Possibly the most illiberal jurisdictions in the world are now North Korea and Wandsworth, south London. Why? They both impose punishments on the families of lawbreakers.
It has been well documented that the world’s only remaining Stalinist government punishes the relatives of those convicted of any crime, imposing terrible hardships and penalties on innocent people. Now Conservative-controlled Wandsworth council has joined Pyongyang in adopting the same approach to unconvicted relatives of criminals. The decision demonstrates how rapidly the Tories have descended into barbarism following the riots earlier this week.
Not only does the imposition of collective punishments go against every pillar of every civilised democracy in the world, but collective punishments have, in the past been shown to have incalculable negative consequences, particularly or those who impose them. For example most historians agree that Hitler’s rise to power was facilitated to a significant extent by the collective punishment imposed on the German people following the first world war.
However the knee-jerk lashing out at the mother of a young boy accused of involvement in the riots by Tory council leader Ravi Govindia is most worrying because it shows how the depth of anger revealed by the rioters is equalled by the viciousness of the Tories as they aim to extract retribution from anyone, for riots which have shown up their government’s policies for the charade they really are.
It is also likely that Mr Govindia is not merely engaging in a rabble-rousing persecution of innocent people however, but is doing what Tories around the country have attempted to criticise everyone else for; playing politics with the situation. It became clear very quickly, following the disturbances, that, other than David Cameron, who has played a bad hand appallingly, the person who has come out of this worst is Boris Johnson. Having gone from looking like a shoe-in for a second term as London Mayor, his appearance on the streets of Clapham has looked like the end of his political career. Here is a man you cannot rely on in a crisis, here is a man who hasn’t got a clue. The race for London Mayor has been thrown wide open once more, it is going to be a great deal closer than expected, it really isn’t looking good for the Tory candidate.
As such Govindia’s plan to evict council tenants who are relatives of people convicted of involvement in the riots does not merely represent a level of barbarity that even the fanatics of the Tea Party have dared to sink to, it represents a cynical attempt to rid London of a few potential Labour voters as his party tries to hold onto the office of Mayor using any dirty tricks it can.
Saturday, 13 August 2011
Thursday, 4 August 2011
Education Media Watch...?
Welcome to education readers from Twitter. This blog is normally about trans-related issues, but I didn't have anywhere else to post this, so please bear with me, I think this might be quite important and I would invite anyone who cares about education and the damage being done by the "media-Tory complex" to read this...
Natacha
This idea has, up to now, been little more the germ of a thought. Someone on twitter was complaining about things that are said in the media about teachers, I think it was following the publication of the KS2 SATs statistics when the papers spout their usual stuff about... some kids can't read/write etc because they haven't got level 4...etc. So it occurred to me that we should start an Education Media Watch group like the successful Trans Media Watch (TMW) which has worked to improve the portrayal and reporting on trans people & trans issues in the media.
They work by responding to media items about trans people and complaining to the PCC/Ofcom/BBC complaints/individual editors etc. to hold journalists to account. They seem to be steadily changing media portrayals of trans people. It seems that they don't generally do it by open and direct confrontation but by personal contacts and presenting journalists/editors with information and arguments which they might not otherwise consider and being available for them to ask questions.
So maybe Ed Media Watch might be able to do the same in terms of promoting greater respect for teachers, but would probably need to go beyond this and get people working in the media to present stories about education with different perspectives. Too often the government’s line that it is "improving schools by doing x,y or z" is never challenged, or only occasionally so, and then normally only by union leaders. There seems to be a kind of “doxa” in the media that more testing, less teacher autonomy, more privatisation, less teacher training, more discipline, more accountability, more Ofsteds, more phonics...etc, etc, etc is what we need to improve education.
It seems to me that according to this media consensus simply by becoming a teacher you become inherently untrustworthy overnight and need to spend huge amounts of time on accountability activities (in contrast to City types who, despite having bankrupted most of the planet, don't need to be held accountable). It also seems that most people in the media seem to think teachers don’t work hard enough and don’t deserve “long” holidays because we only work 9-3.30 and so more and more burdens are continually placed on us. Have you ever been to a staff meeting where the head has suggested that we do less work?
I think that one of the main reasons that teachers have so consistently been portrayed negatively in the media is
a) to put us on the defensive and
b) to make it appear that ‘something must be done’ to shake up these feckless, lazy and irresponsible teachers.
