Women's Views on News |
- On reading white, heterosexual men
- Transgender faculty issues
- Why the police failure on cyberstalking?
| On reading white, heterosexual men Posted: 23 Oct 2013 08:09 AM PDT
When Canadian professor and author David Gilmour revealed that he isn’t ‘interested’ in teaching books by women it was business as usual. There were justifiably irked responses and the linguistic equivalents of catapulting books by women back at Professor Gilmour. And then it frittered away; ephemeral, commonplace. If we can stifle the giggles, and actually focus on the intent behind his nonsensical assertion that he only teaches ‘seriously heterosexual guys’, we could of course view Gilmour’s comments as symbolic of a deeper malaise. We could justifiably sense the institutionally ingrained sexism of academia that is a bastion for male creativity, repeatedly shoring up and then deferring power to future generations of men. And yes, deliberately teaching and reading books exclusively authored by men is sexist. Of course it is. But more importantly, it doesn’t make any sense. Some people still labour under the misapprehension that the study of literature is a navel-gazing, introspective and ultimately useless pursuit. In actuality, it is not about blindly pointing to metaphors or stroking your chin while you try to shoehorn obscure meaning into writing that does not purport to have any. To study literature is to obtain an understanding of the scope and range of human feeling; of how literature is intertwined with life, with history and with its antecedents; of how people write their way out of, and sometimes into, crisis. Literature is one way we have of making sense of the world, and the worlds of others; to understand what it means to live in a particular time as a particular person. So, to only teach books by men on a Modern Literature course is both limiting and entirely misses the point behind the study of literature. And to enforce your own narrow ideological assumptions onto the vast wealth of modern literary output is to cheat your students. Equally though, it seems entirely counter-productive to hit back at Gilmour by decreeing that you will now only read books by women, or to write a defiant list of purely female authors to show the doubters that women are just as good, if not better, at authorship. Granted both would be entirely gratifying – hell, we’d all get some satisfaction from holding an Ali Smith novel with one hand while sticking two fingers up with the other. However, you don’t counter prejudice or foster inclusivity by keeping the genders diametrically opposed. This isn’t about shifting power wholesale and gender equality is not a zero sum game. Granted, English Literature departments have always been heavy with male authors. In one sense we can suggest that this is not the fault of the English literary canon; it can only work with what it has and as we all know women authors were for a very, very long time few and far between. Whether you go for Virginia Woolf’s explanation of that absence; lack of money and a room of one’s own or the less nuanced view of Catlin Moran, that ‘women don’t appear to have done anything until very recently’ it is inescapable that men have dominated our literary and cultural landscape. That is why countless 100 best books or 1000 books to read before you die lists are going to be male-heavy. Then the contemporary history of the last thousand years has been largely written by men and the vision of the world we learn about is filtered through male eyes. Yet, is it not the duty of academia to seek out the marginalised and make the hidden important? For there were women writing alongside men for many years. We just don’t get to hear about them. Partly because of the disadvantaged position of women in society, or their lack of money, or their class, many women novelists have faded into obscurity. Lost. But there have been female contributions, and it seems to depend on their perceived importance to the glorious canon of English Literature whether they are unearthed and placed on academic reading lists. We probably need but two hands to count off the prominent figures: Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell, George Elliot, Emily, Anne and Charlotte Bronte, Virginia Woolf, Mary Shelley. At a push Maria Edgeworth and Fanny Burney. Yet it is largely due to luck that some of these authors have retained prominence while others have faded. It is to the detriment of an understanding of women’s place in history and to a richer insight into transgressive gender identities that Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility remains read, and vaunted, for example, while Mary Robinson’s Walsingham withered and shrank away. Walsingham concerns the life of Sir Sidney Aubrey, a girl who is passed off as a son by her mother in order to become heir to the family fortune. Both novels were written in the late 18th century and are inflected with contemporary gender politics and overshadowed by the spectre of the French Revolution. Walsingham, though, has fire and a counter-cultural grit we are told ladies of that day were not allowed to possess. Women authors, as we move further along in history, are quite often shoved by academia into little sections; on specialist modules concerning gender, the body, or Post-Colonialism. But a course concerning the broader brush strokes of ‘modern’ literature has no excuse for sexism to be coded into its syllabus. On this count I agree with author and academic Roxane Gay, who suggested we should