas, with many dead or missing and thousands of people left without homes and places to work. Wilkinson and Pickett (2009) have shown that unequal societies produce the worst outcomes for everyone and what worse outcome can there be than the destruction of the planet. We have to dissuade people from selfish behaviour by modelling the opposite and legislate to control unfairness. We have to ensure selfish individuals cannot become our leaders or teachers, exploiting and heightening division, and we must extend our empathy beyond ourselves and our limited groups and aim for the survival of all human beings and, particularly now, the global ecosystem we all inhabit.

References Attwood, M. 1985. The Handmaid’s Tale. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart. Barker, P. 2018. The silence of the girls. London: Penguin. Bates, S. 2014. Everyday sexism. London: Simon & Schuster. Cooper, B. 2011. Empathy in education: Engagement, values and achievement. London: Continuum. ———. 2017. From spare rib to spare part: From overt to covert sexism in education (in Smith 2017, editor, Re-reading Spare Rib). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan/Springer. Dorling, D. 2014. All that is solid. London: Penguin. Doyle, R. 1998. The woman who walked into doors. London: Vintage. Friedman, S., and D. Laurison. 2019. The class ceiling: Why it pays to be privileged. Bristol: Policy Press. Gilligan, C. 1982. In a different voice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Guardian. 2017. Want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness: Are Beveridge’s five evils back? Tues Oct 10, 2017.

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———. 2019. Racism rising since Brexit vote, nationwide study reveals. May 20, 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/20/racism-onthe-rise-since-brexit-vote-nationwide-study-reveals. Accessed July 2019. Hawthorne, N. 1850. The scarlet letter. Boston: Ticknor, Reed and Fields. Kwarteng, K., P. Patel, C. Skidmore, D. Raab, and L. Truss. 2012. Britannia unchained. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Rushton, Peter, and Catherine Donovan, eds. 2018. Austerity policies: Bad ideas in practice. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Standing, G. 2014. The precariat: The new and dangerous class. London: Bloomsbury. Stuckler, D., and S. Basu. 2013. The body economic: Why austerity kills. London: Allen and Lane. Trades Union Congress. 2019. https://www.tuc.org.uk/research-analysis/ reports/tuc-campaign-plan-2019-20?page=3#section_header. Accessed Sept 2019. UN Report. 2019. Visit to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland: Report of the special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. New York City: United Nations. Wilkinson, R., and K. Pickett. 2009. The spirit level: Why more equal societies almost always do better. London: Allen and Lane. ———. 2014. The inner level. London: Allen and Lane.

4 Prisoners of Inclusivity: Perspective on Spirituality, Humanism and Place Juila Janfeshar Nobari and Paul-Alan Armstrong

Introduction This chapter will present a reflexive account from a Middle Eastern woman who was born in the UK, grew up in Iran, who defines herself as Spiritual and Humanist. This was as a series of conversations with a white British man who is from Irish and Scottish ancestry, who also defines himself as a Liberal Humanist. Within the conversations, he acted as a reflexive lens in the building of the conceptualisation of the ‘Prison of Inclusivity’ as we explored how ‘Place’ beyond geographical location makes us prisoners. The chapter will discuss the intersectional relationships between gender, race and religion in the context of Place as a barrier for inclusivity. This collaborative auto-ethnography (Blalock and Akehi 2018) debates Dedicated to Anne Armstrong 1947–2019

J. J. Nobari (*) • P.-A. Armstrong (*) University of Sunderland, Sunderland, UK e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Smith (ed.), Gender Equality in Changing Times, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26570-0_4

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‘Place’ and how this creates a culture where inclusivity in terms of identities is fluid dependent on the Place. However, as presented by one of the authors, the power imbalance exists in all places and it is defined differently by the Place. In the UK they are an immigrant, a Muslim and a woman (second-class citizen) and the man wherever they go he is a member of the white elite which has surfaced in our post-truth world. To make sense of inclusivity and how it embodies our identities we present artful auto-ethnography (Barleet 2013; Pelias 2013) in the form of personal cultural texts (Finley 2005, 2011) as a reflexive account of identities. These include poetry (Saunders 2003; Burchill 2010), lyrics (Armstrong 2015) and other poetics (Ellis 2004; Pelias 2013). This chapter argues that ‘Place’ makes us all prisoners of inclusivity as it is the ‘Place’ which defines our intersectional identities through the lens of others as we make sense of whether we live in an inclusive society.

Research Approach We enter into this research as a reflexive account of ‘Place’ and identity through a blend and bricolage of auto-ethnography methodologies including collaborative auto-ethnography (Blalock and Akehi 2018) using dialogue and conversation. This gave us a connection with identity and ‘Place’. To conceptualise the conversations, we framed using an artful and embodied form of representation of identity and ‘Place’ (Barleet 2013). The conversations were between two academics working in a business school based at a university in North East England. Their backgrounds were different; however, the conversations illuminated how their values of humanism were similar and their prisons are different as they faced different enablers and inhibitors of their identity formulation. Participant (1): Woman, Senior Lecturer in Accounting and Finance, married, Muslim, born in the UK and raised in Iran, PhD, five years’ experience in academia. Participant (2): Man, Senior Lecturer in HRM and Leadership, never married, lapsed Catholic (Liberal Humanist), born in the UK, PhD, 21 years’ experience in academia.

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We had three in-depth conversations which allowed for reflection using a dialogic approach (Ripamonti et al. 2016). Participant (2) acts as a filter as they used inquiry-led questioning as a method to explore the reflexive accounts of Participant (1). The conversations allowed for inquiry and we enter them without prepared areas of inquiry. We allowed the conversations to direct the exploration of identity and ‘Place’. Conversation one set the scene for the study; conversation two focused on experiences as a woman and cultural reference points from television and literature; conversation three focused on education, politics, faith and religion (Table 4.1). These conversations allow us to build the ‘lens of a prison of inclusivity’. This was through the use of interpretive poetics (Rogers 2000) where poetry, literature and proverbs were used to structure the analysis from the conversations which were structured using a thematic analysis approach (Table 4.2).

Table 4.1   Outline of conversations Conversation Place 1

2

3

Prison of inclusivity

Where we belong; how identity is Discussions on: formed; where Place becomes an Cultural heritage indicator of belonging and identity. Family Marriage How as women ‘Place’ is a potential/ Discussions on: constant indicator of not belonging; Experiences as a woman Cultural reference points how cultural reference points are located in particular ‘Place’ and (television, art, these act as prisons of literature) understanding which impact upon belonging (due to structural sexism, racism and white privilege) How education, politics and faith act Discussions on: as locations within ‘Place’ as Education enablers or inhibitors of identity. Politics Faith/religion

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Table 4.2   Keys themes and explanation Theme

Explanation

Belonging

This is the source of the prison where we consider enablers and inhibitors (e.g., micro-aggressions; structural racism, sexism and white privilege) which influence action. Place The Place is the location of the prison in terms of identity formulation, development and transformation (this can be a part of the psyche or a physical geographical location). Entering the This is based on ‘what you are’; how the environment interacts prison and formulates an identity. The corridors These are the experiences of ‘Place’ due to cultural indicators of the prison and artefacts; education; faith and religion; gender as these form identities within a specific Place.

 ositioning Our Conversations: Spirituality, P Humanism and Place The term spirituality has become a universal term which transcends multiple disciplines and discourse, including how we define ‘Place’. However, precise definitions of spirituality are elusive. Spirituality, for this research, is defined as follows (does not negate or reject any other definitions): “Personal belief system that searches for meaning and purpose in life and connectedness to a higher dimension” (Mooney and Timmins 2007, p. 277). This is further supported by the connections made with spirituality and authenticity (Chickering et  al. 2006). This research presents through conversations the authenticating of identities (Caza et al. 2017). Being true to oneself is central to the concept of authenticity and we argue the authentic self is an enabler for escaping the Prison of Inclusivity. We suggest those who become prisoners are influenced by structural issues and our authentic self can in some ways break down the walls of the Prisons. This is through authenticating our values as Humanists. As Humanists we see the relevance and significance of literature; we recognise the value of literature as text as it is without prior ideological assumptions (Barry 2009). We see literature as cultural indicators of our ‘Place’. Literature is a way of understanding the humane by exploring meaning (e.g., To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. This story created

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enlightenment within the reader as it explored structural racism. This provided a method for a young boy trying to understand why unfairness and inequality exists). Literature acts as an enabler of ‘Place’ and a contributor to identity formation. This authentication of being and becoming a Humanist is ‘Placed’ within our spirituality. Tisdell (2003) puts forward the seven assumptions of spirituality. The first assumption is to recognise spirituality and religion are not the same. This is central to making sense of ‘Place’ as spirituality is about an ‘attitude’ a ‘value’ and this influences how we approach our interactions with others. The second assumption is awareness and honouring of wholeness and the interconnectedness of all things. This is supported by the third assumption where spirituality is always present (though often unacknowledged) in the world as it represents a way of thinking and acting. The fourth assumption focuses on spiritual development, which constitutes a move towards greater authenticity or a more authentic self. Furthermore, this relates to the fifth and sixth assumptions, where spirituality is considered how people construct knowledge through mainly symbolic processes. These are often made more concrete in art forms such as music, art, image, symbol and ritual which are manifested culturally. The seventh and final assumption, spiritual experiences most often happen by surprise. When considering ‘Place’ we have considered the gendering of ‘Place’ and how gender identity can make you a prisoner and this is made even more prevalent when intersected within cultures where masculine structures dominate and these ‘Place’ women as outsiders. This is intersected with race, religion and sexuality and there is the potential to be a prisoner for multiple reasons especially as a woman. For us as the authors, spirituality is embodied in our values and how we interact with others, even though we recognise the structural and endemic societal issues conceptualised as structural sexism and structural racism in a post-racial society (Bhopal 2018). When we considered ‘Place’ we are not simply focusing on geographical location. We consider ‘Place’ to be: Family, friends and work colleagues Race, nationality and ethnicity

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Education Cultural artefacts (e.g., literature, television, music) Gender, Sexuality and Sexual Identity Professional Identity Religious faith, spirituality

Our conversations allowed us to explore these and this built our lens of the ‘Prison of Inclusivity’.

Building the Prison of Inclusivity Everything in this or that world is within you (Rumi).

I was born in the UK (Newcastle upon Tyne) to Iranian father and mother and raised and grew up in Iran. I came back to the UK in January 2004. Why did I come back here? Everyday life is an endless negotiation between experiences and memories from the past, the challenges of the present and wishes and worries about the future. As Eugène Ionesco said in Rhinoceros (1960, p.20), “Life is a struggle, it’s cowardly not to put up a fight!” I put up a fight; I did not have a clear plan but knew that I have this opportunity and I may regret it as I get older to not taking it. After my first degree in Iran and working for two years I packed my suitcase and left. As The Little Black Fish (Behrangi 1968, p.2) said: “I want to know if life is simply for circling in a small place until you become old and nothing else or is there another way to live in the world?” Paul-Alan’s mother is Irish and his father is Scottish and he considers himself as white British. So, in comparison to him, do I consider myself as a British or a foreigner? As award-winning playwright and poet, Sabrina Mahfouz, states in the interview with Middle East Eye (Sharma 2018 line 6–8), “It’s that classic thing of when someone is from two countries. They are not considered a true person from either of those places that it is always the other geographical location that is in my heart and a place where I feel I could move to.”

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Identity has always been a prison itself, one that defines what a person is or can be. This can be by our own actions or from a reaction to societal pressures. In my arrival to the UK, I was more of an Iranian woman than a British woman, but that changed over time. Perhaps we are all immigrants; trading one home for another; first, we leave the womb for air; then the suburb for the filthy city, in search of a better life; some of us just happen to leave entire countries. (Kaur 2017, p.124)

My Iranian culture and background are important, and I believe in the fundamental British values of democracy, individual liberty and mutual respect and I love to share it with people. I felt strongly about my dual identity and do not feel happy giving up either one of them at any time. I define as Middle Eastern woman who was born in the UK, grew up in Iran, who defines herself as Spiritual and Humanist. OK, Middle East! Middle of what? East of where? Of course, the European view of the world (Marshall 2015)! There are differences between all that I am and how the world sees me: my ‘identity’, and what I look like, my gender, my colour, my accent, my background and my cultural belongings. After all, perhaps is we who need saving. Perhaps we are the abnormal ones. (Ionesco 1960, p.103)

The sky is the same colour wherever you go. This is an Iranian expression; changing the location does not necessarily change the situation. As after moving here, I realised that structural racism and sexism exist everywhere, and the only difference is the slightly different shade of the colour in the sky. It took a long time for me to realise who I am: a woman that is being a British or Iranian. How does a British woman behave or act? Is that different from how an Iranian woman behaves or acts? The suitcase that I packed and brought with me here 15 years ago contained not only my personal belongings, it also included my feelings, wishes and memories. So, everything in me inside and outside apart from my British passport was an indication of Iranian women. Now, after 15 years it is impossible to separate my identity as an Iranian or British woman. In the last 15 years many more feelings, wishes and memories are

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stored in my suitcase. “The land on which we live has always shaped us” (Marshall 2015 p.ix). So, to what extent should someone from a different culture or different religion from a different country, different nationality and so on leave the culture behind and integrate to the culture of the new country? I am constantly reorganising my suitcase; there was and there are still so many cultural implications. I try to enhance and add to the items in my suitcase according to my needs and desire in the new environment. I try to be Annette (the main character of The Soul Enchanted, Romain Rolland 1922); she breaks the barriers of old minds, destroying the traditions that stop her from growing, and not being concerned about general opinions. She enchanted me when I was younger, and it still dwells in my memory. I try to refine those that I believe are not purposeful in my life and add those things that are lacking, and I believe I should have them. Through the Adult, the little person can begin to tell the difference between life as it was taught and demonstrated to him (Parent), life as he felt it or wished it or fantasied it (Child), and life as he figures it out by himself (Adult). (Harris 1969, p.30)

For example, many people I know in the UK call me Julia, because most people finding hard to pronounce my real name (Juila: pronounce ʒi:la). Making my name acceptable in English was me trying to fit in. Paul-Alan once asked me: is changing your name not taking away your identity and your cultural heritage? “Inside us, there is something that has no name that something is what we are” (Saramago 1998, p.276). The current content of the suitcase is representing who I am now; I cannot separate my Iranian side from a British side any more. Being a woman, who is Iranian and British, must be understood within the complexity and multilayer characteristic of a human. Just like in cooking, as you get more experience in cooking by adding a few delicate variations of right spices and flavours, you make a new superior dish in comparison to your first cooking experience. Once the dish is cooked, all the elements have fallen into place; you cannot separate ingredients and spices within it as if they were raw material. The flavour of the dish represents them, the same as my life, being a woman, Iranian and then Iranian-British cooked together for many years and it is impossible to separate them.

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Harris (1969) cited Somerset Maugham that stated “when I look over the various parts of my character with perplexity, I recognise that I am made up of several persons and that the person that at the moment has the upper hand will inevitably give place to another. But which is the real one? All of them or none?” (Harris 1969, p.1). Due to existing the ‘Place’ to be, we are exposed to certain literature via formal (educated at school) and informal education (family and society). As well as how art, politics, music, photography and drama can put us in a ‘Place’, that makes and reminds us of certain aspects of our life. These cultural points of reference help us to understand who we are, but also it helps us make sense of our values and why we think this way. During our conversation, Paul-Alan emphasises that: I do think that it is interesting that you have a western-centric view and impose values that don’t necessarily fit with the eastern values and even within the west as obviously, they are not the same. For a while, after our conversation, I have been thinking of how and by whom these eastern and western values define and establish? With what measurement do we compare east to west? The words from the book The Little Black Fish (Behrangi 1968) suddenly memories flood back into my mind from childhood memories: The little fish swam down the waterfall and fell into a pond full of water. At first, the fish lost its balance but after a while began to swim and circled the pond. The fish had never seen so much water collected in one place. Thousands of tadpoles were wriggling in the water. They laughed when they saw the little black fish, “What a funny shape! What kind of creature are you?” The fish looked them over thoroughly and said, “Please don’t insult me. My name is Little Black Fish. Tell me your names so that we’ll get acquainted.” “We call one another tadpole,” replied one of the tadpoles. “We come from nobility,” said another. “You can’t find anyone prettier than us in the whole world,” said another. “We aren’t shapeless and ugly-faced like you,” said another one. The fish said, “I never imagined you would be so conceited. That’s all right. I’ll forgive you since you’re speaking out of ignorance.” In one voice the tadpoles demanded, “Are you saying we’re stupid?” “If you weren’t ignorant,” replied the fish, “you’d know that there are many others in the world who are pleased with their appearances. You don’t even have names of your own.” (Behrangi 1968, p.4)

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In rearranging my suitcase, apart from my current geographical location ‘Place’ to be, I have a great role to play. This is influenced by my family, friends and work colleagues; education; cultural artefacts (i.e., literature, television and music) and my professional identity. However, I question everything through the lens of values of humanism in my life. So, in responding to the question: where are you from? I represent a self-­ assured and plural British-Iranian. Immigration made me a better person and made me observe and feel those Places/cities that I lived and travelled with my heart. I do not know where I will live or travel next, but I am enthusiastic to learn more and read as much as I can. I do want to have my own world, which itself is the whole world to me. I always try to respect my surrounding, but I do not fully conform or become a robot as I do not want to lose my humanity. I would not necessarily do something which was against my principles. Consequently, if you don’t want to follow the perceived norm and go where the river flows, and go against it or try to be different, this could lead to experiencing a hard life. I find pleasure in overcoming difficulties, and ready for anything in my way to fulfilling my dream of having a better world. I want to have freedom, but I know I must work within parameters which sometimes are defined by a fear of exclusivity. We must work within a structured system. Can I make that system work for me and still not give up who I am? As the world is as it is and I, too, am what it is. I was listening to the podcast (Guilty Feminist 2018) hosted by Deborah Frances that looks at “confessing our ‘buts’—the insecurities, hypocrisies and fears that undermine our lofty principles (line 3–5)”. This made me think of myself in life, being a woman. I suppose always this is how we all have seen it through our identity based on labels. Labels that are quite easy to mistranslate the meaning. It is quite easy because of political, religious and social pressure and complexities of life. So, in comparison to a white British man or any man do I need to feel that I am less privileged, or perhaps do I consider myself a different class of human? It is quite easy to label ourselves because it is about belonging. It’s about being, a sense of belonging to that group. Underneath all these labels I am uniquely me regardless of my social racial or sexual identity. I think that’s one of the hardest things to come across. I want my solitude, I don’t

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belong to any group. I may have values that may reflect certain groups but I’m not that group, so I suppose that’s a form of semi-confirmation/ conforming. Perhaps we all conform without knowing it. It is just how we define it, how we conform is how we feel that we fit in this Place and how we do it. We find our pathway through this to give us meaning but also allow us to make sense of who you are. As much as I am a woman, I am also human and I would like to be seen as who I am regardless of my gender, my colour, my accent, my background and my cultural belongings. Do you know what you are? You are a manuscript of a divine letter. You are a mirror reflecting a noble face; this universe is not outside of you. Look inside yourself; everything that you want, you are already that. (Rumi, cited in Shiva 2000)

Because of the society we live in, I cannot say I never experience macroaggression either here or back in Iran (nonverbal exchange, words or tone, or even physical indications). “Sometimes one does harm without meaning to, or rather one allows it to go unchecked” (Ionesco 1960, p.97). I am who I am (the little black fish), so my first instant is always that they are unaware that they engage in such communication. Based on this assumption I try not judging people and not interpreting them, but accepting them as who they are, as well as not insisting on my exclusion or prejudges as if everything and anyone is against me. In this way no matter what it is, it is going to offend me, even a simple question such as where are you from? In my opinion, it’s all about interpretation of the situation. “The difficult thing isn’t living with other people, it’s understanding them” (Saramago 1998, p.284). It might be some other things as well. I don’t know what they are, but this is based on my experience and my interpretation of the situation. Do I think all immigrants and women like me have the same experience? Probably not. We may have a different experience as we proceed differently; I suppose we take whatever ‘Place’ you are in, wherever you are, you going to react according to your own experience based on your perceptions. But I know, we can hate evil so much that we forget to love well (Harris 1969). It would be quite easy for me to say: well she/he slammed the door behind me because I am an Iranian woman not slamming the door

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because she/he is rude. I’ve not been promoted because I’m a woman of colour rather than I don’t meet the criteria. His comment on my beautiful dress is sexist rather than seeing it as a compliment. Yes, we all know because of the power, people of colour don’t get a promotion; we all know that women do not get promoted. There is a massive pay gap between men and woman and there is gender inequality everywhere. But how we are going to find the real true and unconscious biasing behaviour is much more complicated. In my case, it is much easier for me if I blame the others instead of myself. However, I say, the process and structural sexism and racism issues are the main obstacles, not the people. “Let it go, let it leave, let it happen, nothing in this world was promised or belonged to you anyway. All you own is yourself ” (Kaur 2017, p.93).

Revisiting the Prison of Inclusivity We do not deny the existence of the ‘Prison of Inclusivity’. We propose this exists within a complex network of structural challenges. We support the notion: individuals from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, by their racial identity, are positioned as outsiders in a society that values whiteness and ‘white privilege’ (Bhopal 2018, p.1). The feeling of being an outsider was illuminated in our conversations especially when we discussed cultural artefacts including music, literature and language. It was further illuminated in our discussions on marriage, education and family. From our conversation (as illustrated by Julia): I’m in a group of people; let’s say my work colleagues who are of similar ages. They are talking about some TV programme in the 1980s or 1990s as all of them experienced it as a child; I don’t have the same experience as them, so I’m excluded from that conversation, and I find myself into the corridor of my prison ‘Place’ towards my prison cell ‘Time’. I cannot engage with them because they have a different experience than what I experienced. I believe ‘Place’ can define the concept of ‘Time’. Likewise, ‘Place’ can define in the concept of gender identity too. That is why during the time people (different gender) have different experience even within the same geographical ‘Place’.

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When (moment in human history—Time) I was born, my gender is more relevant to define ‘who I am’ rather than where I am from. We are children of our time and gender and these two influences our belief that is imposed by our education, religion and society. The ‘Place’ is important to understand because it is wrapped up in ‘Time’, religiosity, spirituality education, cultural references and the prevailing force of the ‘Time’. As we are entering into uncertain and troubling times as the UK is tearing itself apart due to Brexit the feeling of being an outsider is becoming more overt. As the UK tears itself apart the political battles are promoting anti-immigrant rhetoric, and this is illustrated by newspaper headlines including: According to the poll, 54% of the Tory rank-and-file believe that Islam is “generally a threat to the British way of life”. Some 60% think that “Islam is generally a threat to Western civilisation”, with fewer than one-­ in-­five (17%) taking the opposite view. The YouGov study (2019) follows polling results released in July 2019, which found that almost half of Conservative members would not accept a Muslim as the country’s prime minister. This perspective has been fuelled by a debate based on the illusion of reclaiming being a sovereign state and this is further illuminated by the anti-Semitism behaviour which is ripping the Labour Party apart. As Spiritual Humanists, we say “my religion is to live through love” (Rumi, cited in Harvey 2013, p 2). We respect religious faith. We respect people have a right to have religious faith, as we truly believe, there is no greater love than love with no object (Rumi 2008); our concerns are based around the institutionalisation of religious faith. “Deep down, the problem is not a God that does not exist, but the religion that proclaims Him. I denounce religions, all religions, as harmful to Humankind. These are harsh words, but one must say them” (Saramago 2009). This illumination of structural racism is one of the many reasons we are not an inclusive society. We approached the conversations in terms of identity and framed this from the sociological perspective of identity which includes the ‘biographical perspective’ (Alheit 1992, 2009). Alheit does not use the term biographical identity (Illeris 2014, p.66); he talks about biography in terms of not a factual or objective life story, but we

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develop an interpretation of the story through our understanding and editing. This is subjective and influenced and contextualised from personal memory and self-perception (Illeris 2014, p.66). The complexity of identity should not be underestimated as we are both teachers. We have been influenced by our biographies (how we perceive our life stages developments, how we make sense of events, situations and critical incidents). We framed this as a reflexive lens between the two participants. The term reflexivity is used to explore and explain the methods and processes a researcher will use to attain a higher level of awareness (Freshwater 2011, p.84). In contrast, Gardner (2014) argues reflexivity “generates understanding about the complexities of how workers and their service/communities perceive themselves and each other, the value of understanding that all of who we are (physically, emotionally, mentally, socially, spiritually) influences how we perceive others and are perceived by them” (Gardner 2014, pp.35–36). Therefore, reflexivity has context within research design (e.g., Rolfe 2011; Etherington 2007; Simon 2013; Ellis 2004, 2007; Ellis et al. 2011). Parton (2007) argues that reflexivity is core to social constructivism as we create our social worlds and we, therefore, cannot assume others will experience the world the same way as we do. We conceptualised our conversations as artistic poetic reflexive methodology as a form of arts-based bricolage (e.g., Finley 2005, 2011; Barleet 2013; Pelias 2013; Armstrong 2015) and artistic forms of auto-­ ethnography (i.e., Ellis 2004). The use of poetry to create reflective space is proposed by Burchill (2010) who said: Poetic expression arises when we seek to write from within the feelings, thoughts, hopes and fears associated with being involved in research; when writing about these matters seem somehow hollow or insufficient. The focus is on words that can convey the freshness of the experience, in a way that is authentic for the individual. (Burchill 2010, p.389)

Armstrong (2015) argues the use of artistic writings (Winter et  al. 1999) and the use of creative life writings (Hunt 2013) promotes creative insights which give the user (the person reflecting) ontological permission to delve into their soul. The increasing significance of auto-­ ethnography and the arts-based methodology does support the notion of

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creative reflection and personal cultural texts (poetics) as a transformative process of being and becoming authentic which we explored in our conversations. This poetic expression was not confined to poetry and creative life writings (i.e., Hunt 2013). We support the notion presented by Ellis (2004) who argued poetic expression includes dance, sculpture, lyrics as well as poetry. Armstrong (2015) suggests poetic expression is any creative form of knowledge and would include visual (drawings and photographs) which supports the notion of creative expression presented by Hunt (2006, 2010). The use of visual images allows for discovering the unconscious aspects of values, beliefs and thoughts (Gardner 2014). The use of personal cultural texts allowed us as Humanists to explore the prison as it acted as an embodiment of identity. We argue Humanist values act as enablers for escaping the ‘Prison of Inclusivity’. Evidence supports there are structural challenges which can draw individuals into the ‘Prison’ as we react, behave and interact with the structural challenges posed by structural racism and sexism, which permeates our society and influences our ‘Place’ and the authentication of identity. As Humanists, we entered into our conversations where our identities were identified, developed and transformed through our interactions with –– Family, friends and work colleagues We both recognised how our families influenced us and how our mothers were our home and they were the start of understanding ‘Place’. This was developed by our relationships with other family members, friends and work colleagues as this shaped our values and our awakenings as Humanists. This was influenced by –– Race, nationality and ethnicity We recognised our identities influenced by our national and ethnic cultures are judged by others and this can make us ‘Prisoners of Inclusivity’ if we allow others to define us by our ethnic and national identities. We explored this in our conversations and how we do not dismiss their significance we as Humanist respect all differences and see these as crucial

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building blocks of identity and these should be celebrated and not seen as a way of being a prisoner. –– Education We discussed education and its influence on the formation of our values and identities as it provided us with the lens we construct understanding and knowledge of the world around us. We both see education as a ‘silver bullet’ which allows us to reframe and redefine our ‘Place’. Education opens our eyes to differing perspective and views which allowed us to explore our Humanism and this was influenced by our interactions with cultural artefacts. –– Cultural artefacts (e.g., literature, television and music) From our conversations, one of the causes of becoming a prisoner was being an outsider in terms of cultural artefact reference points. When discussing television programmes, we discovered how if the references were unknown to you these could make you feel like an outsider. We also explored how cultural artefacts acted as a form of belonging and reflected our identities. This was particularly significant as poetics are used as a form of artful embodiment which we have presented and explored within our conversations on ‘Place’. –– Gender, sexuality and sexual identity This was an area we discussed; however, it was an area we recognised which could be a significant cause of being a prisoner for others. The discussions on gender presented the perceptions of the role of women in society and how intersectional discrimination exists for many. The conversations did draw out perspectives of gender and how we acted and behaved due to our gender identities. –– Professional identity Our professional identities were significant in our understanding of our ‘Place’ and we explored how our values influenced the way we acted

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and behaved in our professional lives. As teachers in higher education, our voices were explored as we considered the subject disciplines we research and teach. These gave us the space to escape the prison on inclusivity as we navigated our way through the organizational memory and politics of academic life. –– Religious faith, and/or spirituality This was one of the most interesting conversations as we both disclosed our faith in terms of what we were considered to be by others. Although we both recognised we have mutual respect for the act of faith, however, we had concerns in terms of the politics of faith and our spirituality was expressed through Humanism rather than a particular faith. Even though this was at the core of our conversations we recognised how our faith had influenced our identities and even though we did not formally practice we could not ignore the influence of faith on our identities.

Researchers’ Reflections We entered into these conversations to explore the influence Humanism and Spirituality has on ‘Place’. These conversations acted as a reflexive space to consider our identities and how these could make us ‘Prisoners of Inclusivity’. This is particularly in terms of ‘differences’ related to gender, faith, sexuality, ethnicity, nationality and ‘Place’. We were clear what we understood by ‘Place’. We did not focus on geographical location; we recognised ‘Place’ as being beyond political constructed borders. This allowed us to explore a range of influences on the formation of identity. The use of poetics allowed for an embodiment of identity which allowed us to explore our being and becoming as teachers. We both recognise the existence of the ‘Prison of Inclusivity’. We recognise and respect there will be many who are consciously or subconsciously are prisoners due to structural issues. We have entered the prison, and from the conversations, we have been able to illuminate our perspectives. We are in constant flux and transformation and ‘Place’ locates you as a prisoner, and through the values of humanism, we suggest this as a way

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of escaping the Prison. We both see the potential for all people to be treated as equals. We would like to see the celebration of differences. These conversations will continue as through dialogue we can understand and appreciate differences as a way in preventing becoming a prisoner of the ‘Prison of Inclusivity’. We entered into these conversations fully aware of structural racism and sexism which act as an entry point that leads people in becoming prisoners of inclusivity in terms of ‘Place’. However, as Humanists we do not ignore differences, we celebrate and respect differences. Our values are embodied through acting and behaving with respect, dignity and recognition for all people. We do not see ourselves as prisoners as we strive to support others to not enter the ‘Prison of Inclusivity’. Through these conversations, we were able to reflect upon our differences and how ‘Place’ has allowed us to consider and make sense of our identity. The intersection between our individual Humanism created a common understanding of the core values of respect, dignity and acceptance of differences.

References Alheit, P. 1992. The biographical approach to an adult education. In Adult education in the Federal Republic of Germany: Scholarly approaches and professional practice, ed. W. Mader. Vancouver: University of British Columbia. ———. 2009. Biographical learning: Within the new lifelong learning discourse. In Contemporary theories of learning, ed. K. Illeris. London: Routledge. Armstrong, P.-A. 2015. Songs of praxis: Reflexive space for authentic teacher voice identification, development and transformation. Unpublished Thesis, University of Sunderland. Barleet, B.-L. 2013. Artful and embodied methods, modes of inquiry, and forms of representation. In Handbook of autoethnography, ed. S.  Holam Jones, T.E. Adams, and C. Ellis, 443–464. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press Inc. Barry, P. 2009. Beginning theory: An introduction to literary and cultural theory. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Behrangi, S. originally published 1968 in Farsi. The little black fish. Tiny Owl Publishing Ltd; Illustrated edition (15 Jan. 2015).

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5 A Critical Analysis of Masculinity During Mentoring in Contemporary Schools Kim Gilligan

Issues related to gender and the teaching profession are long established in the literature (Mahoney, Hextall  and Menter 2004; Mac an Ghaill 1994; Skelton 2001; Francis 2008). Some of these issues, and the research that explores them, involve debate about the place of males in schools. This chapter adds to this debate by exploring the lived experiences of a number of male trainees completing placements in primary schools as part of their initial teacher training in the UK. The chapter initially discusses recent research in masculinity and the place of males in schools and then goes on to present extracts of conversations that have taken place with male trainees, either as part of feedback after observations on teaching practice or as part of mentoring or coaching conversations. These seemingly small fragments will be utilised and integrated into a discussion of the wider implications of these accounts to how male trainees are currently being constructed in terms of their gender and what this This chapter is dedicated to my mentor, Professor Gill Crozier.

K. Gilligan (*) University of Sunderland, Sunderland, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Smith (ed.), Gender Equality in Changing Times, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26570-0_5

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shows in terms of continuing stereotypical views of maleness and how it should be performed. The scope of this chapter precludes an in-depth analysis of the wider issues impacting on the teaching profession more generally, of which there are many, but will take as its focus how continuing and pervasive normative expectations of masculinities may be impacting on the possible gender performances (Butler 1993) that male trainees can enact during the training period and early career phase. The chapter explores concepts and assumptions pertaining to masculinity, and how certain expectations of “maleness” within schools can impact significantly on how some male trainee teachers experience their training in some school contexts. The analysis contained within the chapter is interspersed with relevant theoretical perspectives and will take the form of themed sections. In 2016 the UK government introduced mentoring standards in an attempt to reduce the growing attrition rates in teaching and to improve the support given to trainee and early career teachers. These standards supplemented the already well-established teaching standards revised in 2014 by which all trainee teachers are evaluated against during initial teacher education courses. Recent issues relating to attrition rates in teaching suggest a recruitment and retention crisis. Some of the most common problems underlying this crisis are acknowledged by the government with these concerns necessitated the publication of a Recruitment and Retention Strategy in February 2019. This document focuses attention on the complex nature of contemporary teaching environments with issues of teacher workload, mental health and wellbeing, and an alleged lack of resilience on the part of teachers being key areas identified by the government. The document acknowledges changes that need to happen to prevent the further loss of teachers to the profession but does not really allude to gender differences at all. The hidden gender-related elements within this wider set of issues are the areas with which this chapter concerns itself. The gender differences in a range of areas are concerning and necessitate inclusion in this chapter more subtle questions about unequal and gendered expectations of trainee teachers in schools.

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 asculinity and Contemporary Patterns M of Maleness The concept of gender is complex and a number of authors have more recently suggested that we may be seeing a number of evolving typologies of masculinity, including what are sometimes referred to as hybrids (Arxer 2011; Messerschmidt 2010). The concept of hybrids in relation to masculinity has up to this point largely been applied to specific groups, for example white working-class boys with the work of Hess (2005) where they borrowed aspects of other forms of masculinity. In this chapter, the challenge to underlying ideas related to masculinity will be focused on showing how hybrid models may exist but may not be as pervasive as is suggested nor as liberating. Kimmel (1996) suggests that masculinity, despite always being in a state of flux, may not change its forms significantly over time and its core elements remain. A number of authors support Kimmel, for example Connell and Messerschmitt (2005) suggesting that even though hybrid masculine forms are emerging, they are not particularly challenging traditional forms and the new forms identified are often quite localised. One might argue that inequalities are lessening but there is no significant overall transformation taking place. Anxiety about hybrids and other related issues reveals the ongoing concerns about “ideal manhood” and its present form. According to Vandello and Bosson (2011) manhood still requires a public demonstration of proof. They suggest that unlike femaleness, maleness has to be earned and is described as “hard won but easily lost” by Gilmore (1990). Authors who support such arguments claim that maleness has some significant factors that are precarious and therefore maleness is an elusive and tenuous state and should not be considered permanent. Pleck, even in 1976, was suggesting that there were identifiable aspects of agency and action that men were required to perform in order to constantly prove their masculinity, and the types of actions and behaviours change over time making it difficult to conform. It may be that maleness at a particular time becomes merely a mask that men and boys wear (Katz 1999) without any real substance or authenticity to it. A number of authors (e.g. Bem 1993; Vandello and Bosson 2013) suggest the males end up in

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a state of constant anxiety over the type of maleness they are performing and are particularly keen to separate their performance of gender as being significantly separate from the female. This is because maleness is commonly defined as part of an aversion to femininity (Blazina 1997).

Gender Inequality and Education In schools, gendered expectations are complex and relate to a number of different aspects of teaching-related activity. In many parts of the world there is an imbalance of the different genders working in education, but particularly in the context of primary schools which are overwhelming staffed by females (Lindqvist and Nordanger 2007; Lewis 2002). This gender imbalance has led to many debates about the need to recruit more male teachers into schools including a specific call for more male teachers to be employed in the early phases of education like nursery and reception (Mistry and Sood 2015). Although this action would seem straightforward and desirable given the imbalance of gender found in early years’ and primary school environments in particular, there are a significant number of issues that need to be explored to fully understand the implications of this for some individual males involved, given the points above about maleness and masculinity. This chapter will look specifically at some of the personal impacts of gender stereotyping and the emotional and cognitive impact of these. The inclusion of a greater number of men into primary education has, according to Warin (2014), the capacity to transform relations of gender; however, there are a number of reasons why this may not happen and it may indeed take an overarching and significant change of attitudes in society more generally and then passed down to schools to make a significant difference. The current professionalisation and standardisation of schools in line with a marketisation of education across the world (Ball 2003) has led to the assumption that it is allegedly male teachers that will be better suited to this environment. Dillabough (1999) in her work on contemporary education systems and the gendering of teacher professionalism sought to understand the place of rationality in schools, and in addition, she explored the educational system in relation to the

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propensity for objective and procedural approaches to take precedence over other considerations. She claims that this approach is likely to favour males over females within the education system. However, Dillabough’s study (1999) did not seek to understand how marginalised males may be impacted on by such pervasive agendas and focused instead on the impact on females. In focusing on the inequalities facing women, Dillabough fails to really acknowledge the significant impact of gender regimes (Connell 1995) on males in schools or the precariousness of masculinity more generally.

