The Universities Today

Historiann has tagged me to engage in a discussion about how our universities work and the problems we see in them. I am currently in the unusual position having just moved across the world from one university system to another, so I am going to try to speak to both with the enormous caveat that I know the UK system a lot better than the one downunder. For a bit of perspective, I have only ever worked in the equivalent of R1 institutions in research contracts; I do minimal teaching (and most of that is just to keep my hand in and is mostly voluntary and low pain); and minimal admin. I am relatively well-paid and well-resourced. Reflecting the value placed on research money, I tend to have big offices, good access to inter-library loans, and books, and money for research. I do have to publish a lot, but hey that’s my job, so can’t complain. Most of my day is spent researching and writing in various forms. In short, I am among the most privileged of the privileged. The only meaningful complaint I can make is that the short term nature of the contracts has meant having to live separately from my spouse and also living under a lot of pressure to ‘get the next job’, which means working long hours, publishing like crazy and barely having a personal life.

I am going to begin by engaging with Dr Crazy’s response to this meme. In her post she argues that while universities have problems, discussing the ‘failure’ of the university system is unhelpful and probably inaccurate. And, from my perspective, this is true. In the UK, in the last twenty years, the number of universities has exploded and with it the number of people with degrees. Now, like in many places where this has happened, such expansion has led to a concern over the ‘value’ of a degree (if everyone has one, what’s it worth?) and whether we have enough skilled jobs for such a huge number of skilled workers. Are people just wasting time in higher education, when if they are going to work in the service industry anyway, they might as well just get straight on the career ladder? Now, these are all interesting questions, but as someone who came from a family that held no degrees before the late 1990s, and now has numerous spread out among various family members, and as importantly, different generations of family members, I think this has been a crucial advancement in democracy and equality. Perhaps, there is now more competition amongst graduates, but at least most of us now get to compete. For me, to move back from this position is a retrograde step in social equality – especially because the school system is not equitable. Children at state schools do not get an equal education to those privately educated. And, while it is true that children from disadvantaged areas tend to filter into lower-ranking institutions, we are at least starting to work towards a fairer system for social opportunities and advancement.

From both a research and teaching perspective, universities are now big business like never before, and with that their social and economic influence is unprecedented. Now, we might argue that universities that have always produced the political elite have always been influential, and that ‘ties with industry’ and other community engagement initiatives (an increasing pressure for all research projects) are just reflecting that ‘who is powerful’ is now much more broadly based than in the past, which required universities to adapt if they want to stay powerful. This may well be true, but a) an optimistic reading might see this as a win for democracy and b) a more cynical reading acknowledges that the universities have sold out to the megacorpocracy of capitalism, but also that they have remained major players in this game. Moreover, they now get to exercise power as institutions in ways that were not possible in the past, where political power was held by individuals and not large corporations. They might whinge that they now need to play harder and faster, but are they ‘failing’? This seems unlikely at the moment (at least at a group level; at an individual institutional level, this is more complex, especially for those who have difficulty accessing research money and servicing disadvantaged social groups).

Now, what about the problems? It seems to me, like for many other workers, the main issue here has been the increasing need for universities to compete in the global capitalist economy. Now, while I reckon they are doing alright here, like many industries, the way they have tried to remain competitive is by fucking over their staff and their students, and measuring everybody’s worth in monetary terms. This means that increasingly your value to an institution (and this is true in Oz and the UK), your value is literally measured by how much money you bring in to the institution. Projects with big money get to command big resources and make significant demands on the institution that those who do not bring in the money cannot. This can disadvantage different subject areas, as it literally costs less to do a literary analysis than to cure cancer. In an R1 context, this is to the detriment to teaching. While all the institutions I have worked in have emphasised the importance of teaching, offering prizes to the best teachers and placing an emphasis on student satisfaction scores, people who are good teachers get no extra benefits. You cannot use your teaching success to argue for a bigger office or an assistant. You cannot even use the fact that you are picking up the teaching, but especially the admin, slack of the bigwigs on research leave to argue for a pay raise or really any sort of benefit (perhaps apart from lower expectations on your research output, which tends to work against you as you then limit your ability to win those big research funds). This creates a cycle in many institutions where the same people win the research money and the same people concentrate on ensuring students get taught.

In the UK, this situation is also operating under a government that has no regard for the Humanities as a subject area. It will only fund teaching and research in areas where there is an obvious and applied outcome (preferably economic). This is despite the fact that much research needs to happen at an abstract level, before its applications can be worked out and that our most useful advances have often come from some very esoteric research. As a result, it has removed the teaching budget for students in the Humanities and other theoretical areas, requiring the introduction of tuition fees. It has also cut the funding for humanities research and, moreover, requires researchers to prove ‘the social and economic impact’ of the research, before granting the money. Now, as someone with huge faith in the Humanities, I tend to think that even the most seemingly blue skies thinking can be seen as valuable if sold in the correct way, but the need for such spin is reflective of the devaluing of the Humanities as a social asset. In the short term, this policy has also created some particular problems.

The main one is Humanities subjects are strapped for cash. This means absolutely no permanent jobs in the UK and it is unlikely there will be before tuition fees start to kick in, in 2012 (In Scotland where fees will not kick in, when this will end??? Who knows?). It also means that whereas when previously permanent staff took time off for research leave or maternity, they were covered by temporary staff hired on full time contracts with full benefits, now, their courses are increasingly covered either by people hired on part-time contracts, or by adjuncts, covering particular courses at an hourly rate. This has screwed with the nature of the university advancement system in the UK. In the last few decades, most PhDs worked in full time but temporary contracts for a number of years until they achieved the golden goose of the fulltime job. While temporary, these contracts allowed PhDs to be paid to work on their research and to gain experience of teaching and admin. Now, not only will many PhDs experience long periods of unemployment, when they work they will be poorly remunerated and in part-time positions. They will have no support for research (even in the form of a wage), despite the fact that they will not be employed on the next contract if they don’t have a research profile. Despite this, their research will be used by the said government in making policy and to the benefit of society, and by the universities in proving research outputs.

The alternative to this is the lucky few, like myself, who end up on research contracts, which are at least full time and well paid. There are different ways these contracts can work. Some invite you on to a project as a full partner, where you will get to write and be acknowledged on all publications. Others use you as a well paid research assistant, contractually limiting how much you can publish from the said research, and not giving you credit on other publications. The latter suck not only because of the lack of credit, but because you don’t get to count the research towards your own profile and so have to do your own research in your ‘spare time’. I have done both of these types of contracts. Very occasionally you can apply with your own project, which will form part of a bigger project, or as part of a career development postdoc (these however are the Holy Grail). I have also had this type of contract.

In Oz, much of the broader context is similar to the UK, with a few differences. One, the government supports the humanities, and boy does this make a difference. When you can be employed to work on not only a Humanities project, but an early modern one, that still got 8-digit funding, then you know you have a supportive government. This is not because there is less focus on money in Oz, but rather because they believe that Humanities has something to offer of value – at a very minimum this makes Oz a happier place to work. From the jobs I have seen advertised and the posts I know about, they also see research contractors as people who need to get some publications out of the projects they work in, and are structured around that, which is also a lot less stressful. At the same time, many of the other pressures, including a shortage of permanent jobs are much the same. There is also a sense that the pinch is coming, with increasing discussion of how to make our PhD graduates more marketable and what we need to do to make that happen.