In many cases these journalists, who are portraying us so badly probably don't know any better and often aren't aware of any alternative arguments or criticisms of these policies, because this media orthodoxy is so ubiquitous.
A really good example of this media consensus was when Matt Damon (yes the Matt Damon Supremacy!) who is the son of a state school teacher in the United States spoke to reporters after his speech at the Save Our Schools rally in Washington DC a few days ago. Even the cameraman somehow quoted at him a figure of 10% of teachers that are incompetent. This figure appears to have been going round media circles in the US yet it is not based on any research. To my knowledge there has been no data compiled on the quality of teachers in the United States, which gives any figure for ‘incompetent’ teachers. Compiling such figures would actually be a huge task involving a large number of observations of lessons, and as far as I know nothing like this has ever been achieved anywhere to date. So where did this figure of 10% that even the cameraman knew about come from? I suspect it came from powerful interests in the media, or large corporate interests, like the Gates Foundation and Newscorp which campaigns to get control of as many schools as possible.
I don't know about you but I have felt, for years now, that whenever any government announces an education policy, its basic premises are almost invariably accepted without question by the media, and these policies have all too often, centered around blaming teachers rather than the system. The journos simply indulge in "churnalism" using government press releases. So my idea would be to promote a set of alternative arguments to each plank of education policy and make that available to journalists together with a means of getting hold of someone to speak about them, give quotes, interviews etc, like Trans Media Watch's Memorandum of Understanding, only probably a bit more complex. Combine this with a response to detrimental comments in the media about teachers, and we have a means of holding journalists to account, or at least letting them know they are "under the eye" and that they may have to deal with a long and tedious exchange of emails if they are not a bit more even-handed.
I guess we would probably have to start by monitoring media output on education as well to see where the biggest problems are occurring. So a group of teachers, likeminded parents (and maybe even the odd lecturer in education like me) getting together to set up some sort of organisation to do this would probably be the best way to start It looks like teacher/journalist Phil Beadle is interested and it may be a good idea to involve those nice people at Local Schools Network and maybe even potentially friendly journalists like Mike Baker.
I suppose initially we need to get started with some sort of strategy because we are not going to be able to deal with the huge amounts of education-related articles in the media all at once, so it may be that we have to think about dealing with certain elements of education reporting first or certain media organisations first. Trans Media Watch started by getting C4, New Statesman and the Guardian onside and then the Independent and now the BBC appear to be cautiously coming round. With the BBC’s charter requirement to maintain balance in its broadcasts, that may be a good place to start…
Anyway, any thoughts about how to proceed would be appreciated, I really only thought of this a couple of days ago so. In the meantime I will try and pick the brains of the founder of Trans Media Watch, the wonderful Jennie Kermode, who has, following the success of TMW, been advising trans groups in other countries on how to set up their own TMWs, and also other types of groups in the UK; apparently there is now a Disability Media Watch and an Islamic Media Watch, representing groups that are misrepresented by the media. Use the hashtag #emw.
Natacha Kennedy. London. 4 Aug 2011
Natacha
This idea has, up to now, been little more the germ of a thought. Someone on twitter was complaining about things that are said in the media about teachers, I think it was following the publication of the KS2 SATs statistics when the papers spout their usual stuff about... some kids can't read/write etc because they haven't got level 4...etc. So it occurred to me that we should start an Education Media Watch group like the successful Trans Media Watch (TMW) which has worked to improve the portrayal and reporting on trans people & trans issues in the media.
They work by responding to media items about trans people and complaining to the PCC/Ofcom/BBC complaints/individual editors etc. to hold journalists to account. They seem to be steadily changing media portrayals of trans people. It seems that they don't generally do it by open and direct confrontation but by personal contacts and presenting journalists/editors with information and arguments which they might not otherwise consider and being available for them to ask questions.
So maybe Ed Media Watch might be able to do the same in terms of promoting greater respect for teachers, but would probably need to go beyond this and get people working in the media to present stories about education with different perspectives. Too often the government’s line that it is "improving schools by doing x,y or z" is never challenged, or only occasionally so, and then normally only by union leaders. There seems to be a kind of “doxa” in the media that more testing, less teacher autonomy, more privatisation, less teacher training, more discipline, more accountability, more Ofsteds, more phonics...etc, etc, etc is what we need to improve education.