not feel outrage for Gilmour, but pity; pity that he is cheating himself and his pupils of the full range of human experience. Maybe we should chalk ‘men that don’t teach women’ up not as a gain for male privilege but as a loss for single-minded academics who are missing out on huge chunks of inspirational creativity, their life of the mind only a half-life, their understanding of what it is to be human incomprehensive and riddled with holes. Gay spoke of her interest in teaching novels that ‘examine the human condition in the modern age’ and of ‘how they examine that condition’. She has suggested a list of novels – by men and women – that she felt did just that. A course containing Misery by Stephen King and Orlando by Virginia Woolf? Her list was so refreshingly diverse and non-elitist I wanted to jump on a plane, find her and take my degree all over again. Each person will interpret expressions of the ‘human condition’ differently and academic courses are by nature prescriptive. However, what they should do is open the door to writers, themes and lives beyond the scope of lived experience. It seems eye-bulgingly obvious to say that the best way to achieve understanding is to listen to multifarious voices and to steer away from the obvious. It should not be considered heretical to say that in the Woman Who Walked into Doors Roddy Doyle has written one of the most affecting fictional depictions of domestic violence I have ever read. Just as it is not paradoxical to say that in The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole a woman has created one of Britain's most enduring portraits of male teenage angst. Without going all weepy Hollywood movie on you, teaching literature can be and should be about the transformative and informative power of words, and of creative ideas. But such words and ideas should not just be those of dead, white, heterosexual men.  |
| Posted: 23 Oct 2013 04:18 AM PDT
Theology professor Heath Adam Ackley is facing loss of employment at Azusa Pacific University (APU) in California, after fifteen years of service. Why? Because Heath Adam Ackley used to be Heather Ann Clements. Professor of systematic theology and an ordained minister, Ackley changed his name and gender identity and plans to go through a surgical transformation. But controversy broke out after Ackley informed Human Resources of the name change. Azusa Pacific University is a private higher educational institution near Los Angeles with a student body of nearly 10,000. According to APU's website, the university is committed to fostering "a strong, clear, unswervingly evangelical Christian worldview that permeates the university and guides its activity," and holds to "the historic Christian understanding of Scripture" by reaffirming that "sexuality is a gift from God and basic to human identity as well as a matter of behavioral expression." Azusa Pacific University has released a statement on the current issue saying: “University leadership is engaged in thoughtful conversations with our faculty member in order to honor the contribution and treat all parties with dignity and respect while upholding the values of the university. “It is an ongoing conversation, and therefore, a confidential matter.” Ackley, who is going through a divorce from her second husband, has stated that APU has asked her to resign effective at the end of the academic year and he is in agreement that he might not be "the best fit." What is at issue still is whether Ackley will be allowed to continue teaching for the rest of the academic year. Students at APU have been largely supportive of Ackley and have set up a petition at Change.org to try and keep their professor. Nursing student Natasha Hanright, who converted to Christianity after attending APU, but recently became an atheist, said that her faith in Christianity was shaken by the "hate" other students gave her for practicing Buddhism before coming to college. Hanright said, "(Professor Ackley) brought me so close to loving God again, as close as anyone could have ever had. She accepted me. She made me want to love God." Similarly, Margaret van der Bie said, “He’s the greatest professor I’ve ever taken, so by taking him out of the classroom, especially mid-semester, is doing the students a huge disservice and it’s a huge loss to the university.” But some students do find Ackley's transgender identity a challenge to their faith. One said, "[It's] unfortunate that [Clements] couldn't realize that God made her perfect in his image and accept that she was a female not a male trapped in a woman's body," and continued, "We live in a sad world where people don't see that God made us all in his image and that we don't need to change for it." Yet this position appears to be less prominent than those who see Ackley as a good teacher who should be allowed to continue. For, as another student claimed, "the vast majority of us hate what APU is doing." "It's the top that deserves the shame and blame for the firing of a good man. … I am ashamed of the actions of my school and the constant close-mindedness in regard to the LGBT community and especially Professor Ackley. Nothing in the actions of my university reflects the God I love." Ackley has reflected upon the agonising struggle to come to terms with his gender identity. “I really wrestled with it, of course, being someone who was trained in biblical scholarship and theological study and that was, that is, Christian,” said Ackley. Spiritual counselors advised him to ignore his preferred identity for the sake of his