This has been a very faculty-orientated, R1 perspective, but my sense is that universities are having to adapt to an new, harsher global economy. More depressingly, they are giving very little pushback to this process. Instead of taking the lead on what the relationship between research and the economy/ society should be, they are buying into the narrative that ‘growth’, ‘money’ and ‘the economy’ should be our social drivers. But, what is the point of the universities, if not to question these things? And what good the power of our institutions if we aren’t willing to, if not frame, then at least debate the terms in which we operate in the world? Perhaps if the Humanities hadn’t been so sidelined, there might be more of us able to ask and answer these questions?

Jobs for Labour? Some Random Election Thoughts

So, if you have been watching, Scotland had an election at the end of last week, which saw dramatic changes to Scotland's political map. Traditionally, a Labour heartland, many long-held seats were lost to the SNP, raising questions about what happened and why? We might wonder whether Labour policies over the last decade, which promoted higher education, employment, house-purchasing, and other middle-class ideals in their own electoral areas, may have back-fired as a new (and in the current recession, now rather tenuous) middle-class's horizons changed. Can we say that the legacy of the death of the coal and steel industry (the heartbreak over which, no doubt, helped sustain Labour votes over the last few decades) is now finished in Scotland? Are Labour's traditional voters feeling the pinch of jobs losses, cuts in university places and in the public services, that will see them slide once more down the social mobility ladder, and buying into the blame placed on them by the Tories and LibDems? The questions are numerous?

Perhaps, less surprisingly, is the massive losses sustained by the LibDems- losses that even their own party recognises came from a coalition with a party that their supporters hated? I hate to say, I told you so- but I did, in a letter to them after they made this decision. The complete lack of regard, or awareness, of their party's new-won supporters values is quite breathtaking. Do we think we'll get through four more years at Westminster? Do we want to?

The new Scottish parliament has a historic majority for the SNP, but more disappointingly, the number of women sitting in it is still only 34%. Up 0.8% from 2007, but down from the all time high of 39.5% in 2003. Even more concerningly, the losses of several Labour seats held by women saw a reduction in female seats at the constituency level; we only got to 34% because Labour has gender balanced lists and they made it up at the regional level.

As the SNP stood together after their wins in Glasgow, Nicola Sturgeon, the only woman among them, commented that the SNP is more gender balanced than this- I am a wee bit sceptical (the list of 2011 MSPs' names are not yet compiled in one place, or I'd have counted!!), given that only 1/3 of their constituency candidates were women and their lists were not gender balanced (in fact heavily male)- but the very fact she noticed is why Nicola should be First Minister!!

In Solidarity

Over the last few days, university staff across the United Kingdom have been striking over cuts to our pensions, with a national strike to be held this Thursday. For more information, see here: http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=5395

In addition, Glasgow Uni finally decided to evict it's long-standing student sit-in today. This has led to a mass protest and the occupation of the main building and the demand for the principal to resign (something that many of the staff would gladly get behind at this stage!).

If you want to follow this check out: http://twitter.com/#!/glasgowoccupied and http://twitter.com/#!/glasgowguardian

I especially enjoyed this tweet from the glasgowguardian: 'Head of campus security requests that occupiers keep to only two rooms to help continued running of Uni. Occupiers decline following vote'

HA!

I also appreciated reading that Martha Wardop (Green councillor and women's rights campaigner) phoned up GU's principal to tell him off! Got to love it!

In solidarity with everyone. NO TO CUTS! NO TO TUITION FEES! NO TO HIGH RATES OF UNEMPLOYMENT! NO TO A SOCIETY FOR THE RICH! NO TO THE TORIES SCREWING THE POOR!

STRIKE!

Dear Government, Please get a reality check.

Is anybody else sick fed up hearing about how if the poor don't play along they will 'lose their benefits'? Today, it is drug addicts who don't get help. Last week, it was the 'work-shy' i.e. those who refuse 'reasonable job opportunities' whatever that means. And before that it was those who don't want to participate in 'work-fare' type programmes. It's the government's new stick- do what we say or lose your benefits.

Well, today I'd like to ask the government- have you ever met a drug addict? Not a middle-class pothead that smokes a bit of weed at the weekend, but a heroin addict from a socially deprived community? Because I have. And, do you want to know when? When they were robbing me. Oh, I don't mean in some scary mugging in a dark alley- although that does happen to lots of people (indeed on the street that I used to live, there was once ten muggings in a week- but let's not go there). No, when I worked in my local co-op and eventually made it up the ladder to supervisor, I regularly had to kick the local drug addicts- or their young children- out of the shop I ran. I knew them by name- we used to chat as we did it. It was ritualistic, an almost everyday occurrence. Because everyday they came in to steal either food, or goods to sell. If we caught them, we called the police- who often never responded- but you have to see them put the goods in their bag or pocket to get that far. On one occasion after we caught someone red-handed, we waited three hours before my shoplifter exerted her legal right not to be restrained by me and left- the police showed up sometime later. But, after being continually being barred from the store, it was more usual for our local drug addicts to idle up an aisle and hope we didn't notice them, and for us to kick them out with a catch-up on the daily gossip, when we did. On one occasion, I even offered to call an ambulance for my most regular shop-lifter after he came in heavily-bleeding to steal bandages.

If you get anything from this story- I want it to be the extent to which this was something that happened EVERYDAY in my store- and it was something that was distressing (there was more than one occasion where we considered looking the other way when small children stole food to eat!), that could be dangerous (like the time a drug addict attacked me), and was just soul destroying for everybody- do you really think I want to throw poor people out of my store when they are just hungry (even if they are spending their benefits on drugs)? And, if you take away benefits not just from drug-addicts- but lots of other poor people as well-, this will just get worse. Because people have to eat- and to be quite frank, I'd rather you paid people their benefits than make the lives of hundreds of shopworkers miserable in having to face the consequences of social deprivation at work, every fucking day.

(And dudes, while we are at it- have you ever been to Dublin? And seen all the homeless people who sleep rough on the streets- do you really want that to be Britain?)

‘Mon the Students! In Solidarity.

Today, in London and other parts of the UK, students are holding protestant against the proposed tripling of tuition fees in our universities; the cuts to government funding of universities that effectively mean that university teaching will only be paid for by student fees, and the cuts to bursaries to school children to encourage them to stay in education past the age of 16. First, as an academic, as somebody who spent more time than most as a student, and a member of staff at a UK university, I applaud and celebrate the willingness and enthusiasm of students to stand up for their rights, for the rights of a future generation of students, and for the principle of education for all.

Nick Clegg, as he tries desperately to scramble out of a cowardly volte-face, has said that before we protest, we should listen to his proposal, which “make[s] higher education open to everyone". Even if this is true- and I don’t think it is- it certainly won’t make Britain a fairer or more equal society. The removal of EMA- payments to young people from socio-economically deprived areas aged 16-18- to encourage them to stay in school are paid because historically these young people had to contribute to household incomes as soon as they were old enough to work. In a time of recession, with increasing rates of unemployment, the need for young people to start contributing to households will once more become a pressing issue (not to mention that for some young people this pressure has never went away). Without qualifications, these young people will be directed into low-paid, low-opportunity jobs, reifying existing class inequalities and destroying the potential for upward mobility. They certainly won’t be going to university- because they won’t have the qualifications to do so.

The proposal for tuition fees is that every student will pay fees of £9000pa, but that they will be given loans to do so- so the fact they don’t need cash up front should not act as a discouragement to people from any background. What’s more, it is argued that these fees will also be used to help provide bursaries for those from low-income backgrounds to ensure that these young people don’t get left behind. But, if he thinks that the potential of leaving university with around £50,000 in debt (by the time we add loans to live on) won’t put people off going to university, then he must be living on another planet. That is just a breath-taking amount of debt to be saddled with.