Males in Schools The figures relating to the recruitment of men into teaching over a number of years, particularly in the primary age phase, make clear the significant difference between the number of men and women employed in this area. Pollitt and Oldfield (2017) note with concern that in 2011 in the UK there were as many as 27.2% of primary schools without any male teachers. Whether or not we agree with the commonly cited reasons given for the need for more males in schools, it is a fact that in countries across the globe the recruitment of men is desirable if only to equalise the numbers entering the profession from different genders. A number of reasons are explored in the literature related to the need for more men in schools. In some cases males are seen to be required in order to provide role models (Ashley 2002), and in other examples they are seen as being better suited to the role of disciplinarian (Allan 1993; Irvine 1989), particularly in the upper phases of primary. In addition to these agendas, more males in schools are considered desirable as they are perceived to provide different kinds of emotional support to pupils than women teachers (Haase 2008). It would be naive in any critical discussion of gender to ignore the significant arguments that are in existence about inequalities related to women teachers and this is not my intention here. It is clear from a range of research that male teachers are often promoted earlier than women in schools (Brooking 2004). It is also the case that there are gender equality issues linked to the “glass escalator” concept generally but in teaching

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specifically (Williams 2000). Despite these acknowledgements related to females, this chapter focuses on the gender inequality issues pertaining to men. The issues explored are related to problematic practices that normalise and valorise certain forms of masculinity in schools and how these gender stereotypes may cause issues for both marginalised men and women. Over a number of years it has become clear during my professional roles, related to teacher education, that there are sometimes unequal expectations placed on male trainees whilst on school placements. These issues call into question arguments related to masculinity that seek to show the diverse nature of contemporary masculinity in line with what Demetriou (2001) refers to as hybrid masculinities. The issues discussed in this chapter have been observed and reflected upon over a period of 15 years and the continued prevalence of these incidents suggests a continuing presence of hidden gender discourses still taking place during the process of the mentoring and training of male trainees on placement, and how unequal expectations of them as males are related to wider problematic discourses based on stereotypes involving intersectionality with other factors such as class and/or age.

Methodology The methodology for this chapter is a form of ethnography that seeks to understand the lived experiences of male trainees and develops from this patterns that may be generalisable based on similar contexts. The approach combines different data from different sources of evidence. Most of the data is in the form of anecdotes or narratives shared by male trainee teachers about their experiences over a period of 15 years. In addition to these narratives, I have also drawn on examples of critical incident analysis that were shared within a Masters module on mentoring and coaching where students critically examined specific interactions to better understand educational environments like schools. Kennelly and Dillabough (2008) suggest that person-centred methodological approaches better capture local contexts and experiences and so this approach has been taken here.

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The intention of this approach is to interpret the subjective interpretations of a number of male trainee teachers on their experiences in schools, and then through utilising coding (Charmaz 2006) and thematic analysis, I hope to reveal patterns across the different experiences. Through analysing the data I wanted to understand the interconnectedness of different elements and how the intersectionality of the elements impacted, particularly age and gender. The analysis makes links to the biopolitics of educational contexts and how power and influence are enacted. Although I use some of the techniques of a grounded theory approach and find coding and thematic analysis particularly helpful I have not used a grounded theory approach per se in a purist sense but have in fact linked the dialogues shared with relevant theory that was already in place. My work generally and my research in particular necessitates a theoretical understanding of gender and therefore I have drawn on elements of theory and concepts when looking at the data. I did, however, discover new configurations of theoretical elements based on the shared gender discourses and these did indeed emerge from the data itself. On occasion, I moved back and forth constructing a more comprehensive theoretical framework moving between the elements emerging from the narratives and the theory needed to understand them.

Male Participants The males that have contributed insights to this study fall into two groups. One group of males (four in total) were younger and unmarried and childless at the point of engagement with the study. The males were all local to the area and were studying either as a postgraduate (2) or as an undergraduate (2). The other group of males were all undergraduates and were 35+. Two were fathers but the other two were not. All four were local and had previous careers in a range of areas. Male participants varied in their contributions to the narratives ranging from providing small fragments to whole stories relating a series of experiences over time. Some participants had already reflexively recognised some of the gendered expectations impacting on them and some

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indeed recognised the political and ideological backdrop to their experiences of surveillance (Foucault 2001) in schools. I have chosen not to tell individual stories but more to capture patterns of recurring behaviours of mentors and other teachers that may be impacting on trainee teachers who happen to be male whilst on placement. The examples will present fragments of events and will make connections with relevant theory.

Men Entering Teacher Training Recruitment processes to enter teaching are fairly uniform and widespread in an attempt to halt attrition rates. There is not any obvious distinction made in marketing materials between males and females entering the profession. Patterns however indicate that male candidates entering primary education fall into a narrow range of categories. One group of male trainees entering primary teaching are mature students who often have already had a career in another field. This is a fairly common occurrence in North East England where employment patterns have changed significantly over the years with deindustrialisation and male working patterns no longer following what was formerly a seemingly lifelong employment trajectory. These male trainees are often over the age of 40 and may appear to have a level of confidence in related areas from previous roles, for example may have lead teams and so on. The males in this age group are sometimes fathers although not always. In addition mature males entering teaching may bring with them an understanding of schools from a parental frame of reference or from roles on governing bodies, for example, of their children’s schools. The concept of fathers as teachers is written about by a number of authors including Jones (2006). She observed that the common perception of successful male teachers was that they were fathers who combined traditional masculine traits of power and strength with traits like sensitivity and gentleness. Moyles and Cavendish (2001) suggested that this group of males is likely to be more able than non-fathers to perform the roles expected in teaching. The second set of males applying to train for primary teaching tend to be younger males, commonly on a postgraduate course following a relevant degree programme and looking to use their first degree. Some of

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these trainees come from subjects like sports science and may already have experience of coaching young people from those contexts. This group tends to be quite young and may have had experience of schools on a voluntary basis. This group is often not yet fathers but may have experience of parenting through their coaching experiences and meeting families and so on. The last group of male trainees commonly recruited are young males who are undergraduates and want to teach as their first choice of profession. Again they are commonly not yet fathers but may have volunteered in schools or have some experience for example running cubs or related activities like mentoring in schools whilst still at school themselves. All three groups of males will have within them men who do not “fit” when entering the school environment but often for very different reasons.

 nalysis: The Intersectionality of Maturity A and Gender A number of mature male trainees report problematic views of them based on a perception of the combination of their gender and age and how these two factors should manifest in a teacher. Whilst on placement they often noted what they saw as higher expectations of them compared to expectations of other trainees often females. The intersectionality of age and gender seems to have a significant impact on the range and type of support offered to this group of trainee teachers and also impacts on what is expected of them in a school context. Gender stereotypes clearly still exist and these are particularly reinforced during the discourses related to the different support that is offered to males compared to females within mentoring situations. The lower levels of support offered to males are, in addition, considerably influenced by the age of the trainee teacher whilst on the initial teacher training course. Older males in their discussions of placement support networks suggested that they felt they were looked down upon when asking for help or support and felt increasingly frustrated when they observed younger, female trainees particularly, being given support regardless of actual need. One male trainee reported hearing staff discussing him in the staffroom and the expressions of

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surprise being shared that he did not “perform better” given his age, gender and perceived levels of experience. This expectation of a performance of competency or agency and specific forms of action are related to earlier aspects discussed in this chapter relating to precarious masculinity. Men seem to be required to struggle against their own shortcomings in specific situations in order to achieve specific levels of performativity related to their maleness (Vandello and Bosson 2011). This unequal treatment of mature male trainees and lack of support goes against all of the research literature about the need for effective mentoring of the full range of trainees. It is very clear that mentoring and psychosocial support in particular is important for all trainee teachers, regardless of gender or age and would be an expectation for all (Goleman 1998; Day and Gu 2007). The consequences of lack of support at all stages of training can have long-term impact and it is therefore imperative that support is comprehensive and nuanced considering the needs of an individual in a specific context and not reliant or dictated by their gender. One of the main barriers that older male trainees encountered, but one that is not unique to them, is the issue of support being enmeshed in the biopolitics of the school more generally. Magudu and Gumbo (2017) draw our attention to the small organisational politics that exist and how this can impact on the availability of support at a given point in a placement. There is an interconnectedness that is discernible in schools between learning to teach and the micropolitics of a specific context and its impact on the people within that setting. Some of the male trainees found it very difficult to “traverse the complex social and political culture” (Curry et al. 2008) of the school they were in and came up against attitudes not conducive to welcoming newcomers to the profession, particularly those seen as needing support and being from a specific gender. Male students noted that schools were much more likely to be sympathetic to female trainees lacking agency or confidence in the early stages of their placement. On the other hand, there seemed to be no space for weakness or lack of agency displayed by males, the assumption being that an older male trainee, having come from an earlier employment context, should bring with them the ability to read complex relationships in schools and their position within these, regardless of the individual

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context. Older male trainees particularly were in a difficult position involving having to suppress any dissent they had about what they saw or felt about specific practices in school. This challenges directly their capacity to perform agency and action as noted earlier as being required by men in order to retain their masculine status. Penalties on men when stepping outside of the gendered expectations of them were particularly noticeable when their encounters with mentors related to them accessing support. Approaches to mentors for support particularly those involving male mentors were seen as weakness and often manifested itself in the lowering of grades against the professional standards which seems punitive. The differing expectations were further complicated on other occasions because they included, conversely, male trainees having to hide their confidence in areas they were skilled at so as not to appear as a threat to those around them, particularly other male teachers or male mentors. The literature around precarious manhood (Vandello and Bosson 2011) explored earlier notes the anger that can ensue from some males, in this case mentors, when their own masculinity or an aspect of it is brought into question by the presence of another man perceived to have greater skills or not behaving in gender-specific ways. Coupled with this, mature male trainees were also expected to exhibit confidence and not express the need for support. Some of the male trainees expressed their frustrations at having to somehow embed themselves into a script already written for them by those around them, regardless of its lack of representation of what they actually felt. A further issue faced by the older male trainees was an expectation of them to be “natural” disciplinarians. A common perception, noted by a number of the trainees, related to Professional Standard 7 (behaviour management), was that being older and male they would automatically be effective disciplinarians. This discourse is related to wider cultural perceptions of the need for a strong male presence in the form of a disciplinarian in classrooms. Increasing concerns, real or otherwise, relating to boys’ underachievement and behaviour (Cushman 2008; Mills et  al. 2004) have resulted in some countries actively recruiting men into teaching. This move is related to the expectation that the curriculum and the teaching of it will become less “feminised” as a result of an increased male presence. Within this discourse there is also the linked assumption that

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the learning environment will become more ordered because of the inherent disciplinary role often displayed or perceived to be there when there is a higher male presence. The statistics in terms of tracking specific standards by departments such as mine suggest that a strong emphasis is placed on Standard 7, and when it is not achieved, particularly by a male, this seemed to be a significant problem. Males are expected to be able to discipline by the very nature of their size and tone of voice. A related factor to the one above is also opinions on how the older male trainees chose to discipline the pupils in their class. Although positive approaches are seen as desirable more generally in the literature on schools and behaviour (Kyriacou 2001; Thorsborne and Blood 2013) with measured approaches to behaviour management considered good, when older males displayed this approach it was seen as softer and overly subtle and was seen as inappropriate perhaps because the traits displayed were more indicative of female ones (Blazina 1997). One of the mature male trainees had attempted to discuss the use of more measured approaches to behaviour with his male mentor. He took the opportunity to relate previous experiences of a female teacher’s approach which he saw as based on negotiation and care with a view to adopting this approach himself. His suggestions to utilise this approach were dismissed and met with derision and he was advised instead to perhaps raise his voice and to use his physical size and presence to gain power over the pupils. This more measured approach was, it would seem, associated by the male mentor as feminised and the trainee displaying inappropriate levels of care and emotion being brought to the classroom in relation to maleness and the male trainee was thus constructed as being “too soft” or aligned to the feminine. The construction above of how male trainees should “be” in schools is associated with how males and particularly older males are seen as disciplinarians (Farquhar 2005). Male trainees entering placements were commonly assigned upper school classes or are asked to deal with behaviour issues from other classes based on purely the fact that they are males and will therefore surely be better at discipline (Martino and Kehler 2006). Connell (1995) noted the traits of hegemonic males as being authority, aggression, power and technical competence and Biddulph (1994) similarly described the traits of the most powerful males as being

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physically strong, technically competent and able to be a disciplinarian. It is no surprise then that within schools what we see is associations being made about the expected higher level of competence of males to manage behaviour or be disciplinarians. What is not examined however in explorations of behaviour management in relation to specific types of discipline are the kinds of classroom management strategies that may be expected to happen in complex situations in contemporary schools when more nuanced responses to behaviour issues may be required. The management of behaviour is high stakes in schools because of the association made between behaviour and attainment and performance (Ball 2003). This in turn raises the stakes for any male trainee who is not seen to manage behaviour well when the standards related to this are assessed. It is however imperative to understand what we mean by “discipline” in schools as the very term itself suggests a very particular kind of outmoded and ineffective approach to behaviour management. Some more recent concerns in schools relate to the social and mental health needs of pupils with these needs now commonly thought to underpin behaviour issues. Therefore the kinds of discipline required would surely need to draw on high levels of emotional intelligence (Garner 2010) and a deep understanding of the care needs of pupils rather than what may traditionally constitute the term “discipline”. Here then trainee male teachers are doubly at a disadvantage if they do not appear to be able to manage behaviour. Firstly, they will be seen in deficit in terms of the types of maleness they are performing (Butler 1999), and secondly in order to deal effectively with the needs of some learners they would need to display levels of care not seen as appropriate to males in classrooms. The intersectionalities of age and gender as already mentioned have a significant impact on the range and type of support given to trainee teachers and, indeed, what is expected of them once in a school context in terms of the management of behaviour. In addition to these expectations, older male trainees are also often assumed to want to play, or are expected to play certain roles within school contexts, for example being constructed as more likely to prefer teaching older pupils and being a father figure to these pupils. This is based on the premise that older pupils would allegedly need less care and therefore have less need for emotional labour (Kaur and  Malodia 2017) and require more direction in their

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learning. In light of this, older pupils allegedly require specific types of interactions within the classroom environment than younger ones, arguably calling for a particular kind of masculine performance. A common requirement of male trainees generally is to be involved with sport, particularly football, and within this role to display “fatherly traits”. According to Drudy (2008) the work of teachers, particularly teachers of younger children, has often been characterised as being inherently domestic and is therefore seen as feminised. As a result of an association with domesticity, teaching particularly in primary and early years is generally considered to be a job for females. Related arguments of emotional support for learners in schools suggest that care comes more naturally to women (Wernersson 2006) and therefore when carried out by men can be seen as problematic causing their male identity to become precarious. Care by men, apart from the fatherly or disciplinary care discussed above, is sometimes seen as going against masculinity and the alleged natural propensity for rational decision making, devoid of emotion indicative of males in schools. This stereotypical view of men arguably leads to situations where males unlike females are required to explain or justify their “caring” or emotions in a way that women would not need to do and suggests a level of what Chan (2011) sees as gender surveillance. Despite depicting care as feminised, and the criticisms around care causing the feminising of school environments, an important and commonly expected kind of “care” is often required of male teachers constructed within notions of a substitute father figure. An area where more mature male trainees are commonly seen as beneficial in schools is linked to the perception that many children now come from homes with absent fathers (White 2011). These children, similar to those living within blended families, are often constructed as missing out in terms of not having a masculine role model (Riddell et al. 2005). The absence of the role model is then linked to related discourses around a lack of discipline or lack of achievement in schools amongst boys (Johannesson 2004). This discourse is underpinned by the notion that any man is better than no man and therefore we need more males in education generally to compensate. Some more enlightened researchers have tentatively suggested that what we need is not a traditional “macho” male nor a caring nurturing one but one who can display a wide range of

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different masculinities (Jackson and Salisbury 1996) perhaps one described earlier as a hybrid. The combination of specific elements seems then to underpin the constructed notion of the “right” kind of man needed for schools. Jones (2006) in particular suggested that a combination of the traits characteristic in a strongly heterosexual man is what is needed and the “ideal man” is likely to be strong but caring. Moyles and Cavendish (2001) reinforce this by suggesting that males with children were more likely to be confident in their teaching role and would allegedly understand the needs of parents to a greater extent. For some male trainees, the expected roles outlined above are quite problematic and difficult to navigate. The need for specific types of discipline associated with standards of behaviour management and the need to “care” in the right ways put some male trainees in a precarious masculine position. A key issue with this expectation of more mature males is when they are not fathers themselves or want to separate out their role as father to their own children and their teacher role. One trainee felt that the mentor viewed him with disdain when he realised he was mature but not a father and this coupled with his dislike of sport was enough to bring adverse attention to other areas of his masculine performance. The high stakes evaluation processes on all trainees whilst on placements bring with them high levels of stress. All trainees are subject to scrutiny and evaluated regularly in terms of their performance against targets related to the teaching standards. In the early stages of placements it is widely accepted that a great deal of support may be needed to enable trainees to develop both knowledge and skills. Trainees may be expected to shadow other more experienced colleagues and may seek guidance from a number of staff. However, the discourses above reveal disparities between how male and female trainees may be seen when working in classrooms. A high proportion of the trainees on courses related to education are young women and therefore in the early stages of their training, or at least the trainee, are seen as needing and deserving support. Support is often readily available to young females and may come from a range of staff in ways described by Kram (1996) as relational constellations with different individuals contributing different support. On the other hand mature male trainees are often perceived as not being in need of support and are often constructed as being confident even if they are not. In the

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case of the older male trainees above the training situation is complex. Each cohort has a small number of more mature males who are often changing career midlife. The combination of age and maleness can result in a lack of support being offered and a perception that this type of trainee should be self-sufficient and bringing with them skills, knowledge and confidence from elsewhere. Observations of lessons are one area that typically leads to feedback about specific issues that need addressing and this process needs to be handled carefully as feedback is sometimes difficult to hear. Emotionally charged responses to feedback are commonly very immediate and often come with raw emotions being revealed in the moment. This means that reactions inevitably involve affective elements. Female students for example may cry during or after feedback but are considered to be reacting normally with an expectation that the tears are a release from the stress of an observation. Males in society generally, and male trainees in schools more specifically, however, are expected to carefully manage their emotions within these kinds of situations (Mac an Ghaill 1994). Recent processes like the academisation of schools and current neoliberal agendas pertaining to education have caused the system to recognise and value only a very limited range of human capacities (Noddings 1984; Thornton and Bricheno 2006). This has led to “care” and associated emotions like distress being discouraged in teachers but more specifically in male teachers. Teachers, including trainee teachers but males in particular, are expected to exhibit what may be considered as rational and detached stances in all school situations based on the elements of the professional standards. Sadly, male trainees on placement are often essentialised in very specific ways in terms of their gender and it is commonly thought that they will somehow inherently have more confidence than their female counterparts and will therefore receive feedback differently.

Young Male Trainees The issues that young males face in schools contrast sharply to the ones faced by their older male peers. In contrast to older males young male trainee teachers are often constructed as having low levels of confidence

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or poor organisational skills and are thought to need to be supported throughout the placement experience. When young males expressed the need for support with things like planning, the request seemed to place them in to a category of helplessness requiring usually an older female teacher to step in to support them. Unlike with the older male trainees mentioned earlier, this kind of support did not seem to incur the kinds of penalties or attitudes towards them that we see outlined above. Young male trainees stereotypically are almost expected to be disorganised and lacking in some specific organisational skills, at least in the initial stages of placement. This is a common occurrence and is observed even more where student teachers enter a school on a paired placement and one trainee is a young male and the other trainee is female. This situation is further compounded if the female trainee also happens to be mature as she, like the mature males, will be expected to be competent despite a lack of experience of teaching environments. This dyad of mature female and young male seems to trigger the belief that the young male trainee will somehow need more care and support and the female will not. In the case of two males training in the same school the different experiences of the trainees often relate specifically to age. This is a slightly more complicated case as here many interrelated discourses about masculinity may come into conflict with each other. The intersectionality of age and gender is significant in both these cases. Although the students have the same professional standards to meet and may be at the same stage of the course, how difficulties that may ensue are addressed by mentors or senior staff is often different. This is the case particularly when the mentor is male and displays traits that indicate hegemonic male (Connell 1995) or when a female mentor has different and sometimes dysconscious lower expectations of males compared to females. Issues often occur because assumptions about the apparent traits or behaviours of a particular gender are so normalised now that they are voiced in areas like staffrooms without thought. The young male trainees tended to be readily offered support but came into conflict over different aspects of masculinity within the school setting. Young males were expected to perform a sporting male persona and were often approached to take the football team or become involved with coaching to some extent in the school. This expectation was largely based

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on the requirement of a masculine performance based on their physicality. The requirement for an interest in sport was common and was expressed early in placement negotiations. Nonconformity to this stereotype brought with it significant risk and sometimes ridicule if young male trainees were reticent about coaching due to lack of skills or interest. Young male trainees found it easier to almost role-play the conventional forms of masculinity in order to fit in as “real men” and often feigned interest, particularly in football, around other males (Skelton 2003). In the case of participation in sport whilst on school placement, this was problematic at times as Tischler and McCaughtry (2011) suggest that young males’ sporting preferences, or lack of such, are not uniform and are dependent on a number of related factors. The valorising of particular male bodies and how they performed in terms of sport, although not absent from the discourses of older males, was more common for the younger male trainees to feel a pressure to display bodily capital to gain status and praise. Young sporting males were seen to have developed appropriate habitus enabling them to conform particularly in the upper primary school setting. The participation in the support of sport activity in school was seen to have significant exchange value (Bourdieu 2000/2005) and gained younger males positive feedback. A young male who is intellectual rather than athletic in this kind of environment is likely to be marginalised (Martino and Kehler 2006). In contrast to older male trainees, younger males were expected to be role models but not “father figures”. In fact, their involvement in “care”, particularly in the early years of school, brought with it significant scrutiny. Young males teaching in early years environments are in a precarious position and are constantly aware of being under the gaze of significant safeguarding practices. The young male teachers were very much aware of themselves as being in the minority and working within a feminine environment (Cushman 2005) and they also were very aware of being under more scrutiny (Carrington and Skelton 2003). In line with the work of Hansen and Mulholland (2005) young males felt more hostility and curiosity at their presence even in early years. Young males, without the protection of being seen as father figures, were cautious around the physical

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interaction aspects of their role and knew how being seen to have too much care for children could be construed as problematic. Some males avoided physical contact altogether to avoid these dilemmas. One of the most significant issues that young males posed was with their technological skills or expertise in a specific area. Only occasionally was a high level of skill valued and a number of the trainees felt that they played down their abilities in this area in order not to be seen as a threat. Similarly a trainee with a high level of musical ability was seen as a little odd, and despite the children’s delight at his ability to play guitar, for instance, he was cautious in making too much of this in case they were seen as a threat to other masculinities.

Conclusions The examples discussed above are a snapshot of some of the issues faced by male trainees in schools. It is clear that masculinity is precarious in schools and men do not necessarily experience gender dividend in the ways that are suggested by some researchers. Although none of the trainees expressed a wish to leave the profession based on the difficulties they had encountered, a number had difficulties in their training contexts. The trainees were very well aware of the issues facing them in specific contexts and were very keen to navigate these with a number of strategies being brought into play. What is clear, however, is how precarious their experiences can be and there is some reliance on the training institution to consider how they can support further. Mentor training is key so that issues of gender and teaching can be discussed openly in an attempt to move beyond seeing male trainees as a homogeneous group. A second issue may be to not assume that all males will automatically “get on” because they share a gender and allocate mentors based on other criteria. It would also be helpful within the training programme to tackle intersectionality and the problematic assumptions relating to gender when coupled with other areas.

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6 Understanding Gender Categorisation in a Binary Society Katie Ward

Introduction This chapter explores how trans and gender variant people navigate their identity within a society which is still beholden to the gender binary. Sociopolitical and cultural representations of gender place people in two homogeneous categories based upon perceived sex (Butler 1990, 1993), and legislation has mostly reflected this until 2004. Trans and gender variant people have had to exist within this binary society which places salience on cisgender identities, and within this chapter I will explore how trans people in North East England have found a name for themselves within a restrictive social, and hence, linguistic binary. The introduction of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 afforded women, and men, in the United Kingdom protection from discrimination on the grounds of sex or marital status. However, the legislation and subsequent

To Rachel, Donna, Terri, Michael and Sophie who trusted me enough to share their stories.

K. Ward (*) Independent scholar, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK © The Author(s) 2020 A. Smith (ed.), Gender Equality in Changing Times, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26570-0_6

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revisions provided an inadequate legal framework in which trans and gender variant people were forced to exist, unrecognised and denied basic legal rights (Whittle 2002). The introduction of the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) 2004 has afforded some basic rights to trans and gender variant people, yet it still provides a legal framework in which those who live outside the gender binary norm can be oppressed and dehumanised. Yet the GRA has helped the visibility of trans and gender variant people by providing some legal protections for gender identity, as well as challenging the common-sense understanding (Sacks 1974) of gender binary on an institutional level. Whilst there are no official statistical estimates on trans and gender variant populations, the number of people accessing gender services in the United Kingdom has steadily risen over the last decade (Bachmann and Gooch 2018). This, along with the introduction of the GRA, has contributed to gender diverse identities becoming increasingly visible in today’s society. Despite an increase in visibility and in the number of people accessing gender services, wider society is still most likely to gain its knowledge of gender variant identities from the media (McInroy and Craig 2015). As a result, there is still a perpetual idea of what a trans person “should” be. But what should a trans person be? In this chapter, I explore the names and labels utilised by gender variant people and the stories behind each, why they have been used and how they personally relate to the participants in this study. Language is an important part of representation as that is how we give meaning to things (Hall et al. 2013), enabling us to make sense of the world. Yet gender identity is an abstract concept; therefore, how it is represented through language helps form wider society’s understanding of the concept. As Umeogu and Ifeoma outline, meaning does not “inhere in things rather it is constructed, produced and understood in relation to oneself ” (2012, pp.130–131). When consuming texts, we understand it in relation to our own experiences, yet when we encounter a text, we do not see “reality”, but someone’s version of it. To someone whose understanding of gender identity primarily comes from the consumption of media, it is easy to believe that these texts are representative of the community. The outdated and inappropriate terms used, such as transsexual

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or transvestite, become part of a wider discourse which is influenced by social institutions and solidifies over time to create a reality (Butler 1990).

Background to the Study Despite more visibility in society, the trans community is still one of the most marginalised (Women and Equalities Committee 2016), and consequently, research participants were potentially at a greater risk of exploitation. As a result, the data was collected by approaching LGBT organisations, rather than individuals. I spoke to trans support groups and professionals in North East England who were able to offer invaluable advice about approaching the topic and approaching potential participants. In addition to this, in early 2015 I was invited to speak to members of a trans support group about the study. The peer support group was interested to hear about the research and was also able to advise me on issues they saw arising from the proposal in a safe environment. Participants were gathered from a number of LGBT organisations in the North East as well as the LGBT societies of North East-based universities and colleges, all of which were happy to advertise the study. The only stipulation for participants at this point was they self-identified as trans. I used the term “trans” purposefully as trans is becoming more frequently used as an umbrella term for anyone who is gender variant. As a result, anyone who expressed gender variance was able to take part; however, the commonality between the participants is that they all experience gender dysphoria, namely the condition in which a person feels there is incongruity between their assigned biological sex and their gender identity (NHS Choices 2014). Overall, I sourced five participants who chose their own pseudonym to preserve anonymity. They were Donna, Michael, Sophie, Rachel and Terri. Collection of data took the form of semi-structured interviews, which contained open-ended questions to help elicit narratives from the participants. Analysis of the data took the form of Membership Categorisation Analysis (MCA) (Sacks 1974; Hester and Eglin 1997; Housely and Fitzgerald 2015) and Narrative Analysis (Labov 1972; Labov and

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Waletzky 1967; Thornborrow and Coates 2005), with Critical Discourse Analysis as the theoretical framework. Membership Categorisation Analysis (MCA) is unique in its approach to social categorisation as it focuses on the everyday lived experiences of actors. Compared to other identity theories such as social identity theory or self-categorisation theory, MCA allows the researcher to look beyond the theoretical and explore “how identity is done, managed, achieved and negotiated in situ” (Housley and Fitzgerald 2015, p.2) by the individual. The focus of other identity categorisation theories is on social group dynamics and hierarchies, and how an individual navigates these groups (ibid.). MCA explores social structures and the production of identities in its linguistic context by analysing how people describe their social world. Narrative enquiry also helps social actors describe their social world and, as Thornborrow and Coates (2005) suggest, plays a key role in the construction of gender, linking narrative discourse to performativity theory. As, according to Butler (1990), gender is something that is “done” through repeated stylised acts, it is not static but produced through discursive interaction. Coates (2005) further discusses what she terms “collaborative narrative” in which she analyses couples’ interactions to explore how masculinity is produced. Here she argues heterosexuality is a “key component of hegemonic masculinity” (2005, p.92) which may influence the way in which men produce masculinity. Rather more salient for this study is the idea of how narratives create or project social identity, particularly when social categorisation takes a narrative turn.

Gender as a Category Categories, according to scholars of MCA (Sacks 1974; Stokoe 2003; Housley and Fitzgerald 2015; etc.), are inference rich, and it could be argued that this is seen particularly clearly in gender categories. In MCA, gender is a Membership Categorisation Device (MCD) which allows a collection of categories which relate to the state of being male and/or female. As perhaps demonstrated in the wording above, one of the main assumptions of the MCD of gender is that it is limited to the binary of

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male and female. Of course, I am researching gender variance and recognise that the collection of gender categories goes wider than male and female, yet the common-sense understanding of gender in wider society has historically been tied to this binary. Another common-sense understanding of gender is that it is related directly to an individual’s physical attributes, that is genitalia, chromosomes, hormones and so on. The use of man or woman, male or female, as categories holds with them the assumption that the individual is cisgender, and that they were born with and possess genitalia congruent with that of either man or woman. In addition to inferences about the body, the categories of male and female also hold with them cultural and social assumptions based on what roles men and women are perceived to play in society and how they are “supposed” to act. People, as Stokoe highlights, risk “gender assessment if they do not live up to normative conceptions of femininity or masculinity” (2003, p.4). English, like other Germanic languages, distinguishes sex using third-­ person singular pronouns (Talbot 1998); however, there is no third-­ person singular gender-neutral pronoun in common usage. The third-person plural “they” is increasingly used by non-binary, genderqueer and genderfluid (not an exhaustive list) people to refer to themselves; nevertheless, this is far from ideal when there is a lack of a singular gender-neutral pronoun. The use of the impersonal pronoun “it” could be used here; however, this is extremely problematic as, whilst it might be gender neutral, it carries with it fundamental connotations of dehumanisation and has often been used as a derogatory term for trans people. There have been attempts to introduce third-person pronouns, for which Crystal (2007) provides a list of examples. However, in their study, Senden et al. (2015) found the introduction of a gender-neutral pronoun into a language is often met with hostility and can take years to become more generally accepted. Therefore, it could be argued that pronoun usage imposes a gendered identity onto people as it becomes extremely difficult to speak about a third person without assigning them male or female, particularly over a long period of time. Additionally, the linguistic assignment of sex carries with it the presumptions of societal gender norms and expectations,

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which supports Butler’s (1990) argument that the idea of gender is ingrained into humans by the repetition and normalisation of gendered acts. McConnell-Ginet uses an interaction between her and a colleague to highlight this point: A:  “One of my students missed the final because of a sick kid and no baby sitter available.” B:  “Well, did you tell her that it is not acceptable?” (McConnell-Ginet 2011, p.229) Societal gender expectations tell us that women are more likely to take on a nurturing role, enabling the assumption that the student is female. Linguistically, we are bound by gendered pronouns which ensure the assumption is easier to make. It is also, as McConnell-Ginet points out, the reaction to the assumption which could also perpetuate gender expectations. As she says: If I ascribe maleness to the student and want to make that clear I might say “it’s a he actually,” … On the other hand, if there is no conflict between my colleague’s presumption of sex and my assessment of the situation, I may well fail to point out there was a presumptive leap and thus may contribute in some measure to sustaining the gendered division of labor that supports that leap. (McConnell-Ginet 2011, p. 229)

McConnell-Ginet highlights an important point which affects the participants in this study on a daily basis. Our assumptions and inferences about what constitutes gender fail to consider gender variant people and further solidify normative gender practices. The dichotomy of male and female reflects how humans classify sex and gender: people are either one or the other. But it is clear that for gender diverse people, English becomes even more limiting. Whilst the majority of cisgender people are comfortable to fit within the male/female binary, trans people often struggle with restrictive categories, binaries and boundaries imposed by the language, and subsequently society. It is important to highlight how gender categories, and gender as a category, work within society and within language, as these base

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assumptions have more of an adverse effect on the participants. The rest of this chapter analyses directly the participants’ experiences in navigating gender categorisation of the self and others, and how this impacts their lives.

 ender Categories: “How Would You Describe G Your Gender Identity?” According to Antaki and Widdicome (1998, p.3), “for a person to have an identity … is to be cast into a category with associated characteristics or features” (italics in original). In talk categories enable us to order the world around us, and that is done by bringing together disparate characteristics, features and/or objects into a collection. I asked the participants to talk about their gender identity, eliciting self-categorisation. Gender categorisations happen both consciously and subconsciously as we immediately categorise people’s gender without knowing them, often through our own biases and ideas of what social and physical characteristics constitute “male” and “female” (Butler 1993). The only stipulation for taking part in this research was that participants did not identify with the sex they were assigned at birth and, by taking part in the research, the participants initially identify that they experience gender variance, in whatever form that may take. It was most appropriate, therefore, to ask this question in our interviews: “How would you describe your gender identity?” There were similarities between the ways in which the participants answered this question, something which I was not expecting. Firstly, no two participants described themselves in the same way, and secondly, each answer took a narrative turn. What was clear from the outset is that gender identity is more complex than the male/female binary which we have become culturally restricted to, and for gender variant people describing their identity becomes problematic. Perhaps the most candid answer to this question came from Donna:

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I: So er, how would you describe your gender? D: I’m a trans woman … erm … it’s taken me a long time to get to that point er … I’m, one of my worries is that I’m wrong, erm but since coming out to my wife sort of the flood gates have opened, the dysphoria has really hit hard and is actually, despite all the problems and all the stress it’s causing me, it has actually convinced me that I’m right. (Transcript 2, lines 39–43)

Donna’s answer is initially frank as she confidently categorises herself as a trans woman. She had mentioned her gender identity previously in the interview which may explain some of the ease with which Donna was able to categorise herself as a trans woman, as she had been considering her gender identity greatly at the time of the interview. However, Donna’s answer takes a narrative turn in which she then explains her internal anxieties about her gender identity. It does not reflect a narrative in the Labovian sense of regimented criteria, yet, there is a sequence, it is temporal and serves a narrative purpose. It is the purpose of this short narrative which is most interesting, specifically after Donna has confidently categorised herself as a trans woman. It serves to briefly explain the process in which she reached that point, and somewhat justify herself. The context of this utterance also should be taken into consideration. Donna, like all participants, is aware of the purpose of the interview, which may be a reason for the initial frankness of her answer and her subsequent narrative. In this context, this question is acceptable, whereas it may not be in other social situations where the question may not have elicited the same candid answer and may be seen as potentially offensive. Despite this, however, the anxieties Donna discusses are something that she was experiencing at the time of our interview and therefore relevant to her and her gender identity. To focus back on Donna’s self-categorisation, I probed her further in the interview, asking her as to why she uses trans woman to describe herself. I: Erm, so you described yourself as a trans woman, why do you choose to use that particular term? D: Erm because I’m, I’m not male, er I was not born female physically erm I, I hav- I’m proud of who I am er I see no reason, I have no desire to

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go stealth at any point erm it’s who I am basically, it’s , I- there’s, I know that I have I will never have the life experiences as a cis woman erm there will always be that sort of, there will always be a certain amount of erm expectation of male privilege erm that no matter how hard I try is always going to be there, erm and so accepting myself as, no not accepting but sort of putting myself there in the- as a trans woman, it in a way reminds me of this as well as sort of allowing myself to sort of be out there as who I am. (Transcript 2, lines 69–76)

Donna performs her gender through the categories she uses to describe herself. As Stokoe (2003) points out, the categorisation process is made possible by the inferential resources carried by the category used. The categories we use have a set of connotations with it, and this may be particularly relevant with gender categories. Therefore, the consideration Donna took to categorise herself is as important as the category itself. For Donna, it seems that categories of male, female and woman all have connotations of being cisgender, which is why she does not use them to refer to herself. As Antaki (2007) suggests, claiming a category for oneself is usually trouble-free; however, by claiming the category of woman, there are implications. Donna takes this into consideration as she is not male and not cis female however considers her identity to be on the male/female binary. “Woman” belongs to a collection of categories which includes man, woman, male and female, which makes up the gender binary in which people are usually categorised. As a result, when the category of woman is evoked, so are a specific set of activities and characteristics which are inferred by social actors, often relating to biological processes and physical attributes. It is clear that Donna is aware of these considerations after what seems to be an agonising experience defining herself. She suggests that having not had the life experiences of a cis woman, and having experienced an amount of male privilege whilst still presenting as male, does not warrant her use of “women”. Yet, Donna’s notion of “woman” and its inferences and implications are not a fundamental part of her identity. “Trans woman”, therefore, not only fits Donna’s personal experiences and gender identity but also carries with it implications of which Donna is happy to be associated.