It seems to me that according to this media consensus simply by becoming a teacher you become inherently untrustworthy overnight and need to spend huge amounts of time on accountability activities (in contrast to City types who, despite having bankrupted most of the planet, don't need to be held accountable). It also seems that most people in the media seem to think teachers don’t work hard enough and don’t deserve “long” holidays because we only work 9-3.30 and so more and more burdens are continually placed on us. Have you ever been to a staff meeting where the head has suggested that we do less work?
I think that one of the main reasons that teachers have so consistently been portrayed negatively in the media is
a) to put us on the defensive and
b) to make it appear that ‘something must be done’ to shake up these feckless, lazy and irresponsible teachers.
In many cases these journalists, who are portraying us so badly probably don't know any better and often aren't aware of any alternative arguments or criticisms of these policies, because this media orthodoxy is so ubiquitous.
A really good example of this media consensus was when Matt Damon (yes the Matt Damon Supremacy!) who is the son of a state school teacher in the United States spoke to reporters after his speech at the Save Our Schools rally in Washington DC a few days ago. Even the cameraman somehow quoted at him a figure of 10% of teachers that are incompetent. This figure appears to have been going round media circles in the US yet it is not based on any research. To my knowledge there has been no data compiled on the quality of teachers in the United States, which gives any figure for ‘incompetent’ teachers. Compiling such figures would actually be a huge task involving a large number of observations of lessons, and as far as I know nothing like this has ever been achieved anywhere to date. So where did this figure of 10% that even the cameraman knew about come from? I suspect it came from powerful interests in the media, or large corporate interests, like the Gates Foundation and Newscorp which campaigns to get control of as many schools as possible.
I don't know about you but I have felt, for years now, that whenever any government announces an education policy, its basic premises are almost invariably accepted without question by the media, and these policies have all too often, centered around blaming teachers rather than the system. The journos simply indulge in "churnalism" using government press releases. So my idea would be to promote a set of alternative arguments to each plank of education policy and make that available to journalists together with a means of getting hold of someone to speak about them, give quotes, interviews etc, like Trans Media Watch's Memorandum of Understanding, only probably a bit more complex. Combine this with a response to detrimental comments in the media about teachers, and we have a means of holding journalists to account, or at least letting them know they are "under the eye" and that they may have to deal with a long and tedious exchange of emails if they are not a bit more even-handed.
I guess we would probably have to start by monitoring media output on education as well to see where the biggest problems are occurring. So a group of teachers, likeminded parents (and maybe even the odd lecturer in education like me) getting together to set up some sort of organisation to do this would probably be the best way to start It looks like teacher/journalist Phil Beadle is interested and it may be a good idea to involve those nice people at Local Schools Network and maybe even potentially friendly journalists like Mike Baker.
I suppose initially we need to get started with some sort of strategy because we are not going to be able to deal with the huge amounts of education-related articles in the media all at once, so it may be that we have to think about dealing with certain elements of education reporting first or certain media organisations first. Trans Media Watch started by getting C4, New Statesman and the Guardian onside and then the Independent and now the BBC appear to be cautiously coming round. With the BBC’s charter requirement to maintain balance in its broadcasts, that may be a good place to start…
Anyway, any thoughts about how to proceed would be appreciated, I really only thought of this a couple of days ago so. In the meantime I will try and pick the brains of the founder of Trans Media Watch, the wonderful Jennie Kermode, who has, following the success of TMW, been advising trans groups in other countries on how to set up their own TMWs, and also other types of groups in the UK; apparently there is now a Disability Media Watch and an Islamic Media Watch, representing groups that are misrepresented by the media. Use the hashtag #emw.
Natacha Kennedy. London. 4 Aug 2011
Sunday, 31 July 2011
Yet another nail in the coffin of Rad Fem transphobia.
It is not as if the transphobic “Radical” Feminists need any more discrediting, “Rad Fem Hub” has done that job already. Sheila Jeffries’ transphobic rant has even raised questions of the sanity of those involved. Indeed her rant effectively marks the nadir of a campaign of hatred, which has seen many low points and has rarely climbed out of the sewers. Gendertrender's blog which reads like carpet chewing fascism has even tried to 'out' trans people by recording and searching the IP addresses of those who post on her vile blog, something which could endanger trans people's lives.
Indeed the well-known incitement to hate-crime, which Janice Raymond wrote back in 1979 set a low tone which subsequent equally transphobic rants adopted, based on conjecture and supposition rather than evidence or empirical research.