Even if he is right- and students from all backgrounds are willing to take the hit, the long-term social consequences are not being considered. As somebody with only a measly £13,000 in student debt, I only started earning enough to make repayments THIS YEAR- 7 years after my u/grad degree finished. I now get £100 a month deducted from my wage- the best part of which goes towards interest payments- with no signs of when that will stop (ok I could do the math, but it ain't any time soon). It is effectively a graduate tax that I will pay for the best part of my working-life, or until academia becomes significantly better-paid (ROFL). This will be the same for all future generations of students- only the amount of debt they will be trying to pay back will be significantly higher.

So, big deal you say. It’ll just be like paying income tax, or national insurance. Except, that income tax and national insurance are paid for by everyone. Student tax will only paid for by a few- and by that I don’t just mean students- but by a small proportion of students. Students with rich parents will have their fees paid by mum and dad, ensuring that they will not be saddled with debt for the rest of their lives. This means that they will have more money to buy bigger houses, fancier cars, and then of course, a bit more cash if they want to send their kids to private schools. They will also have extra money each month to save towards paying their children’s university fees- ensuring that they too will start life debt free. This will reinforce social boundaries, because better resourced children tend to do better in life- money breeds money.

It will also cause a retraction in the number and types of people going on to graduate degrees. Because without state funding, the fees for Masters and PhDs will have to go up too- and these aren’t covered by student loans- or really any type of loan. So, like now, people will have to find the money to pay for these degrees themselves- but whereas finding £3000 for a Masters (especially part-time) is achievable for many middle-class people, fees of £9000 or £10,000 will price most people out of the market. As a result, only the very richest will continue in education, ensuring that the top and best paid jobs will only go to the rich, and academia will once more be the playground of the social elite (with all the implications for equality and democracy in research models and findings).

What this decision does is entrench class divisions. It removes the social mobility inherent in the idea of education for all- in the claims of this government that they wish to promote ‘equality of opportunity’. Even if- and it’s a big if- paying for university will open up more places at universities (really, has anybody done the maths on this?), it will not make British society fairer or more equal.

Who knew that one government could cause such blog fodder? (This is a rhetorical question).

So, along with just generally making it structurally impossible for the poor to succeed, the Con-Dems have now enshrined it in law (or, more accurately they have taken away the law where it was enshrined). Because, apparently, 'some people' don't think equality is fair- in fact 'equality' alienates 'some people'.

Don't really know where to start with that one really... oh, no wait I do. The only people who think equality is unfair are people who have power, and who feel that their power- their right to exploit and benefit at the expense of others-shouldn't be eroded. Well, this is a fucking democracy- get over it.

To make this even more problematic, Theresa May, the home-secretary, claims that the problem with the idea of equality is that "it has been seen to mean equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity". Er, well, yes, because one is not possible without the other- or at least not as long as we live in a system where people continue to give birth and raise children in nuclear households. You see, your 'opportunities' are determined by your parent's 'outcomes'.

If your parents are poor, then you will not have a fancy private education- taught in a class of 6 or 8, with the opportunity of tutors to support you, practically guaranteeing the grades you need for university; you may have had a poor diet and a lack of access to books, resources, the internet, that prepare wealthier children to succeed in later life. You might have went to schools where resources were over-stretched, teachers were tired and over-worked, and there was no expectation- let alone training or socialisation in- the idea of pursuing a career in further or higher education that would allow you to get one of those fancy middle-class jobs. You probably don't have parents that understand the university system and realise that universities are in fact ranked- and it does make a difference where you go (and I'll be up front in admitting it was pure serendipity that I picked a top uni, cause nobody sure as hell told me there was a difference, perhaps beyond 'avoid the ex-polytech'). When you go to univeristy, you don't have the allowance from the generous parents that stops you from having to work every hour God sends just to get by- and all that means for time available to spend studying. Then when you are an adult, you don't have parents who know or understand those fancy middle-class jobs and can give you career advice, or introduce you to their contacts- making it much harder to know when to take risks, when you are being exploited, what you should be paid. You might not even know a 'professional' (defined as lawyer, clergy, civil servant) to write you a 'personal reference' for your job application (and don't laugh at the ridiculousness of this, cause that happened to my sister- because despite her first class Masters degree, her family background did not provide those contacts). You probably won't know the right language- play the right sports, read the right books, listen to the right music- to mix with those people socially and in places where the networks vital to success are really made. You might not have realised that you should probably change you accent if you're 'from up north' (or even west)-and don't say this doesn't happen, just watch the BBC with their beautifully refined 'regional accents'- let alone talk to Oxbridge grads with their strangely uniform accents regardless of regional upbringing (and their ability to switch back when at home with their families). Don't tell me it makes no difference to your opportunities when you inherit the family business, rather than start it from scratch with no help- and now with no loans from our increasingly tight banks. It certainly can't be easier to take entrepreneurial risks knowing that you have rich family members to bail you out if it all goes wrong, to lend you money at low interest rates and not having to worry about losing your home or feeding your children if you fail.

Do not sit here and tell me that you can have equality of opportunity without equality of outcome- and certainly don't tell me I can have 'fairness' without equality- cause it just doesn't seem very fair to me that some people can buy £43million vases and others have to worry about finding an extra £6 a month to heat their homes.

This time I think the word I am looking for is ‘immoral’.

In what is becoming a series of acts that might be better labelled ‘how to fuck the poor 101’, the Con-Dems have now announced cuts of £350 million to the legal aid budget in England and Wales, which effectively means that legal aid will only be available to protect life and liberty- i.e.it will provide criminal aid, but only limited aid for particular types of civil suits. It is thought that this will mean that there will be 500,000 less civil suits every year. Now, the government claim that this won’t hurt anybody because ‘we’ are all too litigious anyway, and ‘we’ will be forced to find other ways to resolve disputes.

Except ‘we’ doesn’t mean everybody, does it? No, it means those who would have to use legal aid to get justice- aka the poor, or even just ‘the not enormously wealthy’. The rich on the other hand are still free to sue each other- and also the poor- with impunity. This is nothing more than the removal of justice from those without money; it is a fundamental infringement on any claim that we are a democratic, equal society. And, in that vein, I don’t think it is too dramatic to call this both disgusting and even immoral. In a week where we are supposed to be celebrating Armistice Day and where – as I heard on the radio- one veteran noted that we are supposed to stop and remember our freedom and liberties, we see our own government taking away those same freedoms and liberties. Because justice is the centrepiece of any claim to being a democratic nation.

Now, I now know that there will be common complaints that we are too litigious and we are wasting money on nonsense suits- but the reality is that England has always been litigious. In 1640, two Westminister Courts alone dealt with 28,000 cases in one year (and remember there are more courts both in London and across the rest of the country), when the population of England was only about 4 million. Forms of legal aid- whether from the Church, the State or from employers and patrons- were available across this period. The ability- and the also the choice to- participate in the legal system was a marker of the public’s recognition of the centrality of the exercise of justice to good governance and increasingly democratic society. Indeed, a lot might be said about the way in which the increased impartiality, independence and legal sophistication of the court system progressed simultaneously to the growth of parliamentary power and civil society. Access to justice through the courts is as central to democracy as access to the vote.