family, but as a result, Ackley self-medicated, and started cutting his body and starving himself. So it's no surprise that Ackley describes his transition as being "from being a mentally ill woman to being a sane, transgendered man." Transgendered students and faculty members in the UK are protected by legislation, according to the Equality Challenge Unit (ECU). ECU says, “Higher education institutions have a legal responsibility to protect the rights of trans people, both staff and students, and to ensure individuals do not suffer from any direct or indirect discrimination, victimisation or harassment, and are supported in any process of transition.” As such, Oxford University has recently changed its dress code for examinations to create equity for transgender students. Under the new regulations, students taking exams or attending formal occasions will no longer have to wear ceremonial clothing that is specific to their gender. It will mean men will be able to sit tests in skirts and stockings and women will have the option of wearing suits and bow ties rather than the very strict requirements they had all faced. In the meantime, words of support have come from Joy Ladin, a transgender professor at Yeshiva University, a Jewish institution in New York. She said, "Some may think that religious universities are driven in this regard by fear of God, but there is no verse in the Bible in which God says, "Thou shalt not employ a transgender professor."  |
| Why the police failure on cyberstalking? Posted: 23 Oct 2013 01:09 AM PDT
Labour MP Stella Creasy, journalist Caroline Criado-Perez and TV historian Mary Beard have all been high profile victims of online abuse and harassment via Twitter this year. Three men were arrested following threats of rape and misogynistic violence and abuse made to Criado-Perez this summer – but the police misplaced the threatening Tweets she received. And even though the Tweets contained graphic death and rape threats the police asked her to go through the thousands of threatening Tweets she had received to look specifically for their Twitter handles. If Criado-Perez had been a victim of physical abuse and the police had mislaid the photographic evidence of her injuries, would they have considered asking her to re-approach the perpetrator and be re-assaulted in order to retrieve photographic evidence? One sincerely hopes not. The fact she was asked to search through the thousands of abusive Tweets she received and re-live the ordeal perhaps indicates the attitudes held by the police toward cyberstalking and harassment. Criado-Perez told Channel 4 News recently: “In the event it seems that wouldn’t have been necessary anyway but I think that sort of points again to the way the police don’t have a firm grip on these types of crimes, how they might affect a victim.” In April 2011 an Electronic Communication Harassment Observation (ECHO) pilot study was launched to coincide with the launch of Out of the Shadows: National Stalking Awareness Week. The study, a survey, was commissioned by the Network for Surviving Stalking and the results were analysed by the National Centre for Cyberstalking Research. The ECHO survey aimed to find out about the victim's experience of harassment via electronic communication methods such as the internet or mobile phones. It also aimed to record the impact the experience of harassment has had on the victim's life. The National Centre for Cyberstalking Research at the University of Bedfordshire then published a review and analysis of the ECHO pilot project. Earlier, authors Purcell, Dr Michele Pathé and Professor Paul Mullen had defined stalking behaviour as 'the course of conduct by which one person repeatedly inflicts on another unwanted intrusions to such an extent that the recipient fears for his or her safety'. And while cyberstalking is generally considered to be harassment that originates online, it is also recognised that other forms of pre-existing stalking can transfer into online environments. According to the review, the types of attack can vary greatly and include the following: identity theft – controlling a victim's credentials, posting false profiles, posing as the victim and attacking others, discrediting the victim in online communities, discrediting the victim in their workplace, using direct threats through email and instant messaging, constructing websites targeting the victim, transferring attacks to the victim's relatives, using the victim's image, provoking others to attack the victim and following the victim in cyberspace. A number of Caroline Criado-Perez, Stella Creasy and Mary Beard’s abusers engaged in persistent and intrusive behaviours, albeit under numerous guises in the form of making use of multiple Twitter account profiles. The threats each woman received were vile. I saw Criado-Perez’ timeline as she was receiving the abuse and was horrified that anybody could say such despicable things to a human being – let alone one they have never met. But one of the biggest issues with cyberstalking is that the victim never really knows who the perpetrator is. Is it someone they know? Is it someone who lives close by? Is it someone who is also tracking them offline as well as online? And that iss the kind of control the victim is placed under. Constant fear. Not knowing if the next person to knock at their door is the person who has been threatening them with such horrendous things. And if the perpetrator has crossed that line and is stalking their victim both online and offline, there is a very real threat