The Willful Ignorance of Underfunding RE

[This may be a bit befuddled - I'm a wee bit ill!]

Have you ever felt the need to roll your eyes and utter such joyous phrases as "you're an ignorant muppet hell-bent on proselytising about how you don't want to be proselytised to" or "how long did it take you to come up with that clever little sarcastic comment demonstrating how free thinking you are (which is suspiciously similar to every other comment)"?

I do.

And when times like these strike, there is only one place where such solace can be found - the Guardian Faith Section. It is a bastion of idiocy in which one can delight in rolling one's eyes right to the back of their head and then for a few more spins. Ahhh.

But occasionally, these comments appear elsewhere. A bit like when you find that tenner you'd forgotten about at the bottom of your handbag, in amongst the 20 million receipts. And today's post is brought to you from such a time...

As I was innocently reading the Guardian website this evening, I stumbled across this article. It details the struggle of a former RE teacher to fund the basics in her subject, and provides an interesting insight into how RE is viewed by those in charge of the purse strings. In summary, it was worth less than £1 per pupil per year in her school.

Yet this sum is decried as "£1 too much". Evidently apart from the commenter's horrific spelling in the rest of his/her post, s/he has no grasp of numbers since the article explicitly states that it is less than £1 which is spent. But pointing that out would be facetious of me.

Other comments claim it is a pity that there are any RE teachers left, and an assertion that the money would be better spent in science. I've already touched on the science vs humanities debate on the blog, but in short, such an argument is reductive at best.

Yet it all comes down to how worthwhile we consider RE (and various permutations) to be. It is hardly surprising, that as a Religious Studies graduate I believe RE to be invaluable. Indeed, I genuinely can't understand how anyone could argue otherwise.

We live in a world shaped by religion, even if we live in the secular bubble of those denizens of the Faith comment threads. They may argue until they are blue in the face that religion does not and should not have any place in their lives, but they encounter the influence of religions and beliefs daily (and I'm not even getting into the 'atheism as religion' debate here). By seeking to ridicule and belittle religion, these people engage with belief on a fundamental level: choosing whether, and how, to believe. For many kids, the only place they will gain the tools to embark on this debate is in RE. This is especially true as the number of families who can be described as 'non-religious' or 'secular' (particularly those who don't really choose any position but ignore the present of religion) increase. It is easy to ignore religion in Britain, if you are willing to ignore debates on faith schools, atheist bus campaigns, Qur'an burning, abortion limits, hijabs, continuing campaigns on LGBT rights, equality of women, religious festivals, multiculturalism, stem cell research, religious symbols in public places, and the justifications of wars, to name but a few particularly pertinent topics.

But to ignore religion on a world stage is willful ignorance.

To 'educate' a generation of pupils at less than a pound each is to bring up our next generations of politicians, generals, businesspeople, teacher, holidaymakers etc without vital knowledge.

And worst of all, we will have no-one with enough knowledge to troll the Guardian faith pages.

2011: Resolutions and Reads

Happy new year! As is traditional, if unoriginal, one should recap on the previous year, so here goes...

In terms of resolutions, I tend to set challenges. For 2011 I wanted to:

1) Swim a mile in under half an hour

I did it! I was very, very pleased with myself afterwards. And tired. Really rather tired.

2) Not wear trousers to work for an entire year

A bit of a strange one, but I was sick of the trauma of trying to find trousers long enough/belts/hitching them up/trousers that were not the horrific black of school trousers so I wondered if I could go one year without trousers, whatever the weather. Turns out I am a convert. They are eminently more practical and just generally nicer.

3) The big one - read 40 books in a year

This target changed a few times. From 40 it became 52, then 60, then 65. Final total was 68. I had a wee look at some statistics on Shelfari yesterday, and found that I had read 20,210 pages during the year. Ratings wise, the list is as follows:

1) Dante's Inferno - Dante Alighieri (5/5)
2) A History of God - Karen Armstrong (3/5)
3) The Book of Certainty: The Sufi Doctrine of Faith, Vision and Gnosis - Abu Bakr Siraj al-Din (4/5)
4) A Good Hanging - Ian Rankin (3/5)
5) Islam: A Short History - Karen Armstrong (4/5)
6) Lady Chatterley's Lover - D.H. Lawrence (5/5)
7) The Falls - Ian Rankin (3/5)
8) Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert (4/5)
9) The Communist Manifesto - Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (4/5)
10) The Book of Mrs Noah - Michele Roberts (5/5)
11) The Plumed Serpent - D.H. Lawerence (4/5)
12) Case Histories - Kate Atkinson (3/5)
13) Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur'an, Hadith and Jurisprudence - Kecia Ali (5/5)
14) The Wise Virgin: The Missing Link Between Men and Women - Annie Wilson (1/5)
15) A Dangerous Delight: Women and Power in the Church - Monica Furlong (1/5)
16) Women in Love - D.H. Lawrence (4/5)
17) One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (5/5)
18) Kidnapped - Robert Louis Stevenson (3/5)
19) Feminism Unmodified: Discourses on Life and Law - Catharine A. McKinnon (5/5)
20) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson (4/5)
21) Mrs Dalloway - Virginia Woolf (4/5)
22) Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah - Olivier Roy (4/5)
23) The Virgin and the Gipsy - D.H. Lawrence (4/5)
24) Metamorphosis and Other Stories - Franz Kafka (5/5)
25) Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov (5/5)
26) The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy (5/5)
27) A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini (5/5)
28) The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini (5/5)
29) The Reluctant Fundamentalist - Mohsin Hamid (3/5)
30) Tortilla Flat - John Steinbeck (4/5)
31) Sons and Lovers - D.H. Lawrence (3/5)
32) Lanark: A Life in 4 Books - Alasdair Gray (5/5)
33) The Yellow Wall-Paper, Herland, and Selected Writings - Charlotte Perkins Gilman (5/5)
34) BUtterfield 8 - John O'Hara (5/5)
35) Jamaica Inn - Daphne du Maurier (4/5)
36) Because I am a Girl - Tim Butcher, Xiaolu Guo, Joanne Harris, Kathy Lette, Deborah Moggach, Marie Phillips, Subhadra Belbase & Irvine Welsh (5/5)
37) Crome Yellow - Aldous Huxley (3/5)
38) Three Short Novels: Heart of Darkness/Youth/Typhoon - Joseph Conrad (2/5)
39) The Castle - Franz Kafka (3/5)
40) The Nice and the Good - Iris Murdoch (4/5)
41) One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey (5/5)
42) Hungry Hill - Daphne du Maurier (3/5)
43) Finding Dad - Daniel Lee (5/5)
44) The Rainbow - D.H. Lawrence (3/5)
45) Hotel World - Ali Smith (5/5)
46) The Accidental - Ali Smith (5/5)
47) On the Road - Jack Kerouac (2/5)
48) Sexing the Cherry - Jeanette Winterson (5/5)
49) Girls of Riyadh - Rajaa Alsanea(3/5)
50) Women of Algiers in their Apartment - Assia Djebar (5/5)
51) Feminist Theory and the Body - A Reader - Ed. Janet Price and Margrit Shildrick (5/5)
52) Take a Girl Like You - Kingsley Amis (1/5)
53) Marriage and Sexuality in Islam: A Translation of al-Ghazali's Book on the Etiquette of Marriage fro the Ihya - al-Ghazali, translated by Madelain Farah (3/5)
54) The Rape of Lucrece - William Shakespeare (3/5)
55) A Passage to India - E.M. Forster (3/5)
56) Bodies That Matter - Judith Butler (4/5
57) Gender Trouble - Judith Butler (5/5)
58) The History of Sexuality (Volume 1): An Introduction - Michel Foucault (5/5)
59) Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud - Thomas Laqueur (3/5)
60) Foucault: A Very Short Introduction - Gary Gutting(3/5)
61) Poststructuralism: A Very Short Introduction - Catherine Belsey (3/5)
62) The History of Sexuality (Volume 2): The Use of Pleasure - Michel Foucault (3/5)
63) Honor - Frank Henderson Stewart (4/5)
64) My Antonia - Willa Cather (3/5)
65) Persopolis - Marjane Satrapi (5/5)
66) My Cousin Rachel - Daphne du Maurier (4/5)
67) Dracula - Bram Stoker (4/5)
68) Oedipus Trilogy - Sophocles (4/5)

Favourites were Sexing the Cherry, Persepolis, A Thousand Splendid Suns, Lanark and Lolita.