What’s more, it is a bit problematic to claim that either legal aid- or for that matter the court system itself- supports any and all legal claims. Complaints have to meet a threshold of competency to progress- usually a good lawyer will throw you out her or his office before it gets to that stage, or it will get thrown out by a judge before trial. Indeed, most legal aid lawyers are careful about what cases to proceed with- because they know money is limited and that the decisions of what cases they proceed with are open to a high degree of public scrutiny (from Legal Aid administrators, politicians and the public). In other words, there is already a check on what cases proceed through the court system. What this decision by the Con-Dems does is to say that they as politicians now decide what cases are valid and who should receive justice- and in what form it should be received. This is a fundamental infringement on the independence of the justice system and so a direct attack on our liberty.

Dear Small Government,

I do not care that 170 civil servants get paid more than the prime minister, because I believe that the work of public servants is valuable and its remuneration should reflect that. I believe that if we want to live in a capitalist system and if we want good people to manage public services (which presumably we do if you want to keep the costs down) then you need to pay a price comparable with that in the private sector for such work. I think that the work of public sector employees helps make Britain a safer, fairer, healthier, and better managed country and to talk about their wages as something that should be ‘held down’ or to ask the public to get angry at paying YOUR employees a fair wage is deeply disturbing. It tells your employees that their work does not matter- or perhaps it does, but it should be done out of the goodness of their hearts? Presumably putting up with all the bullshit (and trust me, there is a lot) that comes with working in the public service industry and rarely earning anything comparable to what your skills would make on the open market is worth it for the knowledge that you make Britain a better place?

The manner in which public service employees are being discussed- as if asking for a fair wage is greedy or unreasonable- as if complaining about their increased workloads as their colleagues lose their jobs around them makes them selfish- as if questioning cuts that are unthoughtful, expensive to implement, and potentially hugely damaging to the economy makes them disloyal- effectively creates a hostile work environment. You have and are showing no respect for those people who have worked hard for this country, implying that they should be fortunate to have jobs in the first place and should just shut up and take it.

This is even more hypocritical when the very anger that you hope to rile in the public is based on their low wages that comes from the exploitation of big business, which pays its fat cats huge wages. It is hypocritical to complain about high wages in the public sector when they are driven by high wages in the private sector, which you not only do not restrict, but actively promote. (I mean if you seriously believe that PM is the most important job in the country, surely NOBODY should earn more?) You talk about this as if this is driven by necessity- but this is nothing more than political spin as you pursue a strategy of small state, big business that does everything for a small number of rich elites and nothing for the population whose labour makes that wealth. What is worse you then have the cheek to criticise that labourforce when they complain about the untenable burden that you place upon them to keep a few rich people happy. To quote the TUC general secretary, ‘These are not temporary cuts, but a permanent rollback of public services and the welfare state. Not so much an economic necessity as a political project driven by an ideological clamour for a minimal state [...] Cut services, put jobs in peril and increase inequality, that's the way to make Britain a darker, brutish, more frightening place’.

This is not a country that I want to live in.

Sirs, I am angry.
Feminist Avatar.

The Privacy of the Home.

There is a myth that the home is a ‘private’ space that should be free from state intervention or the intrusions of the ‘public’. The importance of this belief has been brought to light most recently in debates over whether B&B owners should be allowed to refuse service to gay people (or any other people) due to their belief system. Is the home a private space where people should feel free to discriminate or is it a public space open to state control? I want to suggest that this division of public and private is a myth- that the home has never been a wholly private space- and that to frame this debate in a discussion of private homeowner rights acts to remove the rights of gay people and other ‘undesirable’ groups.

Far from being a private space, for the last 500 years in Britain, the home has been intrinsically linked to social control. The early modern household (1500-1750) was conceptualised as the state writ small. The ideal early modern home was headed by its married patriarch who exercised control over his wife, children and servants-both ensuring that they behaved in an orderly way and having to personally answer to higher authorities if his household behaved badly. In a time before an extensive state apparatus and police existed to manage social behaviour, this function fell to the head of household. The household was conceptualised as a miniature state and in fact, the relationship between a monarch and his or her kingdom was understood to mirror that of the household. The home provided a model for the operation of the state.

From an alternative perspective, it is also worth considering that the Royal Court- from which the monarch governed the state- was actually part of the private household of the monarch. Separate buildings for ‘public’ or ‘state’ functions were only beginning to be thought of in this period- and most were related to the operation of trade (like Guildhalls). In practice, elite households in particular could double as ‘public’ buildings with their large halls or courtyards being used to hold markets, public meetings and demonstrations.

Furthermore, the home was not conceptualised as a private space. Indeed, openness to the scrutiny of others was essential to social credit and social reputation. The household that had something to hide was clearly up to no good and should be treated with caution. In a world where cash was limited and access to goods depended on reputation, the transparency of the household was vital to its survival. The awareness of prying eyes was meant to enforce good order- both making sure the head of household kept control of his family and ensuring that he did not abuse his authority. It offered a system of checks and balances to the head of household’s power.

At the same time, the household was a fluid entity with a constant stream of changing servants, visitors, lodgers, travellers needing a bed for the night, belying any sense of a contained family unit. Even lower down the social scale where households were smaller, neighbourliness and patronage systems meant that homes were equally open to public scrutiny and to inspection by social superiors. Poor households could be even more socially diverse with lodgers and travellers common means of income and multiple families could live in the same household to save money. Most households also had an economic function meaning that they were not just homes but places of business with all the public functions that entailed.

In the eighteenth century, the concept of ‘privacy’ (which had started to filter through since the 16th century) became increasingly culturally important seen in the separation of servant and family quarters in wealthy homes; the invention of ‘public’ and ‘private’ rooms in family homes; and the eventual removal of the economic functions of the household off into separate buildings. Yet, it should be noted this was a long process that happened to different households at different rates and the importance of home-working today suggests it was never completed. Even in the Victorian period, where it might be argued that the ‘private’ home was in its heyday, it was recognised that the home had both private and public functions- not surprising in an era where visiting relatives for weeks at a time was fashionable.

For eighteenth-century philosophers on this subject, the key distinction between a public and private space was still not whether it was located in or out of the home- but its function. Therefore, public space was economic space- the workplace, rather than places outside the home. Even the world of politics was not initially thought of as ‘public’, although this idea was to arrive quickly when the concept of public became increasingly associated with power. Public space was where people exercised power; private space was without power.

Despite this complexity of meaning, the changing functions of the household did lead to its increased association with the ‘private’ in the early nineteenth century. Yet, this phenomenon did not happen in a vacuum- it was mirrored by the rise of the ‘state’. As the household became more private and the separation of home and work made it more difficult to monitor the behaviour of individuals through household hierarchy, the state was created to ensure social order. The state expanded with an increasingly large and elaborate civil service, a police force, a more formal court system and, by the twentieth century, state controlled welfare systems. This state apparatus was always interested in the workings of the home and the prying eye of the guid neighbour was replaced by the beady eye of the officious state worker.

And from a feminist perspective, it was vital that the state existed. While the functions of the household and social order had changed, the belief in the right for a patriarch to manage and discipline his household had not. Yet, without the prying eyes of the guid neighbour, who was to act as a check and balance of that power? Many of the initial debates and court cases that defined the rights of the state to interfere in home life were brought by women trying to protect themselves and their children from violent or controlling patriarchs. In a sense then, not only was the rise of the state a response to the changing functions and increased privacy of the household, but the invitation to the state to interfere in the operations of the household was both a demand of feminists and required for good social order.