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Like Donna, Terri is also very aware of how the category of woman might lead to false assumptions; however, the inferences Terri makes with the category woman somewhat differ from Donna’s. Terri’s experience of her gender differs the most from the other participants as she had not medically transitioned and had no intention to at the time of interview. She was also presenting as female to a limited number of friends and family. When asked her identity, Terri started to explain her conflict: I: So how would you describe your gender? D: It’s a weird one because the erm, for me the erm, how can I explain it? It’s like in two parts, like my brain’s saying one thing and my heart says another, so my brain’ll say ‘oh well do you want some hormones or you’re going to have a penis whether you like it or not, here’s loads of testosterone, tough shit you’re going to have it’, and my heart says the complete opposite and it’s like I think the hardest part for me is I feel like I’ve just been like an observer ever since I was a teenager, like I isolated myself at school, I’d stand back and watch the crowds watch how people talk, watch how the different, the differences between boys and girls works you know, in groups, in social situations and everything, it feels to me like I’ve just learnt how to be a- I don’t even like saying the word man to be honest with you because I’m not a man, it’s totally the wrong word, I see myself even physically I see myself as a boy who just didn’t grow up how sh- he/she whatever should have grown up and I think that’s part of the conflict that I have so it’s both, it’s everything, but I’d say personally I’m a girl, I’m not a woman because to be a woman you have to grow up from being a girl to be a woman and that’s just never going to happen, that’s how I interpret it anyway hence why I can, why I just have a continual clash in my brain all the time because none of it really, it’s all so conflicting. (Transcript 5, lines 53–68)

Throughout the excerpt Terri uses two specific categories to describe herself, “girl” and “observer”. When we consider the term girl as a category, it carries with it the category predicate features of infancy and immaturity. Essentially, it could be argued that Terri infantilises herself through the use of the term girl. However, to explain and contextualise her use of the term, Terri highlights a specific category predicate feature which she considers to be a fundamental part of “woman”. To be categorised as a woman Terri believes she needs to have grown up and

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experienced puberty as cis female. Having missed these experiences she categorises herself as “girl”. Again, girl suggests an amount of infancy and immaturity, yet Terri is actively ascribing these to her identity. This is further realised when she discusses the category of man, something which is far removed from her identity, so much so that she has difficulty saying it. Terri sees herself therefore as mentally a girl and, not having experienced a female adolescence, physically still a boy. Interestingly, Terri also describes herself as an observer, having observed how gender should be performed by her peers. In a reflection of Garfinkel’s (1967) and West and Zimmerman’s (1987) studies, for Terri, gender is something that is learnt from observable behaviour. For Agnes, in Garfinkel’s (1967) study, gender had to be accomplished through learning how to act and behave in a culturally normative way. Additionally, West and Zimmerman (1987) ascertain that gender is something that is done by aligning ourselves with normative conceptions of what men and women are. Having been assigned male at birth, Terri learnt how to do masculinity through observation of behaviour and interactions of people in social situations and performed that in order to be read as male from outside. This is also reflected in Terri’s self-categorisation as a girl. Terri had to learn to do masculinity in order to maintain her performative male identity. However, being a woman is not possible for Terri having not experienced what she feels are fundamental aspects of womanhood. It is also interesting to note that Terri refers to herself as an observer before she refers to her gender identity which further supports the idea that it is difficult for Terri to externalise her gender identity. The question of gender identity elicited an explanation from Terri. Like Donna, Terri’s answer took a narrative turn in order to explain her self-categorisation. Also, like Donna, Terri’s narrative is a short one, but necessary to put her gender identity into context. Without the short story of her growing up, her self-categorisation as an “observer” would not make sense; and potentially neither would her gender categorisation. Again, it is the purpose of the narrative, rather than the coding, which proves most interesting as it also reflects a certain amount of justification and explanation on Terri’s part. Additionally, it also reflects the amount of conflict participants feel when categorising themselves, something

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which may not be seen when cisgender people are referring to their gender identity. Conflict in categorising the self is something that is seen throughout the participants’ answers. Donna’s conflict arises from whether she is “making the right decision” and Terri’s arises from not having experienced puberty as a woman. Rachel shows conflict not in how she perceives herself and her experiences, but in how she may be perceived by others: I: So how would you describe your gender? Or gender identity. Is it gender? Or would you call it gender identity? R: Er, yeah gender identity is probably the more accurate term I guess. For me I suppose it’s female but … I try to not be too … I’m always concerned about the kind of appropriation and you know it’s female but with a ‘but’, sort of. So trans-female I guess, but it’s pretty clearly cut for me, it is very much on the feminine side, I’m not, I would never describe myself as kind of non-binary or anything like that. (Transcript 4, lines 39–45)

Rachel hedges around her identity, claiming the category of female but tentatively. Again, as pointed out when discussing Donna, generally claiming a category for yourself is trouble-free (Antaki 2007), and Rachel’s main concern is “appropriation”. Typically a cisgender person would have no trouble claiming the categories of either male or female; however, they may be questioned on how well they are performing masculinity or femininity. Masculine women and effeminate men may find their outward appearances and mannerisms are scrutinised and find themselves subject to homophobic and heterosexist abuse. However, fundamentally, a butch woman may still be seen to some as “more of a woman” than a trans woman (Halberstam 1998). Hedging is seen as a form of politeness which is used euphemistically and has been associated with women’s speech (Lakoff 1973). However in this context, it seems more due to uncertainty. Not necessarily uncertainty over her gender identity, rather uncertainty over how to self-­ categorise in the face of appropriation. Appropriation in the context of gender identity can be used to describe a multitude of ideas which suggests that trans women are not “real” women and transitioning is another

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way that men can own femininity. Some radical feminist researchers and writers, such as Raymond (1994) and Jeffreys (1997), use the concept of “gender appropriation” to delegitimise trans women’s identities. Rachel is aware of these sentiments and their damaging effect on trans women, so therefore she pre-empts any hostility with her self-identification. She’s a female with a “but”—identifying as female and using “but” as a buffer to preserve herself from potential threats due to her gender identity. Rachel’s self-categorisation becomes a justification of her identity. Rachel’s hedging also shows an overt awareness of how she may be perceived when claiming a gender category and as a result she uses three categories to refer to herself: • I suppose it’s female. • Female but with a but, sort of. • Trans-female I guess. What Rachel’s categorisations show is a breaking of Sack’s (1974) economy rule, as one category for Rachel is not referentially adequate. This reflects a difficulty faced by gender variant people in describing their identity as the categories society has traditionally used to discuss gender do not reflect the identities of the participants. It also elicits an explanation from Rachel because, as her cisgender audience, I do not share the common understanding of gender variance with Rachel. This can be said to be true of the majority of cisgender people and it is not unexpected, therefore, that an explanation in the least is warranted. Like Rachel, another participant Michael has to explain his gender identity. He explains the stages he went through to reach his current identity. Prevalent narratives of trans lives perpetuated by (but not restricted to) media outlets offer stories of trans people who have known exactly who they are and how they identify from being small children. These stories continue the idea that every trans person knows their identity and once they transition then that is the end of it—the “I was born in the wrong body” trope. Erm, I’m not really sure to be honest, ‘cause initially when I came out I, I told my parents that I was genderqueer and I hadn’t didn’t have any inten-

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tion of taking hormones or having surgery or um like legally changing my name and pronouns or anything like that but then after a couple of months I was just like no this is no good so I was like yes, I am now a man and that is just it and I kind of maybe went with that for like three years or so? Erm, maybe, maybe a bit more but certainly in the last year or two I just don’t really feel like that fits, like I’m happy with my body as it is, my body is … I, I’m just comfortable but in terms of like erm, externally imposed social roles it doesn’t really feel right so I would probably just consider myself non-binary, but you know, stereotypically masculine presenting. (Michael, transcript 3, lines 55-63)

The question about his gender identity has evoked a narrative from Michael in which he describes the process of finding his gender identity. During his narrative Michael is explicit about his trouble with categories and finding it difficult to find one due to not wanting to being associated with it; for example, he is uncomfortable with the externally imposed social role of being male. However, Michael describes himself as “stereotypically masculine presenting” as he uses a male name and pronouns, wears more masculine-associated clothing and chooses to grow out his facial hair. He is aware of how he may be perceived as cis male. However, he perceives himself as non-binary to avoid parts of identity which are imposed rather than chosen, like cultural signs and symbols of the body that enable it to be read as cis (Kimmel 2011). Despite this, Michael is also conscious that his process of finding an identity may not be true for other people. It seems that Michael’s experience of his developing gender identity has also shaped how he identifies. This is made clearer when he discusses his interest in feminist theory and alludes to cultural attitudes to gender variance, such as Facebook’s implementation of more gender options (Facebook Diversity 2015): I: So would non-binary be the only sort of specific terms you would use to describe yourself? M: Yeah I think so, um yeah, I’m just not sure, you’ve just caught me at an interesting time in my life where just I think as well the more I got into feminism as well the more I really started to question what I really knew about anything so when I started to deconstruct literally what gender is

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and what sex is the more I was just like, gender is a shoe, so I literally don’t, just don’t even know, like Michael just seems fine and if that could be a gender category on its own then that would be brilliant. Everything seems to arbitrary to me, none of them seem to fit because if you choose one then it comes with certain kind of connotations or expectations. (Transcript 3, lines 64–82)

Michael’s answer supports the argument that the lexicon surrounding gender variance is inadequate, despite the influx of new terminology, and more often than not this new terminology does not fit the identity of the individual. Michael’s process of finding a category for himself has been difficult and, despite his identifying as non-binary, this still inadequately reflects Michael’s identity. Furthermore, the inadequacy of gender terminology can also reflect a restrictive wider society which has not “caught up” in terms of gender variance. He goes on to say: Purely for, like political reasons, I don’t know like, well not political … legal reasons I would class myself as a man just to make things easier but I don’t know, socially and politically I want to rock the boat. (Michael, transcript 3, lines 83–85)

It is interesting to note that the choice of a gender category can not only relate to how someone personally identifies but also can relate to the situation. I have mentioned that Michael considers himself non-binary, which he has gone through a process to come to; however, for ease Michael may also identify as a man. There are legal, social and cultural instances where the categories of man and woman are only used, for example, on UK passport applications. In these contexts Michael may identify as male, or man, because he has no other choice. Overall, what is clear is that his gender identity has been more of a process of finding the right terms to fit his personal situation and beliefs, yet it still has to shift depending on the social and cultural context Michael finds himself in. In comparison, Sophie also shifted identities depending on her cultural context:

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I: So how would you describe your own gender? S: Female, without any qualifiers, if it was for anyone. If it was for this, obviously I’m transgender, I’m male to female but I conform to the binary, not because I feel that everyone should, but because … because I think it should be someone’s choice, but because it’s how I actually identify, I identify as female that should have been born cis. I want to, I want to identify as cis, I want to be stealth I don’t want people to know. Being trans is not part of my identity. (Transcript 1, lines 76–81)

The common knowledge between Sophie and me is that she is gender variant. She describes herself as “female, without any qualifiers”, and “qualifiers” in this context is not explicitly explained as we both understand it to mean the prefix “trans-”. Out of context, if someone were to read “female without any qualifiers” it is most likely they would not understand the relevance of the addition to the category. This shows that in her categorisation, Sophie is using our mutual understanding of her culture and identity. Additionally, when I asked Sophie about her gender identity, there was no pause between the end of my question and her answer. With this reflexive response Sophie not only shows the confidence she has in her own identity but also purposely distances herself from the transgender community. This is because being trans is, as Sophie explains, not a part of her identity. Therefore it makes sense that trans would not be part of her self-categorisation. Also, for Sophie, there are negative connotations with the trans community with which she does not want to align herself to, much like Michael and his rejection of various categories. However, further on in the utterance Sophie categorises herself as transgender for the purposes of our interview. The context of the interview situation is really important in how Sophie describes herself, as it is known to me that she is gender variant and that is a motivator for her to take part in the research. Further on in the interview Sophie explains that she lives “stealth”, another category which she uses to describe her identity. By stealth, Sophie means she lives with a limited set of people knowing her gender variance and “passes” in the public sphere. As said before, Sophie and I are using our common shared knowledge of her identity during the interview. We are both aware of her gender variance and her desire to live as

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stealth, and if she had just said female in response to the question I would still be aware of her gender variant identity. However, Sophie states that for the interview she is transgender, which suggests a need to legitimise her taking part in the interview. However, as Sophie explicitly states, being trans is not part of her identity. She outright rejects a transgender identity but acknowledges that trans labels apply “literally speaking” (transcript 1, line 84). This section of analysis is interesting and also unique in that MCA is traditionally used to analyse the production of categories in talk, without provocation. In this instance, however, I have explicitly asked my participants to categorise themselves. Each participant uses multiple categories to describe their gender identity which is indicative of the difficulty gender variant people may experience when discussing gender categorisation. As explored previously, categories are rich with inferences and the MCD of gender holds the fundamental inferences of being cisgender and of being either male or female. What is evident, however, is that gender categories are much more varied and complex than we infer them to be. Each participant’s gender identity differs from the others, some in small ways and some in larger ways. With this in mind, we find that what is clear is gender variant people do not fit into the preconceived categories of gender we have in society and so have to navigate cissexist assumptions in order to claim their gender identity. This seems to make self-­ categorisation as a gender variant person somewhat difficult. As seen by Donna’s answers, the process of recognising and possibly coming to terms with gender dysphoria or a gender variant identity can be a long and difficult process. Terri and Michael also demonstrated the difficulty of this process by describing their experiences, or lack thereof, which have contributed to their use of categories. Rachel and Sophie, however, discussed their self-categorisation in terms of how others may perceive them. Overall despite their differing answers, there was a striking common facet in participants’ responses. In some way, each answer was an explanation of their gender identity. It could be argued that because the question is phrased “how would you describe”, it may have provoked a more detailed account. Or that the interview context provoked an explanation, as participants may have felt obligated to justify their choice of category. However, it is taken for granted that if a cisgender person is asked for

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their gender identity, they would answer male or female, and as a society these are the answers we would expect. I considered how I would answer that question and decided that it was most likely I would answer female without any further clarification. As a cisgender woman I am in the privileged position of not having to think about my gender identity, or have it questioned. So it struck me that each participant began to almost justify his/her answers to me. All participants but Michael, who chronologically described the process of his self-identification, identified themselves and then explained their use of category. Overall, what is clear is that not only is finding a name for yourself a difficult process, it is also a process where wider society is often also considered. Concerns of appropriation, living “out” or being “outed” as trans and fear of repercussions have a major influence on how the participants define themselves. This can lead to conflict as to whether the label or category the participants choose for themselves accurately represents their identity or how they might be perceived in the public sphere. Whatever the reason for this conflict, it often manifests in a narrative or explanation of the choice, something taken for granted as rote by cisgender people.

Conclusion I feel it is prudent to say that the terms discussed here are not representative of the entire transgender community. It would be impossible to document the lexicon of the vast amount of trans experiences and narratives. Language changes over time and language related to gender variance has adapted and changed as the culture and community has changed (Enke 2012); therefore, the terms here are only representative of the small community I am investigating. There is an emerging lexicon of gender variance which has arisen as society’s understanding has increased, yet even this is insufficient to properly reflect the participants’ experiences of gender. The discourse of gender is a rigid regulatory framework (Butler 1990) and this restricts the linguistic expression of identity for participants. Terminologies such as trans, transgender and transition, whilst acceptable in describing a

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general process and community, do not reflect the subjective experiences of gender variance. As such, participants are left in a situation where they have to describe and justify their choice of gender categories. Also, as meaning is created through language, and language is restricted to a cisnormative binary system of gender, it is clear to see how describing your identity as a gender variant person is problematic. Claiming a category is usually trouble-free (Antaki 2007); however, participants choosing a category also claim the assumptions which go along with that category. Male and female carry with them a common-­ sense cultural knowledge (Sacks 1974; Housely and Fitzgerald 2015) of being cisgender, and if a person is not read as cisgender whilst claiming either male or female, there is further risk of outside scrutiny. Additionally, as language does not accurately reflect gender variant identities, participants are left in a situation where they cannot effectively label their identity. Arguably, this can lead to insecurity and a sense of otherness because if a person cannot adequately define their identity for themselves, how can it be explained or understood by wider society? As participants are already somewhat insecure in finding a name for their identity, it can leave them initially demoralised. When teamed with exposure to perpetual cisnormative narratives from media outlets and society, this can further undermine a personal sense of identity. A preoccupation with biology has allowed early essentialist representations of gender to persist in society and enabled the continuous use of outdated and medicalised language to discuss gender variance. As we have seen, participants mostly do not personally relate to this kind of discourse, yet find it difficult to find a discourse of their own.

References Antaki, C. 2007. The “Other Half ” of CA  – Categories [Online]. Available at: http://homepages.lboro.ac.uk/~ssca1/ttlecture08CAcats.htm. Accessed 29 June 2016. Antaki, C., and Widdicombe, S. 1998. Identities in Talk. London: Sage Publications Limited.

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Bachmann, C. L., and B. Gooch. 2018. LGBT in Britain: Trans Report. London: Stonewall. Available at: https://www.stonewall.org.uk/sites/default/files/lgbtin-britain-trans.pdf. Accessed 10 Apr 2018. Butler, J. 1990. Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. London: Routledge. ———. 1993. Bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of ‘sex’. London: Routledge. Crystal, D. 2007. How language works. London: Penguin Books. Enke, A. 2012. Transfeminist Perspectives In and Beyond Transgender and Gender Studies. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Facebook Diversity. 2015. Facebook Update, 26 February 2015, Available at: https://www.dailydot.com/irl/guide-to-covering-transgender-people/. Accessed 30 Oct 2017. Garfinkel, H. 1967. Studies in ethnomethodology. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Halberstam, J. 1998. Female Masculinity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Hall, S., J. Evans, and S. Nixon. 2013. Representation. London: Sage. Hester, S., and P. Eglin, eds. 1997. Culture in action: Membership categorisation analysis. Boston: International Institute for Ethnomethodology and University Press of America. Housley, W., and R.  Fitzgerald. 2015. Advances in membership categorisation analysis. London: Sage. Jeffreys, S. 1997. Transgender activism: A lesbian feminist perspective. Journal of Lesbian Studies 1 (3/4): 55–74. Kimmel, M. 2011. The gendered society. 4th ed. New York: Oxford University Press. Labov, W. 1972. Language in the Inner City. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Labov, W., and J. Waletzky. 1967. Narrative analysis: Oral versions of personal experience. Journal of Narrative and Life History 1 (1–4): 3–38. Lakoff, R. 1973. Language and Woman’s place. Language in Society 2 (1): 45–80. McConnell-Ginet, S. 2011. Gender, sexuality, and meaning: Linguistic practice and politics. New York: Oxford University Press. McInroy, L.B., and S.L. Craig. 2015. Transgender representation in offline and online media: LGBTQ youth perspectives. Journal of Human Behaviour in the Social Environment 25 (6): 606–617. National Health Service Choices. 2014. Gender Dysphoria. Available at: http:// www.nhs.uk/conditions/Gender-dysphoria/Pages/Introduction.aspx. Accessed 17 Feb 2016.

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Raymond, J. 1994. The transsexual empire: The making of the she-male. New York: Teachers College Press. Sacks, H. 1974. On the analysability of stories by children. In Ethnomethodology, ed. R. Turner, 216–232. Middlesex: Penguin. Senden, M.G., E.A. Back, and A. Lindqvist. 2015. Introducing a gender neutral pronoun in a natural gender language: The influence of time on attitudes and behaviour. Frontiers in Psychology 6. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg. 2015.00893/full. Stokoe, E.H. 2003. Doing gender, doing categorisation: Recent developments in language and gender research. International Sociolinguistics 2 (1): 1–12. Talbot, M. 1998. Language and gender: An introduction. Cambridge: Polity Press. Thornborrow, J., and J.  Coates. 2005. The sociolinguistics of narrative. Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Umeogu, B., and O. Ifeoma. 2012. Constructionist theory of representation in language and communication: A philosophical analysis. Open Journal of Philosophy 2 (2): 130–135. West, C., and D.H. Zimmerman. 1987. Doing Gender. Gender and Society 1 (2): 125–151. Whittle, S. 2002. Respect and equality: Transsexual and transgender rights. London: Cavendish Publishing Limited. Women and Equalities Committee. 2016. Transgender Equality (HC 390) Available at: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmselect/cmwomeq/390/390.pdf. Accessed 13 Feb 2016.

Part II

7 “Enough of this PC-crazed Nonsense”: The Backlash Against Gender Equality as Personified by Emma Watson Angela Smith

In September 2014, the United Nation launched the HeForShe campaign. Whilst issues of gender equality had been part of the UN’s agenda since the 1960s, what made this campaign different was that it recognised that gender equality could not be achieved only through the actions of women. Its mission statement makes this explicit: People everywhere understand and support the idea of gender equality. They know it’s not just a women’s issue, it’s a human rights issue.

In recognising that equality affects everyone, not just women, the campaign encourages people and organisations to take the HeForShe pledge to promote gender equality. The campaign therefore encourages men and boys to act as agents of change and take action against negative This chapter is dedicated to my father, Colin Smith.

A. Smith (*) Department of Media and Communication Studies, University of Sunderland, Sunderland, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Smith (ed.), Gender Equality in Changing Times, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26570-0_7

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inequalities faced by women and girls around the world. The launch event featured a speech by actor and UN Women Goodwill Ambassador Emma Watson, who spoke about her own path to feminism and her belief that men and boys needed to be involved as gender inequality affects them as well as women and girls. As this chapter will explore, the rejection of equality issues is still a burning issue, with those who campaign for equality being targeted through strategies that seek to denigrate them and, in turn, their campaigns. The HeForShe campaign is just one of many that have emerged since 2010 when it appears that issues of gender equality have risen to the level of political consciousness after years of apparent abatement. Since the 1970s and 1980s, the position of women in Western societies has changed remarkably, perhaps most noticeably in the proportion of women in the workplace. As discussed elsewhere (Mills 2008; Smith 2018), this is argued to have led to a crisis in gender relations as women were seen to have opportunities for careers and promotion that had previously been stereotypically male. As Mills (2008) comments, this also meant that women were drawing attention to the persistence of stereotypes. Bolstered by the confidence of increased financial independence and workplace status, women were less likely to tolerate sexist comments and discrimination. However, as Rosalind Gill points out, this does not mean that women are now routinely treated as equals to men. Confident expressions of ‘girl power’ sit alongside reports of ‘epidemic’ levels of anorexia and body dysmorphia; graphic tabloid reports of rape are placed cheek by jowl with adverts for lap-dancing clubs and telephone sex lines; […] Everywhere, it seems feminist ideas have become a kind of common sense, yet feminism has never been more bitterly repudiated. (2007, p. 1)

Echoing this, Judith Williamson (2003) observed that “the problem is that sexism didn’t go away, we just stopped talking about it”. “Sexism” had come to be mocked or hijacked by the media, as Gill (2011) comments, with the close associations of perceptions of Second Wave Feminism’s dour sincerity that was largely seen as old-fashioned, frigid and humourless. As Gill has commented, feminism had actually been

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burdened by a battle against these stereotypes and thus was forced to position itself “against the figure of the ‘feminist killjoy’” (Gill 2016, 618). It is against this background that a Fourth Wave of feminism emerged, initially from the college campuses but also from the young women whose voices could be heard through the affordances of new media. In the UK, for example, Laura Bates set up the Everyday Sexism campaign in 2012 through a blog and Twitter account that by 2019 had amassed 284,000 followers with a global reach. More generally, feminism started to emerge as a “popular” movement around this time, and a key moment in this happened in 2014 when Beyoncé performed at the MTV Video Music Awards with the word “Feminist” lit up in giant letters behind her. Feminism had already started to become popular, with marches, slogan t-shirts and, of course, hashtag activism. This stretched into wider consumerism with advertising campaigns such as CoverGirl and Dove cosmetics featuring female empowerment messages, and traditionally masculine domains of technology and cars produced advertising campaigns that urged girls to see themselves as having opportunities for careers in these fields (typically this new sort of marketing links with government campaigns to encourage more girls into science, technology, engineering and maths—STEM—subjects). Much of the rise in popular feminism, as Sarah Banet-Weiser (2018) has pointed out, are linked to consumer feminism: buy the product, and you can become a feminist. This was perhaps most visibly seen in the UK in the return of the protest t-shirt in 2014, where the most Instagrammed “looks” were those that featured “feminist” message t-shirts. The Fawcett Society, for example, produced a t-shirt proclaiming “This is what a feminist looks like” and embraced a campaign that featured male politicians and actors, including the leaders of the two main opposition parties in the UK, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg, as well as high-profile actors such as Benedict Cumberbatch. Model and trendsetter Cara Delevingne frequently wore clothing with such slogans, including a recycling of a Second Wave Feminist slogan: “The future is female”. High-fashion Dior used Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s statement “We should all be feminists” on t-shirts that appeared on the Paris catwalk. Similar statements were found on t-shirts produced by cheap outlets such as ASOS and Topshop. Another slogan, “This p**sy grabs back”, appeared

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on hoodies and sweatshirts designed by model Leomie Anderson and popularised when Rihanna posted a photo of herself wearing a pink version of this with a tutu and baseball hat. This particular slogan emerged as a humorous and playful response to a widely circulated video of then-­ presidential candidate Donald Trump referring to “grabbing [women] by the pussy”. As the centenary of the Representation of the People Act in the UK approached in 2018, it seemed feminism was popular once more. It was being promoted as a fashion statement on t-shirts, appearing in advertising campaigns for employment opportunities for women in non-­ traditional areas such as science and the military. Feminist, it seems, had become popular as it was now “common sense”. Whilst Gill’s point is that feminist ideals are now generally regarded as “common sense”—of course everyone should have equal opportunities— the very notion of something being “common sense” is one that depends on what Fairclough (2012) refers to as orders of discourse. In this way, older gender stereotypes have not gone away, but are simply in the background. Those in positions of power and influence dictate which discourse is dominant. Where these stereotypes persist, they are often raised through opposition to the perceived liberal agenda of gender equality and the way in which it frequently happens in the labelling of such a dominant discourse as being “politically correct”. As this chapter will explore through one case study, political correctness can be used in such a way that the main point is not so much devalued, but can be lost completely. One such example relates to HeForShe campaigner Emma Watson, whose wider campaigning on ethical as well as gender equality issues has received international attention.

Political Correctness Sarah Dunant has described how the phenomenon of political correctness (frequently used in the shorthand abbreviation PC) grew out of the American campuses in the mid-to-late 1980s and focused largely on the arts and humanities through the attempts to open up the literary canon to include the works of more non-white and female writers. This lead to a raised awareness of equality issues on campus and eventually to certain

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kinds of positive discrimination, including codes on appropriate speech and behaviour. As Dunant comments, “PC is about more than equality and balance. It is about power, who has it and what they do with it” (1994, viii). In the British context, this agenda was pushed by Labour-­ run councils, particularly the Greater London Council (GLC) under Ken Livingstone in the 1980s, where a socialist, liberal message of equality was at the heart of many of the policies adopted. However, PC managed to achieve the remarkable feet of offending both the Right and Left. More obviously and inevitably, the Right rebelled against the challenges of patriarchy, capitalism and other liberal tropes. In terms of the Left, however, the methods to achieve this have been criticised by some. As Durant explains, in opening up culture to the voices of female and black writers, in some cases this was done to the exclusion of “equally brilliant and historically important white male” writers (1994, xi), with racial and sexual equality perceived as being achieved through the imposition of rules which seem to censor counter voices. More broadly, the Left criticised PC for its concerns with what could be perceived as trivial or irrelevant issues, compared with the more pressing questions of poverty and detrimental economic policies. However, anti-PC discourses are most frequently employed by the political Right. The GLC was disbanded by the Thatcher government of the 1980s, but the legacy of the “loony left” label is one that continues to this day in terms of the tropes it throws up. A common story in the media in the 1980s related to the over-enthusiastic, anti-racist primary school teachers who “banned” the nursery rhyme Baa, Baa, Black Sheep. In fact, the story arises from one nursery school in Birmingham, UK, attempting to make the song more inclusive by replacing “black” with “little”. The song was not banned, but simply reworded. As Stuart Hall comments, such vicious reports are difficult to counter because “there was just enough truth in the stories in a few instances to sustain media amplification” (1994, p. 173). As mentioned earlier, issues relating to gender equality are often reframed in a negative way as being “politically correct”. We often find political correctness appearing in print in frames such as “political correctness gone mad”, where the concept is the active agent, seemingly in a very powerful position both linguistically and metaphorically. This has

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been explored in its wider context, where issues of equality in terms of gender and race are seen as targets for the anti-PC brigade (see Montgomery et  al. 2019). The notion of “post-truth” politics (Montgomery 2017) is relevant here, as it entails the personal authenticity of speakers being treated as more important than fact, and in this way “speaking your mind” becomes more important than truth. This “authentic voice” in the guise of Piers Morgan will be the focus of this article, and the “truth” he is seeking to overrule is that spoken by gender equality campaigners such as Emma Watson. In Talbot’s (2007, p.  759) terms, this “snarl word” of is used to devalue and dismiss messages of political correctness, often by attacking the individual who is perceived to representing this idea. One such person who comes in for a great deal of comment is Emma Watson.

Methodological Approach As explored above, political correctness is a discursive construction. In critical discourse analysis, the term “discourse” is used in the dual senses of it relating to situated verbal interaction, and in the more Foucaultian sense it refers to historically constituted sets of statements, including specific words and phrases as well as other semantic properties (Fairclough 2012). In the case of political correctness, these semantic properties include the general notion of “common sense” being overturned in favour of pandering to minority interests that disrupt the status quo. This chapter will employ an analytical model that allows us here to explore these wider social conditions of political correctness. The text chosen is written by journalist Piers Morgan who is well known as being a “straight-talker”, his writing style employing what Fairclough refers to as “conversationalisation” (2012). This is the “colonization of public orders of discourse by the discursive practices of the private sphere” (1995, p. 19). By the “private sphere”, Fairclough is referring to the linguistic features associated with informal, conversational language practices. When employed in a mass media text, such as a TV programme or book, where the text will be consumed by spatially and temporally distant audiences, this forms part of what Fairclough terms “synthetic personalisation”. This is the

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“compensatory tendency to give the impression of treating each of the people ‘handled’ en masse as an individual” (2012, p. 52). Synthetic personalisation, in Fairclough’s terms, is the linguistic strategy employed by authors to produce something akin to the voice of a friend. He refers to it as “a major strand in the systematic restructuring of the societal order of discourse” (2012, p. 179). By using linguistic features that are closely aligned with those of informal spoken interaction, we can be persuaded of the authenticity and sincerity of the unknown other to such a degree that we can regard them as a friend who can give us advice and help without resorting to bullying or lecturing. This strategy of conversationalisation is one that Morgan uses, as we will see, where he presents his views as being sincere and authentic because they exist outside the realm of formal journalistic style. In using these analytical models, we will explore in some depth the article by Morgan about Emma Watson and her pro-gender equality stance, as it appeared in the Daily Mail. We will see how Morgan draws on three different strategies to engage with anti-PC discourses, as discussed more generally above, in order to engage his readers with a disapproval bordering on incredulity that gender equality has extended thus far.

Anti-PC Disengagements In March 2017, Watson was interviewed by Derek Blasberg for Vanity Fair magazine. In that interview, she reiterated the main points that she had raised in her HeForShe launch speech, explaining how she was very proud of her input to the live-action musical Beauty and the Beast, which was to be released later that month. Watson had influenced a modification in the character she played, Belle, to change her from being a passive assistant to her inventor father to being the main inventor in the film. She also described how she had suggested changes in the costume to make it more practical for such a character. This interview also repeated the story that Watson’s “red carpet” outfits are ethically and environmentally sourced. The strong feminist message of the interview was reflected in the styling of the photographs, which were largely in black and white by Tim Walker and drew on the feminist fantasy novel, The Magic Toyshop

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by Angela Carter. Of the dozen photos in this spread, one drew more attention than any other: Watson was shown modelling a crochet cape by Burberry with visible cleavage. Very quickly, wider media picked on this single photograph, decontextualised it and routinely labelled it as “topless”, so apparently contradicting her feminist voice. The criticism was based on the resurgent feminist campaigns around MeToo, where the sexualisation of the female body was central to many of the messages, as we saw earlier. As such, this apparent self-sexualisation of her body was taken to be a failure on the part of a self-declared feminist. As Watson continued to do the rounds of chat shows to promote Beauty and the Beast, her clothes were, as usual, part of the discussion. One Daily Mail (7 March 2017) headline referred to her in the subheading as “Watson flaunts her lean legs in tiny mini-skirt and edgy biker jacket as she jets out of LA to continue Beauty and the Beast promo tour”, with the opening sentence declaring “Her feminist stance has recently come under fire after she posed topless for Vanity Fair”, before continuing the sexualisation of her body by referring to her being “all smiles as she put on a leggy statement in a green chequered mini-skirt”. In addition to the sexualisation of Watson’s body, there is a clear connection with her feminist standpoint. She is “under fire” from anonymous attackers with the juxtaposition of “feminist stance” (and its implicit connection with Second Wave Feminist campaigns against the sexualisation of the female body) and “posed topless”, which has the effect of making her appear hypocritical. This is enhanced by main headline which employs the main verb “flaunt” that sexualises her own body through her choice of clothing. The following day, when Watson appeared in a trouser suit, the headline rearticulates the Vanity Fair story as an attack which Watson has to defend herself against: “Emma Watson wears two business-like outfits for TV appearance after defending herself as a feminist amid backlash over braless shots” (Daily Mail, 8 March 2017). Even though Watson was dressed in a masculine outfit, the headline refers to her elsewhere as “braless”, before the article creates a sense of sexual allure by referring to “a hint of her lacy black bra” visible under her jacket. Neither of these articles discussed what Watson had said in relation to her Vanity Fair interview; instead both focus on the sexualisation of her body both in retrospect

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and in relation to the contemporary pictures that accompany the news articles. In addition, none of these articles bothered to reference the context of the original, and when the feminist message embedded in the Vanity Fair article was mentioned, it was always used to provide a contradiction to her avowed feminist views, thus undermining her sincerity. One such article is an opinion piece of provocative Daily Mail columnist, Piers Morgan, that appeared on 8 May 2017 and actually followed Watson’s appearance at the MTV awards ceremony the previous day. The 2017 MTV awards had joined a burgeoning movement to increase gender equality in the film industry by introducing the first major award for an actor based on gender-neutral factors. Thus there was no distinction made between male and female leading actors: just one award. Emma Watson became the first recipient of this, based on not only her performance as Belle in Beauty and the Beast, but the feminist influence she has exerted over that film’s adaptation of the original Disney animation. In her acceptance speech, she acknowledged the significance of this, stating that this was part of a movement “towards valuing human experience”, and encouraged the move to focus on talent collectively rather than separation of talent based on sex grouping. In this way, Watson was drawing on the argument most famously put forward by Judith Butler that gender is a social construct rather than being biologically determined. However, within society there are people who are unable to recognise gender beyond the social approach and believe in biological essentialism: the view that gender is solely categorised by sex. One person who clearly is unwilling to accept gender as anything other than an essentially biological factor is Piers Morgan, whose article appeared the following day under the provocative headline: “It’s a pity there’s no award for the most pompous, politically-correct personality on the planet because Emma Watson would be shoe-in, whatever gender she claims to be” (Daily Mail, 8 May 2017). The main issue that this chapter will explore, however, is the use of “political correctness” as what Mary Talbot refers to as a “snarl word” (2007, p. 759) to negatively evaluate the sincere issues of gender equality that Watson and MTV were actually extolling.