Once of those pieces of conjecture and theorising has formed the Rad Fem article of faith that, since girls are brought up to have lower self-esteem than boys by a sexist and misogynistic society, transwomen can never be real women. The fact that, despite this theory being around for quite some time, it has never been tested through research, suggests that, despite the Rad Fem hatred of transwomen being largely centred on this, the Rad Fems had little confidence in their own arguments.
Now, however, this crucial supposition has been tested empirically. A Swiss study, carried out in the US has shown that girls and women between the ages of 14 and 30 have no difference in their levels of self-esteem than males of the same age. Indeed the only differences in self-esteem were found to be culturally dependent rather than dependent on gender.
In other words, girls do not end up with lower self-esteem than boys as a result of their upbringing. One of the central arguments of Rad Fem transphobia has been comprehensively undermined. The entire theoretical basis for their hatred has been shown through empirical research, to be based on false premises.
This is not to suggest that I expect them to stop hating trans people. Their hatred has clearly become emotionally-based. It is as if Rad Fem transphobia has taken on the characteristics of a religion. The fact that the devil has been proven not to exist will not alter their beliefs that transwomen are evil.
One suspects they will scrape around to find some other theory, this time one which they hope will be impossible to disprove through empirical research. Meanwhile they sideline themselves as the rest of the world, especially other women, increasingly view them as some kind of eccentric cult which security services ought to keep half an eye on...
Indeed the well-known incitement to hate-crime, which Janice Raymond wrote back in 1979 set a low tone which subsequent equally transphobic rants adopted, based on conjecture and supposition rather than evidence or empirical research.
Once of those pieces of conjecture and theorising has formed the Rad Fem article of faith that, since girls are brought up to have lower self-esteem than boys by a sexist and misogynistic society, transwomen can never be real women. The fact that, despite this theory being around for quite some time, it has never been tested through research, suggests that, despite the Rad Fem hatred of transwomen being largely centred on this, the Rad Fems had little confidence in their own arguments.
Now, however, this crucial supposition has been tested empirically. A Swiss study, carried out in the US has shown that girls and women between the ages of 14 and 30 have no difference in their levels of self-esteem than males of the same age. Indeed the only differences in self-esteem were found to be culturally dependent rather than dependent on gender.
In other words, girls do not end up with lower self-esteem than boys as a result of their upbringing. One of the central arguments of Rad Fem transphobia has been comprehensively undermined. The entire theoretical basis for their hatred has been shown through empirical research, to be based on false premises.
This is not to suggest that I expect them to stop hating trans people. Their hatred has clearly become emotionally-based. It is as if Rad Fem transphobia has taken on the characteristics of a religion. The fact that the devil has been proven not to exist will not alter their beliefs that transwomen are evil.
One suspects they will scrape around to find some other theory, this time one which they hope will be impossible to disprove through empirical research. Meanwhile they sideline themselves as the rest of the world, especially other women, increasingly view them as some kind of eccentric cult which security services ought to keep half an eye on...
Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch & the New Education "Reformers"
If you read any of the right-wing press in the US it would appear that the people who know the most about education are not teachers, educationists or parents but billionnaires. Billionnaires have been getting involved in education "reform" in a supposed effort to "transform" American schools.
However his latest pronouncement, that schools can improve educational outcomes even when its pupils come from a poor socioeconomic background, suggests that he is getting desperate. I suspect he would like it to be true, but he needs to face facts, it is never going to be true. The biggest single determinant of educational failure is poverty. You can control for all other variables and find schools able to educate children regardless or ethnicity, religion, disability etc, but when you look at poverty, there is a particularly high correlation, which no education system has been able to change.
One can understand Gates's position; he is a very rich person. He woud like to believe two things; that his success is not down to his own good fortune for being born in the right bed, and that he is not rich becaiuse others are poor. In other words the billionnaires's refrain that the educational cart can be put before the horse is personal. It is about assuageing their own guilt, it is about making them feel that they became rich entirely deservedly and not because of any amount of good luck. It is also about trying to promote the ideology of the rich that the poor are only poor because of their fecklessness and laziness.
So the failed 20-year involvement of the very rich in schools in the United States is, underliying the need of the wealthy for personal justification, ideological. It is about trying to justify their own "success" and justify their oppression of the poor. Oppression which includes not paying their taxes
The problem is that right-wing billionnaires like Gates are able to shout louder when it comes to just about anything. They can both control and hog the media, and the constant repetition of this ideological position results in it being taken as self-evident, in the way Dr Goebbels constant repitition of lies made them "true".