The home then has never been a private space, exempt from the rules of social behaviour or the requirements of society. It is not and has never been the last stronghold against state interference. On the contrary, its ‘private’ nature is predicated on the existence of the state and the right for the state to interfere in its operation. The two cannot exist separately. In this sense, the privacy of the home is an illusion- if one held dear to us. This is particularly the case when you use your home in public ways- such as when you run a business from your home. Because at that stage (whether you realise it or not), any sense of your home as private is removed and its public functions (always present) are once more made explicit.

To argue then that your private rights to discriminate are founded on the privacy of the household is to misunderstand the place and role of the household and the state in society. The question then becomes whether your right to discriminate is greater than the right of other people not to be discriminated against. While discrimination actively hurts people- and so damages society- you being asked to curtail your discrimination does not hurt you. Given that the protection of its members is the first duty of the state, that the law finds in favour of the right not to be discriminated against is lawful, logical and good for everybody.

Interesting Fact of the Day.

As you may have noticed, I like facts- especially facts that undermine arguments that promote bigotry and discrimination. And, usually I like to save said facts until a topical news story comes up, and then show how people, usually politicians, are talking nonsense. But, I found this one and I thought it was too good not to share (plus it is something that I and probably most of you have long suspected).

There are more British living abroad than foreigners living in the UK.

In fact, 1 in 10 Brits live all or part of the year abroad.

So, next time somebody complains about immigrants taking our jobs, why not ask whether they'd prefer that all the British come home (which surely is only fair?) And for that matter, next time the BNP suggest that all coloured people should be 'repatriated' -do you remember when they used to make those demands- ask them whether we really want our diaspora (you know the Australians, the Americans, New Zealanders, Canadians, South Africans etc etc) to be repatriated too?

Happy International Women's Day!

Happy International Women's Day to everyone.

It seems that everybody is a bit down right now- everyone I know has a story of redundancy and restructing woe and if politicians are taking note, we need a morale boost! Yet, rather than seeing economic downturn as an opportunity to reform a clearly broken system, it is repeatedly being used as an excuse to curtail women's rights and social equality. It seems, whatever party you support, recession is an excuse to be conservative- to claw back money from our poor, to reinforce the structures of the wealthy, to ignore principles of fairness and equality because it seems easier than structural change. Every day is another story of lay-offs and doors closing in the media (and often closer to home!) and yet at the same time, we hear politicians moaning about getting people off unemployment benefit as if the poor just weren't taking the opportunities being offered. Even those people who are using redundancy as an opportunity to retrain are finding doors closed, as the government reduces spending in universites, which has led to a drop in numbers of places, despite unprecedented demand.

To blind us to this situation, the parties seem to have unanimously agreed to make this election about 'family' not economy- clearly because they don't have any economic policies- yet, the family they are selling to us is antiquated model with no relevance to the modern world, and only reflects a very small minority of people's lives. It's as if politicians are trying to pretend the recession didn't happen and if we just ignore the reality of the best part of the population's lives, we can try and sell a story of a non-existent golden age and hope that people are tired enough to buy it.

Well, I am tired- so tired that I find it difficult to celebrate this International Women's Day- but I am not so tired that I am going to buy this bullshit that is being fed to us during the least inspired political campaign in history (and I AM HISTORIAN SO I SHOULD KNOW DAMMIT). So political parties, it's time to get your ass in gear and gives us some real policies. Policies that:

- have social equality for all at their heart

- that see social equality and a sharing of wealth as the key to a nation's stability and prosperity

- that understands and celebrates social difference and does not try to push us into a white, middle-class mould of imagined family life

- that understands that real choice for all is at the heart of modern democracy and understands that choice does not mean conforming to a middle-class vision of normality

- that recognises that we have historically sold women, children, ethnic minorities, the disabled, the gay community, the working-class, and every one who not a white, middle-class man down the river, and we need to change

-that recognises that our wealth is based on the exploitation of the poor in our own country and on the material and labour resources of the rest of the world

-that recognises that we believe in the sharing of wealth, in recycling and looking after our planet, and that we do not want our comfort to be based on the poverty and exploitation of ourselves or other people, the destruction of our natural environment, or short-changing of other cultures

-that see that WE WANT CHANGE, RADICAL CHANGE AND WE WANT IT NOW

Life Courses

In wake of the ‘OMG’ teenagers have children; oh wait, they’re having less, no, they’re not, yes they are debate, I thought it might be a good point to think about life-courses (or life-cycles as they were known before historians decided a cyclical model was too simplistic). A life-course is the experiences that a person goes through in the course of her or his life. For historians and social scientists generally, life-courses are interesting for studying group behaviour, so we like to compare what age people get married at, or what age they have kids, whether they leave school at 15 or 18 and whether they retire at 60 or not at all. As people in the same society often experience changes in the life-course at a similar age to their contemporaries, we can chart a ‘typical’ life-course experience for particular societies or sub-groups within those societies.

Now, that sounds all very academic, but what’s the point? The argument is that people who behave in the most ‘typical’ fashion are generally the most socially stable, or at least, are unlikely to receive criticism for their behaviour. People who do things at the wrong time or in the wrong order- such as having a child as a teenager, when this is socially unacceptable, or having a child before marriage in a society where this is unusual- are likely to face social consequences that limit their life choices. This is because society is set up to respond to people who follow a particular life-course. If you fail to do this, the support mechanisms offered to other people aren’t there for you. This in turn can affect the ‘non-typical’ ever becoming ‘socially stable’ or achieving the normal goals of their contemporaries, leading to life-long poverty, social ostracism, poor education and/or unemployment. Conversely, sometimes doing something in the wrong order can have unexpected benefits, perhaps bringing new opportunities or forcing people to make unexpected decisions with good pay-offs (perhaps emigration in the past or setting up a successful home business to fit around child-care arrangements). The interesting issue at stake here is not that there is an ideal life-course for everyone in all times and places, but that each society has its own ‘typical’ life-course which it uses as a standard to judge the behaviour of others.

Historically in Britain, people’s experience of the life-course was a lot more diverse than today. The advent of national education, where children start school at five and leave at 16 or 18, then perhaps go to university or some sort of apprenticeship system, before starting work, where they are often forced or at least encouraged to retire at a set age, has made the life-course significantly more regimented that in the past. Previously, parents may have sent their children to school (if at all) anywhere between the ages of 3 and 8, the number of years spent in schooling reflected a combination of social class, the need for childcare and the availability of work for children (the average for the poor was about 2 years in the late 18th century). Only a very few went to university and depending on the century, they may have went at any time between the ages of 14 and 20. If you weren’t very rich, you may have only done a year at university, which would have made you applicable for a number of professional and clerical jobs without breaking the bank. Others went into apprenticeship (usually for five or seven years) or service (ie working as servants in households and farms) until you earned enough to set up on your own.

Depending on the region, the availability of housing and land, and alternative employment opportunities, this meant most people didn’t get married and start having families until their mid to late twenties (a phenomenon that changes dramatically after WW2). But, perhaps more interestingly, is the diversity of ages that people married at. In the 1970s, not only would 95% of women in Britain marry, 80% of them would marry between the ages of 17 and 25, a distribution of only seven years. In contrast, in 1851, the age of marriage was much more widely distributed with a range of 20 years for the central 80% of women. Furthermore, up to a third of women and men wouldn’t marry at all. The typical life-course in the past then was much more varied than today.