Least favourite was Take A Girl Like You because of the ending.

*spoiler alert*

The basic plotline - a girl who was unsure as to whether she wished to lose her virginity or not, wasn't brilliant, but the fact that the ending, in which she awakes in a drunken stupor to find her boyfriend having sex with her and her reaction is 'oh well, at least that's it done with', and no-one seems to see that it is rape, makes my blood boil.

*and done*

For 2012, I am going to keep a 40 book target, with an added caveat of at least 5 books published this millennium, and a 50/50 split between fiction and non-fiction.

Also, I want to swim an iron man distance (2.4 miles) in a single session.

Check back in 2013 (hopefully) for the results.

Anyway - happy New Year to you and yours!

Christopher Hitchens RIP?

This week, Christopher Hitchens died. Author, journalist and celebrated atheist, Hitchens was brilliant at what he did. His work on religion, perhaps what he is most famous for, is, at times, both infuriating and exactly what I want to shout out. He was incredibly erudite, and had a way with words which is rare. Reading his own reflections on the cancer which would eventually kill him was a terribly moving experience. This Vanity Fair article is upsetting for the honesty and the vulnerability of humanity that Hitchens came to know: http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2010/09/hitchens-201009.

We disagreed on the afterlife, but I respect his opinion on this. It was the result of a surety based on his assessment of the evidence on show. For that reason I won't say 'RIP'. To do so would be to disrespect his belief that death is the end; instead, I praise his achievements in life. For all the reasons listed above, I am grateful that he was alive.

What on Earth?!

Question: what search term could produce the following list of results on the University of Edinburgh's "searcher" function?

"Violence: Recognition, management, and prevention: Assailant's' Sexual Dysfunction During Rape: Prevalence and Relationship to Genital Trauma in Female Victims"

"Feeling the Heat" (with subjects listed as sport clothes and merchandising)

"ARE YOU SURE you're still a VIRGIN?" (With the funny capitals as well)

"Serum biochemical reference intervals for wild dwarf ornate wobbegong sharks (Orectolobus ornatus)."

[All results from the first page of results]

Answers on a postcard, please...

16 Days of Action on Violence Against Women

This is something that I meant to post on Friday, but technical difficulties mean that it has been delayed.

Friday the 25th November was the International Day Against Violence Against Women, and the 10th December is International Human Rights Day. The sixteen days connecting these dates have been taken up across the world as the 16 Days of Action on Violence Against Women. By connecting these two days, it is hoped that the message that women's rights are human rights, and are an international issue, will get across.

Some of the issues that are being taken up are as follows: domestic violence, sexual violence, childhood sexual abuse, prostitution and exploitation and human trafficking.

I've been facilitating this campaign at work, which means I've had the opportunity to liaise with numerous fantastic organizations, including Women's Aid, Rape Crisis Scotland, Edinburgh Women's Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre and Shakti Women's Aid. These guys have been kind enough to provide me with copious amounts of materials, from posters to leaflets to in-depth info.

What it has also made me realise is that this blog doesn't actually link to any support agencies, despite it's sometimes distressing content. To rectify that I have summarised the basic info for the 4 main agencies I worked with:

Edinburgh Women's Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre: http://www.ewrasac.org.uk/

EWRASAC provides support for women aged 12 and over and members of the transgender community who have experienced rape and sexual abuse, from support and advocacy to specific problems like dealing with panic attacks and self-harm. They also have information for families of those who have been raped or sexually assaulted.

They can also be contacted by telephone on 0131 5569437

Edinburgh Women's Aid: http://edinwomensaid.co.uk/

They support women and children at risk of violence (of any kind, not just physical) by partners or ex-partners. Services include refuge accommodation, young people's services and resettlement.

Telephone: 0131 315 8110

Shakti Women's Aid: http://www.shaktiedinburgh.co.uk/

For women of black and ethnic minority communities, including Eastern Europe, South East Asia and the Middle East.

Telephone: 0131 475 2399

Rape Crisis Scotland: http://www.rapecrisisscotland.org.uk/

The national centre for rape crisis work in Scotland, they operate the out of hours telephone service and run fantastic campaigns.