Bill Gates used to be at the vanguard of a new age; whether or not you hate Microsoft, it was his operating system that made computers and the internet accessible to us all, and which initially helped enable the exponential generative growth of online and offline resources. However he has now become just another sad right-wing billionnaire, misusing his wealth to oppress the poor and disempower others.
Gates is part of a movement of right-wing ideologues, many of whom are very rich, who want to control education and force teachers to work in ways they think are best, even though they have never taught a class themselves in their lives. Why large amounts of money makes them "experts" on education is a question none of them have answered. Another of these right-wing ideologues with too much money is Rupert Murdoch, who is getting involved in education through the UK's right-wing education minister; Michael Gove. This is quite frankly alarming; after we have seen the way in which he runs his newspapers, one has to fear for any children who end up in Murdoch High School.
However Murdoch is not just getting involved in education in the standard way, sponsoring "Free" or "charter" schools like Gates and others; he is making "educational" softeware which will result in teachers having even less freedom to teach and making lessons even more boring and repetitive for children. The problem for rich oligarchs like Gates and Murdoch is that their "reforms" can only be implemented by destroying teachers' professional abilities. Their solutions all involve a high degree of centralisation and an excessive amount of testing, leaving teachers with little or no opportunity to exercise their professionalism as educators to benefit the children they teach.
Their educational ideology been shown to fail; schools in many parts of the US including New York and Wisconsin have had the ologarch's kind of education system for many years and have conspicuously failed to deliver the reform or "transformation" they have told us it can. Nonetheless they want to import it to the UK. It will be another expensive failure.
Yet there is an alternative; the education system in Finland works without any testing at all, it emphasises teachers' professionalism and trains them very highly, giving them the tools for the job they do and allowing them to get on with it. And it has worked. Finland's economy went from being almost exclusively reliant on timber in the 1970s to being a high-tech industrial/post-industrial economy today, thanks to its education system. It produces more patents per head of population than any other country in the world, and has a population which has been described as one of the most creatively entreprenurial on the planet.
Schools can do fine in terms of educating children without making them the playthings of the very rich and their lackeys on the political righ. It is time to say No to centralisation of schools, No to more testing and No to the failed policies of Murdoch, Gates and Gove. All we need them to do is shut up and pay their taxes.
However his latest pronouncement, that schools can improve educational outcomes even when its pupils come from a poor socioeconomic background, suggests that he is getting desperate. I suspect he would like it to be true, but he needs to face facts, it is never going to be true. The biggest single determinant of educational failure is poverty. You can control for all other variables and find schools able to educate children regardless or ethnicity, religion, disability etc, but when you look at poverty, there is a particularly high correlation, which no education system has been able to change.
One can understand Gates's position; he is a very rich person. He woud like to believe two things; that his success is not down to his own good fortune for being born in the right bed, and that he is not rich becaiuse others are poor. In other words the billionnaires's refrain that the educational cart can be put before the horse is personal. It is about assuageing their own guilt, it is about making them feel that they became rich entirely deservedly and not because of any amount of good luck. It is also about trying to promote the ideology of the rich that the poor are only poor because of their fecklessness and laziness.
So the failed 20-year involvement of the very rich in schools in the United States is, underliying the need of the wealthy for personal justification, ideological. It is about trying to justify their own "success" and justify their oppression of the poor. Oppression which includes not paying their taxes
The problem is that right-wing billionnaires like Gates are able to shout louder when it comes to just about anything. They can both control and hog the media, and the constant repetition of this ideological position results in it being taken as self-evident, in the way Dr Goebbels constant repitition of lies made them "true".
Bill Gates used to be at the vanguard of a new age; whether or not you hate Microsoft, it was his operating system that made computers and the internet accessible to us all, and which initially helped enable the exponential generative growth of online and offline resources. However he has now become just another sad right-wing billionnaire, misusing his wealth to oppress the poor and disempower others.
Gates is part of a movement of right-wing ideologues, many of whom are very rich, who want to control education and force teachers to work in ways they think are best, even though they have never taught a class themselves in their lives. Why large amounts of money makes them "experts" on education is a question none of them have answered. Another of these right-wing ideologues with too much money is Rupert Murdoch, who is getting involved in education through the UK's right-wing education minister; Michael Gove. This is quite frankly alarming; after we have seen the way in which he runs his newspapers, one has to fear for any children who end up in Murdoch High School.