So what is the relevance of this for teen pregnancy? The problem with teen parents is not really that teenagers have children, but that having children as a teenager is increasingly socially unacceptable (whereas previously the focus was on marital status, rather than age). In fact, the number of women having children under 20 in Scotland has halved since the 1960s and 70s and similar numbers of babies are born to teen mums today as in the 1940s, without accounting for population increase. So, this is definitely a problem of perception as much as numbers. If we want to deal with the ‘problems’ of teen pregnancy, we also need to deal with the fact that it is our perspective that made it a problem in the first place. It is because these girls and women are failing to be ‘typical’ that is the social problem. And, perhaps a healthier and more inclusive response to this ‘problem’ is not to condemn girls and women who have children at a young age or worry about the pregnancies, but worry about our responses. If girls and young women end up socially ostracised and living in poverty due to having children, then that’s because our society isn’t set up to deal with them- perhaps we should be. Because the real question is why does being ‘typical’ mean that you are right or your choices are more valid?

And the Victorians are back...

So it turns out family values and 'shoring up the family' are the hot topics for the election, with lots of spouting about how supporting the family and encouraging marriage are good for the economy, good for society and particularly promote 'stability'. At no point, has anybody in these debates shown how marriage is good for the economy. Whether it is good for society is presumably a question of what you think society should look like (although it seems to be used to mean stopping crime and drugs), and while we're at it what on earth does 'stability' mean? As part of this discussion, the Tories have announced tax breaks for married couples- part of their policy to promote marriage- because we all know all those evil cohabitees and singles just live like that because they want to break up with their partners willy-nilly and really are a bit unstable (and clearly tying such people into marriages is the healthy and safe option). It is also not clear whether 'married' couples include civil partners- presumably the existence of gay people is just indicative of the breakdown of society.*

David Cameron has said that this policy says 'if you take responsibility, you will be rewarded- if you don't you won't'. Because, again, people who cohabit or live by themselves are not taking responsibility... how exactly? Does taking responsibility mean being tied into a institution which holds no meaning to you? I thought we called that hypocrisy? Ah perhaps, taking responsibility means if you do choose to split up you are forced to pay for a divorce- well, that may contribute to the economy!

To make matters worse, the response from the other parties has been, err, enlightening. Lib Dem's Nick Clegg's criticism was: "It is immensely unfair. What does is mean for the poor woman who has been left by some philandering husband who goes on to another marriage and gets the tax break and she doesn't?" Yes, because we still live in the nineteenth century, where the 'poor woman' suckered by the 'evil man' should be the terms in which we see family life. This was the exact argument used to bring in divorce legislation in 19th Century Britain as well as to expand the penalties for domestic violence- and while it had a time and (very important) place, do we still want family policy to be determined by protectionism towards women? Protectionism, by definition, implied that women were not equal to men and so needed someone to look after them- and in default of their husbands, it was the state. Now I am sure men leave their wives and remarry, but women also leave their husbands! And, while it may only be a slip of the tongue, I do not want the terms that family life is negotiated to implicitly or explicitly see women as less than equal. Because while society continues to discriminate against women- in the family as in other walks of life- government policy that builds on this presumption continues to reinforce it.**

So what do the facts tell us anyway? Is marriage the solution to society's ill? Well, surprisingly, not really or at least the effect is extremely complex. Some studies suggest that getting married is better for you than cohabiting. Getting married or cohabiting reduces casual drug use and being married/ cohabiting gives a higher rate of success for recovering addicts; the effect is more pronounced if you are married, rather than cohabit, IF YOU ARE A MAN (for women the quality of the relationship is more important). Some studies suggest that you are more likely to see your income rise when you marry, IF YOU ARE A RICH MAN. And, that seems to be the net benefit of marriage over cohabitation. People who cohabit are more likely to earn less and come from poorer socio-economic backgrounds and neighbourhoods, than those that marry- but this seems to be an explanation for why people don't marry, rather than the other way round. So, of course, if married people seem 'more stable' (ie more middle class), it is because they are more likely to be middle class.

Now, what is not being said here is that what really makes society unstable is divorce. For children, if you're parents get divorced, it might fuck you up in a myriad of ways (emotional problems, depression, early sexual experiences, suicide, teen drunkenness, more likely to be overweight), but you may be no more likely to take drugs (depending on the study). On the plus side, if you manage to stabilise (read: not become a junkie or emotional wreck) by the time you're in your mid-late twenties, you'll generally be ok, but you have a higher chance of being an alcoholic. If you become a junkie, chances are you'll also be a life-long criminal (but remember your parents getting divorced may not have influenced that!). To make matters more complicated, other studies have shown that parental divorce decreases your chances of childhood delinquency, while being in a single parent household makes no difference to delinquency. The most consistent predictors of crime are, no surprises for guessing, living in poor neighbourhoods, childhood poverty, and poor education. These are ALSO the predictors of divorce, but so are male unemployment, having a first-born female child (if you are a woman), living together before marriage, and being white (ethnically).***

So, if divorce is the problem, why do we care about whether people MARRY, and the reason is that people who cohabit are more likely to split up than people who marry. But, what is not being said is that today most people live together before they get married, and cohabiting people who see themselves marrying their partner have the same probability of splitting up as married people. In essence, because most people cohabit before they marry, those relationships which weren't going to work were weeded out before marriage. So, the only way that promoting marriage through tax breaks will stop divorce is by making miserable people stay together for financial reasons. And guess what- miserable parents create miserable criminal, junkie children- don't you love statistics.

So what should the government do to help make happy relationships (if we don't want to go down the radical line of getting rid of families altogether)? Well, it turns out that couples who earn similar amounts to each other- so have resource equality- and share resources in the household, who have shared interests and contribute equally to household chores have the highest levels of marital satisfaction and the most stable marriages (which is why feminists have lower divorce rates). Furthermore, the higher a level of a woman's education, the better for the stability of marriage. So pay equality between men and women in the workplace is good for marriage. Education is good for marriage. Gender equality is good for marriage. The other big predictor is poverty and coming from poor neighbourhoods, so how about promoting stability through wealth distribution, rather than cutting welfare further and criminalising the poor?

Why not- instead of falling back on Victorian conservatism- we look to creating policies which will actually make a difference?

* I would assume that it would have to or it would fall short of equality legislation (but if we're so happy to call civil partners 'married' as shorthand, what is the fuss about having two different 'marriage' registration systems? Another question for another day.)

** When protective legislation is put in place, it must be done with clear and explicit recognition of what it is and be designed to combat a particular social wrong, with the aim of creating equality.

*** So, from this perspective, immigration can only be a good thing! Should I tell Mr Cameron?

Politics, Family and Expenses.

Blink and you might have missed it, but this week the Scottish Parliament says they are to ban MSPs from employing relatives, in the wake of the Westminister expenses scandal. This may seem a rather innocuous decision in light of the egregious abuses of this system that have recently been revealed, but like every story, it has two sides.

Traditionally, parliamentary politics was the arena of the wealthy elite, voted for by a few other rich men. Sitting in Parliament was a privilege that brought significant financial, social and political advantage to the MP and his family, and so no wage was paid. Over the nineteenth century, the franchise was extended and with it the men eligible to sit in Parliament. However, it was still unpaid (although various experimental attempts to pay MPs were suggested and implemented at various points for short periods) and the benefits of the working the system were difficult without good connections, which meant that men from ordinary backgrounds found it hard to afford to sit in Parliament. By 1911, the implications of this for democracy were becoming realised and MPs were given wages. At the same time, it was suggested that perhaps some expenses should be covered, such as postage and travel, but it wasn't until the 1960s that this was really formalised or utilised in a significant way. It wasn't until 1969 that a budget was officially created for secretarial staff.