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It is the hyperbole of the Right that Piers Morgan adopts in his article about Watson and is clearly seen here in the use of “PC” in the headline to his article where the implication is that Watson is living on a fantasy planet where the unrealistic dream of gender equality is left to run rampant. But there is also an element of truth in what he says, thus linking with Hall’s comment about such stories being difficult to counter. Indeed, as we shall see, such use of PC articulates a strong resistance to change, subtly allowing “authors to bring sexist attitudes into play without having to accept personal responsibility for those attitudes” (Talbot 2010, p. 240).

Distancing Strategies Morgan’s article is written in a very chatty, conversational style. Norman Fairclough (1989) refers to such strategies as “synthetic personalisation”, the process by which a text can seemingly address individual readers as a friend. Central to this is a linguistic style that copies many of the chatty, informal elements of spoken language and thus appears more sincere and friendly. This propels the reader into the position of someone who agrees with the ethos of a text’s messages, and so it is with this article, where the anti-PC message is articulated at the level of common sense. In referring to Watson’s MTV speech, he says: “Even by Ms Watson’s standards of jabbering, PC-crazed nonsense, she’s now excelled herself ”. The reformulation of her speech as “nonsense” immediately dismisses it as not containing a serious message, but this is also premodified with the belittling adjective “jabbering” before echoes of the “loony Left” emerge with “PC-crazed”. This reduces Watson’s speech to the level of gibberishness, completely ignoring the dominant discourse of gender equality that links with PC.  This is an approach he maintains, even in quoting from Watson’s speech: ‘The first acting award in history that doesn’t separate nominees based on their sex says something about how we perceive the human experience,’ Ms Watson said. It certainly does, yes. It says to me that we’ve all gone completely bloody bonkers.

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Here, Morgan appears to interact with Watson, his “it certainly does, yes”, seeming to agree with Watson’s point about such awards marking a shift in our understanding of gender equality. However, rather than the preferred implicature of this being a good thing, Morgan then follows it up with a comment directed at his readers (signalled by “we”, which obviously would not include Watson) that the implicature is one of insanity. This is represented as being so incendiary that Morgan has resorted to mild expletives that alliterate with the folksy “bonkers” to highlight the absurdity of the award. His argument then opens to one of PC more widely in relation to gender equality. He adopts a strategy of self-depreciation to reinforce his point about traditional models of gender: I come from an increasingly unfashionable school of thought that says there are just two genders: male and female.

Note, however, that he refers to this as “unfashionable” rather than “unreasonable”. Here, he is drawing on the notion that PC is prescribing rules of thought and behaviour about gender, and he is as one of the brave few who will stand up against such curtailment. He does this by a process of double-voicing, which Judith Baxter (2014) describes as a complex strategy that can be used to avoid overt confrontation (such as overt sexism). She comments that “double-voicing is closely implicated with the ways in which power relations are constructed between speakers according to the interplay of social categories such as gender, age, ethnicity, profession and status” (2014, p.  3). Such strategies include token agreement, which is what we see Morgan is doing here. I am 100 percent in favour of full gender equality between men and women, and fully supportive of those who wish to transgender because they feel they were born the wrong sex. But I am 100 opposed to the concept of there being 157 different ways (at last count) to ‘self-identify’ one’s gender, and equally opposed to the consequential rising demand for ‘gender neutrality’.

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Here, Morgan is constructing a “yes, but …” argument, initially agreeing with the gender equality discourse that is at the heart of Western societies, including the more recent acceptance of transgender people. However, he then switches to constrain such liberality of thought by setting it against the hyperbole of there being 157 different genders. Whilst offering no evidence of this actually being the case, it is still rooted in a modicum of fact. In 2014, for example, Facebook upgraded its software to allow users to choose from “71 different genders”. However, on closer inspection these are actually much smaller in number with many of the new options actually being variants on the names chosen rather than the gender available (such as cisgender female/cisgender woman, cis female/cis woman). So, as with Stuart Hall’s point about anti-PC stories often being grounded in truth, we can see this happening with Morgan’s double-­ voicing strategy. Throughout this article, Morgan adopts a distancing strategy to signal lack of engagement with the language surrounding gender equality. The strategy of using quotation marks outside of the convention of reported speech is one that is available on the printed page and allows the writer to show that these are not their own words. Gaye Tuchman (1972), in her research into the language of newspapers, refers to these as a signalling device to distance the authorial voice from the sentiment expressed and thus to question its legitimacy. Systematically, Morgan’s article uses this to highlight “gender-neutral”, “self-identify” and “non-binary”, which are the main features of this move towards gender equality that the MTV award is engaging with. In this way, we are invited to question the validity of such terms and thus by implication the validity of the concept itself, and as such they become “snarl words” in the same dismissive way as “political correctness”. Another linguistic feature associated with conversationalisation that Morgan uses is that of using question formulations. In a printed text, there is no interaction, particularly where the writer and the reader are most usually spatially and temporally distant. The use of questions in such contexts is a feature of simulated interaction and effectively calls on the reader to respond to a specific point made in the text, thus engaging more fully with the argument of the writer. Morgan continues his earlier

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complaint about “self-identifying” one’s gender, building up a series of points of increasing incredulity that are nevertheless grounded in some fact: Things are getting so ridiculous now, it won’t be long before Lady Gaga demands maternity units where it is forbidden to say if you have had a boy or a girl because of the baby is unable to ‘self-identify’. Think I’m kidding? In Cardiff, Wales, a university recently tried to have the word ‘mankind’ banned in case it offended anyone. Is ‘woman’ next for the PC chop because it contains ‘man’? Where does this madness end? Not with Emma Watson, that’s for sure.

Here, the campaign towards gender equality is demeaned as “ridiculous”, supported by a hypothetical and entirely unrealistic suggestion that children will no longer be designated by binary gender distinctions at birth because of some hypothetical drive by feminist campaigner Lady Gaga. The ridiculousness of such a suggestion is anticipated by Morgan, who immediately follows this with a question that pre-empts a supposed disbelieving response from the reader. To support the notion behind this attack, Morgan then offers another anecdote from “real life”. However, on inspection, this anecdote is actually not reporting a change in language at Cardiff University, but is reporting an attempt to do this (triggered by “tried”). In light of the rise of awareness of gender equality issues in language since the 1970s, it is more likely that gender-neutral language policies were simply being extended with a proposal to change “mankind” to “humanity”. This relates to the next question, which again is based on the truth of there being campaigns in the 1970s to adopt a more general neutral language as described by linguistics such as Dale Spender (1980), Deborah Cameron (1995) and Sara Mills (2008), and is explicitly linked to political correctness. The final question in this sequence leads up back to the notion of gender equality and political correctness being so far removed from common sense that they can only be accounted for as symptoms of insanity, bringing the argument back to Emma Watson as the embodiment of this, later describing her as a “rabid feminist”.

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Morgan uses the strategy of simulated interaction in his continued attack on Watson, conflating her feminist credentials with her personal appearance. This begins with his appraisal of her outfit as worn to the MTV awards ceremony. As mentioned previously, Watson is very careful in her choice of “red carpet” clothes, always choosing something that is ethically sourced. However, this is not a fact that Morgan chooses to pick up on. Instead, he writes: Last night, I noticed Ms Watson wore quite an eye-catching racy outfit to accept her gender-neutral award. Wouldn’t it have been more appropriate if she had worn gender-neutral clothes? Or would that not, as she well knows, have garnered her the global media coverage that she so aggressively covets with her body—as we saw when she recently went topless for Vanity Fair: Hot, leggy, sparkly number = lots of attention. Dull, black trouser-­ suit … not so much.

Aside from the fact that accompanying photos show Watson dressed in an asymmetrical gown that reveals one shoulder and one leg up to her knee, the male gaze explicitly offered by Morgan sexualises Watson through her clothes. The gown is described as “eye-catching”, implying that this is deliberately designed to catch the male gaze. It is also “racy”, which is synonymous with sexy but also improper dress. We found this was a strategy used elsewhere in this newspaper earlier in this chapter, in relation to the news headlines where her outfits were being described in a way that sexualised her body. This links with the mocking disapproval Morgan then claims through his following questions. The double bind that Gill notes above is apparent here, with Morgan accusing Watson of double standards. He draws on the old Second Wave Feminist stereotype of women who aspired to gender-neutral clothing in an attempt to deflect the male gaze. Morgan is assuming that feminists can’t be attractive or enjoy wearing glamorous clothes. However, he takes this further as he refers back to the Vanity Fair article from three months earlier. As with other journalists, he avoids engaging in the interview that went with that article or the styling behind the photographs. Instead, he viciously attacks Watson for the “topless” photo (as discussed earlier, she was not topless in this photo), for “aggressively coveting” media attention by sexualising her

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own body. His final list to describe her outfit repeats his earlier assessment of it as “racy” but in a more positive, sexualised way as “hot, leggy, sparkly number”, which he offers as evidence to attract more attention than a supposed gender-neutral outfit of “dull, black trouser-suit”. The fact that a trouser suit is not “gender neutral” but actually very masculine is lost on Morgan, who is equally blind of the nuances of Watson’s actual dress code. In fact, as we saw earlier, even when Watson has appeared in trouser suits, the media is still intent on finding a sexualising angle. As with Hall’s point about there being an element of truth in such vicious attacks, what Watson is attempting to do by wearing a glamorous outfit is drawing attention not to herself but to the ethical causes she supports. Aware that the male gaze is still very much part of public life for actors, as her Vanity Fair interview highlighted, she is making the best of this but also leaving herself open to the sort of criticism that Morgan exercises here. By using Watson’s own body as the basis of his argument, Morgan is again able to distance himself from accusations of sexism.

Naming Practices As the above example shows, Morgan has chosen to refer to Watson as “Ms Watson” in this article. Many feminists have pointed to the problem of titles of women. The need to choose Mrs, Miss or Ms to represent themselves is one that many women find problematic as it carries with it assumptions about marital status, or political (feminist) beliefs that are simply not present in the single male title, Mr. This is something many female academics find. At a recent hospital appointment, I was asked by the receptionist if I was Mrs or Miss: my response asking if she wanted my marital status or my title baffled her. However, aside from individual choices, the way the media use the Ms title can be used pointedly to criticise women. Claire Walsh (2001), in her study of representations of female politicians in the British media, found that when prominent women were being criticised in the media, they were often referred to as Ms. Thus we can add the strategic use of Ms to our list of snarl words, along with PC, which is what Morgan does throughout the article under discussion here.

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Beyond titles, the move towards gender equality has included changes in language to make it more gender neutral in other ways. One way is to remove the -ess suffix from occupational titles where the root is gender neutral but generally regarded as male, for example, actor/actress. This is an issue Morgan picks up on in the first sentence of his article: Every I time I hear actress—sorry, gender-equal actor—Emma Watson pontificate in public these days.

Here, we see again the linguistic features of conversational language through the representation of a false start. This gives the sentence an air of authenticity and sincerity: here is someone who is aware of gender marking and is making amends to rectify his language before our very eyes. But this is a written text, open to repeated drafting and redrafting. Such reformulations could be easily erased in the editing process. It is placed here, strategically in the first sentence, to act as a signalling device in the same way as the scare quotes we looked at earlier. In the rest of the article, Watson is referred to as “actress” in one picture caption, but there are no other references to her by her profession. Where the term is used again is in reference to Asia Kate Dillon, who is a non-binary actor referred to here as “actor/actress”. This hedging again serves to highlight the distance that Morgan is adopting from accepting gender-neutral language and operates in a similar way to double-voicing. Morgan continues his article with a longer discussion of the film Beauty and Beast, taking issue with the gender politics of this fairy tale. He links Watson inextricably into these traditional gender politics, with the observation that “Beauty” (or, in this film, Belle) is based on a classically attractive model of femininity, whilst Beast is based on the stereotype of lack of attractiveness being associated with evil. Given that this version of the story was based closely on the earlier Disney animation, to have attempted to change the gender politics in a more radical way would have lost the intertextual link within the franchise. However, as Watson had explained in her Vanity Fair interview, she had been instrumental in changing the role of her character to be more proactive and practical. Morgan picks up on the main point here:

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Ms Watson, being an ardent feminist, demanded Disney turn her version of Belle into an ‘inventor’. Very laudable, but what did she invent? Ah yes, a washing machine. So she could do even more housework in a more efficient way!

Morgan’s apparent positive appraisal of Watson as an “ardent feminist” is short-lived as he turns her into a strident advocate for women’s rights by “demanding” rather than suggesting or proposing. He again employs scare quotes to distance himself from the role of inventor for this film character, showing distrust. His compliment is also short-lived, with a double-voiced strategy of constraint included in the question. Once again employing conversational features, he includes a spoken marker of surprise/realisation, which he explains by adopting an apparently feminist approach himself to the domestic concept of inventing a washing machine, emphasising this by including an exclamation point at the end. This shows how Morgan is again drawing on the double standards he claims Watson is exhibiting. The final part of the article against political correctness that Morgan offers returns to his earlier point about the ridiculous extremes this could reach. In going back to the MTV award Watson had received, historic for its gender-neutral Best Actor category, he draws on the common-sense argument once more: But here’s the real problem with trying to create a gender-neutral competitive world: it will never work. Why? Well, let’s take Ms Watson’s thinking to its natural conclusion. If she truly wants gender-neutral competition then she should include the Olympic Games in her campaign. […] When you put the strongest, most powerful and fastest men up against their female equivalents, the men will invariably win. So every single medal podium in the gender-neutral Olympics would be men-only. I think we can all confidently predict what Emma Watson would scream about that: ‘SEXISM!’

Here, we have lost the scare quotes around the term gender-neutral, adding a more sincere, less playful tone to the article. Morgan builds up the common-sense argument by referring to the outcomes as the “natural

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conclusion”. However, what the bid for gender equality leads to is a victory for men who are biologically stronger and faster than most women of a comparable level of training when it comes to sport. Few if any campaigners for gender equality have suggested that there should be equality in competitive sport aside from the money available to people irrespective of gender. Morgan challenges Watson to be “true” to the aims of gender equality and press for this to include sport, and in labelling it as “her” campaign, he is again legitimising his attacks on her throughout this article as she is the figurehead of the political correctness campaign HeForShe. Like all of his vicious arguments, it is based on fact. The final sentence of this article places Watson back into the category of rabid feminist as she “screams ‘SEXISM!’”. This is emphasised by the use of capitalisation and an exclamation point, both linguistic features that enhance the force and drama of an utterance.

Conclusions We can see that gender equality has risen to the top of the agenda when it comes to popular culture. The Disney film Beauty and the Beast, that is central to Watson’s media attention in this case study, is a live-action remake of an animation that was released in 1991, and the shift in gender equality discourses in the intervening years that are evident in the changes credited to Watson shows how far we have come in accepting these views as main stream. Since the 1970s, gender equality has had an effect on language (such as the introduction of Ms as a title of women, and the move to avoid gender-marking in occupational titles) and more recently, as with the MTV awards in 2017, had led to the inaugural Best Actor category that was gender neutral. Whilst the popularity of this discourse has led to it being regarded at the level of common sense in many contexts, the fact that the United Nations felt the need to raise this issue further with its HeForShe campaign from 2014 onwards indicates the necessity of pursuing this. Emma Watson is an actor who famously grew up in the public eye after being cast as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter films at the age of 11. In appearing on red carpet premiers from such a young age, she had developed an awareness of how much attention

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was paid to her physical appearance and decided to do something positive about this and use the inevitable attention to promote causes close to her heart. Many of these are related to her feminist ideas and led to her being selected by the United Nations to be the public face of their HeForShe campaign. The fact that gender equality issues have continued to be criticised as being symptoms of political correctness allows right-­ wing conservatives such as Piers Morgan to attack the actions of those who strive for such equality by adopting the strategies of blame and constraint that we have seen in this article. The concept of political correctness is one that encompasses a range of liberal views and, as discussed above, is virtually never used in a positive sense. To give another example from the pen of Piers Morgan, in part of his long-running animosity towards former actor Meghan Markle, he chose to attack her husband, Prince Harry, by diagnosing him as suffering from “the dreadful politically correct disease” which has turned him into a “preposterously worthy, do-gooding, virtue-signalling fun-slayer” (Daily Mail, 11 March 2019). However, in the case of this use of the politically correct label, it is not his gender that is the target of Morgan’s pen, but Harry’s work for environmental charities. This use fits more into the picture of Western politics being in the grip of a renewed period of right-wing government, particularly those that are preaching aggressive free market economics and reduced government welfare, issues of race and gender (issues generally associated with the Left) had been more or less knocked off the political agenda. New snarl words comprising key terms in gender equality—non-binary, gender-neutral—are emerging to dismiss the central aims of intersectional feminism. As noted by Montgomery et al. (2019), the turmoil in Westernised world since the financial crisis of 2008 can be linked to further instability in the form of the global rise of the Populist Right, and so it is hardly surprising that voices on the Right should seek to reclaim language for itself through claims to be the authentic voice of the people (hence Trump’s claim to his own supporters “I will be your voice”). One kind of claim for authenticity is precisely through pushing back—offensively—against the niceties of political correctness and its restrictions on ordinary speech. (2019, p. 42)

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That said, the MeToo campaign is one very public symbol of how social movements are attempting to put issues of gender equality back on the agenda, and as we have seen here, where traditional stereotypes of gendered behaviour are ruptured, they can be the source of both celebration and criticism.

References Banet-Weiser, Sarah. 2018. Empowered: Popular feminism and popular misogyny. Durham: Duke University Press. Baxter, Judith 2014. Double-voicing at Work: Power, Gender and Linguistic Expertise. London: Macmillan. Cameron, Deborah. 1995. Verbal Hygiene. London: Routledge. Dunant, Sarah, ed. 1994. The war of the words: The political correctness debate. London: Virago. Fairclough, Norman. 1989. Language and power. Harlow: Pearson Education. ———. 2012. Critical discourse analysis. Harlow: Longman. Gill, Rosalind. 2007. Gender and the media. London: Polity. ———. 2016. Post-postfeminism?: new feminist visibilities in postfeminist times. Feminist Media Studies 16 (4): 610–630. ———. 2011. Sexism reloaded, or, it’s time to get angry again! Feminist Media Studies 11 (1): 61–61. Hall, S. 1994. ‘Some “politically incorrect” pathways through PC’ in Dunant. Mills, Sara. 2008. Language and sexism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Montgomery, Martin. 2017. Post-truth politics? Authenticity, populism and the political discourses of Donald Trump. Journal of Language and Politics 16 (4): 619–639. Montgomery, Martin, Michael Higgins, and Angela Smith. 2019. Political offensiveness in the mediated public sphere: The performative play of alignments. In Media and the politics of offence, ed. Anne Graefer. Abingdon: Palgrave. Smith, Angela. 2018. Gender in “crisis”, everyday sexism and the Twittersphere. In Crisis in the media, ed. Marianna Patrona. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Spender, Dale. 1980. Man Made Language. London: Routledge. Talbot, Mary. 2007. Political correctness and freedom of speech. In Handbook of language and communication: Diversity and change, ed. M.  Hellinger and A. Pauwels, 751–764. New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

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Talbot, Mary. (1998, 2nd edition 2010). Language and gender: an introduction. Cambridge: Polity. Tuchman, Gaye. 1972. Objectivity as strategic ritual: An examination of newsmen’s notions of objectivity. American Journal of Sociology 77 (4): 660–679. Walsh, Claire. 2001. Gender and discourse: Language and power in politics, the church and organisations. Harlow: Longman/Pearson. Williamson, J. 2003. Sexism with an alibi. The Guardian, 31 May.

8 Agreement and Disagreement About Social Changes Regarding Saudi Women on Twitter Wjoud Almadani

Introduction The succession of Prince Salman Bin Abdul Aziz to the throne of Saudi Arabia following the death of his brother, Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz, marked significant changes to Saudi Arabian society, particularly with regard to the codes of conduct required of Saudi women. Together with his son, Mohammed Bin Salman, who was appointed Crown Prince, the new King set out to remove the bans on Saudi women’s freedom of movement including the ban on Saudi women driving, going to football stadiums and appearing on stage with men. These changes incited a massive response on social media from the Saudi people. For and against hashtags began to appear on the social platform Twitter. This chapter analyses the arguments for and against which appeared in the tweets covering three specific themes marked by the following

W. Almadani (*) Shaqra University, Shaqra, Saudi Arabia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Smith (ed.), Gender Equality in Changing Times, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26570-0_8

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hashtags: #WomenDrivingCars (‫قيادة_المرأة_للسياره‬#), #FamiliesEntering TheStadium (‫دخول_العائالت_للمالعب‬#) and #WomenOnTheSaudiStage (‫المرأة_عالمسرح_السعودي‬#).

Women’s Status in Saudi Arabia The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was established in 1932 and holds a high rank in the Islamic world due to the fact that it has two holy places in Mecca and Al Madina. The political system is founded upon the conservative Islamic Wahabi Salafi doctrine (Almahmoud 2015, p.  3; Bahammam 2018, p. 8). The period between 1970 and 1990 saw a reaction to the openness of the West, provoking an increase in the powers of the religious establishment and the creation of an Islamic extremist movement called Awakening or “Sahawa” (Al Maghlouth 2017, p. 4; Altoaimy 2017, p. 18; Bahammam 2018, p. 8). This movement gained political support and, through its influence on daily life in Saudi Arabia, helped to create a new Saudi identity (Altoaimy 2017, p. 18; Bahammam 2018, p. 8). This religious establishment had total control over the educational and legal systems (Altoaimy 2017, p.  17). Since it opposes men and women mixing in private and public spaces, it created a system of gender segregation in education—meaning that male and female students had to study in separate schools. Governmental offices were also segregated by gender, leading to men and women working in different buildings (Al Maghlouth 2017, p. 4). Saudi society was also controlled by this establishment, which sought to ensure that Saudi people abide by ideal Islamic behaviour (Altoaimy 2017, p. 17; Bahammam 2018, p. 8). One of the main aims of conservative Saudi males and females within this establishment is to control women. These conservatives do not believe in gender equality. They view gender equality as a concept which belongs to Western ideology and they believe that it would lead to the loss of Muslim women’s integrity and dignity whilst increasing their social responsibilities. They believe that men and women must not have the same role and cannot sit in the same seat (Pharaon 2004, p. 357). This ideology had a huge influence on the life of Saudi women. All Saudi women, regardless of their class, race and cultural background, faced

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gender inequality (Hamdan 2005, p.  46). Women could not learn in schools, be medically treated, hold down a job, travel abroad or leave prison without permission from their guardians, which may include father, husband, brother or son (Altoaimy 2017, p. 20). They could not access legal channels to ask for justice without permission from their guardians (Alhareth et al. 2015, p. 123). Saudi women did not have personal ID; they had to use the National Family Card (Altoaimy 2017, p. 21). Also, they were not permitted to drive and were kept at home and allowed only limited public access (Alsaleh 2012, p. 125; Almahmoud 2015, p. 3; Bahammam 2018, p. 8). If women needed to go out without their guardians, they usually had to hire a foreign or non-Saudi driver, the salary of whom was usually very high and whose driving habits were often extremely poor—with some known to be guilty of verbal and physical harassment (Altoaimy 2017, p. 161). There were social groups that did not agree with this movement in Saudi Arabia, but there was no overt public resistance until the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001 in the United States (Altoaimy 2017, p. 18). This incident created intensive international pressure on the Kingdom to pay more attention to radical conservative ideology. As a result, Saudi Arabia made a huge effort to oversee Islamic school activities, develop school curriculums and give women more political and social rights (Hamdan 2005, p. 56; Altoaimy 2017, p. 24; Bahammam 2018, p. 8). The reason for giving women more rights is to seek more gendered balance in the society, therefore reducing the hypermasculinity that could have been seen to have caused the acts of violence. Saudi Arabia thus began to make noticeable progress on improving women’s social status and ensuring gender equality. In 2012, a programme to empower Saudi women was created in order to encourage women to participate in public life. Before 2012, women were required to stay at home, taking care of their husbands and children, or encouraged to work in schools and hospitals. However, the programme encouraged women to work in unconventional mixed environments, such as at sales points and administration offices, and to obtain commercial licenses to establish their own businesses (Al Maghlouth 2017, p. 8; Bahammam 2018, p. 11). During this time, King Abdullah developed women’s political rights by appointing 12 female councillors to the Monarchy Advisory

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Board and appointing a female Minister of Education (Al Maghlouth 2017, p. 6; Bahammam 2018, p. 30). In addition, women were encouraged to pursue higher education. This led to Saudi Arabia having more female than male students at the tertiary education level. In 2013, 60% of university students across the country were women, and the rate of female enrolment in tertiary education institutions in Saudi was the highest in the world, exceeding that of the United States and Western European countries (Jamjoom and Kelly 2013, p.  121). Furthermore, women are now allowed to pursue studies abroad (Hamdan 2005, p. 59; Jamjoom and Kelly 2013, p.  121). As a result, more than 20% of all Saudi students who hold overseas scholarships are women (Jamjoom and Kelly 2013, p. 121). Also, in 2012, two Saudi female athletes were sent to compete in the Olympics, something that would never have been allowed under the conservative establishment (Al Maghlouth 2017, p. 8). In 2015, King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman drew up a plan called Saudi Vision 2030, which aims to reduce the country’s reliance on oil. The vision will not be achievable unless the conservative establishment is eliminated (Altoaimy 2017, p.  25). This political change will benefit Saudi women. It means that women will not only have their own ID but also have the authority to issue a family ID card and register the birth and death of members of their family (Altoaimy 2017, p. 21; Bahammam 2018, p. 30). It would also mean that women can have access to education and health services and work opportunities without their guardian’s permission. Changes made in 2017 and 2018 meant that they were allowed to drive, to share the stage with men and enter a football stadium and to obtain a passport or travel abroad without guardianship permission. Furthermore, state schools started to offer physical education lessons to female students.

Saudi Women and Twitter Twitter is a social media platform which attracts both Saudi men and women. Although Twitter is regulated by the Saudi cybercriminal law, the number of active users on this platform is increasing rapidly (Altoaimy 2017, p. 201; Kinninmont 2013, p. 2). In 2012, Dick Costolo, the CEO

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of Twitter, indicated that the Saudi Arabia Twitter community was the fastest growing in the world. Also, Riyadh, the capital city of Saudi Arabia, was the tenth most actively tweeting city in the world and 29% of active Twitter accounts were owned by Saudis (Kinninmont 2013, p. 2). The majority of Saudi Twitter users are aged between 18 and 55, and approximately half of Saudi Twitter users are women (Altoaimy 2018, p. 3). Twitter is an empowerment tool for most disadvantaged people around the world, including Saudi women, who had been silenced for a long time (Altoaimy 2017, p. 4). The features of Twitter, such the ability of men and women to interact with one another with anonymity, encourage women to participate in this social space. It gives them the space to discuss their rights and local Saudi issues with an international audience (Bahammam 2018, p. 14). Because Saudi women have few opportunities for political and civil participation and limited access to formal media, they—particularly the new generation—use Twitter as a public discursive space to voice their opinion and demonstrate their frustration and dissatisfaction with issues related to gender inequality (Altoaimy 2017, p. 4). One of the main gender issues discussed on Twitter is women driving. On the platform, a group of Saudi women drivers encouraged other women to drive, opposing decision-makers and religious scholars and highlighting the inconsistencies of their stance forbidding women from driving. This includes the fact that women are permitted to hire foreign drivers, and to sit alone in a car with these men, while concurrently opposing the genders mixing, considering it to be sinful. These women believed that if the segregation of the genders is a genuine Islamic value, women should be permitted to drive their own car, rather than having to sit alone in a car with a male non-family member (Altoaimy 2017, p. 148). This female movement gained the attention of the national and international media (Almahmoud 2015, p. 3). Saudi women have taken to creating hashtags to shed light on gender inequality issues in their country. They are drawing attention to legal and cultural issues such as the plight of unmarried Saudi women and women’s vote in municipal elections (Altoaimy 2018, p. 2; Bahammam 2018, p. 14).

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Description of the Study This study explores the arguments made in agreement and disagreement with three decisions relating to Saudi women made by King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman in 2017 and 2018. The announcement permitting women to drive was in September 2017 and the activation of the decision was in January 2018. The decision to allow women into football stadiums was made in October 2017 and it was activated in January 2018. Permission for women to enter the theatre with men and to act on stage with men was also granted in February 2018. Data for this study is collected from Twitter, focusing on the three relevant hashtags that were created by users, specifically: #WomenDrivingCars (#‫)قيادة_المراه_للسياره‬, which comprises Saudi’s views on women being permitted to drive; #FamiliesEnteringTheStadium (#‫)دخول_العائالت_للمالعب‬, which encompasses Saudi people’s reactions to women being allowed to enter stadiums to watch football matches; and #WomenOnTheSaudiStage (#‫)المرأة_عالمسرح_السعودي‬, which is linked to a new regulation granting Saudi women permission to act in public theatres. Also, the influence of gender on agreement and disagreement will be discussed in this study.

On Defining Agreement and Disagreement Agreeing is a commissive illocutionary act (Bach 2002, p.  151); it is immediate and simple (Georgakopoulou 2001, p. 1882). Disagreeing is a constative illocutionary act (Bach 2002, p. 151); it is a verbal or nonverbal ‘oppositional stance’ to a verbal or nonverbal action (Kakavá 1993, p. 36). It is also an expression of a different opinion or belief that was articulated or given by another speaker (Edstrom 2004, p. 1499). These studies have described how agreement and disagreement are perceived. Brown and Levinson (1987, pp. 38–39) show that agreement is the preferred response and it supports the positive face. Disagreement occurs when the speaker thinks that the listener is wrong or misguided about certain issues and is a face-threatening act that indicates lack of care towards what the listener wants and needs (Brown and Levinson 1987, p.  66). In describing the Maxim of Politeness, Leech (1983,

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pp.  132–138) shows that people prefer to maximise agreement and should minimise disagreement and that they tend to exaggerate agreement and play down disagreement. In another more recent study, Leech (2005, p. 16) reiterates that agreement is desirable and must be enhanced through intensification, whereas disagreement should be mitigated, hedged and indirect. Also, he points out that disagreement is not preferred when the speaker responds to interlocutors’ opinion or judgement. Angouri and Locher (2012, p.  1551) view disagreement differently. They find that disagreement is perceived differently by people depending on their cultural norms and could be face-aggravating, face-maintaining or face-enhancing. For example, in Chinese culture, strong disagreement maintains face and relationships. It is a face-maintaining act more than a threatening act (Zhu 2014, p. 97). Angouri and Locher (2012, p. 1551) also indicate that disagreement is more accepted in some contexts than in others. Meanwhile, Shum and Lee (2013, p.  71) note a relationship between politeness and the appropriateness of disagreeing on an internet discussion forum, observing that disagreement is impolite, and thus not appropriate in online interaction, if it is expressed using short, vulgar phrases.

Methodology The data regarding the three hashtags relating to the three Saudi women’s rights mentioned above was collected from discourses on online news and the social media network, Twitter. Twitter was chosen because of its unique features and its popularity in Saudi Arabia. It is the tool for daily discussion, sharing information and reporting news (Java et  al. 2007, p. 63). It is also a source for information seekers as it considers one of the main online news distributors that is targeting individuals (Kinninmont 2013, p. 5). Twitter is one of the most popular social media networks since it includes around 830,291 Twitter accounts which were created in Saudi Arabia and Saudi Arabia is one of the top five Twitter-using countries in the Middle East (Kinninmont 2013, p. 3). Saudi people, including both men and women, use this online space heavily to discuss local issues.

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The three hashtags were specifically selected because they are related to the Royal decisions which exclusively related to women and their social rights in Saudi Arabia. Also, these hashtags are popular as they were used in well-known Saudi local news pages such as @Sabqorg, @HashKSA and @KSAnews. They are also chosen because they include tweets carrying a sense of argument and, thus, agreeing or disagreeing with the Royal decisions. The first hashtag, #WomenDrivingCars (#‫)قيادة_المراه_للسياره‬, was created in March 2018 and includes 301 tweets; this hashtag was created just after the activation of the decision after which women in Saudi Arabia started to hold a driving license and drive. The second hashtag, #FamiliesEnteringTheStadium (#‫)دخول_العائالت_للمالعب‬, was created in October 2017, just after the announcement of the decision by the Chairman of Sport, Turki Al-Sheikh, and it consists of 115 tweets. The last hashtag, #WomenOnTheSaudiStage (#‫)المرأة_عالمسرح_السعودي‬, was created in February 2018 and contains 363 tweets; it was created as a reaction towards the first female performance in The Emperor’s New Groove play that took place in Riyadh on the 9th and 10th of February 2018 (Table 8.1). After determining which hashtags are chosen, the tweets were extracted from Twitter to Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. As well as having the tweets, other information was provided, including the serial number of the tweets, participant name or nickname, gender, profile location, tweet links, type of dialect and the existence of agreement or disagreement. The focus was on tweets which came from Saudi accounts and were written by identified female and male interactants writing in the Saudi dialect. The account location was not only identified by the name of the country provided in the biography but also by the flag, or by the name of the city or region on the user profiles. Table 8.1  Date of creation of hashtags and number of tweets Hashtags

Number of Tweets in 2019

#WomenDrivingCars 301 #FamiliesEnteringTheStadium 115 #WomenOnTheSaudiStage 363

Date of creation

Location

24 March 2018 30 Oct 2017 7 Feb 2018

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia

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Also, Saudi dialect is recognised through vocabulary and Saudi morphosyntactic features. After identifying the tweets that originated from Saudi accounts and were written in a Saudi dialect by a person whose gender was known and included agreement and disagreement, the tweets were categorised into two types: mitigated tweets and aggravated tweets. Mitigated tweets are the ones which include polite agreement or disagreement but aggravated tweets involve aggressive, abusive and racist comments which come with disagreements. Besides, the examples below are selected because they reflect conservative and non-conservative perspectives towards the decisions.

Data Analysis and Findings Saudi Women Driving Cars Immediately following the decision to permit Saudi women to drive, those who held an international license were able to drive in the country and more than 120,000 additional women applied for a driving license. Before the ban on women driving was lifted, driver training centres were specifically allocated to train women to drive, and events about driving were held in Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam and Tabuk in order to promote an awareness of road safety and traffic law (Smith-Spark 2018) (Table 8.2). Table 8.2  Percentage of Saudi men and women expressing agreement and disagreement Agreement and disagreement Total of agreements Total of disagreements Total Male agreements Male disagreements Total Female agreements Female disagreements Total

#WomenDrivingCars F

%

32 9 41 18 7 25 14 2 16

78% 22% 100% 72% 28% 100% 87.5% 12.5% 100%

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The #WomenDrivingCars hashtag was created as a reaction towards women driving in Saudi Arabia and has 41 tweets that include either agreement or disagreement. The data indicates that more Saudi people agree that women should be permitted to drive (78%) than disagree (22%). In terms of gender, it appears that the percentage of Saudi men who agree is significantly higher (72%) than the percentage who disagree (28%). The analysis of tweets sent by females yields similar results. More than half of Saudi women agree that women should be allowed to drive a car. Below are examples of tweets that reflect agreement and disagreement.

Agreement with Permitting Women to Drive This section includes examples and an explanation of tweets sent by both men and women that reflect agreement with the decision to allow women to drive.

Statement of Agreement Made by Men

Thank Allah! I am very happy with this great and wonderful decision. Whenever I see the sisters (women) in the market driving their own cars, I am thrilled that they no longer need a chauffeur. In this tweet, the male Twitter user celebrates women’s liberation, referring to Saudi women who drive their own cars as ‘sisters’, thereby reflecting his solidarity and support of them. In his opinion, the lifting of the ban benefits women, since they are no longer vulnerable, powerless and forced to be accompanied by men wherever they go, as the conservatives prefer, but are independent and able to drive their own car, instead of relying on a chauffeur.

When a woman drives a car, it saves a lot of money, time and effort, and increases safety for an employed woman who needs to move from

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one place to another to get on with her personal life, shopping and home affairs. In contrast, the author of this tweet does not celebrate female liberation as in the previous example, rather he provides an economic argument in favour of Saudi women driving, indicating his agreement with the decision to lift the ban by listing the benefits of permitting women to drive and making a positive connection between the decision and money, time, effort and safety, in order to convince those who disagree with the decision, people who may believe that women driving will engender greater freedom for them and thereby engender their corruption.

Statement of Agreement Made by Women

This news makes me very happy. Where are the opponents! In a very short tweet, a female Twitter user expresses her agreement and she ends the tweet with a rhetorical question about the people who were against women driving before the decision was enacted. She poses the question to challenge the conservative people including sheiks or religious scholars who fell silent once the decision was made as they could not openly express disagreement with the Royal decision.

It is fair and just that a woman is able to drive her own car without the need to take a stranger with her wherever she goes. Thank Allah for this great decision. The author of this tweet focuses on women’s safety, as well as challenging the conservatives in Saudi society and demonstrating their inconsistency, since they oppose men and women who are unfamiliar with one another sitting together, fearing their corruption—but concurrently permit women to hire a man who is a stranger to act as a woman’s chauffeur. The name of Allah is employed in the tweet, as well as in the first example, to express happiness and joy. However, in the next tweets, which reflect conservative views, the name of Allah is employed to provoke fear.