of the victim’s life being in serious danger. Stalkers, the Digital Stalking website explains, are obsessive, delusional, narcissitic people. In November 2012, amendments were made to the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 and stalking was made a specific criminal offence by the Protection from Freedoms Act 2012, when the government introduced two offences, stalking and stalking involving a fear of violence. But prosecutions since this date have been incredibly low – just 33 convictions between 25 November 2012 and the end of June 2013. The National Stalking Helpline says this about the new legislation: “To prove a section 2A [stalking] it needs to be shown that a perpetrator pursued a course of conduct which amounts to harassment and that the particular harassment can be described as stalking behaviour. “Stalking is not legally defined but the amendments include a list of example behaviours which are following, contacting/attempting to contact, publishing statements or material about the victim, monitoring the victim (including online), loitering in a public or private place, interfering with property, watching or spying.” This is not an exhaustive list, the Helpline pointed out, which means that behaviour which is not described above may also be seen as stalking. ‘A course of conduct’ is two or more incidents. “Section 4A is stalking involving fear of violence or serious alarm or distress. Again serious alarm and distress is not defined but can include behaviour which causes the victim to suffer emotional or psychological trauma or have to change the way they live their life.” So with those definitions in mind, you would assume the police would have little difficulty prosecuting the internet trolls who have stalked women like Caroline Criado Perez, Stella Creasy and Mary Beard online and threatened them with acts of sexual violence and even death. Caroline Criado Perez gave a brave presentation at the Women’s Aid conference on Cyberstalking and harassment last September. She read out some of the disgusting threats she had personally received. If you would like to see the kind of the threats the police asked her to read again you can do so on her Week Woman blog. Brace yourself though, they are not for something the faint-hearted. So, why aren’t the police prosecuting more people for cyberstalking? The answer appears to be relatively simple. Training. Or rather a lack of it. Front-line police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) have not yet received full training on the new stalking legislation. I know that it sounds incredible, that our country should have a law in place to protect people at risk from behaviour that can have serious consequences, but those who deal with it have no knowledge of it, but that is what is happening. Jennifer Perry, an expert on cyberstalking, said: “I think there is a cultural issue [with] the police. They simply don’t recognise stalking. “In my view what is needed is easy to use tools, workbooks, videos, action plans, to be developed then provided to the police and support organisations but that has to be done in a central organisation on behalf of all interested parties and then [we need] the mechanisms to encourage them to use it.” “The government has to develop better strategies in dealing with stalking and harassment because technology is increasing the number of victims by making it easy to stalk, more efficient, [increasing] the ability to gather better information on the victim which feeds the obsession.” When asked to respond regarding what needs to be done to improve police response to crimes of stalking, The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) spokesperson gave WVoN the following comment: "The police service is acutely aware that the experience of being stalked can destroy the lives of victims. "Over the past 6 years a significant amount of progress has been made to improve our response to stalking so that we can safeguard and protect victims. We have focused on improving the understanding and responsiveness of frontline officers to stalking, raising public awareness and encouraging victims to report to the police, and making the criminal justice system more effective at protecting victims and preventing offenders. "Effective, high quality guidance and training for police and prosecutors is vital; accordingly training materials, national guidelines and risk assessment tools have all been created. To complement this, single points of contacts for stalking have been established in forces. "The service works closely with charities that have expertise in supporting victims of stalking and promotes events and services such as the National Stalking Helpline and National Stalking Awareness Day. "While cyber-stalking can be perceived as a new phenomenon, it is really just another avenue used by stalkers. However, we are ensuring that we work closely with our colleagues focusing on cyber-crime and take into [account] the cyber element of stalking in all our work. "Stalking is a serious problem and there is more to do, not just for police but the criminal justice system and society as a whole." But this work has to include not just training about what kind of behaviour falls under the legislation, it must also include education. Education to change attitudes to and perception of the impact of crimes of this nature on the victims, because without this, a much needed victim-centred approach will continue to be missing from any police response.  |
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