So who, you might ask, did all the work needed to support an MP, to manage constituents, and to create the publicity campaigns required to get MP's elected? Well, no prizes for guessing here, it was the wives and families of the (mostly male) MPs. Family, but especially wives, were responsible for a considerable amount of free labour required to support the democratic system. And, furthermore, the system operated on this understanding. Traditional notions of the family wage still permeated the public imagination, so that an MP's wage was not his own, but a family wage. Therefore, if the family had to help earn it, then this was perfectly socially acceptable. [And, yes, this did put female MPs at a significant disadvantage as if they were married they were frequently married to working men, who could not offer the same support to their roles.]

By the 1960s, with the resurgence of middle-class women back into the workforce, increasing numbers of female MPs, and a questioning of the concept of the 'family' wage, it became recognised that this 'free labour' from MP's families might actually border on exploitation. Furthermore, this free labour was quickly drying up as the middle-class women who were married to (still mostly) middle-class MPs looked for paid work, or, as the case often was, many women suddenly found themselves with the double-burden of their own careers and the many responsibilities of the political wife. Secretarial expenses, paid to family members, paid women for work they were frequently doing anyway for free, discouraging them from working in other areas. And, it was a system that parliament continued to benefit from, as unlike a non-related paid employee, your wife didn't go home at 5pm if the work wasn't done.

Now, it could be argued in the 21st century where most Scottish women work, and so few work for their MP husbands, and where there is less expectation that 'political wives' work for free, that getting rid of paid expenses for family members prevents corruption and does little harm. Yet, a comment by the MSP Sandra White, who employs her son, perhaps shows that the system hasn't changed that much:

"We are being punished for what's happened in Westminster by some greedy MPs who did rip off the system. If you ask anyone who employs members of their own family, you'll find the trust and the availability of them being able to work extra hours is something that we actually treasure." [My bold]

The exploitation of family members for free (even for those who are paid a wage) continues to be a significant part of the democratic system. And, the concern that banning family members from political work raises, is that rather than seeing the family removed from politics, we go back to a system where the family is exploited for no reward. Furthermore, there are a number of MPs who met their spouses on the job, marrying their aids or other members of staff; are we now suggesting that staff (and who's to bet it would be female staff!) step down from their jobs on marriage? Are we heading back to the 1920s?

Now, I am as concerned with the exploitation of the expenses system as the next person and I even concede that it may be time for the 'political wife' to finally get a divorce. But, a ban on employing family members, that doesn't at the same time recognise that the exploitation of family members is part of the system and try to rectify it, seems problematic. Furthermore, in a system where MP's staff are employed by individual MPs, rather than by the state, there is little room for staff to be moved around if they marry an MP, or even for family members for whom politics is THEIR career. They are instead dismissed from their jobs, as if they had no value, and have to hope they get employment elsewhere. It seems to me that this legislation is a step backwards, rather than a step towards fixing a problem.

Can't have it both ways.

A politics meets academia post. The Chief Advisor on drugs policy - a scientist Prof. Nutt- has been sacked after he openly spoke out about his opinion on drug classification- a statement that contradicted the government's official policy. Alan Johnson, the MP who sacked him said, 'What you cannot have is a chief adviser at the same time stepping into the political field and campaigning against government decisions. You can do one or the other. You can't do both.' And that all sounds fair, doesn't it? The people who work for the government should agree with the government.

Except that the problem is that this means the government can consult you as a scientist, completely ignore your advice, and still put your name as backing to their political policies. And, how do you think that makes you as a scientist look to other scientists? What scientist wants to be associated with whackadoo, ill-informed government policy? What scientist wants his authority as a scientist used to promote something that is unscientific?

I know the acceptable stance in this case, is to have the government consult you, ignore you and then resign in a big huffy fit, but the problem is that most scientists want government policy to be well-informed; they want the work they do to matter and actually help people, and when your resign you lose that opportunity.

The government can't have it both ways. You can use independent, scientific advice that is well-informed to support your policy or your don't, but you can't make a big show of having a chief advisor who is a scientist to give your policy authority, and then ignore him, and expect him to keep his mouth shut.

Gude Cause

Yesterday saw the Gude Cause March 2009, a re-enactment of a march for woman's suffrage held in Edinburgh in 1909. It's aim was to commemorate the women who fought for our right to vote, to celebrate woman's achievements over the last century, and to 'draw attention to what still needs to be done'. In fact, there was a brilliant turnout from a wide range of woman's groups, including a huge showing from the various regional branches of Scottish Women's Aid, the STUC with their 50/50 banners- calling for equal representation women at all political levels-, engender with their call to recognise poverty as a woman's issue, Women's History Scotland with their banner reminding us that women's historical contribution is still under-researched and under-represented, and numerous other women's organisation who are fighting to make a change to women's position TODAY. And, it was a fabulous day and great event.

But, it is being reported as a historical re-enactment and nothing more. The BBC reports:

Suffragette march marks centenary

The parade re-enacted the march in Edinburgh 100 years ago. About 2,500 people have taken part in a parade in Edinburgh marking a key suffragette demonstration which took place 100 years ago. Participants carried banners and dressed in historic costumes in Saturday's re-enactment of the original march in the capital in 1909. The movement was a fight for women's rights which lasted almost 60 years. At the time hundreds of people took banners and flags to join a rally along Princes Street on 10 October 1909. Women were finally awarded the vote in 1928, but on Saturday their fight was remembered as people took part in a re-enactment of that day. It is the culmination of a summer of activities that has seen traditional protest banners and quilts being made, and a major exhibition about the movement at Edinburgh museum. Tram works mean the procession could not follow the original route along Princes Street but it started at Brunsfield Links and finished at the top of Calton Hill. The suffrage movement spanned almost six decades. Education Secretary Fiona Hyslop, who joined the procession, said: "Without the suffragists and suffragettes we would still be stuck in an age when women couldn't own property, they couldn't hold public positions and they couldn't vote. "The suffrage movement made a lasting contribution to Scottish democracy and society. They led the way for women to have their voice heard and towards an end to discrimination and prejudice." Ms Hyslop said some of the biggest suffragette demonstrations were in Edinburgh. "The city saw the first suffragette to be force-fed in a Scottish prison, Ethel Moorhead, imprisoned in Calton Jail," she added. "I think she would have found it hard believe that one day the offices of the Scottish government would stand on that very spot, a government not only elected by women voters, but including women ministers." Anne McGuire, Labour MP for Stirling, said: "I wouldn't be allowed to be a politician today without the struggle of the suffragettes. "These women changed political life forever in the UK, allowing women to enter what was at one stage a male-only arena."

There is no mention that this was a call for future change. The march itself was divided into three sections- past, present and future, with people in the past section dressed as suffragettes, and the rest of the crowd dressed in other costumes or the suffrage colours of white, green and violet. The present was the largest section of the crowd by far and there were several children's organisations (and children!) in the future section, which was fantastic. But the only photographs being shown on the BBC are of women dressed as Edwardian suffragettes. The speeches by the female politicians reported here all included calls for concrete changes that needed to happen to make society more equal, but, there is no mention of this. Their words are restricted to their comments celebrating their forebearers. The radical edge of this movement is quashed and an invigorating and exciting demand for social change is turned into a historical anachronism.

There is a flickr site for people to upload their photos to- I forgot my camera, but I'll try and steal some good one's when they posted.

ETA: Actually, STV is slightly better, it includes this statement: The organisers say the aim of the event is to remember the 1909 march, whilst also drawing attention to the problems women still face around the world, such as domestic violence, forced marriage and human trafficking.