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Disagreement with Permitting Women to Drive There are two types of disagreement in the data. These are mitigated and aggravated disagreement. Mitigated disagreement is expressed indirectly and politely; aggravated disagreement is expressed rudely and aggressively.

Mitigated Disagreement In this hashtag, both men and women produced mitigated disagreement. Examples are below.

Statement of Disagreement Made by Men

This experience has serious consequences, as it will increase the car accident rate that Westerns will be happy about. Allah Almighty says in the Quran to women, “And stay quietly in your houses, and make not a dazzling display, like that of the former Times of Ignorance”. I see that this is an act of disobedience to Allah and he will punish us with disasters. We live in the holy land of Saudi Arabia, which is not like other countries. This male Twitter user reflects his disagreement by bringing up what he perceives will be the negative consequences of this decision, which will please Westerners, who are considered by conservatives, Muslims’ enemies. He states that allowing women to drive will increase the car accident rate because either the number of drivers in Saudi Arabia will increase and as a result the accident rate will rise up, or he is most likely drawing on a stereotype of women being bad drivers which can be heard all over the world, including Saudi Arabia, especially in that Saudi men on Twitter were posting tweets and images that reflect bad driving habits of women just after the announcement of permitting women to drive. Then, the Twitter user follows the conservative discourse by quoting from the Quran to support his argument and encourages Muslim women to limit their public activity. He views women driving as an offence that will engender trouble for society.

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Most important is the Creator’s satisfaction and not the creation. The idea of Muslim women driving cars is inappropriate because it does not pay homage to the veil and modesty. The woman who fears Allah should not fear any human being, and whoever fails Allah, Allah will fail her and no one will benefit her. This tweet by a male Twitter user reflects his conservative views, as he stereotypes Muslim women by claiming that women who care about their religion, modesty and dignity should not drive cars. The writer employs the name of Allah several times to provoke fear in his audience. In this example and the previous one, both Twitter users accommodate the conservative preaching that relies more on using the name of Allah to arouse fear in people, religious quotes from Quran and Hadith to convince the readers and listeners, telling stories from unknown source to attract the audience, and warning people of God’s interrogation and punishment in the grave and on judgement day, and indicates of Western war against Islam.

Statement of Disagreement Made by Women Although the decision to allow women to drive was made to facilitate women’s lives, some conservative women still disagreed with it.

Our mission in life is to raise our children properly and to care for our husbands. We were not born to drive cars; our job is to be ladies in our homes and not behind the steering wheel in the street. This tweet exemplifies the conservative Saudi hyperfeminine stereotype of the domesticated woman. This female Twitter user expresses her disagreement with women driving by describing what she believes the Muslim woman’s social role should be. She explains that the Muslim woman’s mission is to remain comfortably at home, like a noble woman,

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raising her children and taking care of her husband, not driving cars. This tweet clearly reflects how conservatives reduce the role of women to merely that of a wife and caretaker of her husband and children, omitting unmarried and child-free women entirely, as though they are not members of society. In a conservative view of a society such as this, it is common for a mother to prepare her daughters to be only a wife and a mother. Moreover, the tweet positively correlates elegance with the traditional feminine stereotype, drawing a strong relationship between aggressiveness, masculinity and car driving.

This decision is a failure. We come from a purely Saudi family and supported by real men, so we do not need to drive. We know that 99% of the women driving a car are foreign or are naturalised women. Driving a car is men’s business, not ours. In this tweet, the female author also invokes a stereotype of ‘real’ and ‘fake’ Saudi women, categorizing women who drive in Saudi Arabia as either newly Saudi women or non-Saudi, thus fake or bad Saudis. In her view, women from real Saudi families have good and courageous men who care about them, which means they do not need to drive. As in the previous tweets, this author draws an association between driving a car and masculinity to demonstrate the inappropriateness of women driving.

Aggravated Disagreement There is only one aggravated tweet in this hashtag. This tweet includes insulting, sexist and racist comments against women.

Statement of Disagreement Made by Men

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There is no doubt that Saudi women do not drive cars except few. All women who drive cars are notorious women, foreign or naturalised. All of them distort our image in front of the world. This tweet presents the stereotype that Saudi women who drive cars are not genuinely Saudi Arabian. The author considers driving to be an offence that the majority of Saudi women are unwilling to commit, because they are ‘real’ Saudis of good character. Moreover, he believes that female car drivers are notorious women who are either non-Saudi or who have been newly granted Saudi nationality and, therefore, have different, independent views of driving.

 llowing Saudi Women to Enter A a Football Stadium Saudi women were permitted to attend stadiums for the first time on 12th January 2018, to watch the Al-Ahli football match against Al-Batin at the King Abdullah Sport City Stadium in Jeddah and the match between Al Hilal and Al Ittihad at the King Fahd International Stadium in Riyadh on 13th January 2018. Subsequently, stadiums in other Saudi cities welcomed women after offering them separate coffee shops and prayer rooms (Shaheen 2018; Watch Saudi Women 2018) (Table 8.3). Table 8.3  Percentage of Saudi men and women expressing agreement and disagreement Agreement and disagreement Total of agreements Total of disagreements Total Male agreements Male disagreements Total Female agreements Female disagreements Total

#FamiliesEnteringTheStadium F

%

10 35 45 4 31 35 6 4 10

22% 78% 100% 11% 89% 100% 60% 40% 100%

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There were 45 tweets that expressed either agreement or disagreement about permitting women to enter a stadium. Overall, significantly more Saudi people disagree (78%) with this decision than agree (22%). Most of the male Twitter users disagreed with the decision to allow women to enter a stadium to watch a football match since entering the stadium and watching a football game is perceived to be for men only, both in Saudi Arabia and in the Western countries. However, 60% of Saudi women agreed with the decision. Examples and an explanation of arguments made in favour and against this decision by males and females are discussed below.

 greements About Allowing Women to Enter A the Stadium Statement of Agreement Made by Men

It is normal and okay as long as they are isolated from men because women have the freedom to support teams as men do. The male Twitter user initiates his tweet with a conditional acceptance. He is focusing on gender equality indicating that women have freedom to support football teams just as men do under one condition which is gender segregation.

It is a basic right that the Saudi family can enjoy and have a wonderful time watching a football match after being deprived by conservative values of everything that is beautiful. This Saudi man considers the freedom to appear in public, including entering stadiums and watching a football game, to be a basic right which was long denied to Saudi women by the Muslim conservatives. In this tweet, he indirectly protests against the conservatives’ values, believing that they adversely interfere in the lives of Saudi people.

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Statement of Agreement Made by Women

Turki Al-Sheikh is a smart person! Since he was appointed Minister of Sport, he has made wise decisions and has restructured sport in Saudi Arabia. I am not interested in sports as much as I am interested in great wise management and bold decisions that were taken to correct the course of many things in the country. This female Twitter user holds an optimistic view of both sport in Saudi Arabia, and of the Saudi future in general, commencing her tweet by complementing Turki Al-Sheikh, the former Chairman of Sport and the current Chairman of the General Authority for Entertainment. The latter was responsible for several non-conservative decisions such as allowing women to enter stadiums, to enter and appear on stage at theatres and to attend concerts. In her view, eliminating conservative attitudes heralds a brighter future for Saudi Arabia.

I agree with the decision, and most opponents are males! They afraid that we may take their places! Or do they think that Saudi women do not have the right to enjoy watching matches on the ground? The female author of this tweet expresses her agreement with the decision to permit women to enter stadiums, stereotyping opponents of the decision. By employing an integrative speech form, she addresses all Saudi citizens in an interactive way, claiming that those who disagree with the new law, and with women’s liberty, are men with conservative views who either wish to control women, and fear gender equality, or believe that Saudi women do not deserve to watch live football matches and should be confined to a traditional domestic role.

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 isagreement About Decision to Allow Women D to Enter the Stadium This section includes examples of two types of disagreement which are mitigated and aggravated disagreement. These statements of disagreement are produced by Saudi men and women.

Mitigated Disagreement Statement of Disagreement Made by Men

After all, permitting women to enter a stadium will not serve women nor make them feel proud. Although the decision to permit women to enter stadiums is genderspecific, this male tweeter seeks to represent women, indirectly disagreeing with the new regulation and stating with utmost certainty that it will not improve Saudi women’s lives, since it does not support their positive self-­perception.

In light of increasing family and social problems, we need the return of lectures and religious sermons and we do not need such decisions. This male Twitter user expresses his disagreement with the new regulation, claiming that such decisions are not constructive for Saudi Arabia, since they have a bad influence on the country’s Islamic society. Like other conservatives, he believes that religion is the solution for all social matters, calling for a return to conservative values and for the return of Islamic lectures for families to overcome increasing familial and social problems.

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Statement of Disagreement Made by Women

Saudi women have no place in the stadiums, so as not to approach men, dance to the drums of fans and compete with men in their seats. This tweet includes stereotyping of Saudi women plus an indication of the conservative view towards art. The Saudi woman gives reasons for her disagreement. She believes that real Saudi women are not willing and not interested in entering the stadium because, for conservatives, Muslim women must not appear regularly in public, approach or sit near men. Indulging in such behaviour will harm and affect women’s dignity. Another reason for the user’s disagreement is the rejection of arts, either in the stadium or in other settings. The Islamic extremist people reject most forms of art including dancing and music, thinking that these types of art will corrupt the Islamic society.

I will not enter the stadiums ever seriously, but in return, I want a place to work in. Is this possible? The female author of this tweet employs a negative stance to the new stadium regulation and makes a point about women’s employment, addressing the decision-makers in her statement that the decision to permit women to enter stadiums has no relevance for her, as she will never enter a stadium because it will not improve her well-being. She believes that, instead of allocating a huge budget for the purpose of entertaining women, the money would be better spent on increasing the job opportunities for Saudi women, especially since there are still few jobs for women in some sectors, such as at airports and in construction and petroleum companies. She concludes with a request, seeking an answer from those in authority.

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Aggravated Disagreement The data included only one tweet which included aggravated disagreement. This tweet was created by a male Twitter user. This tweet is aggravated because it includes insulting language and attacks female fans.

Statement of Disagreement Made by Men

I swear that the presence of women in the stadiums is disgusting and disappointing! These are not the values inherent in our religion and its morals. I personally do not like watching matches in stadiums where there is evidence of immoral behaviour. This male Twitter user protests the decision to allow women to enter stadiums on the grounds that it is in opposition to the principle of gender segregation, which is one of the main conservative values. He swears to no longer attend stadiums because, according to Muslim extremists, the idea of the presence of women alongside men in stadiums is an immoral offence that engenders physical contact between men and women in the form of sexual harassment or adultery. The issue of the collocation of the genders in public spaces, and their subsequent corruption and immorality, is also cited in the next section by conservatives who disagree with women appearing alongside men on stage.

Saudi Women Acting on the Stage The hashtag #WomenOnTheSaudiStage was created as a reaction to the first play in Saudi Arabia that included a female actor. The play, The Emperor’s New Groove, was inspired by a Disney film and was staged at Dar Al Uloom University in Riyadh. The female actor in question was Najat Mouftah, who adopted the role of the evil character, Yzma. This play was not the only one in Saudi Arabia to include a female actor as the Kingdom invited Ashraf Abdul Baqi, the founder of the Egypt Theatre,

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Table 8.4  Percentage of Saudi men and women expressing agreement and disagreement Agreement and disagreement Total of agreements Total of disagreements Total Male agreements Male disagreements Total Female agreements Female disagreements Total

#WomenOnTheSaudiStage F

%

94 179 273 65 141 206 29 38 67

34% 66% 100% 32% 68% 100% 43% 57% 100%

to establish the Saudi Theatre. As a result, several plays, including Toy World and Entry of Women Prohibited, were performed on the stage of the Society of Culture and Art in Jeddah, with sell-out ticket sales (Mikhail 2018) (Table 8.4). The number of tweets expressing agreement and disagreement in this hashtag is higher than the previous ones. There are 273 tweets in this category. The total number of tweets that express disagreement (66%) is double the number of tweets that express agreement. 68% of men and 57% of women disagree with the decision of allowing women to act on stage. Examples from that data that reflect agreement and disagreement are discussed below.

Agreements About Women Acting on the Stage Statement of Agreement Made by Men

I think it’s a good idea, and if you do not want to come to the theatre, it’s not mandatory. The Twitter user employs the second-person pronoun to directly address people who object to seeing women on the stage and he councils them simply not to go to the theatre if they do want to see women acting.

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His message focuses on the freedom to choose, which completely opposes the conservatives’ view.

This day is a historical day for the Saudi theatre. Without participation of women the theatre was without substance and undeveloped, but today it is returned to life with the return of Saudi women to it. Congratulations to the Saudi people! This man expresses the good consequences of such a decision. He thinks that female actors will revive the soul of Saudi theatre and will bring a civilising, cultured presence to theatre productions. The presence of female performance artists will help in reflecting cultural and social ideas in more creative and accurate ways and, thus, would attract and amuse the audience.

Statement of Agreement Made by Women

Why is this media hype about women? Women in all neighbouring countries enjoy all their rights. Why are sanctions imposed in Saudi Arabia only? The female author of this tweet expresses concern about Saudi women’s liberty, commencing with a rhetorical question and indicating that Saudi women should enjoy social independence and freedom in the same way as women in neighbouring Islamic countries which share similar culture and values. She does not cite Western countries as an example, because their social values concerning women are rejected by conservatives in Saudi Arabia.

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Is it allowed for men and forbidden for women!! This is one of her simplest rights. It was a right decision and should have been taken a long time ago. Theatre is an art form and everyone has the right participate in it. This woman focuses on gender equality by posing a rhetorical question. She challenges people who accept men acting, but are against females performing in theatres without clear reasons. In her point of view, acting in the theatre is like other forms of art in that it should be practised by both men and women.

Disagreement About Women Acting on the Stage Mitigated Disagreement Statement of Disagreement Made by Men

A message to everyone who tries to Westernise and corrupt the Muslim woman, “You will stand before Allah alone and He will judge you for every person you corrupted”. Therefore, I advise you to be prepared for Allah interrogation when high rank, money and people compliment will not benefit you. Islamic conservative thought and discourse are clearly reflected in this tweet. The tweet is framed through religious rather artistic merits. This Saudi Twitter user is preaching to the decision-makers who corrupt the Muslim women by bringing the Western values. In his point of view, acting on stage by Muslim women is an offence that will lead to God’s punishment on Judgement Day.

I am amazed at the men who allow their women to do things that are contrary to the Islamic religion and are contrary to the values of

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the Arabs. How cannot they prevent them from committing such abominations? This is another example of Islamic conservative view, which states that women must be accompanied and controlled by the male guardians and acting in the theatre is an offence, a crime or immoral act against Islamic and Arabic traditions. This Twitter user does not blame Saudi women, rather their guardians, whether their father, brother, husband or even son, who have the authority to restrict women’s mobility.

Statement of Disagreement Made by Women

What a loss! I swear by Allah that Saudi women are lost. Where is the past Saudi woman, who had decency and dignity and stayed away from the media, movies and serials! They have deceived women with the concept of liberty and open-mindedness, and they do not know that it is the path that leads to destruction. The author of this tweet employs specific strategies to evoke fear in her audience, commencing by using the words ‘loss’ and ‘lost’ to highlight the negative consequences of the decision to permit women to act on the stage. She believes that accepting the decision, and pursuing a non-ideal Western and liberal ideology, will engender a fake concept of freedom that will morally corrupt Muslim women.

I need a job. I want our father Salman [King Salman bin Abdul Aziz] to take care of the Ministry of Education and to restructure it. I want a salary to own a car and to travel abroad. I do not want a recreational body, dance, theatres, arts and sensations, all of this useless nonsense. Instead of providing jobs for us, they create theatres! This tweet bears similarities to the female-authored tweets in the previous section, concerning women entering stadiums, protesting that a focus

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on the subject overlooks other more important aspects of life that enhance women’s well-being, independence and liberty, such as promoting better education, employment opportunities with good salaries and the freedom to travel abroad.

Aggravated Disagreement The data included two tweets that included aggravated disagreement. All these tweets were posted by men and this is the example from the data.

Statement of Disagreement Made by Men

Actresses are immoral and wanton women who speak in the name of pure and moral Saudi women. This statement of disagreement was categorised as aggravated because it includes words that insult Saudi actresses. The author stereotypes performance artists, describing them as ‘immoral’ and ‘wanton’, and therefore not representative of real, pure and modest Saudi women, despite the fact that they engage in stage acting to reflect Saudi women’s social issues and to use their voice for the cause. In this tweet, the collocation of women acting on stage, or in movies, with immorality and corruption is clearly demonstrated. This collocation is not exclusive to the tweet, as it has a long history in Arabic culture.

Discussion and Conclusion Twitter provided a social space for discourse and discussion following the enactment of new laws that permitted women to drive, enter a stadium and act on stage in Saudi Arabia. Hashtags related to these decisions, among others, were created. In this study, only tweets that expressed agreement and disagreement with three hashtags were selected. In relation to the first hashtag, #WomenDrivingCars, which discusses women driving, the data shows that there are more Saudi people who are in agreement with the

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decision than disagreement. The data relating to the second hashtag, #FamiliesEnteringTheStadium, gave different results. The analysis of the tweets revealed that most males disagreed with the law that allows women to enter the stadium, while most females were in favour of it. The tweets relating to the last hashtag, #WomenOnTheSaudiStage, revealed that both men and women were mostly in disagreement with the law. The findings of this study contradicted Brown and Levinson’s (1987) and Leech’s (2005) view of disagreement. The study indicates that mitigated disagreement on social media, particularly over Twitter, increases interaction between Twitter users and serves to present the Saudi people with different perspectives regarding gender equality decisions. The tweets that included mitigated disagreement reflect the cultural and religious beliefs that influence Saudi people’s thoughts and actions. The tweets showing agreement and disagreement highlight the difference between Saudi conservative and non-conservative discourse. Non-­ conservatives depend on more logic and explanation to support their views. Conservative Saudis rely more on stereotyping of good and bad Muslim women and genuine and fake Saudi women, issuing warnings to decision-makers, blaming guardians, accusing the West and liberal people and frequently evoking the name of Allah and citing of religious quotes to bolster their disagreement. Aggravated disagreement should be avoided on social media platforms and there should be a law enacted against posts which promote sexism and racism against Saudi women and naturalised and non-Saudis.

References Al Maghlouth, Shrouq. 2017. A critical discourse analysis of social change in women related posts on Saudi English-language blogs posted between. Unpublished PhD diss., Lancaster University, UK. Alhareth, Yahya, Yasra Alhareth, and Ibtisam Al Dighrir. 2015. Review of women and society in Saudi Arabia. American Journal of Educational Research 2 (3): 121–125. https://doi.org/10.12691/education-3-2-3.

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Almahmoud, Jehan. 2015. Framing on Twitter: How Saudi Arabians intertextually frame the women2drive campaign. Unpublished MA diss., George Town University, USA. Alsaleh, Shakir. 2012. Gender inequality in Saudi Arabia: Myth and reality. International Proceedings of Economics Development & Research 39 (1): 123–130. Altoaimy, Lama. 2018. Driving change on twitter: A corpus-assisted discourse analysis of the Twitter debates on the Saudi ban on women driving. Social Sciences 7 (5): 81. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci7050081. ———. 2017. Driving change, 140 characters @ a time: A corpus-assisted discourse analysis of the Twitter debates on the Saudi ban on women driving. Unpublished PhD diss., Carleton University, USA. Angouri, Jo, and Miriam A.  Locher. 2012. Theorising disagreement. Journal of Pragmatics 44 (12): 1549–1553. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2012.06.011. Bach, Kent. 2002. Speech acts and pragmatics. The Blackwell guide to the philosophy of language, 147–67. Oxford: Blackwell. Bahammam, Lubna. 2018. Gendered discourses and discursive strategies employed in Twitter-hashtagged debates about Saudi- women’s issues. Unpublished PhD diss., University of Reading, UK. Brown, Penelope, and Stephen Levinson. 1987. Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Edstrom, Anne. 2004. Expressions of disagreement by Venezuelans in conversation: Reconsidering the influence of culture. Journal of Pragmatics 36 (8): 1499–1518. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2004.02.002. Georgakopoulou, Alexandra. 2001. Arguing about the future: On indirect disagreements in conversations. Journal of Pragmatics 33 (12): 1881–1900. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0378-2166(00)00034-5. Hamdan, Amani. 2005. Women and education in Saudi Arabia: Challenges and achievements. International Education Journal 6 (1): 42–62. Jamjoom, Fatima B., and Philippa Kelly. 2013. Higher education for women in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Higher Education Dynamics Higher Education in Saudi Arabia, 117–25. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6321-0_11. Java, Akshay, Xiaodan Song, Tim Finin, and Belle Tseng. 2007. Why we Twitter: Understanding microblogging usage and communities. Proceedings of the 9th WebKDD and 1st SNA-KDD 2007 Workshop on Web Mining and Social Network Analysis  - WebKDD/SNA-KDD ’07, 2007. https://doi. org/10.1145/1348549.1348556.

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Kakavá, Christina. 1993. Negotiation of disagreement by Greeks in conversations and classroom discourse. Unpublished PhD diss., George Town University, USA. Kinninmont, Jane. 2013. To what extent is Twitter changing gulf societies? London: Chatham House, February 1. Leech, Geoffrey N. 1983. Principles of pragmatics. London: Longman. Leech, Geoffrey. 2005. Politeness: Is there an east-west divide? Journal of Politeness Research. Language, Behaviour, Culture 3 (2). https://doi. org/10.1515/pr.2007.009. Mikhail, George. 2018. Egyptian artist brings Saudi women, men to same stage. Al-Monitor, August 10. https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2018/04/ saudis-turn-to-cairo-as-model-in-theater.html. Pharaon, Nora Alarifi. 2004. Saudi women and the Muslim state in the twenty-­ first century. Sex Roles 51 (5–6): 349–366. https://doi.org/10.1023/ b:sers.0000046618.62910.ef. Shaheen, Kareem. 2018. Saudi football stadium welcomes women for first time. The Guardian. January 12. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/ jan/12/saudi-football-stadiums-prepare-welcome-women-first-time Shum, Winnie, and Cynthia Lee. 2013. (Im)politeness and disagreement in two Hong Kong internet discussion forums. Journal of Pragmatics 50 (1): 52–83. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2013.01.010. Smith-Spark, Laura. 2018. Landmark day for Saudi Women as driving ban ends. CNN.  Cable News Network, June 24. https://edition.cnn. com/2018/06/23/middleeast/saudi-women-driving-ban-lifts-intl/index.html Watch: Saudi women enter stadium for first time to attend soccer match. 2018. Al Arabiya English, January 12. http://english.alarabiya.net/en/sports/2018/01/12/ History-in-the-making-Saudi-women-to-enter-stadiums-for-first-time-towatch-soccer.html Zhu, Weihua. 2014. Managing relationships in everyday practice: The case of strong disagreement in mandarin. Journal of Pragmatics 64: 85–101. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2014.01.010.

9 “Straight Man Cancer”: The Discursive Representation and Backlash of Sexism on Chinese Internet Xiaoping Wu

Introduction Alongside the rise of the internet in China, the last decade has seen a growing articulation of feminist perspectives, extending from literary and artistic representations to newer digital forms (such as online journals, blogs, and microblogs). While research on gender studies has recognized the growing importance of the local aspects of culture, history, and society in non-Western societies, as well as the increasing importance of the internet and social media to contemporary women’s movements (e.g. Keller 2012; Lau 2018; Rapp et al. 2010; Smith 2018), there is limited scholarly attention paid to online activism for shaping the gender

X. Wu (*) University of Macau, Macau, China © The Author(s) 2020 A. Smith (ed.), Gender Equality in Changing Times, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26570-0_9

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discourse and ideology in China. Against this backdrop, this study explores the discursive representations of, and resistance against, gender inequality on Chinese internet by drawing upon a case study of an internet buzzword, “straight man cancer” (“直男癌” pinyin: zhinan’ai), a Chinese take on “male chauvinist pig” (Steinfeld 2015), which is used to refer to androcentric assumptions and gender-biased judgmental behaviors and language. This term uses a disease metaphor to articulate discontent with male chauvinist attitudes by using the word “cancer”, which is frequently employed in a stigmatizing way (see Goffman 2009), thus “contaminatively” stigmatizing “straight men” who are alleged to hold these attitudes. In this case, an in-principle nonstigmatizing membership categorization “straight man” is recontextualized by the addition of a stigmatizing disease predicate, thus presenting chauvinist attitudes rather than straight men as “symptomatic” and “cancerous”. The term “straight man cancer”, which started to circulate in Chinese online discourse in discussion forums like Douban in 2014, entered the mainstream in the online response to a microblog commenting on women by Zhou Guoping, a well-known intellectual and philosopher in China (Steinfeld 2015). The term became popular as social media users dug out more people who were “infected” by the “metaphorical disease”, such as Han Han, a famous youth icon and writer who openly claimed that he would not allow his girlfriend to work outside the household. In this context, the linguistic action of “contaminative predication” was performed by Chinese internet users through diagnosing sexist remarks as “straight man cancer”. Thus, this internet buzzword evolved to be a linguistic tool used in the protest against gender inequality and male-­ dominated ideologies in China and helped to frame a collective voice around the term to the extent that some identified it as the beginning of a gender revolution in the country (Lv 2014). The use and reception of the term “straight man cancer” provide an insight into how gender stereotypes, assumptions, and patriarchal social order are discursively produced, negotiated, and challenged on Chinese internet. Adopting a discourse analytical approach, the study  analyzes two microblogs posted on Weibo by two renowned Chinese male figures named Zhou Guoping and Han Han, and the online responses triggered afterward. Using “straight man cancer” as a thread, this chapter first

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examines the background of gender inequality and women’s movements in China and the role of social media in challenging the embedded gendered nature of Chinese society. In the first part of the analysis, the study situates the use of “straight man cancer” within the online culture as a process of discursive construction that continues to reflect the male-­ dominated gender discourse and patriarchal structure in China. Within this context, the analysis then highlights how the particular term and the wider use of social media provide opportunities to challenge and protest against Chinese patriarchy and to promote gender awareness and solidarity.

 he Discourse of Gender, Culture, T and Ideology in China Although terms like “straight man cancer” have only been trending in recent years, the gender norms and patriarchal ideologies from which they stem are deeply rooted in Chinese history, particularly the cultural part of the gendered moral values defined and advocated by Confucianism. Being an essential constituent of the dominant masculine hegemonic system, Confucianism pushed forward the formation of unequal dyadic relationships between men and women. To sustain the patriarchal structure, Confucian ethics imposed restrict moral principles on women, as reflected in the famous codes of the “Three Obediences and Four Virtues” (“三从四德” pinyin: San Cong Si De). The “Three Obediences” required women to obey their fathers before marriage, obey their husbands after marriage, and obey their eldest son after their husbands die. The “Four Virtues” referred to (sexual) morality, proper speech, modest manner, and diligent work (Gao 2003). In such a patriarchal tradition, men enjoyed established supremacy while women became accessories and possessions of their husbands. The only social role of women was believed to get married, bear and rear children (preferably sons), and devote themselves to the family. Women were generally considered as secondary and not worthy of education. They were not allowed to make decisions for their lives and were oppressed severely under the patriarchal hierarchy in ancient China (Leung 2003).

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In Chinese history, women’s liberation has been through several significant phases. The first feminist movement documented was the May Fourth feminist movement (during the 1910s and 1920s) by a small group of male intellectuals who challenged the gender stratification in China and advocated for women’s emancipation in terms of equal social status, free love and marriage, educational opportunities, and so on (Li 2000). This movement, however, did not get far as it had very limited influence on a small number of urban elite women. Wide-scale women’s liberation did not take place until the revolution of 1949. In the study of feminism in transition in China, Leung (2003) traced Chinese culture, ideology, and the development of women’s movements from the Mao’s era to the post-Mao’s era. According to Leung, during the first phase of the Mao’s era (1949–1966), women’s liberation was supported by national policies and laws that freed women from the customs and norms of the feudal society and the Confucian ideology through the Marriage Reforms of 1950 which granted women with free choices of marriage and divorce. Back then, “women hold up half of the sky” was a famous slogan uttered by Mao as women constituted a significant workforce in building the new communist country. During the second phase known as the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), women were positioned as a workforce both in collective production and political activism to push forward the course of the revolution. Feminism and gender discourses at that time were characterized by “negation of gender differences” and “desexualisation of both man and women” (Leung 2003, 366) as women did what men did and prioritized the collective good over individual rights. However, scholars like Leung (2003) and Rowbotham (2013) pointed out that in the two phases of Mao’s era, women were not active agents who fought for their own rights and liberation. The legislative revolution for gender equality was merely for mobilizing women to join the course of collective production and political revolution. It did not address the oppression of women in a long sustaining patriarchal structure. The following phase, starting from the “reform and opening up” in 1978, was characterized by Leung (2003) as the phase of post-Mao’s phase and cultural revitalization when the Confucian ideology and gender inequality resurged. During this phase, women were no longer the main productive force but rather “a primary sustainer of society” (Leung 2003, 368).

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Women were pushed back to households and were denied access to certain job opportunities and career developments. The resurgence of gender inequality led to the rise of contemporary feminist movements in which women actively made their voices heard and initiated and participated in activities to fight against the taken-for-granted gender norms and power imbalance. The most recent wave of Chinese women’s movement has seen a wide mobilization of the internet especially social media for the exposure of sexism and feminist articulations. Chinese women, who may not necessarily claim to be feminists, take advantage of social media platforms such as Weibo and WeChat, two of the most widely used social media platforms in China, to protest against sexist remarks and practices by posting critical comments, sharing personal stories, and establishing online forums, which in turn create online communities of connection, engagement, and shared goals. Despite a growing interest in the gender discourse and activism against gender inequality in China (e.g. Feldshuh 2018; Fincher 2016, 2018; Leung 2003), there is still limited academic attention paid to the role and discursive potential of the Chinese internet and social media in enhancing the visibility, connecting and protesting against the existing gender norms and patriarchal social order. Examples of relevant work include Ip and Lam’s (2014) exploration of feminist counter-public and the internet in China, Wang and Driscoll’s (2018) discussion of two feminist groups using social media to articulate different voices and build strategic alliances, and Han’s (2018) case study of how a Chinese feminist group called Gender Watch Women’s Voice mobilized social media platforms to respond to misogyny in China. The listed studies provide useful insights into examining the role of Chinese internet technologies in expressing women’s voices and promoting gender equality. However, most of the current research does not provide a detailed analysis of how the internet and social media help construct and shape gender discourses, as well as the ways people use digital technologies to express their voices, connect, and participate in the course of pushing back gender inequality. This study aims to add to the scholarship of feminist articulations in Chinese cyberspace by exploring neologisms as a discursive form of resisting gener inequality. Different from traditional ways of expression such as

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literary works (e.g. poems and novels) and performance arts (e.g. shaving their heads and showing their naked bodies), neologisms, which refer to newly coined internet buzzwords, creatively use the networked nature of social media to satire, criticize, and eventually resist gender inequality on Chinese internet. “Straight man cancer” is one such example. Since its creation, it has quickly become popular among Chinese users and has been used to call for public attention to the problematic gender ideology in China through different uses of the term ranging from verbal uses to visuals like cartoons, stickers, and internet memes. For instance, Fig. 9.1 is an internet meme of “straight man cancer”. It is composed of a visual element of a panda with a human face and a verbal message with Chinese characters in three different sizes. The message conveys the summary of what people infected with “straight man cancer” often say, which in turn becomes the symptoms of “straight man cancer”. Here, people with “straight man cancer” try to impose their standard of beauty (e.g. don’t wear makeup), way of consumption (e.g. women should not spend money on lipsticks), and gender labor division in a

Fig. 9.1  Internet meme of “straight man cancer”. Translation of the verbal message: Let’s listen to what “straight man cancer” says: hi, beauty. How old are you? Young sister, you should not wear makeup at such a young age. I think you look better without makeup. Don’t wear makeup when we are together. Send me your selfie, young sister. Why do you buy so many lipsticks? Women should be diligent and thrifty. Do you do housework? I don’t like lazy women

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family (e.g. women should do the housework) on women. By using this internet buzzword in its creative multimodal form against sexist statements and behaviors, Chinese social media users try to push back gender inequality and promote a stronger sense of gender awareness in China. Through the lens of discourse analysis of this internet buzzword on Weibo, this study aims to explore the representation of and resistance against gender inequality on Chinese internet and social media.

Data and Method Data The data contain two microblogs by two male public figures, Zhou Guoping and Han Han, and the social media responses sparkled afterward. Both microblogs were posted on Weibo, the most popular Chinese microblogging website launched in 2009, which is believed to be one of the major platforms for public participation where concerns about political and social issues are expressed and dealt with (Wu 2018; Wu and Montgomery 2019). The first microblog was posted on January 12, 2014, by Zhou Guoping, a Chinese writer and philosopher. In the microblog, Zhou stated that the most important thing in a woman’s life was love and having children and that women were beautiful when they were cleaning the house and feeding babies. Embroiled by online criticism, he posted a follow-up microblog, in which he claimed that he agreed with gender equality but if a woman refused to be a good lover, wife, and mother, she was not beautiful in his eyes. His microblogs attracted thousands of reposting and comments, many of which were critical and angry. Chinese users diagnosed him as being infected with “straight man cancer”. Zhou later deleted the two Weibo posts. For this study, the author managed to save the screenshots of Zhou’s first microblog and 25 comments that received most “likes”. The other microblog was posted on Weibo on January 20, 2017, by Han Han, a Chinese youth icon, blogger, and movie director. It contains a movie theme song for Han’s 2017 New Year’s blockbuster, Duckweed (pinyin: Cheng Feng Po Lang). Called “The Manifesto of a Real Man” (pinyin: Nan Zi Han Xuan Yan), the song is an adaptation of a Japanese

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wedding song with the Chinese lyrics composed by Han. The lyrics recount a monologue by a new bridegroom on his wedding day as he makes a list of demands that his bride needs to attend to after marriage, ranging from dealing with domestic chores and infant care to management of relations with his relatives and neighbors. The release of this song on Weibo quickly aroused an online backlash from Weibo users and feminists who labeled the song as “a song of straight man cancer”. In response to the outrage, Han posted a second song named “The Oath of a Real Man” (pinyin: Nan Zi Han Shi Yan) on Weibo the next day, explaining that both songs were adapted from two Japanese songs and that the first one “were the words of a boorish unmarried man, and the second were those of a wiser husband” (Hunt 2017, para. 4). Han himself commented under his second post, saying that “We thank the feminists for making progressive contributions to the society, but also hope that [they] don’t overreact”. Although some commenters sided with Han, others criticized the chauvinist and selfish values inscribed in the lyrics and condemned Han for spreading those values through popular media (see the data analysis). The backlash became so strong that some Chinese feminist social media accounts and opinion leaders called for actions of resisting Han’s new movie (see the data analysis below). For this study, Han’s Weibo post of the theme song and 25 comments that received most “likes” under the post were collected for detailed analysis. Zhou’s and Han’s microblogs, together with 50 Weibo users’ comments, are chosen as the data for this study because they provide interesting material for examining how gender ideology is normalized and challenged in the Chinese digital sphere. The two microblogs and the selected comments were originally in Chinese but have been translated into English by the author for the purpose of this study.

