Abstract
I discuss the challenges that feminist activists in academia have raised about how to deal with violence against women and girls (VAWG) and gender-related violence (GRV) through education and training. Whilst VAWG and GRV have been on feminist agendas since the early days of the Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM) in the 1960s and 1970s they were rarely linked with key demands for equal educational opportunities. It is still the case that feminist work on VAWG is rarely coupled with feminist studies in mainstream education. Drawing on a European Union (EU) funded study in the Daphne programme III—the GAP-work project—I consider strategies to address questions of VAWG and GRV for children and young people through education. This entailed involving ‘youth professionals’ and educators in four countries, namely Ireland, Italy, Spain and the UK in training. Drawing on this international educational work, I present an outline of a Feminist Manifesto or a ‘femifesta’ for education. This brings together feminist demands for policy changes in mainstream education through sex and relationships education to deal with VAWG and GRV, with feminist pedagogies to transform social and sexual or gender relations in schools.
Highlights
Sexual abuse and sexual harassment as forms of violence against women and girls (VAWG) and gender-related violence (GRV) are high on the public and political agendas in both the global north and global south in the second decade of the twenty-first century
Manifesto or a ‘femifesta’ for education. This brings together feminist demands for policy changes in mainstream education through sex and relationships education to deal with VAWG and GRV, with feminist pedagogies to transform social and sexual or gender relations in schools
How we found the youth professionals varied depending upon local circumstances: some were in higher education on professional education courses, others were youth or social workers or teachers, and others were in medical or health settings
Summary
Sexual abuse and sexual harassment as forms of violence against women and girls (VAWG) and gender-related violence (GRV) are high on the public and political agendas in both the global north and global south in the second decade of the twenty-first century. The once sociological term ‘gender’ has come to replace that of ‘sex’ as a way of describing cultural and social relations and divisions, including through the law This has been a relatively slow process of political transformation, it has been closely linked with the moves from the notions of women’s liberation to forms of feminism, and from second-wave feminism, in particular. Where these issues of sex, gender and violence are addressed more legalistically or in the political arena in the UK, they are about the relatively narrow question of gender recognition and identity (through new contested debates about the (Gender Recognition Act 2004) of the UK) or ‘the gender pay gap’ in forms of employment. It could make men and women alike responsible for the transformative changes necessary to avoid the endless cycle of misogyny and VAWG and reclaim (socialist) feminism (David 2016b)
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