The 'not ever' campaign: http://www.notever.co.uk/the-campaign/

This is not an invitation to rape me: http://www.thisisnotaninvitationtorapeme.co.uk/

Telephone: 08088 01 03 02

Information and help after rape and sexual assault, a Scottish Government Document - http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/350957/0117632.pdf

Babies v Buses: Can Men Not Push Buggies?

I stumbled across this article earlier:

http://www.scotsman.com/news/transport/mums_rev_up_for_new_fight_over_pram_ban_1_1965185

Pretty much a rehash of the ever-joyous baby v bus debate that pops up to annoy Lothian Buses annually.

However, it really, really upsets me that this is all about mums with buggies. I won't deny that when I do take the bus, the majority of those getting on with babies are women, but this has sparked an interesting chain of thought: can men push buggies? Are men so pumped up with testosterone that their masculinity makes them baulk at the very sight of those toothless wonders? Indeed, does the penis actually prevent one from pushing a buggy?

And then I remember that, actually, I frequently see men with babies on buses. Heaven forfend, even men with babies in buggies on buses.

It calls to mind the endless scenarios I've seen of parents telling off their little boys: "stop pushing that buggy; you're not a girl!" It saddens me that girls are socialized from a young age to care for children, whilst boys are warned off it - and for what purpose? For the preposterous notion that doing 'girly' things makes them gay? Do we want to see our sons as bad fathers?!

The perpetuation of male breadwinner/female caregiver stereotypes exemplify the everyday fights that we all need to partake in. This may seem like a 'small' issue in a supposedly equal society, but it is in the small things that we find the roots of inequality.

News So Appalling That I May Transform into the Hulk

This is one of the most horrific articles I've ever read: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/04/turkish-court-reduces-rape-sentences

A 13 year old girl was sold by two men for sex which subsequently resulted in her being raped by26 men. I may have to repeat that: TWENTY-SIX. These men included teachers and civil servants who have been sentenced for disturbingly short sentences (those who sold her for 9 years and the rapists for 1-6 years). Yet now, those sentences may be cut further because she "consented".

?!

How, in the name of all that is good can a 13 year old girl actually consent in this situation? I've mentioned before that I disagree with consent-focused rape laws, but I don't think I've ever given a full explanation of why. So, oh lucky ones, I shall. Gather round and listen to my words of wisdom kiddly-winks...

Consent is, by it's very definition, an agreement reached by two people in a position of equality. Now, I won't go so far as some have, and claim that due to the ongoing power of patriarchy all sex between men and women is not actually 'consensual' as they can never be equal. I think this is a very monolithic view of patriarchy, and if we do not understand the specific permutations at work then we can, in fact, credit it with too much power, whilst ignoring the real battlegrounds.

Instead, I argue that consent is essentially meaningless in the realm of sexual negotiation. The law does not really have the means to provide legislate for the minutae of power relations at work in the sexual realm, so it takes a 'single common denominator' approach. To give consent, in the eyes of the law, is to remain silent, to not fight back, to not kick and scream... This is based on two major misunderstandings: 1) the myth of 'real rape' where innocent young virgins are violently violated whilst their continued attempts to fight are overcome by the sheer strength of the vile offender - for a bit of a rant about this see my post on the Ken Clark controversy earlier this year; 2) a complete lack of forethought about the choices a person is framing during the course of their relationship with that person/the attack. It is all very well and good to say that you'd fight back, but what about if you suspected you would be subjected to further violence? What if the attacker had a weapon? What about if the attacker had threatened your family? What if silence is the easiest way for you to deal with the attack? The coercion and violence inherent in the act of rape as demonstrating power on the body of another takes place at a level the law cannot truly legislate, at least if it continues to rely on the overly broad and meaningless concept of 'consent'.

We don't know what sort of choices this child was framing when she was raped, but placing oneself in the shoes of a child being forced to have sex with adults who hold very real power over you is rape. For goodness' sake, she was SOLD - how can she have consented?!

There are two issues at stake in the more specific Turkish context here too - 1) these men may be released because this legal wrangling is stretching the case past the timeframe for prosecution and 2) killings of women increased 1,400% between 2002 and 2009. I can't even begin to comprehend such a figure.