 Discourse Analytical Approach to “Straight A Man Cancer” Both gender studies and discourse analysis have offered useful concepts and analytical methods for examining the phenomenon of “straight man cancer” on Chinese social media. Judith Butler’s notion of gender as

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performative (1990) is perhaps one of the most significant theoretical frameworks for examining language and gender. Butler (1990) argues that gender is not a static or stable construct that pre-exists language and discourse. Rather, it emerges in discourse and interaction where it is produced and negotiated. As a construction, gender and sexual identity are repeatedly shaped, reinforced, and challenged over time through the deployment of linguistic and other semiotic resources in various contexts (Ehrlich and Meyerhoff 2017). Following Butler’s understanding of gender and discourse, recent studies also view gender and gendered discourse as a dynamic and constructed phenomenon (Ehrlich et al. 2017; Feldshuh 2018; Lazar 2005; Litosseliti and Sunderland 2002; Sunderland 2004). Concurring with gender as discursively constructed, this study adopts a discourse approach to investigate the construction of and discursive resistance against gender inequality on Chinese internet. According to Jørgensen and Phillips (2002), discourses are particular ways of talking about and understanding the world, and discourse constructs the social world in meaning. However, meaning is never fixed ultimately, but rather it is negotiated and transformed through constant interactions with other discourses. Discourse analysis thus enables the study of patterns of meaning created through discourses. Drawing upon a linguistic approach to discourse analysis that “employs the tools of grammarians to identify the roles of wordings in passages of text, and employs the tools of social theorists to explain why they make the meanings they do” (Martin and Rose 2007, 4), this study aims to examine the construction and negotiation of meaning, gender identity, and social relation in the phenomenon of “straight man cancer” on a Chinese social media platform, Weibo.

 ata Analysis: Representation and Backlash D of Gender Inequality in “Straight Man Cancer” This section demonstrates how gender stereotypes and the patriarchal social order are normalized, strengthened, challenged, and reshaped on Weibo. The analysis focuses firstly on the two main strategies Zhou and

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Han, the posters of the two controversial microblogs, adopted to normalize and reinforce gender inequality. Following this, the analysis examines the ways social media commenters used to discursively counter the gender discourse produced and promoted by the two male intellectuals.

 iscursive Representation of Gender Inequality D in “Straight Man Cancer” Weibo 1 below is a microblog of 138 Chinese characters posted by Zhou. In this post, Zhou compared men and women in terms of their connection to “nature” and came up with an observation that “women are closer to the way of nature than men”. Then he interpreted and explained this observation with another comparison: men had many ambitions but women had only one, that is, love and child-rearing. He ended his microblog with what he thought a beautiful woman was like. By using the rhetorical strategy of compliment, Zhou appeared to appreciate the traits and beauty of women (such as nurturance, supportiveness, caring, and non-competitiveness) by assuming that those were the universal essence and characteristics of women. On the other hand, Zhou adopted the strategy of self-depreciation to depict men as less connected with “nature” and thus more outward to the society, as shown in “[m]en have a thousand ambitions and think of themselves as having many complex missions higher than nature”. While he seemed to be critical of (some) men’s character of being ambitious, he “flattered” women through defining women’s sole ambition and setting up the standard of beautiful women— adhering to their “nature” and devoting their lives into fulfilling that single ambition of loving their husbands, doing housework, and raising their children, as shown in “A woman, as long as she follows her nature, is beautiful whether she is deeply in love, happy with housework, or attentive in nursing her baby”. Weibo 1 Women are closer to the way of nature than men. This is the value of women. Men have a thousand ambitions and think of themselves as having many complex missions higher than nature. Women have only one ambi-

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tion: they always see love and childrearing as the most important thing in their lives. A woman, as long as she follows her nature, is beautiful whether she is deeply in love, happy with housework, or attentive in nursing her baby. (January 12, 2014, by Zhou Guoping)

Weibo 2, posted by Han, consists of a verbal message that promotes Han’s movie and a visual element that is the theme song of the movie. The song, “The Manifesto of a Real Man”, displays a monologue by a drunken groom on the eve of his wedding. In the manifesto, the groom listed a number of family duties that he expected his wife-to-be to take up in their marriage in an imperious way, including attending to housework, taking care of him, and getting along well with his relatives and neighbors. Then he switched to a humble manner by depreciating himself as incapable and ordinary (e.g. “I have no ability”, and “I’m ordinary”), complimenting his wife-to-be on her competence of family maintenance (e.g. “only you can do things well”), and further flattering her with honey words (e.g. “It is my greatest blessing to marry you”). Finally, the groom switched back to an imperious tone and asked his wife-to-be to raise their children and take care of him until he died. Apart from self-depreciation and complimenting, the groom noticeably used an imperative mood and a high degree of modality when he listed the family duties for his wife-to­be, as reflected in the extensive use of modal verbs of “can’t” and “should”, and the imperative structure of “you + (should) do”, “don’t do”, and “not allowed”. Weibo 2 #Duckweed theme song: “The Manifesto of a Real Man”. Come and recount your enthusiastic days. See you at the movie theatre on the first day of the Lunar New Year. [Video of the theme song embedded]. (January 20, 2017, by Han Han) Excerpt from the lyrics: You can’t go to bed earlier than me/you are not allowed to rise later than me/You should make tasty food, dress up appropriately. I have no ability/This family all depends on you/only you can do things well/Don’t count on me/I’m ordinary/It is my greatest blessing to marry you. You raise our children/When we get old, you should not die before me/ On my deathbed, please hold my hand.

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In the above two Weibo posts, both Zhou and Han made use of self-­ deprecation and complimenting to naturalize and defend gender stereotypes and the imbalanced gender labor division within the family. Women in the two microblogs were depicted to belong to and be devoted to the private world of the household while men are primarily located in the public world of paid work. The logic of the reasoning lies in that because women are (naturally) good at doing housework and taking care of the family so they should adhere to their “nature” by performing their designated roles as a gentle lover, a caring wife, and a loving mother (see Weibo 1) in a family, whereas men are less good at household maintenance (see the critical statement of ambitious men in Weibo 1 and the confession of an incapable husband in Weibo 2) so they are excused from the domestic chores to pursue their social lives and careers. However, as pointed out by some Weibo commenters under the Weibo posts, underneath the fancy package of compliments and the seemingly critical self-reflection is a patriarchal framework that tries to normalize gender stereotypes and gender inequality. The fallacy of Zhou and Han’s logic lies in what is called “gender essentialism” which believes that gender roles are biologically predetermined rather than socially constructed, and thus attributes fixed and innate qualities to women and men (Heyman and Giles 2006). In turn, the assumptions generated by gender essentialism reinforce gender stereotypes and justify the patriarchal family form and gender relations in China as “natural” and indisputable.

 iscursive Protest Against Gender Inequality D on Weibo Both Zhou’s and Han’s Weibo posts aroused heated discussion and strong criticism online in a short while. Zhou deleted his post shortly and explained that it was due to the “improper language” in the comments, according to an interview with Zhou afterward. By the time of the deletion, Zhou’s post had been re-posted 1783 times and received 1022 comments. By contrast, Han  kept his post which, by the time of data collection,  had been re-posted nearly 73,000 times and received over 30,000 comments (the video of the theme song embedded in the

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microblog had been watched over 11 million times). Among the 50 comments that have been “liked” most under the two Weibo posts, I have identified two prominent discursive strategies of resistance adopted by the commenters: stigmatizing and emotional outrage and accusations. The first strategy is  stigmatizing through internet buzzwords. For example, “straight man cancer” and “cancer of ignorance and delusional disorder” in Comment 1 were labeled to Zhou, whereas “straight man cancer” and “giant infant” in Comment 2 and “mama’s boy” and “phoenix man” in Comment 3 were used to stigmatize Han and the groom in the song. While “straight man cancer” and “cancer of ignorance and delusional disorder” use a disease metaphor to criticize the male-dominated power structure and gender discourse, “giant infant”, “mama’s boy”, and “phoenix man” are internet buzzwords coined to satirize men raised in a patriarchal family that prefers sons to daughters. “A giant infant” refers to a grown man who is dependent on his parents for a living, whereas “mama’s boy” mocks a grown man who allows too much influence from his mother on his decision-making. These two buzzwords point to the social fact in China that some men are spoiled in a family and thus take it for granted that the women they marry should take care of them like their mothers. “A phoenix man”, on the other hand, originally referred to a man from a poor rural family who succeeded after hard work. However, it is now associated with negative meanings in a marriage because the man often has a big poor family to support and complex kindships to deal with. This internet buzzword is therefore used by Chinese users to sneer at men who demand their wives to unconditionally obey their parents and attend to the needs of their relatives. By utilizing internet buzzwords to stigmatize Zhou and Han’s fictional groom in the song, Weibo commenters draw the meaning and gain potency from the ephemeral and yet powerful memetic expressions that help bring the ungrained issue of social injustice to public notice. Comment 1 I will take back my words of accusing Mr. Zhou of being infected with straight man cancer. He is not. He is infected with the type of cancer named ignorance and delusional disorder.

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Comment 2 A song of “straight man cancer” and “giant infant”! The worst song ever! Comment 3 The Manifesto of a Real Man? Isn’t it the manifesto of a loser, mama’s boy, and phoenix man?

The second strategy of resistance is emotional outrage and accusation. Both Weibo posts have received harsh criticism and even personal attacks from Weibo commenters. Offensive language and moral judgments were commonly seen among the comments under Zhou’s and Han’s Weibo posts. For instance, in Zhou’s case, commenters criticized Zhou for his views about women through the use of taboo words (e.g. “you are nothing but a despicable penis” in Comment 4), judgmental expressions (e.g. “self-righteous” and “outdated” in Comment 5), as well as accusations (e.g. “you are the same as rapists” in Comment 6). Comment 4 In your eyes, women are nothing but moving uteruses without humanities. If you think this is beautiful, then you are nothing but a despicable penis no matter how many titles you have earned. Comment 5 You are self-righteous. Having children is not the only value of women. We can be independent and fulfill our lives without men. If you persist with those outdated opinions back in the feudal era, you are not a qualified writer. Comment 6 I respected you as a philosopher when I did not know much about you. Thanks to the internet, now I think you are the same as rapists.

Likewise, commenters in Han’s case targeted their criticism and attacks to Han in an emotional way. They resorted to swearing by using offensive language such as “Can’t help fucking you, asshole” in Comment 7, “shitty rubbish” and “go to hell” in Comment 8, and “fucking” and “you make me sick” in Comment 9. Moreover, moral judgments are also prominent among the comments which attempt to establish the connection between Han and the fictional groom in the song by judging Han’s personal life (e.g. “you have a lover out of your marriage. Do you fucking think you

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are a feudal emperor?” in Comment 9). Emotional outrage and accusations challenge and protest against “straight man cancer” represented by Han and Zhou straightforwardly and effectively. Some went as far as calling for offline actions among social media users. For instance, Queen C-cup, a big V of Weibo, posted a blog entitled “There is no twist for Duckweed, but women still lose the game” with two bold and enlarged Chinese characters “不看” (don’t watch it), which were read over 10 million times and re-posted widely by feminist social media accounts and female celebrities. As shown in Weibo 3, Xu, a Chinese actress who openly claims to be a feminist, re-posted Queen C-cup’s blog with a comment that supports the offline boycott of the movie and promotes a better understanding of the situation of women in China. Comment 7 Is this what the lyrics convey: the wife supports the whole family, raises the children, takes care of you till you die; what you do is that you try not to have love affairs with other women? I can’t help fucking you, asshole! Comment 8 I was shocked by the lyrics so I came to leave a comment: shitty rubbish, if you allow your daughter to marry such a jerk and be a slave to him, I wouldn’t say anything. But it is vicious for you to promote such disgusting value through popular media like movies. Go to hell. Comment 9 It shocks me that as a public figure, you openly promote such shitty thoughts. I feel sad for your daughter. You have a lover out of your marriage. Do you fucking think you are a feudal emperor? Now you try to use movies to spread your ugly thoughts and behaviors to the public. You make me sick!! Weibo 3 [I] hope this article will reach more people. This is what we need to know. [Re-posted the blog entitled “Don’t watch it”]. (January 23, 2017, by Xu Jiao)

The Weibo responses to the microblogs of Zhou and Han demonstrate the discursive strategies taken by social media users to challenge and reshape the existing male-dominated gender discourse exemplified by “straight man cancer”. The adoption of internet buzzwords shows a

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creative way of ridiculing and protesting against gendered language and actions. Being “punchy, provocative, and highly symbolic” (Yuan 2015, para. 2), internet buzzwords like “straight man cancer” that draw on linguistic and popular cultural resources deploy the fast speed and networked potential of social media to create chains of meaning around the phenomenon of gender inequality. This, in turn, helps promote a higher degree of gender awareness through integrating gender inequality into trending memes and social media topics. By contrast, the abundant use of emotional outrage and accusations shows that emotional comments, with their sensational property (Feng and Wu 2018), remain one of the most powerful ways of communicating social media users’ discontent with and resistance against gender inequality.

Discussion As noted by Tang (2015), “straight man cancer” reflects sexism and gender inequality with Chinese characteristics. It is deeply entrenched in Chinese feudalism and Confucianism that feature patriarchal ideologies and asymmetric gender relations. Within such a culture, women’s roles and positions were defined by men and women existed to serve men and the patriarchal social and familial structure. As reflected by the gender discourse constructed in the two microblogs posted by Han and Zhou, Chinese women’s place is set inside the family and they have to sacrifice at least part of their career. However, the advent and rise of the internet and social media technologies have opened up the possibility for the co-­ creation of gender discourses both by men and by women. This is seen in the wide use of social media to expose gender discrimination, express women’s voices, and ask for (legal) support. Social media become a discursive battlefield where gender discourses are constructed, negotiated, challenged, and maybe fixed temporarily. As shown in this study, the clashes between authoritative male figures like Zhou and Han and Chinese critical social media commenters exemplify the discursive struggle of what femininity and masculinity should or should not be like. Among the various ways social media users take to raise gender awareness, internet buzzwords like “straight man cancer” have become useful

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tools. Drawing upon their cultural and symbolic capitals and supported by the viral spreading of the internet, internet buzzwords bring the previously neglected social issue of gender equality into social media trending topics. Apart from using them as a tool of criticism in this study, they are also used in daily digital communication in the forms of multimodal memes and stickers, as well as hashtags that create a thread of topics for people to share their personal stories of encountering gender discrimination. The positive effect of the internet and social media is also shown in the establishment and development of different online forums and social media accounts such as the Gender Watch Women’s Voice and Female’s Voices that serve as active public space for vocal and varied feminist discussion and debates as well as campaigns protesting discrimination and social injustice in households and workplaces. However, while it is possible to argue that Chinese social media bring about stronger awareness of gender equality and wider channels for women to share their experience and express their voices, it is noteworthy that all of this happens in a particular sociocultural context with the renaissance of Confucianism and the surveillance of Chinese internet censorship. It means that the Chinese state is ever-present, or omnirelevant in Chinese social media and internet use  (Wu and Fitzgerald 2020), and through its direct or implicit effect intervenes in the discursive construction of gender ideology and gender relations to maintain social peace and harmony to an extent that makes revolutionary discourse of gender equality almost impossible in China (Chang et al. 2018). In other words, the Chinese state sees domestic harmony and social stability as a priority. Therefore, it allows certain ways of venting such as open dialogues and discussion of gender issues online, but if those practices turn into actual organized activities and campaigns that may disrupt a “harmonious society”, it would be detected and cracked down eventually. As noted by Steinfeld (2015), since active and organized campaigning is limited, spontaneous grassroots actions for women’s rights and liberation are more meaningful in China, as shown in some successful individual cases such as suing a company for gender discrimination, exposing domestic violence, and calling for legal support online. In this sense, the social and political impact of Chinese social media is unlikely to be revolutionary in terms of

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subverting the long sustaining patriarchal social order. Yet it is fair to say that the internet and its associated social media technologies have provided a shared platform for virtual feminism (Keller 2012), a form of women’s movement that utilizes digital forms such as blogging and microblogging to cultivate a community that helps raise a higher degree of gender awareness within a Chinese context of “harmonious society”.

Conclusion This study has explored the discursive representation of and resistance against sexism and gender inequality in China through a case study of “straight man cancer” from the perspective of discourse analysis. The analysis demonstrates “straight man cancer” as a discursive construction that frames the male-dominated gender discourse and patriarchal structure in China as natural and innocuous. The analysis also highlights the various discursive strategies adopted by social media commenters to challenge the existing gender ideology and promote gender awareness. The case of “straight man cancer” on Weibo offers an illustration of how social media play an increasingly significant role in calling out and pushing back gendered language and actions in China. Social media exemplified by Weibo have become the major channels for women’s self-­ expression, connection, and participation in promoting gender equality. They create multiple online communities for sharing, commenting, and discussing issues of gender inequality in China, which in turn raises critical awareness for resistance and change of existing social structure by exerting communicative pressure on governmental sectors to push forward legal and judicial policies to protect women from gender oppression and injustice both in public and domestic realms. Ultimately, however, it needs to be repeated that in the context of China with strong influence from Confucianism and strict censorship, the state takes every aspect of life under its control and, thus, no ideology can enjoy a truly independent discursive environment (Chang et  al. 2018). That is why contextual analysis of the relation between digital technologies and gender inequality is indispensable in contemporary Chinese society. Within the particular social and cultural context of

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China, we are witnessing the changing forms of gender inequality but more importantly a new type of weapon against gender discrimination and oppression with the aid of the internet and social media technologies.

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10 Gender and Media Representation: Politics and the “Double Bind” Fiona McKay

Introduction In recent decades, more women have been elected into office, showing the gains which have been made as more take a seat at the political table. In 2008, women occupied 18.3 per cent of parliamentary seats worldwide, growing to 24.3 per cent in 2019 (IPU 2019). While some affix a positive slant to this upward-moving trajectory, others see this slow tread onwards as overwhelmingly unsatisfactory. According to the World Economic Forum, if the same rate of change were to continue as it has done, the global gender gap in politics would take 107  years to close (World Economic Forum 2018). Women’s low numbers in parliaments across the world highlight that, as a category, they are still an underrepresented group, showing this to be a globally systemic issue. In terms of This chapter is dedicated to my mother, Lesley McKay, a woman whose social conscience and support have been continual source of inspiration.

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representative democracies, these low figures are significant, as they arguably have implications for both the descriptive and substantive representation of women (Celis and Childs 2008) and also send important signals about who is elected to stand for the “public” in positions of power and included/excluded in political decision-making. This chapter focuses on the gendered mediation—the gendered discursive practices embedded in social norms (Gidengil and Everitt, 2003)—of female politicians and how this may perpetuate entrenched attitudes around gender norms, thus contributing to women’s mis- and underrepresentation in global politics. Shifts in academic inquiry attributed to the twentieth-century feminist movements have sought to interrogate the ways the past exclusion of women from the public realm still feature in areas of public life. A core focus of the research agenda of gender and politics, therefore, has been to critically appraise how gender operates in political structures, where “constructions of masculinity and femininity are intertwined in the daily culture or ‘logic’ of day-to-day workings” (Kenny 2013, p. 37). On discussing the 2016 US presidential campaign, Yates (2019, p. 34) observes how the American presidency is inherently gendered, “meaning that since it’s been occupied only by men, masculinity defines the institution”. Political institutions, then, which have traditionally privileged discourses of masculinity, have gendered terms of interaction that become embedded as normative. The same can be said of the mass media, which has historically been shaped by a masculinised culture and largely defined in male terms (Chambers et al. 2004). Dahlerup and Leyenaar (2013) highlight the important role mediated representations play in contributing to male dominance in politics, with the media(ted) constructed of female politicians acting as a form of symbolic representation where, in a normative sense, the presence of the women in power demonstrates the extent to which they are fully included in the democratic process. Of course, the gains made by women in these institutions mean that, as attitudes shift, traditional gender relations can be and are subject to contestation; however these are also limited and constrained by the embedded masculinised context in the diffusion of power which may still privilege particular articulations of gender over others. This chapter takes up the argument that the gendered mediation (Gidengil and Everitt 2003) of female politicians sends important signals

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about their democratic inclusion. It will do so by examining two female political figures: Theresa May (UK) and Jacinda Ardern (New Zealand). Analysis of female politicians often pivots on the incompatibility of the expectations of gender performance and political performance. It is here that the influential conceptual framework of the “double bind” (Jamieson 1995) is a useful tool in showing the specific challenges women may face in the political sphere. May and Ardern have been selected for this analysis because both have been figures in similar leadership positions in two Western democracies where the demands of both gender and political performance are highly visible. Though neither is the “first” woman to have been elected to lead their country, both have reached this position at a time when it is still relatively novel for women to hold such roles. In this way, they present interesting comparative case studies to show how gender can be articulated in different ways in varying cultural and political contexts. Discussing key points during their roles as prime minister, however, can show that, though these two women are markedly distinct and hold different political allegiances, their representation in media-political discourse can still be seen to fit within overall trends which gender female politicians in specific ways that highlight their differences to a male norm.

The Double Bind The term “double bind” was popularised by Kathleen Hall Jamieson (1995) to articulate the particular challenges faced by women in leadership. Also known colloquially as “no-win”, “lose-lose” (Murray 2010) or “Catch-22” situations, these terms describe paradoxical scenarios where different—at times oppositional—behaviours produce mutually negative results. As the theoretical advances of feminist movements have sought to unpick the dichotomous nature of gender, which can instead be seen as socially constituted and therefore culturally and historically variable (Richardson 2015), these binds are shown to be informed by wider gender-­based assumptions about women and men and the private and public realms, which have been constructed through a number of complex configurations “derived from theology, biology, and the law, and rhetoric’s fashioning of each” (Jamieson 1995, p.  14). In the case of

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politics specifically, underpinning gendered assumptions tend to construct the male political ideal as assertive, tough and rational, while female politicians are expected to be warm, caring, and emotional and subsequently irrational (Lovenduski 2005). Women, therefore, are stereotyped or assigned characteristics often seen at odds with the natural expectations of political leadership. Though admittedly double binds also occur for men regarding constructions of masculinity—or masculinities—in the political context, arguably, men do not experience the same issues as women insofar as they are already associated with the baseline masculine norm. This concept therefore may go some way to explaining the domination of men in politics: indeed, the double bind of gendered assumptions may act as a barrier for women entering politics, but also impact on how they are mediated when they have been elected to or taken office. Jamieson (1995) highlights five binds, alongside a discussion of their origins, which all correspond to different assumptions as to how women should be. The first, the “womb/brain” double bind, relates to the tension in expectations for women to perform their function as caregivers—often through their role as a mother—and as a political figure at the same time. The second, the “silence/shame” double bind, relates to the tension between women using their voice and being labelled transgressive or aggressive when speaking out—a “nag” or a “bitch”—as opposed to the alternative of silence and submission. The sameness/difference or “equality/difference” double bind echoes enduring feminist concerns as to whether women should be considered the same or different to men, with tensions inherent in each of these positions. The “femininity/competency” double bind is particular significant in regard to the political public sphere, where women are required to both conform to the feminine expectations of their gender role while simultaneously adopting more masculine qualities associated with political leadership (or de-­emphasising their feminine ones, which are established as dichotomous and incompatible). Lastly, with the “ageing/invisibility” double bind, younger women may be seen as lacking in authority or competency compared to their male peers, while older women may be seen as irrelevant or aberrant (particularly if childless) (ibid.).

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While these frameworks at first may seem hyperbolic, it is their “vestiges” which can still be considered as shaping contemporary culture (ibid., p. 15). Modern binds for women in politics and public life mean they are scrutinised differently to men under these conditions, with appraisals of prominent women showing how the double bind may occur in different political contexts (for more in-depth analyses of these, see also Murray 2010; Campus 2013). A pervasive strand to this research often finds a disproportionate focus on women’s relationship status, often in regard to whether she can juggle her “wifely” duties and those required of her public role—leading to a double bind which mostly leaves one role unfulfilled at the expense of the other (Jamieson 1995). Discourses of women’s partnerships are also interlinked with connotations of fertility and the role of motherhood (can she be a politician and a mother?), as well as heteronormative sexual expectations which can relate to both age (whether she is still able to fulfil her sexual and childbearing role) and orientation (whether she performs a heteronormative sexual function). The deviation from traditional gender roles in the marriage structure can at points contribute to an emasculation of male partners (Stevenson 2013; Fountaine and Comrie 2016) or reify ideological standards for good motherhood (Paré and Dillaway 2013). Furthermore, these may triangulate around depictions of physical appearance, whereby older women may be constructed as “unattractive, menopausal, weak and past their prime” (Murray 2010, p. 17–18), or younger women increasingly sexualised or objectified, such as being constructed as a “dominatrix” (Fountaine and Comrie 2016; Higgins and McKay 2016) or through a focus on their sexual orientation (Stevenson 2013; Ross 2017; Trimble and Treiberg 2010). As Jamieson highlights, the way in which these multiple binds may interact is “prismatic” (Jamieson 1995, p.  17), which shows the dialogical nature of these discourses and points to the complex ways they may become embedded in social norms. Schnurr and Wharton (2017) suggest that often media constructions can lead back to tired, overarching stereotypes, arguing that these often take the form of three prevalent figures—the butch, the bitch and the mummy—which have echoes of recurring, paradigmatic gendered myths of femininity (Macdonald 1995; Kroon Lundell and Ekström 2008). As they highlight, these representations may be context-dependent and

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shifting, but they nonetheless still arguably fit into overall broader cross-­ cultural trends and confines of specific attitudes to gender (for a comparative example, see Garcia-Blanco and Wahl-Jorgensen 2012), relating back to the same double binds of femininity/competency. For example, the mediation of former President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, is significantly different to that of Margaret Thatcher, even though they both pivot on maternal discourses, with Johnson-Sirleaf depicted in a more grandmaternal role (Thomas and Adams 2010), which may be reflective of the values of the West African country, compared to Thatcher who was instead portrayed as a nanny, schoolmistress (Webster 1990) or at times a “witch” (O’Carroll 2013)—the archetypal aberrant older woman. The comparison between Johnson-Sirleaf and Thatcher is useful in showing that constructions may also be engaged with, or contested in, different ways by women themselves to adapt to the competing demands of politics and media. These may also be seen to work to varying degrees of “success” amid shifting cultural expectations and how gendered expectations can be continually renegotiated. Elmelund-Præstekær et al. (2011) posit that politicians negotiate their image and performance to meet the demands of the media; however, it is also important to consider how gender may also inform these processes (Higgins and McKay 2016). At times, women have used a “differentialist” approach—accentuating their gender difference—as a strategic way to show it as politically advantageous for them to be included in the political process (Perry 2005). This can be seen ranging from the Scottish suffragettes who deliberately courted media coverage to accentuate their own femininity (Pedersen 2018) to Margaret Thatcher drawing upon her gender as a way of legitimising her ability to govern (Pilcher 1995). Women may therefore accentuate certain feminine qualities to present a persona in accord with acceptable normative requirements of their gender, which may be done consciously or unconsciously, while also meeting the demands of political leadership. Indeed, Campus (2013) argues that some women have learned to traverse this tightrope with a kind of “bi-lingualism”, a modal shift to a form of “middle way” leadership which negotiates the demands of feminine womanhood and masculine politics.

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Recent shifts in the developing relationship between the media and political realm have undoubtedly also had an impact on how these dynamics operate. The overall informalisation of social interactions in public life (Misztal 2005) and a greater “personalisation” in politics (Langer 2011; Stanyer 2013), fuelled by and reflected in the merging of the public and private domains, represent a shift towards a feminisation of both the media (Carter et al. 2019) and politics (Lovenduski 2005). This may also indicate a cultural shift, with increased associations between political authenticity, emotionality and sincerity (Richards 2007). However, as Yates (2019) argues, women are also constrained by prescriptive gendered stereotypes around emotions, which present their own form of double bind. In this case, women may be judged more harshly for emotional displays which are treated as incompatible with roles in politics. As van Zoonen (2006, p. 299) suggests, a convergence of personal and political life into a hybrid political persona tends to favour men more than women because of the “inbuilt and extreme polarization of femininity and politics”, with these developments favouring men who may find it easier to take on feminised characteristics than women who are seen to be doing the reverse (Smith 2008). These illustrations highlight the tensions women must negotiate when traversing the expectations of the political—and wider public—sphere while also adhering to the competing demands of gender performance.

Iron Lady in Waiting When Theresa May was elected, ultimately unopposed, as leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party in July 2016, she became the UK’s second female prime minister, the only woman to enter Downing Street as PM since her fellow Conservative, Margaret Thatcher, who was prime minister in the UK from 1979 to 1990. Though Thatcher has become synonymous with the (in)famous “Iron Lady” moniker, the use of the term Iron Lady has arguably come to take on an “interdiscursive” or “constitutive intertextual” form (Fairclough 1992) and can now be considered “preconstructed” in the political lexicon. This has also been developed into a broadly applicable metaphor which asserts a certain “type” of

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politician through which female political leadership is defined in relation to men (Pullen and Taksa 2016). The nature of the term hints at the inherent double bind of gender and politics, whereby the ideals and tension of female leadership are met through the combination of leadership strength and soft femininity. It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that parallels were made between the two women, with the UK media initially reviving this long-standing cliché to predefine May. This can be seen in May’s previous role in the Cabinet, aligning it with her aspirations for political leadership, as an “Iron Lady in waiting” in her role as Home Secretary (McSmith and Morris 2013), a role she served for six years, until 2016. While these might be partially justified on the basis of obvious similarities, given their roles, shared party allegiance and similar socioeconomic backgrounds (both are/were the daughters of self-made men-cum-preachers, were non-private school educated but also ended up at Oxford), nonetheless it is difficult to divorce this from wider trends whereby the media have been shown to fall back on comparisons of widely different women or a tendency to group women as a homogeneous group (Adcock 2010; Meeks 2013). After the UK’s vote to leave the EU and the resignation of former Prime Minister David Cameron, May rapidly emerged as the frontrunner to replace him and served as the UK’s first prime minister, post-Brexit, in 2016. On her ascendancy to the role, the term Iron Lady was also rehearsed as dominant frame until her resignation in June 2019. This, however, was often in reference to her failings to live up to the expectations of her predecessor, and perceptions of a lack of forcefulness (Hughes 2017). In this case, even though she is defined as a negation of the expected Iron Lady, the term itself has a specific definitional power, whereas an identification with the phrase presupposes its meaning (Fairclough 1992), thus again reestablishing the expectations of female leadership. In this following extract, written on May’s resignation in 2019, the author makes the explicit link between her and Thatcher:

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… unlike Margaret Thatcher—who loved being the only woman in the room, played up her housewife credentials and boasted of giving the men a handbagging—Mrs May never turned her femininity into an asset. Although her aides tried to play up the comparison with the Iron Lady, the differences were far starker than the similarities. Mrs Thatcher loved conflict. Mrs May shrank from it. Mrs Thatcher had a clear vision of where she was going. Mrs May seemed content merely to stagger from day to day. Above all, Mrs Thatcher was a ruthlessly instinctive politician, a calculating opportunist who played Westminster’s game of thrones to perfection. By contrast, Mrs May, inflexible to the last, seemed entirely bereft of political cunning. (Sandbrook 2019)

The author hints to the ongoing framing of May as inflexible and emotionless, which had seen her in the years of her premiership given the nickname of “Maybot” (Crace 2016), with her “strong and stable” leadership slogan ridiculed and given internet meme status (Poole, 2017). She was also heavily criticised for her lack of emotional response to the Grenfell Tower disaster alongside her lack of efficacy (O’Grady 2017). As the extract above alleges, May “never turned her femininity into an asset” like Thatcher, who managed to negotiate this bind through both at once a knowing use (“played up”, “calculating”) of her femininity and innate instinctive political “instinct”. This bind was also borne out in May’s own resignation, where a dominant focus on her “emotional” display outside Downing Street demonstrates the double bind of expectations of emotive performance. One commentator simultaneously writes: “NO, no, please don’’t cry. Not now. Anything but that” while also declaring “Sometimes big girls do cry, and it is not always a weakness” (Moir 2019). In what was echoed in other texts, the expressed desire for an affective display was seen alongside terms of ridicule and a desire for composure (for another example, see Letts 2019). Similar to the findings of Curnalia and Mermer (2014) in their analysis of Hillary Clinton’s “emotional moment” in the 2008 US primaries, this shows evidence of the silence/shame double bind in both adhering to the gendered expectations of an emotional display at odds with the expectations of staid and composed political performance. Mavin, Bryans and Cunningham (2010) argue that prior to her role as PM, May had already experienced a number of double binds in the media

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relating to her appearance which “reattached” representations of gender and femininity to enhance her news value. Her preference for kitten heels, in particular, has consistently been used to frame May over the years, particularly before she was PM, which was oft rehearsed in media coverage as her “trademark” (Shakespeare 2019). Research into the mediation of female politicians has shown that there is a greater propensity for media texts to focus on their appearance in comparison to male politics figures (Ross 2002; Garcia-Blanco and Wahl-Jorgensen 2012; Campus 2013; O’Neill and Savigny 2014; Walsh 2015). Though this may not always be a definitive feature of gendered coverage, as according to the findings of Norris (1997), it is nonetheless one of the more readily associated areas of concern in academic and wider societal discussion around the sexist (re)presentation of female politicians, particularly in Western contexts. In the case of female politicians, articulations of gender can intersect and often take on a metonymic form, signifying women as both “credible leaders and as respectable women” (Mavin and Grandy 2016) with May’s appearance and stylistic choices also framed as sending political messages (Leaper 2019). As Mavin, Bryans and Cunningham (2010) point out, this presented a double bind around May, and cite an example of her simultaneously rendered “indecisive” for wearing different clothes in the same day while being criticised for wearing the same jacket on more than one occasion. Gender markers, then, can be seen to be constructed as intersecting with considerations of how effective they may be as political leaders. A prevalent articulation of this is the discursive representation of the incompatibility of politics and motherhood, often found in the mediated construction of politicians (see, e.g., Brown and Gardetto 2000; Falk 2010; Loke et al. 2011), which represents another form of double bind for women. Motherhood was something to which May had only reluctantly referred to in the media earlier in her career, only expressing her desire to have children but that it had not been possible for her and her husband, Philip (Prince 2017). As one commentator stated in The Guardian: “The couple are childless. All she will say publicly is that she wanted children but it didn’’t happen” (Hinsliff 2013, p. 10). This focus was amplified during the Conservative Party leadership bid in 2016, when one of her initial rivals for the position, Andrea Leadsom, asserted

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that she would make a better leader than May because she was a mother (Coates 2016). In political discourse, the role of family and children often takes on a symbolic role equated with good leadership, political responsibility and the ability to empathise with ordinary voters/families. This has been echoed in other contemporaneous situations, where challenges to political competency are equated with lack of parental experience (Fountaine and Comrie 2016; Stevens 2014). That Leadsom soon after apologised and pulled out of the running amid claims of sexism (Pearson 2016) shows that these specific discourses of maternal values and leadership were contested in more progressive responses, indicating some shifts in the perception of these articulations. Nonetheless, questions around May’s childlessness were still evident in other areas of mediated discussion: celebrity cook Thomasina Miers later alleged that May would not have dropped part of the government’s child obesity strategy if she’s had children of her own (Payne 2017), while various media outlets still questioned and sought explanations for her lack of children. In an interview with LBC radio in which she was asked about how she may have been a “different women had she had children”, by host Nick Ferrari, she replied, “It’s been very sad. … It just turned out not to be possible for us. We’re not the only couple who find themselves in that situation. When you do, I suppose you just get on with life. We have nephews and nieces” (LBC, 12 May 2017). In what was classed as an unusual display of sharing of personal information from May, this can be seen as an example of the increasing pressure for politicians to fall in line with the obligations of a more “intimate” or personalised politics (Stanyer 2013). While some male politicians have also been reluctant to reveal personal information about their private live, such as Gordon Brown (Smith 2008), May’s case shows the double bind for women inherent in this phenomenon where the revelation of personal information may also reify traditional gendered expectations. With the line of questioning pretending to the intrinsic and transformative capacity of motherhood, there is again an implicit link to the bearing having children has on leadership. May’s assurances that she wanted children, but was unable to have them, also suggest a form of constraint of “acceptable” and “unacceptable” forms of childlessness (she is still confirming to natural gendered expectations to want to have children and be a mother), similar to other

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situations where female politicians without children have made claim, with May  making reference to other familial attachments (nieces and nephews) as substitutes. Though of course the sentiments expressed by May, or indeed other female politicians, are not in dispute, they still nonetheless point to the obligations women may feel in having to reveal this specific kind of gendered performance, which may or may not work in favour of perceptions of their political competency. During the same period in 2017, in a personal interview on BBC One’s The One Show with her husband, May asserted that she and her husband split “boy jobs” and “girl jobs” (Agerholm 2017) in the home. May’s comments were branded as “sexist” stereotyping in areas of the media, including from fellow politicians such as Nicola Sturgeon and Kezia Dugdale (Agerholm 2017; Osborne 2017). Nonetheless, their utterance shows the impetus she felt to legitimise and associate herself with the prevailing hierarchy of acceptable household chores and domestic order in the private relationship of the couple. Mediated representations in this vein can be seen in other discussions focusing on “who wears the trousers” in relationships (Jamieson 1995): a reaffirming of traditional gendered relations in the private sphere, with intimate depictions which confirm cultural expectations around home and appearance (Higgins and McKay 2016). In this case May’s own self-gendering was met with rapid counter-discursive claims. What this shows is that these “differentialist” strategies are perilous and may backfire, depending on context and shifting expectations. Moreover, what may work successfully for one woman may fail for another, depending on individual contexts and discursive associations. The constructions of May presented here resultantly speak to the hegemonic way patriarchal power operates in sustaining the dominant male-oriented order of politics, with the gendering of May establishing her as an outsider to the masculinised norm.

Jacindamania As the 40th prime minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern is the third woman to hold this office, following on from Jenny Shipley, who served from 1997 to 1999, and Helen Clark, who served from 1999 to 2008.