Rehabilitating Maggie T.*

Margaret Thatcher was the first, and only to date, female prime minister of Great Britain between 1979-1990. Her economic policies transformed the British economy, causing great heartache, detroying Socialist Britain, and leaving a political legacy where the only acceptable 'left-wing' political party was New Labour (who brought pseudo-socialism for people who uncomfortable with the harshness of unrestricted capitalism). Her destruction of any true socialist movement in Britain, as well as her economic legacy amongst the lower-classes (mass unemployment, blame Maggie), has meant that the left has done its utmost to denegrate and belittle her. And, I am not unsympathetic towards this approach, but I think that perhaps this needs some feminist analysis.

Maggie T effectively created the current political agenda as well as the terms in which our economy functions. Despite a lot of anti-Tory rhetoric, no major political party has demanded a return to the nationalisation of industry, has given more rights to the Trade Union movement, or questioned whether a strategy of mass unemployment is a natural by-product of the capitalist system. Most major political parties, however, HAVE jumped on Maggie's bandwagon of describing those dependant on benefits as scroungers, scum, chavs and generally not worthy of consideration. They have all actively pursued reduced benefits and distanced themselves from taxation. No major political party represents the working-class anymore. 'Labour' now means middle-class; if you are not middle-class or striving towards it then you aren't worth representation. Now, for the left, this is not a legacy to be proud of, but in the last 30 years, no person has done more to transform the terms in which we do politics. Furthermore, it is the legacy of our only female PM.

What about our relationship with America? Yes, this has a long-history, but it was Maggie who actively distanced Britain's relationship with Europe and situated us alongside America. Where are our pro-European parties now? Oh, sorry don't exist. Blame a woman.

Yet, this legacy is not discussed or critiqued, which is hugely problematic. Our refusal to attribute our current political context to Maggie for the left is about denying a much-derided woman her political legacy, which is one of the only ways we can punish her for creating this situation (so it is understandable). But, because that political legacy is not attributed, it leads to a situation where we think the way the economy operates is natural, normal, inevitable. We think that politics has to take place under the terms Maggie set up, because we don't understand their history. And, the irony is, this makes her victory all the more complete.

So, how do we deal with Maggie? Maggie Thatcher, milk-snatcher; The Iron Lady; 'more balls than Brown'; 'more balls than the whole Nulab cabinet'; 'She is, on the contrary, a patriarch'; 'Mrs Thatcher disguised herself as a man'.

Whether she is being appraised from the left or right, Maggie Thatcher's legacy is that she was more than manly enough to have been prime minister. She had more balls than men of her generation or that following. She took milk away from small children (how unwomanly was that?). She presented herself in manly ways and convinced the nation she was more than a woman. And perhaps, it is true that Maggie did not conform to stereotypically feminine behaviour.

But, what does that legacy say to our daughters? I was a child when Maggie ruled Britain and I remember being told in school what an achievement it was to have a female PM, and I remember thinking that one day I too could be PM if I chose. Yet, by turning Maggie into a man, we remove the political legacy that Britain did have a female Prime Minister, and we can have one again. We create a culture where we say that politics is a man's game and woman have no place, and we remove the legacy of women on the way our society currently operates- so once more the responsibility for making our country what it is, is seen to have come from men. The significant role that a woman played in making Britain what it is today is being erased from popular memory. And that is bad for feminism, bad for women and bad for society.

*Before I begin, I am not politically conservative and do not support Margaret Thatcher's political ideology or the manner in which she transformed the British Economy and the political agenda up to the present day.

** Image H/Tip to Historiann, from this shop.

More tokenism.

Women have been practising law in Britain since the 1870s and called to the Bar since the 1920s, but despite several generation of women lawyers in Britain, we could only find one qualified enough to sit on the brand-spanking new Supreme Court. SIGH.

But, actually, the content of this post is a complaint about the website. In the UK, there are three equal and distinct legal systems, operating in England and Wales, in Scotland and in Northern Ireland. The Supreme Court is to be the final court of appeals for all three systems, so the judges are meant to reflect all three systems. There are eight lawyers representing the English system, two for Scotland and two for Northern Ireland, which given population differentials is not hugely unfair. However, if we read the website, two of the judges practised law in Scotland, two in Northern Ireland, and eight just practised 'law' or were called to regional bars, with no mention that they represent the English and Welsh system.

The effect of this is to imply that the English/Welsh system is the default/the norm, and Scotland and Northern Ireland are exeptional. This denies the equality of the three legal systems and as such devalues the Scottish and Irish systems, making their representation tokenism. Let's hope the practice of law in the Supreme Court does not reflect this.

Spot the Difference.

In Sept 2009, a mother has been given a minimum sentence of 33 years for the murder of her two daughters: 'Rekha Kumari-Baker, 41, stabbed 16-year-old Davina 37 times and 13-year-old Jasmine 29 times at their home in Stretham, Cambridgeshire'.

In January 2009, a father was given a minimum sentence of 21 years for the murder of his two sons: 'Ashok Kalyanjee, 46, who stabbed his two young sons- 6 years old Paul Ross and 2 years old Jay Ross to death, was sentenced to at least 21 years in jail.'

In Oct 2008, a father was given a minimum of 17 years for the murder of his two children: 'Robert Thomson, 50, stabbed his 25-year old daughter Michelle, and seven-year old Ryan, 26 times at their former family home in May.'

In Oct 2008, a father, James Howson, was given 22 years for murdering his 16 month old daughter by snapping her spine.

In 2001, a father, Darren Jenkinson, was given a minimum of 15 years for murdering his two infant sons, by smothering them.

Humanities are Big Business.

The CBI are arguing that students pay more to go to University, because we all know that they have deep pockets and are just holding out on us. And, we all know how making university an impossible option during a recession won’t at all push students out of universities and onto unemployment lists (where they will be entitled to benefits that they don’t receive as students). But more than this, they also want ‘universities [to] focus more on economically valuable subjects such as science, technology, engineering, maths and languages’. Because we all know how humanities are a waste of time, right?

Now, I think humanities are important as they bring social benefits, creating a broader, well-rounded society with an able to think latterly, all of which has an impact of the economy. But in fact, humanities also provide graduates to some of our biggest industries. The book, journal and electronic publishing industry contributes over £5 billion a year to the domestic economy and this is increasing. The value of UK book exports is higher than any other creative industry and we export more books that any other publishing industry in the world. The export value of books to the UK economy in 2008 was £1.1 billion. And, where do you think the people- the writers, editors, reviewers and publishers- who work in this industry come from? Do they just spring, un-nurtured from the ground; is creative writing now a central aspect of the biology degree? No, they come from the humanities.

Our biggest manufacturers include Ben Sherman, Burberry, French Connection, Reebok and Umbro, all clothing companies. And who do you think sits around designing your latest togs, deciding what’s hip and what’s not? Physicists? What about when you need a website designed, a logo made, a brand created, an advertising campaign made- do you think these companies are run exclusively by scientists? What about tourism? Tourism brings £86 billion to the UK economy and a considerable part of that industry is driven by our heritage industry- that is people coming to see our history, our art and performing art, our family history records, our museums, and galleries. And who do you think makes this possible? Biologists and chemists? No, the numerous graduates who come from history, arts and other humanities and who paint pictures, put on shows, and go into museum planning, archives and preservation.

Plus 70% of graduate jobs are open to people from ANY discipline, so why are we pushing the sciences?