Monday 30 November 2015

Why is Britain’s Minister for Women writing Feminism out of History? By June Eric Udorie


Nicky Morgan with schoolchildren

When I heard about the proposed changes that would see the removal of feminism from A-level politics I sighed, grabbed my politics textbook and went off to a lesson. Someone will do something about it, I thought. Someone will complain to the minister for women and equalities about the steps that the Department for Education is planning to take.
Oh the irony – Nicky Morgan is not only the secretary of state for education but also the minister for women and equalities. It is surprising that the very person whose role is to ensure that women’s equality is considered by the government, and to ensure that we do not do young people a disservice by what we teach them, was encouraging the deliberate erasure of women from history.
By 10pm that evening I had launched a change.org petition out of anger and despair. Just over a week later and it’s had more than 40,000 signatures – clearly I am not the only one frustrated by the proposal.
As a current A-level politics student, I can testify to the lack of importance placed on women already in the curriculum. Even when there are women such as Nancy Pelosi, the first female speaker of the House of Representatives, she is merely mentioned in passing before we continue our discussions about George W Bush.
It wasn’t actually the removal of feminism from the curriculum that particularly annoyed me, or even the insulting move to classify the suffragettes as a “pressure group”. Rather, that of the 16 key political thinkers students would be learning about, only one of these is a woman: Mary Wollstonecraft. Are Nicky Morgan and Ofqal really saying that there are no other women who contributed to developing the theories of liberalism, socialism and conservatism? I find it hard to believe that there were no female political thinkers that contributed to these ideas and movements. I won’t accept that.
There is obviously a huge problem with this writing women out of history. It is not hard to ensure that you have a gender-balanced curriculum. It is just lazy not to do so. I should not have to ask the government to create a curriculum that isn’t full of mostly white men, when there are women and people of colour who deserve to be studied. Having the opportunity to learn about these much-needed role models is essential for ensuring that young women know they can pursue a career in politics, have influence and make a difference.
In terms of feminist campaigns, this may not be the biggest issue. But these small things matter. Because, when you erase women from the curriculum, you teach boys and girls that women’s work is not important, that the contributions they made are not as valuable. If you start this drip-feeding early then you invite the sexism, inequality and misogyny that women are still experiencing today.
Feminism continues to be one of the most powerful political movements in recent times and deserves to be on the politics A-level syllabus. And if not, at the very least, students should be given the opportunity to learn about a few more female political thinkers.
I want to meet Nicky Morgan so I can give her some suggestions of women who deserve to be included in the curriculum, in case she’s forgotten about them. It’s not too much to ask. If for no other reason than it’s 2015, and by now this shouldn’t be something that we should have to fight for.

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