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On taking on the role of Labour leader at the age of 37, some two months before Election Day, she also became the youngest premier to be elected in New Zealand. Ardern drew great media attention in New Zealand when she first became a prime ministerial candidate and then subsequently announced she was pregnant—making her only the second women in history to give birth to a child in office. However, although Ardern’s case has so far presented evidence of a number of double binds, notable counter-discourses have emerged to contest sexist suggestions that she is in any way unfit to govern. Nonetheless, there is also evidence of constructions of the New Zealand politician which still conform to a number of widely prevalent gendered discourses discussed in this chapter. During the 2017 New Zealand campaign, Ardern’s predecessor as Labour leader, Andrew Little, stood down after slumping in the polls. The party’s recovery and steep climb back up was attributed to Ardern’s succession (O’Brien and Huntington 2018): a phenomenon dubbed “Jacindamania” or the “Jacinda Effect” in the New Zealand media (Dominion Post 2017). Ardern had been elevated to deputy leader in March earlier the same year, with the media observing that the Labour Party was keen to capitalise on her youth and popularity (Trevitt 2017), as well as her social media presence (Wanganui Chronicle 2017). Though still seen as a relative newcomer, Ardern had already worked as a staffer for Helen Clark, had been a former policy adviser of Tony Blair’s Cabinet Office and had served three terms in New Zealand. However, she was still constructed by some outlets as “inexperienced”, despite having a similar track record to other male candidates who had not been scrutinised in the same way (Timperley 2018). Media commentary instead focused on her likeability at the expense of her competence (Fountaine 2017). Murray (2010, p. 17) argues that younger, female candidates are often assumed to be “inexperienced, unviable, and are expected to be at home raising children”. This was borne out in comments from the incumbent Bill English, who said she was “untested” on her role as deputy leader (Jones 2017) and later attributing her popularity to the “stardust” around her and that she didn’t have “enough to say” (Sunday News 2017). On taking the role of party leader and prime ministerial candidate, Ardern was immediately questioned about children on current affairs TV programme, The Project. Host Jesse Mulligan asked whether she felt

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pressure between making the choice between having children and having a career, to which she answered: “I have been really open about that dilemma because I think probably lots of women face it. And for me, my position is no different the woman who works three jobs, or who might be in a position where they’re juggling lots of responsibilities” (The Project, 1 August 2017). The following morning Ardern was then asked by former cricketer and presenter, Mark Richardson, whether it was “okay for a PM to take maternity leave while in office?”, saying, “I think is a legitimate question for New Zealand because she could be the prime minister running this country … if you are the employer of a company you need to know that type of thing from the woman you are employing because legally you have to give them maternity leave” (The AM Show, 2 August 2017). Asked if this was an inappropriate question, she replied, “For me? No, because I opened myself up to it”, before adding: “for other women, it is totally unacceptable in 2017 to say that women should have to answer that question in the workplace” (ibid.). Though these were met with counter-discursive opposition from some commentators (Beckman 2017), the implication of the question is underpinned by the inherent incompatibility of the role of prime minister and motherhood. Interestingly, in both of these extracts, Ardern firstly establishes a division between acceptable boundaries for herself and other women—by explicitly saying that, because she has addressed her own desire for children previously, journalists were entitled to subject her to this scrutiny, even though it would be inappropriate for other women to share this information. In this way, Ardern’s interactions are similar to May’s in that they illustrate the increasing pressure and demands of a more personalised politics (Stanyer 2013). Again, however, it is worth noting van Zoonen’s (2006) claims that these requirements have different and often greater implications for women. In Ardern’s case, it illustrates a double bind through discussion of her plans for children. Firstly, there is an implied responsibility in sharing this knowledge as being a representative of other women in her position (“I have been really open about that dilemma because I think probably lots of women face it”), yet acknowledgement of the protections women should generally hold from being expected to share their own plans for children (“it is totally unacceptable in 2017 to say that women should have to answer that question in the

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workplace”). It is here that the bind holds discursive power: by arguing that women can and do combine motherhood and leadership, this still rehearses and implicitly acknowledges that for a (prospective) female prime minister, there is still a legitimate question or concern around a woman’s ability to do the job fully if combined with motherhood. As Walsh (2001, 1025) outlines, gender markers relating to female politicians mark them out from masculine norms, whereby the “the news value of ‘unexpectedness’ affords women in prominent leadership roles relatively high media capital”. As such, Ardern’s pregnancy generated intense media coverage domestically and globally through her being only the second woman in history to give birth during office, following on from Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan. Traditionally, due to practical and cultural obstacles, female leaders have tended to take on positions of power either as non-mothers or later in life, when their children have grown up (van Zoonen 2006). A common construction which has replaced and circumvented the problematic double bind of leaders without children has been to attach maternal values in a metaphorical way, extending the all-encompassing “mother of the nation”, seen in the likes of “Mutti” Angela Merkel or even the grandmother “Ma” Ellen, for Ellen Johnson-­ Sirleaf (Thomas and Adams 2010). This kind of “symbolic motherhood” thus becomes a culturally approved model of female leadership (van Zoonen 2006). Interestingly, on the announcement of her pregnancy, Ardern referenced a connection to the nation of New Zealand, saying: “New Zealand will help us raise our first child” (Roy 2018a). The ambiguity of her use of the symbolic “our” in this statement hints at the genesis of the child being that of her parents, but also of the country of New Zealand itself—echoing Ardern’s statement on Facebook that her child “will be a wee one that a village will raise” (Ardern 2018). By emphasising this and sharing the news on social media, her pregnancy and motherhood also takes on a symbolic dimension, heightening the intimacy with an invested electorate. The establishment of her partner, Clarke Gayford, as primary caregiver shows a deviation from the normative familial caregiving structure, yet Ardern was also keen to emphasise maternal support from their wider network and “wonderful mothers” (Kahn 2018). The fostering of the more intimate relationship of her motherhood with the nation, placing her in a more symbolic maternal role herself, therefore

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still establishes a normative, cultural appropriate form of gender performance and leadership. As Teele et al. (2018, p. 537) find, voters “reserve their highest reward for women who can both do the job of a politician and that of a wife and mother”, showing the value placed on female leaders who can traverse and successfully negotiate the demands of both gender performance and politics. Nonetheless, this also means that those who still have generally traditional family structures bear the burden of convincing the public they can do both jobs well, something all too well demonstrated by the short six-week maternity leave Ardern took after giving birth to her daughter. Later, after cutting a trip short and taking an extra flight due to her daughter being unable to travel, Ardern explicitly acknowledged the bind around her actions, saying she was “damned if [she] did and damned if [she] didn’t” (Perry 2018). This highlights the precariousness of the position women hold in politics with particular regard to the blurring of private and public sphere which could, in turn, reify particular gender expectations, particularly around aspirations to motherhood and how “well” they may perform each duty subsequently.

Conclusion As can be seen, though markedly distinct political leaders who hold different political allegiances, at certain points both May and Ardern’s gendered mediation displays a number of double binds which fit into the overall broad trend of gendering female politicians. The double bind, therefore, can be seen as an enduring conceit in the representation of female politicians, going well beyond its earlier conceptualisations (Jamieson 1995). The construction of May’s political persona and mediated representation shows some of the specific challenges that women elected for office face, including a focus on appearance, emotional displays and children, which are often connected to perceptions of competency as a leader. Though harshly criticised for her political failings, May’s short leadership position may also represent a form of “glass cliff” (as opposed to the “glass ceiling”) (Ryan and Haslam 2005) where she took on an already poisoned chalice of leadership amid UK Brexit negotiations. This may have also been compounded by the disproportionately

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high expectations for a more transformative leadership style expected of female leaders (Norris 1997) and points to need for further and more in-­ depth scrutiny to tease out the problematic aspects of the intersection of political and gendered coverage. Ardern, on the other hand, may represent a promising shift in terms of a desire for a more feminised politics and arguably displaying the kind of bilingualism posited by Campus (2013) necessary for this kind of leadership. Claims that she is “flint […] not far below the surface” (Roy 2018b) echo the similar hard and soft combination of qualities expected of this style: an Iron Lady of another form. Indeed, Ardern was lauded for her emotionally intelligent handling of the Christchurch killings (Howie and Bayer 2019), which again represents a shift towards a politics more in tune with political authenticity, emotionality and sincerity, echoing the calls for this kind of emotional display in May. Nonetheless, this may also indicate similar patterns with regard to expectations and constructions of women offering a transformative style of politics (Norris 1997), which may be confined to times of crisis and not for the day-to-day workings of politics (Ryan and Haslam 2005). Indeed the pressure to live up to already high expectations points to the danger when some of the stardust may already be wearing off, particularly in some areas of the New Zealand media who claim her popularity on the global stage is not reflected in the country itself (Cooke 2019). What this analysis ultimately suggests, then, is that while female politicians may be constructed to perform or “do” various kinds of femininities, these are still confined within a specific framework, hinting to the still dichotomous nature of gendered constructions. Though in certain circumstances there may be contestation, showing a desire for a more feminised political public sphere and style of leadership—this may still only be confined to specific displays of “desirable” aspects of femininity—which may be represented in some women and not others. Therefore while there may be some hope and perceived progress for female leaders in certain circumstances—where bilingualism works—this may not always be the case and the media may fall back into problematic double binds and gender assumptions which establishes them at odds with the dominant male political narrative. While these case studies are indeed interpretive, and open to challenge, they show how dominant readings

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may inform our understanding of the role women play in politics and wider public life, allowing gendered narratives to be critiqued and challenged. Acknowledgement  The author is grateful to Michael Higgins, James Morrison and the editor for comments and discussion on earlier drafts.

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11 Smart, Casual, Unisex: Can We Have Gender Equality in Twenty-First Century Fashion and Dress? Janet Pearson

Introduction In this chapter, the role of gender in fashion and dress will be considered, with particular reference to changes in women’s styles in the course of increasing emancipation: can we have gender equality in twenty-first-­ century fashion and dress? The first section of this chapter defines the terms fashion and dress, and considers the relationship between gender, fashion and dress. This is followed by consideration as to whether fashion is compatible with feminism, and examples of how dress has moved towards expressing gender equality in response to some key societal changes since the mid-twentieth century, and how this tendency ended with the advent of post-feminism. Consideration is then given to examples of how women have challenged dress expectations in the workplace/ public sphere and how these moves relate to ideas about gender and gender equality. The next sections discuss the recent trend towards unisex and androgynous styles in relation to ideas about gender and gender J. Pearson (*) Independent Researcher, Sunderland, UK © The Author(s) 2020 A. Smith (ed.), Gender Equality in Changing Times, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26570-0_11

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equality. The final section considers whether gender equality has reached the realm of fashion and dress in the twenty-first century.

Fashion, Dress and the Role of Gender “Smart-casual”, “day-into-evening”, “masculine”, “feminine”, “unisex”: we have so many terms to describe fashion and clothing; there seems to be no end to the permutations that emerge in the style of our dress. Fashion changes, continually shifting and twisting, refusing to be entirely pinned down. Responding to the forces, moods and desires at work within human interaction, and contributing itself to the traffic of ideas, it is generally understood to incorporate our values and reflect contemporary taste whilst adding its own peculiarly inexplicable dimension. What we wear and how we present ourselves, our “dress”, is understood to be a means, in the Western world and to some extent beyond, of conveying something of our identity and individuality. I differentiate “dress” from “fashion” here, whilst acknowledging that dress (including clothing) can operate within the realm of fashion. I understand fashion to be a special system of dress that is “historically and geographically specific to Western modernity” (Entwistle 2015, p. 43), the key feature of which is “rapid and continual changing of styles” (Wilson 2003, p.  3). I use the term “dress” in the sense defined by Joanne Eicher and Mary Ellen Roach-­ Higgins, which is as “an assemblage of body modifications and/or supplements displayed by a person in communicating with other human beings” (Eicher and Roach-Higgins 1997, p.  15). For many fashion theorists, fashion expresses status and enables social mobility, by operating through ideas about social class distinction, gender, power relations and culture (Bell 1992; Simmel 1911, 1997; Veblen 2009). As Joanne Entwistle asserts, “fashion structures much of our experience of dress”, for “fashionable dress embodies the latest aesthetic” (Entwistle 2015, p. 1). It is difficult to determine quite when fashion began, in that evidence of changes in style and colour of clothing has been found in remains of ancient cultures. In Western Europe, however, the beginning of fashion is generally understood to be marked by the rapidly changing styles of the fourteenth century, and the shift towards tailored and fitted clothing that

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accompanied expansion in trade and increased sophistication of the royal and aristocratic courts (Wilson 2003, p. 16). The idea that fashion is still an essential part of our engagement in the world is asserted by Entwistle: “fashion is about bodies: it is produced, promoted and worn by bodies”, which “must be dressed in almost all social encounters” (Entwistle 2015, p.  1). Fashion in the Western world has traditionally taken whichever ideas it has desired, adapting them to its own needs and showcasing them in whichever way it chooses, regardless of the cost (human, environmental or pecuniary) that may be involved. The role of gender in fashion is significant: “fashion is obsessed with gender, [it] defines and redefines the gender boundary” (Wilson 2003, p. 117). Sexual difference in dress was not strongly marked until around the eighteenth century, but thereon gender identity has been expressed through a tradition founded upon the wearing of basic garments considered to be gender-appropriate, which are modified largely according to the demands of fashion. Eicher and Roach-Higgins observe that the classification of dress according to gender is deep-seated and resistant to change; dress is used to make “statements about the gender-role soon after birth” (Eicher and Roach-Higgins 1997, p. 8). I would suggest that in the twenty-first century, dress is even used to make statements about gender role before birth, through sartorial statements made at gatherings such as baby showers and gender-reveal parties. In late modernity, we are not necessarily obliged to adhere to such pronounced gender statements; we dress by selecting from the styles and ideas that are at our disposal and that we feel to be reasonably acceptable within our culture. In the opinion of gender theorist Judith Butler, the way in which we dress is a means of creating ideas about gender and sex, through a “stylised repetition of acts”, as opposed to expression of predetermined sex (Butler 2006, pp. 191–192). I would argue that whilst some actively dress to convey their gender through “stylised repetition of acts”, many conventions of dress that express sex continue to be observed almost without question. Regardless of the underlying reasons for developments in fashion, gender-­signifying styles that adhere to fairly fixed expressions of femininity and masculinity have remained the basis of mainstream fashion in clothing for many years. The outward appearance of women has been predominantly the subject of “fashion”, and for many it has been the

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norm to judge women according to their decorative appearance; their sex appeal. A quick glance at the array of fashion magazines currently on offer in Europe indicates that many of the choices in clothing selection are based on Western ideals of sexual attractiveness and display of apparent wealth through the idea of luxury, regardless of the exploitation of the models, the workforce and the environment that might be entailed in production. There is little indication of gender equality.

F ashion, Feminism and Examples of How Dress Has Moved Towards Androgyny Historically, in Europe, women have made several attempts to break with this tradition. As the women’s movement gained ground from the late nineteenth century, and women began to participate in sport and work outside of the home, the restrictive, tightly boned and long-skirted S-shaped fashions of the Victorian period gave way to slightly more practical styles such as divided skirts and bloomers, to be worn by the “New Woman”. The fin de siècle years also witnessed generally more relaxed styles in dress for women, employing a vertical line with less pronounced definition of the waist, influence for which has been attributed to the exotic and erotic creations of French couturier Paul Poiret and to the need for practical dress for women working during the First World War. The very idea of fashion may seem to be at odds with the feminist movement, however, in that it is neither entirely rejected nor completely embraced by its ideals. Indeed, attitudes towards fashion have varied within the women’s movement. Feminists have objected at times to certain styles and traditions of clothing; Simone de Beauvoir was altogether disparaging about fashion, regarding it as “a form of work”, which turned women into “erotic objects” (Beauvoir 1997, p.  543). Fashion theorist Elizabeth Wilson, however, argues against the idea that all uncomfortable dress is simply one aspect of oppression of women; “dress is never primarily functional” and “certainly not natural”, she maintains (Wilson 2003, p. 244). Rather, in her view, it is “one among many forms of aesthetic creativity which makes possible the exploration of alternatives” (Wilson

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p. 245). This is of interest, for at various points since the mid-twentieth century, fashion and dress appear to have approached expression of gender equality, in that each sex has adopted aspects of clothing more traditionally worn by the other sex, and these have coincided with rapid cultural change. It is important to bear in mind, however, that fashion does not simply reflect its era; it is a creative form of expression that is “always and everywhere situated within a society and culture” (Entwistle p. 80–81). This creative expression may be seen in a radical shift towards unisex styles of dress in the mid-twentieth century. During the Second World War, out of sheer necessity, women in Europe and America began to carry out work previously done by men, and the wearing of trousers by women became socially acceptable for the first time. (We should note here that some women had worn overalls during the First World War, and trousers in the 1920s.) For those women who worked in agriculture, as members of the “Women’s Land Army”, for example, trousers were essential dress. At the same time, the “siren suit”, a practical, loose-fitting, all-in-one garment that could be worn over other clothing during air raids, began to be worn by both sexes and became fashionable in its own right (Howell 2012, pp.  67–69; Walford 2008, pp.  30–31). After the war, as fabric rationing was about to come to an end, Parisian couturier Christian Dior’s “New Look” (1947) became fashionable for women. This extravagant new silhouette, comprising a close-fitting jacket worn with a narrow-waisted full skirt, not only celebrated the novel availability of fabric, but also turned away from the gender-neutral clothing of the war years as traditional gender roles came to be reinstated more widely, something that continued into the 1950s. The late 1950s marked a turning point towards freedom of expression through dress; recognition of the newly emerged teenage generation directed attention towards youth as the prevailing culture in the post-war era. Young people had leisure time, as opposed to committing themselves fully to maintaining their parents’ households; they broke away from the tradition of dressing in the style of their parents and adopted their own dress, which was largely gendered. In the 1960s, the dramatic change in the range of fashion and dress for both men and women coincided with the radical demands for cultural change, seen through the civil rights movements and drive for greater

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social freedom. Young people took fashion into their own hands, making and selling clothes for both sexes from small boutiques, a new and exciting departure from traditional clothing shops. Influenced by The Beatles and pop culture more generally, dress shifted towards unisex styles. The “peacock revolution” transformed the sombre traditionalism of menswear into a multicoloured new look; flamboyant ties and shirts were worn with slimline, collarless suits showing some continental style influence. Heeled boots and then wide-legged trousers became fashionable for men. Gender boundaries were blurred as young men and women alike wore blue jeans and wore their hair long. The trouser suit inspired by Yves St. Laurent’s 1966 design for women, “Le Smoking”, transformed workplace dress for many women, by permitting them to wear the traditional tailored style long associated with menswear; it has been regarded by many as a move towards gender equality (Rawsthorn 1996, p. 91; Jagger 2008; McDowell 2000, pp. 250–253). Anti-fashion styles emerged during the 1960s in the form of feminist and hippie clothing. Some feminists, influenced by de Beauvoir’s views, rejected fashion altogether, regarding it as a means of restriction, whilst others combined masculine-style tailoring and shoes with women’s blouses and skirts. Other feminists maintain that the idea of gender equality frees them to choose what they would like to wear. Curiously, each of these attitudes expresses the feminist position, in that they challenge the patriarchal position and assert that human beings are entitled to dress as they wish, within agreed boundaries of covering the body. For each type of dress there was a corresponding type of music, indicating that the particular fashions were indeed representative of specific branches of the contemporary culture. Since the cultural revolution of the 1960s, some items of clothing have been adapted to encompass feminist ideas. For example, women who abandoned wearing a bra in favour of less structured body contours (bra burning, although reported by the media, was mere media invention) and those who adopted clothing styles traditionally worn by men, such as the tailored suit, dungarees and cargo trousers as a means of showing gender equality. The “glam rock” of the 1970s challenged traditional gender boundaries in a different way, as artists such as David Bowie and bands such as Sweet and Slade appeared on stage in glittering

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androgynous outfits and make-up. Alternative clothes worn by women included ethnic-inspired blouses and skirts, hand-knitted sweaters, corduroy trousers, low heeled, “Doc Marten” and “Kickers” boots. As these examples indicate, the period since the end of the Second World War has offered ample scope for young people to experiment with dress and challenge traditional patriarchal expectations of gender-signifying dress. Some of the dress styles from these decades survive in various forms in our wardrobes today; examples include message-bearing t-shirts, denim and jeans, and trousers for women. In many ways, however, the tradition of wearing gender-signifying dress (and the expectation that we should do so) remained, especially for women. Whilst the fashions of this era seem to point, at times, towards gender equality, we should bear in mind the idea that anything can become fashionable (Simmel 1997, p. 190). From this we might infer that even though the androgynous look is fashionable, it does not necessarily follow that there is gender equality in the fashion system. The 1990s witnessed a significant departure, in which women seemed to turn away from feminism and adhere to self-imposed beauty regimes that satisfied male preferences for how women should look. As Angela McRobbie and Diane Negra observe, in the 1990s young women especially began to undertake time-consuming and at times costly beauty regimes, so that they might appear natural and acceptable to the world, and as time went on, the regimes became more or less the norm (McRobbie 2009, pp. 61–69; Negra 2009, pp. 117–124). Self-tanning, waxing, hair dyeing, complicated brow and nail care, and vigorous exercise all contributed to creating the perfect “post-feminist body”, which somehow harked back to traditional ideas about feminine beauty, the body image actually being, however, that depicted in pornography. The time required for undertaking the procedures became a limiting factor in the young women’s freedom, so that they were enslaved rather than empowered by their undertakings. This post-feminist condition is one in which young women especially live in such a way as to ignore the basic principles of feminism, and actually comply with conventional customs rooted in patriarchy. The immense attention paid to personal grooming, on the part of young women, became part of this in the 1990s, as they pursued a highly

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individualised form of self-perfection, whilst trying to appeal to the male gaze, and indeed regarding themselves through the same lens. This trend was accompanied by huge growth in the sale of fashion products through the development of the internet. Suddenly fashion products were easily available, and there was a platform for viewing and showing the latest look. The whole movement, which continues today, is rooted in consumerism; women especially consume fashion and all its related products, and are targeted accordingly by fashion producers. Men seemed to be far less affected by the development, although we should note here that the term “metrosexual” was coined in 1994 to denote the emergence of the young urban man with a high disposable income, who was perhaps “the most promising consumer market of the decade” (Simpson 1994). 1990s’ dress turned away from the power dressing and punk influences of the previous two decades, to embrace casual styles, including the distressed “grunge” look, and casual chic, in which smart versions of jeans, trainers and t-shirts were worn. Distinctively gendered styles emerged, influenced by the popularity of the British band “Spice Girls” and their drive for the idea of girl power. Supermodels also had enormous influence in the 1990s, in promoting a particular look. Track suits, clingy minidresses, shiny sequinned close-fitting styles and bright colours conveying an athletic and youthful attitude (but also overtly sexy) became the norm for many young women. The young women’s confidence may have conveyed an awareness of their entitlement to gender equality, but it was compromised by the apparent need to adhere to traditional patriarchal attitudes in terms of dress. It was in the 1990s that gendered children’s clothing, toys and accessories began to become the norm: pink for girls and blue for boys (Henley 2009; Hill 2015; Valenti 2014). Whilst a whole array of clothing was available at the time, I would argue that the gendered nature of children’s clothing reflected the state of fashion design more generally; many more fashions and styles were produced for women, in comparison to those produced for men. Pink became synonymous with femininity, a femininity that seemed to be equated with having sex appeal, a quality that was incorporated into infant and young girls’ clothing too. Much of the girls’ clothing of this period alluded in some way to the traditional fairy-tale image of the “little princess”—a beautiful girl waiting to be rescued by a

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handsome prince, which was employed in “Disney” fairy-tale animations of the 1950s. In the 1990s, animated films such as Disney’s Cinderella (1950), Sleeping Beauty (1959) and Beauty and the Beast (1991) increased in popularity. The widespread possession of video players allowed repeated viewing of films, and the “Disney” television channel was made available in the United Kingdom in 1995. At the same time, Disney merchandise became widely available through the company’s retail expansion outside of America. These 1990s developments helped to align gender stereotypes in dress and associated merchandise with consumerism. In this period, fashion as a system became globalised; the design and production processes could be carried out on the other side of the world to the consumer, and local context began to lose its influence on styles of dress. Women and girls were the target consumers for the vast quantity of clothing and accessories available; the preferred style became individualistic and the rebellious, androgynous tendencies of previous decades disappeared.

 ome Recent Challenges Against Dress S Expectations and How These Moves Might Relate to Ideas About Gender and Gender Equality Some voices speaking out against the expectation that women should conform to traditional Western gender-signifying clothing expectations are just beginning to be heard. There have been moves to counter the exploitation and manipulation of images by models, who have objected to their photograph being adapted to suit Western tastes. Employees have objected to their employer’s insistence upon the wearing of certain styles or items of clothing (which are uncomfortable and unsuited to long hours of wear) in the workplace. For example, in London, 2016, a young woman successfully contested an employer’s decision regarding how she should dress. Nicola Thorp, who had been instructed to wear high-heeled shoes in the workplace, was sent home by her employer without pay for refusing to do so (BBC 2016). When she challenged her employer’s

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decision and posted her experience on social media, her situation became a topic for national news. The idea that women should be expected to wear particular items of clothing deemed to appeal to the male gaze became a matter for discussion. She set up a petition calling for a change in the law so that employers cannot insist that women have to wear high heels at work. Thorp’s action is one of a series of recent challenges against employers’ demands regarding women’s work-wear. As The Guardian newspaper reported recently, women have not only challenged rules requiring the wearing of stilettos, but also those insisting upon female employees wearing make-up, white bras, and tights in order to convey a conventional Eurocentric “feminine” appearance (Kale 2019). Attitudes towards dress have relaxed outside of the workplace, and I feel that this is reflected in women’s demands that work-wear rules should be changed. It is the feminist impulse that has initiated discussion regarding what constitutes appropriate and comfortable work-wear for employees, regardless of their gender, and this is a move towards gender equality. Another voice that is changing our attitudes towards fashion and dress is that of older women. The twenty-first century has witnessed the emergence of new later life identities (a group not traditionally associated with fashion), as older women have begun to play a more prominent role in society (Twigg 2009). This has been achieved by women who have continued or returned to work, challenged leisure roles previously occupied by men, and defended the feminist position. As Julia Twigg points out, the media has a role in supporting new formations of age, and presentation of fashion for these groups has brought new tensions for journalists (Twigg 2017, p.  336). There has also been an increase recently in the portrayal of older women in fashion and beauty advertisements (Jersley 2017). The grounds for this may be purely mercenary, in that these women may be seen to be representative of a growing potential market. There may also be a cultural shift, however, through which older women are appearing in the media in response to the feminist impulse. They want their identity to be recognised rather than marginalised, and this is reflected in their dress. The underlying reasons for the increased representation of previously overlooked groups will only be seen over time; whether images of fashion and clothing will fully acknowledge cultural

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diversity and hitherto unrepresented sectors such as those with dementia is yet to be determined. There is current interest in the importance of the relationship between dress, equality and identity. An exhibition promoting alternative beauty ideals, staged at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh (Body Beautiful 2019), addresses the idea of cultural diversity through fully inclusive fashion and clothing. The exhibition challenges fashion ideals regarding gender, race, age and disability, and shows, for example, how couture design (and shop fitting room equipment) can be adapted so that they are suitable for short people. Especially relevant to our theme is an exhibition that addresses the relationship between fashion and gender may be seen at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Gender Bending Fashion 2019). The exhibits include haute couture and ready-to-wear garments from the past century, and show how gendered dress conventions have been challenged and redefined in response to demands for social justice, sexual freedom and issues of race, in conjunction with popular music culture. The issue of modifying the natural appearance of the body to meet expectations of “Western” appearance of hair and skin has also begun to be challenged, inspired, in my view, by the feminist impulse. In 2015, a young woman named Simone Powderly declined potential employment in a move to defend her identity against the expectations of fashion. She refused to comply with the employer’s demand that she must remove the braids from her hair; the employer maintained that braided styles were unsuitable for selling “high-end products” (BBC 2015). The expectation that black hair should be treated with chemicals in order to render it “suitable” for the workplace is still widespread, however, revealing a distinct lack of intersectional outlook. This attitude was challenged in 2017, notably by two women in the public eye. Musician Solange Knowles posted a photograph of herself, wearing her hair in braids, on Instagram; “Don’t touch my hair … Don’t touch my soul” was the title of one of her songs from the previous year. An apparently altered version of the image (without the braided crown of hair that appeared in the original photograph) subsequently appeared on the cover of the Evening Standard, and Knowles successfully challenged the alteration (Ruddick 2017a). In similar vein, actor Lupita Nyong’o expressed her disappointment that the

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magazine Grazia had digitally smoothed her hair in a photograph, in order to make it fit in with Eurocentric beauty ideals (Ruddick 2017b). Since models have objected to the manipulation of images, and employees have protested about workplace requirements regarding appearance, public awareness has been raised. Campaigns have now been set up to promote acceptance of Afro hair. World Afro Day, for example, established in 2017, aims to celebrate and shape positive perceptions about Afro hair, culture and identity (World Afro Day 2018). The shocking thing is, why manipulation of images was not questioned in the first place; who has the right to alter someone else’s image at all? We seem to accept that individuals may post altered images on internet platforms such as Instagram; indeed, that they might alter their body so that it matches its image, as that remains a personal choice, but to alter another’s photograph so that it appeals to the Western aesthetic is to encroach upon their cultural heritage and human rights, and therefore not subscribe to intersectional values. These protests, conducted by women, must, in my view, challenge traditional ideas about personal appearance, and the extent to which we must conform to established norms, and may be regarded as examples of a deep desire for gender equality in dress. These twenty-first-century developments are indicative of the very modern idea that fashion and dress contribute to the process of self-­ realisation. Unlike those of the pre-modern world, we now perceive ourselves as individuals, tasked with the idea of having to become themselves, with the responsibility of “becoming oneself ” (Svendsen 2006, p. 138). This idea underpins recent thought about self and identity. As Anthony Giddens observes, “in the post-traditional order of modernity, and against the backdrop of new forms of mediated experience, self-identity becomes a reflexively organised endeavour” (Giddens 1991, p. 5). For Foucault, we are tasked with creating ourselves as works of art, continually reinventing ourselves (Foucault 1997, p. 262). Our choice of lifestyle contributes to this ongoing work of art (Foucault 1997, pp. 137–138), and we enhance our identities by consumption of fashion products. In late modernity, we are considered to be consumers, rather than producers (Bauman 2001, p. 312). We can now subscribe to goods and qualities that we consider appropriate for expression of our individuality, and select aspects of our identity to represent through our dress. This positive

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outlook, which endorses consumerism, is the position generally adopted by women’s magazines (Twigg 2017, p. 346). It also enables an important aspect of dress, which is that of enabling artifice, realising identity through a form of disguise. This aspect of dress has been used to support the feminist position at times, as women have borrowed styles of dress worn traditionally by men, and vice versa. Rapid growth in the fashion industry has engendered interest in fashion as change in itself, and this is of interest regarding how we choose to dress. As Lipovetsky observes, the frivolous economy has uprooted traditional standards and behaviour, and generalised the spirit of curiosity, giving rise to a fundamentally labile type of individuality. He asserts that the ephemeral has invaded the everyday, so that novelties appear more rapidly and are more readily accepted. This, he maintains, has engendered the fashion person, who has no deep attachments, but has a fluctuating personality and tastes (Lipovetsky 1994, p.  149). This attitude towards dress, I would argue, conveys little of the identity of the wearer other than that they are a fashion person, and that their taste in dress fluctuates according to the latest fashion. For dress to convey personal identity requires more sustained attention to personal values and group identities, and how they might be conveyed to the outside world. It is insufficient to simply opt out of one group; positive identification with another group is essential in order to assert an identity. The increased availability of fashion goods, in conjunction with the opportunities for self-expression offered by social media, may, in my view, have contributed to the expression of full individual identity through dress; time will tell.

 urrent Unisex and Androgynous Styles; C Might They Be Pointing to Gender Equality? An interesting development that has occurred alongside the drive towards sustainability in recent years is the increase in the offer of un-gendered styles, and garments that contradict gendered dress conventions in designer collections. It is important to note here that the fashion world has witnessed several moves towards androgynous clothing since the early

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twentieth century, and that even in the strictest periods of fashion etiquette, women have borrowed from male fashions. In 1857, La France Élégante observed “Our clothes are becoming more like men’s; we wear round hats, turned down collars, musketeer’s cuffs; nothing is missing, not even trousers for many of us” (Zeldin 1977, p.  94; Wilson 2003, p. 118). Nevertheless, might our changing attitudes towards dress indicate ongoing development of humanity, a move towards embracing diversity, or is our latest disposition just a fashion in itself? The diverse range of styles shown at recent collections have included gender-fluid clothing, such as that designed by Telfar Clemens, for example, and unisex designs worn by a diverse range of models of all ages designed by Deveaux. Skirts for men have been presented in some designer’s collections in recent years, although the garment does not appear to have filtered through to general wear. As Entwistle asserts, the skirt is the “most heavily gender-coded garment, worn almost exclusively by women” (Entwistle 2015, p. 179). We should note here that the kilt, worn by a considerable number of men as well as women, remains outside the gender coding of skirts. It is one of the last vestiges of the age-old tradition of skirted styles for men in Western culture, being a traditional item of dress closely associated with established Scots culture. Whilst it appears in adapted forms, it is not essentially a fashion item for men. There has been an increase in recent years in the number of men who wear make-up (Thomas 2017; Myers 2017). Whilst make-up in various forms has been worn by men since at least 3000 BC, it had lost favour in recent decades. The resurgence of interest in make-up for men is reflected in numerous YouTube videos, which demonstrate make-up application. Cosmetic companies have invested heavily in researching foundation make-up for male skin, and in January 2019, retired footballer and style icon David Beckham appeared on the cover of British style magazine Love wearing eyeshadow, the image being commented upon widely in the media (Jacobs 2019). The level of media interest, in my view, is indicative of how entrenched conventional gender indicators are in Western culture. Nevertheless, the new trend offers greater possibilities for self-­ expression, and blurs gender boundaries, challenging patriarchal ideas of how both sexes should dress. Although these trends have yet to filter fully into the retail mainstream, we do seem to be expressing increased

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awareness about our relationship to the world around us, in that our clothes express our values, so that fashion constitutes a translation of sociopolitical trends. There appears to be an opening up, a relaxation of our attitude towards dress. In this respect, our sartorial preferences might be indicative of deep-seated human development. It is characteristic of fashion to be paradoxical and continually changing. As Simmel maintains, fashion is dialectical in nature, operating through imitation and differentiation, and destroying the status quo (Simmel 1997, pp.  187–192). We cannot know whether the shifts towards more eco-friendly production methods and dress that is androgynous in appearance are permanent or novel; are they actually the end of fashion, or renewed obsession with power, gender and our place in the world? As Elena Esposito points out, “paradoxes produce continuously new paradoxes, which are the only way to keep the contingency and indeterminacy of the future open. […] Fashion works because it continues to provide an orientation, also and precisely because it operationalizes a network of paradoxes” (Eposito 2017, p. 185).

Conclusion We have seen that the fashion world has undergone many changes, adapting sources of materials and production techniques in accordance with eco-ideals, and shifts in ideas around gender and identity. Leading figures in the fashion world have made a stance regarding the values underpinning their companies. These changes have, in my view, enabled some individuals to convey their values and identity more clearly; we appear to be moving towards fully individual clothing. This shift is the most recent in the long development of clothing production that has accompanied technological progress. At the same time, promotion of ethical fashion should help to reduce exploitation of production workers, but hitherto has done little to address the fashion industry’s targeting of women and girls as customers. Fashion and dress remain gendered, expressing ideas about gender using conventions of “masculine” and “feminine” appearance. Overall, there is a need in the twenty-first century for general

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availability of dress that is fully inclusive, intersectional and supportive of gender equality. The internet, the revolutionary technology of the late twentieth century, plays a significant role in the process of this development in fashion and dress. On the one hand, it enables the rapid transfer of ideas, whilst on the other hand it facilitates rapid delivery, eroding eco-ideals. As far as fashion itself is concerned, that is the demand for change and the new, these adaptations in production and ethical outlooks can support the demand to a certain extent. Fashion enables the individual to differentiate and to show membership of certain groups. In the internet age, the image has become of supreme importance, and online platforms such as Instagram can generate huge demand for certain styles and looks. Currently, public figures such as television presenter and author Holly Willoughby, for example, affect trends enormously; the outfits in which she appears on Instagram sell out almost immediately. The consequence is that production and circulation of fashion goods is accelerated, which in turn incurs associated damage to the environment. Some are aware, however, of the situation, and this in conjunction with measures to address the problem is a step towards adopting gender equality in dress. According to Simmel, fashion is concerned only with “formal social motivations”, and from this we may infer that fashion itself does not engage with ideas about gender equality (Simmel 1997, p. 190). In this respect, fashion’s demand for new styles relates only to the prevailing mood of the era, and dress styles conveying inclusive ideas stem from the moral consciousness of the wearer. If the majority are seeking to live within an ethically based society built upon the foundation of shared values, then systems of dress in which gender equality and ethical production are taken into account may be established. If the idea of gender equality in dress is to flourish, it requires to be acknowledged not only by the wearer, but also by the onlooker. In viewing appearance as an expression of identity, the onlooker therefore must observe with an outlook that is inclusive and embraces gender equality. Whether or not the latter is allowed to thrive is a matter of education and time. If culture in the Western world is to embrace gender equality, then we need to understand that we may be intersectional and gender-equal in our approach to what we wear, but how we dress ourselves may not be fashion.

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References Bauman, Zygmunt. 2001. From the work ethic to the aesthetic of consumption. In The Bauman reader, ed. Peter Beilharz, 311–333. Oxford: Blackwell. BBC. 2015. Woman ‘lost job chance’ over hair style. BBC, March 16. https:// www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-london-31914177/woman-lost-jobchance-over-hairstyle. Accessed 25 Apr 2019. ———. 2016. London receptionist ‘sent home for not wearing heels’. BBC, May 11. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-36264229. Accessed 15 Feb 2019. de Beauvoir, Simone. 1997. The second sex. Trans. and ed. H.M.  Parshley. London: Vintage. This translation first published in Great Britain by Jonathan Cape. Bell, Quentin. 1992. On human finery: The classic study of fashion through the ages. London: Allison and Busby. Butler, Judith. 2006. Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. New York: Routledge. Eicher, Joanne B., and Mary Ellen Roach-Higgins. 1997. Definition and classification of dress: Implications for analysis of gender roles. In Dress and gender: Making and meaning in cultural contexts, ed. Ruth Barnes and Joanne B. Eicher, 8–28. Oxford: Berg. Entwistle, Joanne. 2015. The fashioned body: Fashion, dress and modern social theory. Cambridge: Polity. Eposito, Elena. 2017. The fascination of contingency: Fashion and modern society. In Philosophical perspectives on fashion, ed. Giovanni Matteucci and Stefano Marino, 175–190. London: Bloomsbury. Foucault, Michel. 1997. Essential works of Michel Foucault, 1954–1984, Vol. I, Ethics: subjectivity and truth, ed. Paul Rabinow and trans. Robert Hurley and others. London: Penguin. Giddens, Anthony. 1991. Modernity and self-identity: Self and identity in the late modern age. Cambridge: Polity. Henley, Jon. 2009. The power of pink. Guardian. December 12. https://www. theguardian.com/theguardian/2009/dec/12/pinkstinks-the-power-of-pink. Accessed 10 Aug 2019. Hill, Amelia. 2015. Princess Awesome: The fight against ‘pinkification’. Guardian. February 20. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/feb/20/ princess-awesome-gender-neutral-clothing-kickstarter. Accessed 29 Nov 2017.

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Howell, Geraldine. 2012. Wartime fashion: From haute couture to homemade, 1939–1945. London: Berg. Jacobs, Bil. 2019. Is men’s make-up going mainstream? BBC, February 8. http:// www.bbc.com/culture/story/20190206-is-mens-make-up-going-mainstream. Accessed 22 July 2019. Jagger, Bianca. 2008. Yves Saint Laurent. The Observer. December 14. https:// www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2008/dec/14/bianca-jagger-remembersyves-saint-laurent. Accessed 14 Aug 2019. Jersley, Anne. 2017. The elderly female face in beauty and fashion ads: Joan Didion for Céline. European Journal of Cultural Studies 21 (3): 349–362. Kale, Sirin. 2019. ‘Why should I have to work on stilts?’: The women fighting sexist dress codes. Guardian, July 11. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jul/11/why-should-i-have-to-work-on-stilts-the-women-fighting-sexist-dress-codes? Accessed 15 July 2019. Lipovetsky, Gilles. 1994. The empire of fashion: Dressing modern democracy. Trans. C. Porter. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. McDowell, Colin. 2000. Fashion today. London: Phaidon. McRobbie, Angela. 2009. The aftermath of feminism: Gender, culture and social change. London: Sage. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 2019. Gender bending fashion. Exhibition 21 Mar- 25 Aug. https://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/gender-bending-fashion. Accessed 1 Aug 2019. Myers, Justin. 2017. Makeup for men: Will blokes ever go big for bronzer? Guardian August 22. https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2017/aug/22/ makeup-men-bronzer-asos. Accessed 4 Aug 2019. National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh. 2019. Body beautiful: Diversity on the catwalk. Exhibition 23 May - 20 October. https://www.nms.ac.uk/exhibitions-events/exhibitions/national-museum-of-scotland/body-beautiful/ Accessed 25 July 2019. Negra, Diane. 2009. What a girl wants; fantasizing the reclamation of self in postfeminism. London: Routledge. Rawsthorn, Alice. 1996. Yves Saint Laurent: A biography. London: Harper Collins. Ruddick, Graham. 2017a. Solange Knowles tells Evening Standard: ‘Don’t Touch My Hair’. Guardian October 20. https://www.theguardian.com/ music/2017/oct/20/solange-knowles-tells-evening-standard-dont-touch-myhair. Accessed 21 July 2019. ———. 2017b. Lupita Nyong’o accuses Grazia of editing her hair to fit ‘Eurocentric’ ideals. Guardian, November 10. https://www.theguardian.

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com/film/2017/nov/10/lupita-nyongo-grazia-editing-hair-eurocentric. Accessed 21 July 2019. Simmel, Georg. 1911. Philosophische Kultur. Leipzig: W. Klinkhardt. ———. 1997. The philosophy of fashion. In Simmel on culture: Selected writings, ed. David Frisby and Mike Featherstone, 187–206. London: Sage Publications. Simpson, Mark. 1994. Here come the mirror men: Why the future is metrosexual. Independent. November 15. http://marksimpson.com/here-come-themirror-men/. Accessed 10 Aug 2019. Svendsen, Lars. 2006. Fashion: A philosophy. Trans. John Irons. London: Reaktion. Thomas, Daniel. 2017. Is the taboo around male make-up disappearing? BBC, Nov 17 Nov. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41971587. Accessed 4 Aug 2019. Twigg, Julia. 2009. Clothing, identity and the embodiment of age. In Aging and identity: A postmodern dialogue, ed. J. Powell and T. Gilbert. New York: Nova Science Publishers. ———. 2017. Fashion, the media and age: How women’s magazines use fashion to negotiate age identities. European Journal of Cultural Studies 21 (3): 334–348. Valenti, Jessica. 2014. Let’s end pinkification: Must the ‘girls’ aisle be full of sexist toys and clothes? Guardian. August 5. https://www.theguardian.com/ commentisfree/2014/aug/05/girls-aisle-sexist-toys-clothes. Accessed 11 Aug 2019. Veblen, Thorstein. 2009. In The theory of the leisure class, ed. Martha Banta. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Walford, Jonathan. 2008. Forties fashion: From siren suits to the new look. London: Thames and Hudson. Wilson, Elizabeth. 2003. Adorned in dreams: Fashion and modernity. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. First published in the United Kingdom by Virago Press, 1985. World Afro Day. 2018. https://www.worldafroday.com/our-vision. Accessed 14 Aug 2019. Zeldin, Theodore. 1977. France 1848–1945: Taste and corruption. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

12 What Next? Some Concluding Thoughts Angela Smith

As the contributors to the book have shown, there have been huge strides made towards gender equality, but in the challenging times of the first quarter of the twenty-first century, there is still much work to be done. Sometimes, this will be through conscious effort, such as the IOC’s commitment to have 50% women athletes competing at the 2020 Tokyo games (the percentage of female participation in the Summer Olympics has increased from 28% in 2000 to 45% in 2016, with the 2012 London Olympics being the first time women had been able to compete in every sport across the Olympic programme). Sometimes, this quest for gender equality continues to be enshrined in law. For example, in 2018, the Icelandic government made the gender pay gap illegal, with a view to closing this pay gap by 2022. However, as Almadani’s chapter on the liberalisation of gender laws in Saudi Arabia shows, this is not always welcomed. In fact, in the Arabian world, what is taken for granted in A. Smith (*) Department of Media and Communication Studies, University of Sunderland, Sunderland, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Smith (ed.), Gender Equality in Changing Times, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26570-0_12

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terms of gender equality is still highly contested. In September 2019, a female Iranian football fan was arrested for attempting to enter a football stadium disguised as a man. She later died through self-emollition whilst waiting for her trial to come to court. Elsewhere, as Karen Boyle’s study (2019) of the #MeToo movement has shown, there is a continuity in the idea of women still being at fault somewhere. The victimising of alleged perpetrators is one of the most troubling aspects of the effects of the #MeToo movement. This links with the long-running debate around the concept of “masculinity in crisis”, with the early part of this twenty-first century being a particularly fertile source of materials to support such a thesis. The inexorable gender equality movement globally has been regarded as a danger to traditional masculine power by some. For example, Jordan B.  Peterson, a psychology professor from the University of Toronto, has published several self-help books which have proved to be bestsellers, particularly with an “alt-right” audience. In an interview on Channel 4 News in the UK, he declared “the west has lost faith in masculinity” and denounced “the murderous equality doctrine” championed by women (broadcast Channel 4, 16 January 2018). The same affordances of social media that allowed the #MeToo movement to gather such momentum have also been harnessed by a loose collection of so-called men’s rights activists, such as those campaigning for fathers’ rights, and other antifeminist groups that are associated with the alt-right. Grouped together as the “manosphere”, they largely congregate on Reddit in what Dekeseredy et al. (2015) refer to as a “virtual man-cave”. There are subgroups, which orientate around names derived from the cult film The Matrix, where the Red Pill groups adopt the Manosphere ideology of anti-PC and antifeminist rhetoric, and the Blue Pill groups are those who do not adopt this overtly misogynistic approach. Writing at The Guardian in 2014, Eva Wiseman commented that the Manosphere bloggers diminish women to the status of “sex and sandwich-makers”. Such venomous attacks on the concept of gender equality are rarely found in the public sphere, largely as they are so out of kilter with prevailing thought but also because they are so contentious and inevitably incur a backlash. Peterson himself revels in poisonous reputation. At its most extreme, this backlash against gender equality has led to extreme

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violence. Coincidentally in Toronto, in April 2018 Alek Minassian drove a car along a crowded street pavement in an attempt to kill women (he murdered ten people in total, eight of whom were women), inspired by one of the Manosphere’s online subcultures called incel. Incel, an abbreviation of “involuntary celibacy”, was initially set up by a woman who wanted to connect with other single people who were finding it difficult to meet life partners. However, it has emerged as something more right wing and vehement, with male members in particular seeking violent revenge on women who are perceived as shunning male company (particularly sexual contact) in the name of female empowerment and liberation. The first case of mass violence in the name of misogyny is that of Elliot Rodger, who is referred to by those in the group as “the incel martyr” and who killed 6 people and injured another 14  in Isla Vista, California, in 2014 before killing himself. Rodger’s suicide message centred around his complaint that feminism had meant he was still a virgin at the age of 22. Whilst the Manosphere rebellion is an extreme form of rejection of gender equality, it is not just the self-flagellation of such proponents of anti-equality sentiments that we find: as has been commented on widely, such anti-equality sentiments are often aimed at those whom the equality seeks to benefit more generally. For example, the large increase in female employment commented on in the Introduction, aligned with a declining birth rate as women gain more control over their fertility, has been frequently cited as feminists forcing Westernised countries into demographic decline. There are frequent media scare stories that blame feminism for, variously, the breakdown in traditional models of the family (“Working women ‘fuel family splits’”, Daily Telegraph, February 2009); the consequent psychological “damage” to children (“Children ‘suffering for lack of two-parent family’”, Daily Mail, February 2009); and that childhood obesity caused by mothers feeding them on “ready meals” and “junk food” (“Women have lost cooking skills, says Michel Roux Jnr”, Daily Mail, October 2015) because they are too busy with their “careers”. At no point do any of these media reports question the role of men in these alleged problems. For every “family split”, there is by definition another party in the relationship, yet it is the women who are daring to go out to earn a living by engaging with paid employment that are being blamed.

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Individuals who raise their voices in support of equality, particularly online, are open to abuse from strangers in new and very disturbing ways (see Smith 2018 for a discussion of this). What we see is the widening of opportunities for those previously excluded from certain areas of employment and society, by gender or sexuality. Where such people are allowed into the previously masculine-dominated domains, they are open to comment and sexual harassment, as mentioned above. But there are also more opportunities for discrimination and abuse in non-face-to-face contexts, and this applies not only to those who are seen as intruders into that space but also those who defend their rights to be there. However, what we should also not lose sight of is the effect gender equality on men who enter professions that are still regarded as being “feminine”. Kim Gilligan’s chapter in this book shows some of the challenges that male primary school teacher trainees experience, where the subconscious bias of the trainers draws on traditional gender stereotypes that differ according to age. To return then to the half-century-old “seven goals” of Second Wave Feminism: how far can we say we have come? • Equal pay now—This has been required by law for nearly 50 years in the UK.  However, women are still at a disadvantage as the annual reporting of gender pay gaps show. • Equality in education and job opportunities—Second Wave Feminists focused on opportunities for women, and indeed in Westernised countries there are no jobs that exclude women (outside of religious contexts). However, there are still issues to be resolved in terms of equality. Teaching is generally regarded as a woman’s profession, yet this is more nuanced than this would indicate. For example, in the 1960s, there were no female woodwork teachers in British schools. When Stephanie Atkinson qualified as a woodwork teacher in 1961, she was the first woman to do so in England. Atkinson’s chapter in this book shows how there continues to be a fight for equality in “technical” teacher roles. Conversely, the feminisation of teaching elsewhere has led to a huge disparity between the number of female and male trainee teachers, with male teachers often experiencing different prejudices, something Kim Gilligan explores in her chapter.

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• Free contraception and abortion on demand—The liberalisation of birth control throughout the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s has recently been challenged. Advances in medicine that mean premature babies are more likely to survive at an ever-younger age, coupled with a rise in Christian Fundamentalism, mean that in the US in particular, birth control rights are being rolled back. Susie Orbach’s revised edition of Bodies (2019) also explores this threat to reproductive rights in relation to the rise in gene therapies and new technologies of reproduction. • Free 24-hour nursery care—This remains an aspiration that leaves many new mothers anxious and guilt-ridden. • Financial and legal independence—Legally, there is no distinction in Westernised countries when it comes to gender and finance. This took many years, and in the UK there is an ongoing scandal of women who have been forced to retire on a much reduced pension owing to changes in the law that saw them miss out on opportunities to pay more into their pension pot. • Equality irrespective of sexuality—This is possibly the most proactive and dynamic area for reform at present. The rights of trans men and women are something that Second Wave Feminism didn’t explicitly identify. As Katie Ward’s chapter explores, the experience of being trans in the twenty-first century is still largely one of stealth. So what can we learn from the findings of our contributors to this book as well as studies carried out in the wider academic community? There have been many different ways in which the road to gender equality has progressed, not only in Westernised countries. There have also been huge leaps in acceptability of issues relating to sexuality, which have occurred at a much slower rate. However, in Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed by Men (2019), Caroline Criado Perez shows how discrimination against women continues in largely unseen ways. She gives examples of drugs that are tested only on male participants, but which don’t work on women; of safety equipment which is modelled on the male body and thus leaves women open to injury through lack of suitable equipment; and of historical assumptions of male dominance in wage earning that leads to statistical disadvantages for women. Criado Perez’s solution harks back to the calls of the Second

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Wave Feminists: close the female representation gap. She points out that “[when] women are involved in decision-making, in research, in knowledge production, women do not get forgotten. Female lives and perspectives are brought out of the shadows” (2019, p. 318). That said, as Sarah Banet-Weiser’s book, Empowered (2019), seems to sum up in its subtitle, the underlying polarities of gender equality that we have discussed here meet opposition: “Popular feminism and popular misogyny”. From the voices empowered by the #MeToo movement, which coincided with the popularisation of the term “feminist” once more, to the extreme misogyny found in the Manosphere movement, we can see how equality remains a contested ground. It remains to be seen if the conviction of Harvey Weinstein for rape and sexual assault in February 2020 will be the start or the culmination of such trials, or indeed if any substantial legal reforms will follow. But it is not just women who are being affected by the ongoing campaigns towards equality, as many of the chapters in this book attest. What we can see is that 50 years on from the main aims of the Second Wave Feminists, the world is a very different place in terms of equality, and that there are still voices being raised to continue this fight. The pessimism of the “popular misogyny” argument can be taken in light of the findings outlined in these chapters: for every voice of anti-equality protest, there is another—and probably a hashtag—to oppose it.

References Banet-Weiser, Sarah. 2018. Popular feminism and popular misogyny. Durham: Duke University Press. Boyle, Karen. 2019. #MeToo, Weinstein and Feminism. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Criado Perez, Caroline. 2019. Invisible women: Exposing data basis in a world designed for men. London: Chatto & Windus. DeKeseredy, Walter S., Alexis Fabricius, and Amanda Hall-Sanchez. 2015. Fueling aggrieved entitlement: The contribution of women against feminism postings. Crimsoc report 4: 1–34. Orbach, Susie. 2019. Bodies. 2nd ed. London: Profile Books.

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Smith, Angela. 2018. Gender in ‘crisis’, everyday sexism and the Twittersphere. In Crisis and the media, ed. Marianna Patrona, 231–260. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Wiseman, Eve. 1 June 2014. The everyday fear of violence every woman has to cope with. The Guardian. Accessed Sept 2019.

Index

A

Abortion, see Reproduction rights Abuse domestic, 43, 57 sexual, 8 Accent, 49–51, 56, 67, 71 Activism, 2, 12, 181, 184, 185 Activists, 9, 248 Adolescence, 27, 117 See also Teenagers Advertising, 133, 134 Aesthetics, 228, 230, 238 Afro hair, 238 black hair, 237 Aggressions/agressiveness, 43, 52, 55, 94, 166 Altoaimy, Lama, 154–157 Alt-right, 248 America, 45, 231, 235 See also USA

© The Author(s) 2020 A. Smith (ed.), Gender Equality in Changing Times, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26570-0

American, 52, 55, 134, 204 Androgyny in clothing, 239 Anger, over inequality, 39 Anti-feminism, 12 Antifeminist, 248 Anti-racist, 135 Ardern, Jacinda, 205, 214–219 Jacindamania, 214–218 Art, 2, 29, 65, 69, 134, 171, 175, 176, 186, 238 and artists, 174, 177, 232 Articulation, 12, 181, 185, 204, 212 See also Intersectionality Aspirations, feminist, 2 Athletes, 156, 247 Austerity, 4, 40, 41, 50, 52 Authenticity, 64, 65, 85, 136, 137, 146, 149, 209, 219 See also Sincerity as performance 255

256 Index

Auto-ethnography, 61, 62, 74 Awareness-raising, 134, 143, 196, 238 Aziz, Prince Abdullah Bin Abdul, 153 B

Babies, 4, 112, 143, 187, 188, 190, 191, 194, 229, 234, 251 Backlash, 1, 131–150, 181–199, 248 Banet-Wieser, Sarah, 1, 8, 133, 252 Bates, Laura, 8, 133 Baxter, Judith, 141 Beauvoir, Simone de, 230, 232 Behaviour, standards of and expectations of, 97, 239 Beyoncé, 8, 133 Bhutto, Benazir, 217 Bias, 19, 22, 42–58, 113, 250 See also Gender bias; Prejudice; Subconscious bias Bilingualism, 219 Binary, 1, 3, 107–125, 143 non-binary, 3, 111, 118, 120, 121, 142, 146, 149 Biological determinism, 139 Biopolitics, 89, 92 Blair, Tony, 215 Blickenstaff, J., 24, 25 Blogs/bloggers, 7, 8, 133, 181, 187, 195, 248 Body-image; naked, 186 Bourdieu, Pierre, 100 Bowie, David, 232 Boyle, Karen, 1, 248 Brain, gendered differences, 25 Brexit, 39, 41, 52, 54, 73, 218

Brown, Penelope, 158, 178 Bullying, 49, 137 Butch women, 118 Butler, Judith, 84, 95, 107, 109, 110, 112, 113, 124, 139, 188, 189, 229 Buzzwords, 182, 186, 187, 193, 195–197 See also Hashtags C

Cameron, Deborah, 143 Campaigners, 134, 136, 143, 148 Campaign for gender equality, 1, 9, 12, 131, 134, 143, 148 See also Campaigners Career, women, 18, 19, 21, 23, 32, 132 Carer, women as, 54 Categorization, membership, 182 Celibacy, involuntary, 249 See also Incel Chauvinist/chauvinism, 182, 188 Childcare/babies/infants, 4, 112, 143, 187, 188, 190, 191, 194, 229, 234, 251 Child/children, 4, 6, 9, 18, 24, 42–44, 46, 47, 50, 58, 59, 68, 72, 73, 90, 96, 97, 101, 119, 143, 155, 165, 166, 183, 187, 190, 191, 194, 195, 212–218, 234, 249 See also Babies; Reproduction rights Childhood, 18, 21, 24, 45, 69, 249 Childlessness, 213

 Index 

Choice, career and lifestyle, 23, 24, 26, 30, 32, 238 Cis, 115, 117, 120, 122, 142 Cisgender, 107, 111, 112, 115, 118, 119, 123–125, 142 Cisnormative, 125 Cissexist, 123 Classroom context, 96 Clinton, Hillary, 211 Clothes and clothing, 120, 133, 138, 144, 212, 228–232, 234–237, 239–241 Coates, Jennifer, 109, 110 Coding, 89, 117, 240 Colonization, 136 Communication technology, 41 Connell, R.W., 85 Connotations, 111, 115, 121, 122, 207 Conscious bias, 43 See also Unconscious bias; Bias Conservative, 27, 41, 44, 45, 55, 73, 149, 154, 156, 161–166, 168–172, 174–176, 178, 209 Conservative ideology, 155 Consumerism, 133, 234, 235, 238 Contraception, see Reproduction rights Conversational strategies/ conversationalisation, 136, 137, 142 Cosmopolitan magazine/Cosmo, 6, 7 Couples, 110, 120, 212–214 Criado Perez, Caroline, 251 Crisis, gender, 132 Crisis in education, 84 Cultural norms and beliefs, 22, 159

257

D

Dads/fatherhood, 23, 30, 66, 89–91, 95–97, 100, 137, 155, 176, 183, 248 The Daily Mail newspaper, 137–139, 149, 249 Daughters, 23, 47, 166, 193, 195, 210, 218 Democracy, 41, 67, 203, 205 Dialect, 160, 161 Dialogue, 62, 78, 89, 197 Digital technology, 185, 198 See also Blogs/bloggers; Hashtags; Twitter/tweets Dior, Christian, 133, 231 Disadvantage, as a result of inequality, 43 Discipline, 20, 64, 77, 94–97 disciplinarian, 87, 93–95 Discrimination, 3, 51, 56, 57, 76, 107, 132, 135, 196, 197, 199, 250, 251 See also Antisexism; Anti-racist Disney films, 148, 172 Diversity, cultural, 236, 237 Diversity, gender, 108, 112 Domestic domain/ domesticity, 10, 96 See also Homes/household Donovan, Catherine, 40 Double bind, 4, 11, 12, 144, 203–220 Drivers in Saudi Arabia, 157, 164 Dunant, Sarah, 134, 135 Dysphoria, gender, 109, 123

258 Index E

Economic context, 41 Education, gender in schools, 86, 87 Effeminate men, 118 Ehrlich, Susan, 189 Elections, political, 157 Embedded norms, 204, 207 Emotion/emotionality/emotions, 42, 74, 94, 96, 98, 209 Empathy, 55, 59 Employment of women, 2, 4, 134, 171, 249 employers, 4, 237 Empowerment of women, 2, 5, 133, 249 Encultured bias, 42 Engineering, 19, 26 STEM, 11, 17–27, 30–33, 133 Entwistle, Joanne, 228, 229, 231, 240 Equalities, 1–12, 18, 40, 46, 51, 52, 57, 87, 131–150, 154, 155, 168, 169, 175, 178, 184, 185, 187, 197, 198, 206, 227–242, 247–252 Equal pay, 3, 5, 6, 40, 42–44, 54, 57, 250, 251 Equal rights, 2 Essentialism, biological, 139 essentialist argument, 139 Ethical fashion, 241 Ethnicity, 65, 75–77, 141 Ethnography, 88 Europe, 228, 230, 231 Everyday sexism, 8, 55, 133 Experience, gendered, 101, 109, 113 Exploitation in the fashion industry, 230, 241

Extremist views, gendered, 39, 42, 172 See also Incel Extremist views, Islamic/Muslim, 154, 171 F

Facebook, 120, 142, 217 Fairclough, Norman, 134, 136, 137, 140, 209, 210 Fairy tales, 146, 234 See also Disney films Faludi, Susan, 6 Family, 4, 23, 29, 39, 43–45, 47, 50, 52, 53, 58, 65, 69, 70, 72, 75, 91, 96, 116, 156, 157, 166, 168, 170, 183, 187, 191–193, 195, 196, 213, 218, 249 Father/fatherhood, 23, 30, 66, 89–91, 95–97, 100, 137, 155, 176, 183, 248 See also Parenting; Child/children Fawcett Society, 133 Female/feminist/feminism, 1, 17–33, 46, 86, 110, 133, 154, 195, 204, 236, 247 Femininity/feminisation/feminising/ femininities, 2, 7, 86, 96, 111, 118, 119, 146, 196, 204, 206–212, 219, 229, 234, 250 Feminising the workplace, 4, 17–33, 132, 216, 217, 227, 232, 236 Fertility, 207, 249 Fitzgerald, Richard, 109, 110 Food banks, 39, 44, 53 Football, 52, 96, 99, 100, 153, 156, 158, 167–172, 248 Foucault, Michel, 90, 238

 Index 

Fountaine, Susan, 207, 213, 215 Framing, 211 Freedom, in clothing, 232 Freedom, in Saudi Arabia, 153, 168, 174 G

Gaga, Lady, 143 Gap, gender, 20, 21, 32, 203 Gap, pay, 5, 72, 247, 250 Gay sexuality, 2 Gender bias, 22, 42, 43, 45–49, 55 Genderfluid identities, 111 Gendering, 65, 86, 214, 218 Genderqueer identity, 111, 119 Gill, Rosalind, 132–134, 144 Girls, 5, 7, 18–22, 24, 27, 31, 32, 47, 116, 117, 132, 133, 143, 211, 234, 235, 241 See also Child/children; Woman/ womanhood Glass ceiling/glass escalator, 87, 218 Goals of feminism, 2 Government policies, 41, 52, 198 Grandmothers, 10, 217 Grazia magazine, 237 The Guardian newspaper, 5, 7, 42, 53, 212, 236, 248 Guardians in Saudi Arabia, 10, 155, 176, 178

259

The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Attwood), 45 Hashtags, 8, 133, 153, 157–160, 162, 164, 166, 172, 173, 177, 178, 197, 252 See also Buzzwords; Digital technology; Twitter/tweets Healthcare, 40, 43 HeForShe campaign, 8, 12, 131, 132, 148, 149 Hegemonic masculinity, 110 Heteronormativity/ heterosexual, 3, 97 Heterosexist, 118 Hierarchy, 57, 110, 183, 214 patriarchal, 183 Homes/household, 4, 42, 44, 46, 47, 50, 54, 55, 59, 67, 75, 96, 155, 163, 165, 182, 185, 192, 197, 214, 215, 230, 231, 235 See also Domestic domain/ domesticity Housewife/housework, 4, 147, 186, 187, 190–192, 211 Humanism, 11, 61–78 Human rights, 8, 18, 131, 238 Husbands, 149, 155, 165, 166, 176, 183, 188, 190, 192, 212, 214 Hybrid masculinity, 85, 88 I

H

Habitus, 100 Hair, 120, 232, 233, 237, 238 See also Afro hair, black hair Hall, Stuart, 108, 135

Identity, gender, 11, 27, 62, 65, 72, 76–77, 96, 107–109, 113–124, 154, 189, 228, 229 Ideology, 154, 155, 176, 181–188, 196–198, 248 Immigration, 70

260 Index

Incel, 249 See also Celibacy, Involuntary; Antifeminist Inclusivity, 3, 39–59, 61–78 Independence, 3, 18, 132, 174, 177, 251 Inequalities in gender, 18, 33, 72, 86–88, 132, 155, 157, 182, 184–187, 189–196, 198 Injustice and gender, 198 Instagram, 237, 238, 242 Intersectionality, 88, 89, 91–99, 101 Iran/Iranian, 62, 66–68, 71, 248 Islam, 73 Islamic, 154, 155, 157, 170, 171, 174–176 J

Jacindamani, see Ardern, Jacinda, Jacindamani Jamieson, Kathleen Hall, 205–207, 214, 218 Java, Akshay, Xiaodan, 159 K

Knowles, Solange, 237 Kroon Lundell, Åsa, 207 L

Labelling, 44, 134, 148 Labour Party, 73, 215 Labov, William, 109 Ladette, 2, 5, 6 Langer, Anna Innes, 209 Laurent, Yves St., 232

Leadership and women, 205, 206, 208, 210, 213, 217, 219 Legal measures, 56 laws relating to equality, 56 Lesbian, 3 Levinson, Stephen, 158, 178 LGBT, 109 Liberalisation, 12, 247, 251 Liberation movement, 3 Lipstick, 186 M

Macdonald, Myra, 4, 207 Magazines, 9, 137, 230, 237, 238, 240 See also under specific names Managers, 46–49 Manhood, see Masculinity/manhood/ male/men Manosphere, 248, 249, 252 See also Anti-feminist; Incel Marriage, 4, 72, 183, 184, 188, 191, 193–195, 207 Masculinised/masculinising, 204, 214 Masculinity/manhood/male/men, 1, 17–33, 46, 83–101, 110, 132, 154, 164–168, 170, 172–177, 182, 204, 229, 248 Maternity, 143, 216, 218 See also Mother/motherhood; Parenting Mathematics, 21 science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), 11, 17–27, 30–33, 133

 Index 

May, Theresa, 12, 205, 209–214, 216, 218 McRobbie, Angela, 2, 233 Memes, internet, 186, 211 See also Buzzwords; Hashtags Menswear, 232 Mentors/mentoring, 22, 28, 83–101 MeToo movement, 248, 252 See also Hashtags Metrosexual, 234 Misogyny, 1, 42, 185, 249, 252 See also Anti-feminism; Incel Models, 5, 11, 17–33, 45, 46, 52, 58, 85, 87, 96, 100, 134, 136, 137, 141, 146, 217, 230, 235, 238, 240, 249 Modernity, 228, 229, 238 Modesty, 165 See also Islamic; Conservative Morality, 42, 58, 183 See also Conservativism Mother/motherhood, 4, 6, 66, 75, 166, 187, 192, 193, 206, 207, 212, 213, 216–218, 249, 251 See also Maternity; Parenting; Child/ children; Father/fatherhood Music, 65, 66, 69, 70, 72, 76, 171, 232, 237 Muslim, 62, 73, 154, 164, 165, 168, 171, 172, 175, 176, 178 See also Islamic N

Narrative, 51, 88, 89, 109, 110, 113, 114, 117, 119, 120, 124, 125, 219, 220 Nationality, 65, 68, 75–77, 167 See also Identity

261

Negra, Diane, 2, 233 Networks, 29, 48, 49, 53, 72, 91, 159, 217, 241 Newspapers, 73, 142, 144, 236 See also individual names Normalize/normative/norms, 18, 22, 57, 70, 84, 88, 108, 111, 112, 117, 159, 183–185, 190, 192, 204–208, 214, 217, 218, 230, 233, 234, 238 Nursery care, 3, 251 Nurses, 4, 44 O

Olympics, 147, 156, 247 See also Athletes; Sport Orbach, Susie, 251 Outsider, 65, 72, 73, 76, 214 P

Pakistan, 217 Parent, 22, 30, 47, 97, 119, 193, 217, 231 See also Mother/motherhood; Father/fatherhood; Child/ children Parenting, 91 Parliament, 55, 203 Patriarchy, 135, 183, 233 Pedagogy, 25 Pensions for women, 251 Performativity, 92, 110 Pink/pinkification, 134, 234 Podcast, 70 See also Digital technology

262 Index

Political correctness (PC), 12, 134–136, 139–143, 145, 147–149 Politicians, 41–44, 50–52, 133, 207, 208, 210–215, 218 female politicians, 11, 12, 145, 204–206, 212, 214, 217–219 Post-feminism, 2, 227 Poverty, 40, 53, 135 See also Austerity Power, 2, 8, 9, 39, 41, 44, 45, 47, 52, 53, 57, 58, 62, 72, 89, 90, 94, 134, 135, 141, 154, 185, 193, 204, 210, 214, 217, 228, 234, 241, 248 Pregnancy, 217 See also Mother/motherhood; Father/fatherhood; Parent; Parenting; Child/children Prejudice, 39–59, 250 President, 45 Prime minister (PM), 12, 41, 55, 73, 205, 209–212, 214, 216, 217 Private, 22, 45, 50, 57, 136, 154, 192, 205, 209, 213, 214, 218 Professional, 17, 20, 27, 30, 70, 76–77, 88, 93, 98, 99, 109 Profession and career, 30 Pronouns, 111, 112, 120, 173 Psychology, 248 Puberty, 117, 118 Pupils, 19, 21, 87, 94–96 See also Child/children; Education; Teachers

Q

Quran, 164, 165 R

Racism, 65, 67, 72, 73, 75, 78, 178 See also Anti-racist Rape/rapists, 46, 132, 194, 252 Reclaiming language, 149 Relationships, 20, 28, 31, 43–45, 52, 58, 61, 75, 92, 159, 166, 183, 207, 209, 214, 217, 227, 237, 240, 249 Religion, 61, 63, 65, 68, 73, 165, 170, 172, 175 Reproduction rights, 3, 4, 6, 55, 112, 143, 187, 188, 190, 191, 194, 229, 234, 251 Revolution, 182, 184, 232 Rights, see Gender rights; Human rights Rushton, Peter, 40 S

Sacks, Harvey, 108–110, 125 Saudi Arabia, 10, 12, 153–157, 159, 160, 162, 164, 166, 168–170, 172, 174, 177, 247 See also Islam; Conservative Schools, 9, 11, 19, 21, 22, 26, 27, 29, 31, 32, 46, 50, 51, 53–56, 58, 62, 69, 83–101, 116, 135, 141, 154–156, 210, 250 Science, see Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)

 Index 

Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), 11, 17–27, 30–33, 91, 133, 134 Scotland, 12, 237 Segregation by gender, 21, 154, 157, 168, 172 Sexism, 2, 7, 8, 45, 47, 55, 65, 67, 72, 75, 78, 132, 141, 145, 178, 181–199, 213 Sexualisation, 138 Sexualities, 1, 3, 11, 65, 66, 76, 77, 250, 251 Shame, 43, 47, 57, 58, 211 Sincerity as performance, 139 See also Authenticity Single, 138, 145, 147, 190, 249 Sisterhood, 9 Snarl words, 136, 139, 142, 145, 149 Social class, 4, 27, 228 Sociology/sociological, 73 Space and place, 77 Sport, 91, 96, 97, 100, 148, 169, 230, 247 See also Olympics Stadiums in Saudi Arabia, 153, 156, 158, 167–172, 176, 177 Stage and theatre in Saudi Arabia, 158, 169, 173–177, 191 Stealth identity, 122, 123 Stereotyping, 11, 27, 86, 169, 171, 178, 214 Sturgeon, Nichola, 12, 214 Subconscious bias, see Bias Suffrage/suffragettes, 1, 2, 208 Surveillance, gender, 96

263

T

Talbot, Mary, 111, 136, 139, 140 Teachers, 9, 11, 19, 21, 22, 25, 26, 29, 31, 47, 53, 54, 56, 59, 74, 77, 83, 84, 86–100, 135, 250 Technology and Technovation, 12, 19 See also Digital technology Teenagers, 116 The Telegraph newspaper Testosterone, 116 Thatcher, Margaret, 135, 208–211 Theatre, see Stage and theatre in Saudi Arabia Thornborrow, Joanne, 109, 110 Titles, honorific, 145 Traditional/traditionalism, 11, 25, 85, 90, 96, 141, 146, 150, 166, 169, 204, 207, 213, 214, 218, 231–235, 238–240, 248–250 Trainees/training, 11, 25, 26, 83, 84, 88–101, 148, 161, 250 Trans, 12, 107–109, 111, 112, 114, 115, 118, 119, 122–124, 251 Transgender/transsexual, 108, 122–124, 141, 142 Transvestites, 109 Tropes, 7, 12, 119, 135 Trump, Donald, 42, 55, 134, 149 Tuchman, Gaye, 142 Twitter/tweets, 8, 12, 133, 153–178 See also Hashtags

264 Index U

W

Unconscious bias, 43, 72 Unmarried, 89, 157, 166, 188 See also Single; Marriage USA, 22, 55 See also American

Wages, see Equal pay Weinstein, Harvey, 8, 42, 252 See also MeToo movement Welfare and gender, 149 Whelehan, Imelda, 2, 5, 6 Whiteness, 72 Wife/wifely, 114, 166, 187, 192, 195, 207, 218 See also Domesticity; Marriage Woman/womanhood, 2, 5, 18, 50, 56, 61–63, 65, 67, 68, 70–72, 111, 114–118, 121, 124, 142, 143, 162, 163, 165, 171, 175, 176, 187, 190, 191, 205, 208, 209, 211, 214, 216, 217, 235, 237, 249, 250 See also Female; Femininity Workforce, women in the, 184 Workplace, women in the, 4, 132

V

Values, 28, 30, 44, 48, 51, 54, 55, 62, 64, 65, 67, 69–72, 74–78, 98, 100, 157, 168, 170, 172, 174, 175, 183, 188, 190, 194, 195, 208, 212, 213, 217, 218, 228, 238, 239, 241, 242 Vanity Fair, 137–139, 144–146 Victimising, 248 Violence against women, 46 Vocational education, see Science, technology, engineering and mathematics