However Murdoch is not just getting involved in education in the standard way, sponsoring "Free" or "charter" schools like Gates and others; he is making "educational" softeware which will result in teachers having even less freedom to teach and making lessons even more boring and repetitive for children. The problem for rich oligarchs like Gates and Murdoch is that their "reforms" can only be implemented by destroying teachers' professional abilities. Their solutions all involve a high degree of centralisation and an excessive amount of testing, leaving teachers with little or no opportunity to exercise their professionalism as educators to benefit the children they teach.
Their educational ideology been shown to fail; schools in many parts of the US including New York and Wisconsin have had the ologarch's kind of education system for many years and have conspicuously failed to deliver the reform or "transformation" they have told us it can. Nonetheless they want to import it to the UK. It will be another expensive failure.
Yet there is an alternative; the education system in Finland works without any testing at all, it emphasises teachers' professionalism and trains them very highly, giving them the tools for the job they do and allowing them to get on with it. And it has worked. Finland's economy went from being almost exclusively reliant on timber in the 1970s to being a high-tech industrial/post-industrial economy today, thanks to its education system. It produces more patents per head of population than any other country in the world, and has a population which has been described as one of the most creatively entreprenurial on the planet.
Schools can do fine in terms of educating children without making them the playthings of the very rich and their lackeys on the political righ. It is time to say No to centralisation of schools, No to more testing and No to the failed policies of Murdoch, Gates and Gove. All we need them to do is shut up and pay their taxes.
Sunday, 10 July 2011
"Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed." - Martin Luther King
Regular readers of UnCommon Sense will have realised that I have been taking a bit of a break from blogging recently. The pressure of work and to get some more of my studies done has been the reason for that. However the Murdoch outrages we have been hearing about recently have prompted me to post this...
Whilst the revelations about NewsCorp and News International are welcome, Murdoch is by no means defeated. If his bid to get 100% control of Sky TV is turned down then it will most likely be Ofcom deciding that he is not a "fit and proper" person to own it. If this does happen, his global empire will be in serious trouble; many other countries have similar laws, including the US, Oz, NZ and India. If he is deemed not to be fit and proper to own a TV station in the UK then it is likely he will also be deemed unfit and improper in these, and many other countries. Despite his empire being worth many billions of dollars, the possibility of bankruptcy is staring him in the face.
As such the Murdoch family will fight tooth an claw to make sure his bid goes through. It is likely that this will happen by public means as well as devious means. Already we have been told that News International has directly threatened Ed Miliband. So I would expect blackmail, threats and all kinds of cloak-and-dagger tactics to be deployed against politicians, members of Ofcom, the police and journalists on other newspapers.
When you add to this the fact that the Tories are gauleiters who have benefitted most from Murdoch's dictatorship, there is still a formidable organisation trying to push for his SKY takeover. The right-wing agendas they push in everything from industrial relations to social policy, education, economic policy and the pursuit of wars around the world, have been the policies of Rupert Murdoch. They stand to lose most from Murdoch's loss of power, and in particular David Cameron stands to lose a great deal as the undertow of the ship News International starts to drag others down with it. His relationship with Rebekah Brooks and his decision to employ Andy Coulson and to suffer from memory lapses when it comes to the fact that he was warned about him, suggest that he is on the verge of becoming a lame duck Prime Minister already.
So despite all the revelations about the Murdoch press being uncovered, and the liklihood of further revelations in the coming months, we're not out of the woods yet by a long way. There will be a fighback from the Murdochs, there will be a significant number of people in the Tory party who will try to further Murdoch's interests, including, I suspect, David Cameron and George Osborne, whose careers remain too entangled with the Evil Empire for comfort.
Martin Luther King also said "Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals." Now is the time everyone in the country stands up and demands independence from the opression of the dead hand of Newscorp. Things are moving but we still have a fight on our hands. It ain't over till the fat lady sings...
Whilst the revelations about NewsCorp and News International are welcome, Murdoch is by no means defeated. If his bid to get 100% control of Sky TV is turned down then it will most likely be Ofcom deciding that he is not a "fit and proper" person to own it. If this does happen, his global empire will be in serious trouble; many other countries have similar laws, including the US, Oz, NZ and India. If he is deemed not to be fit and proper to own a TV station in the UK then it is likely he will also be deemed unfit and improper in these, and many other countries. Despite his empire being worth many billions of dollars, the possibility of bankruptcy is staring him in the face.
As such the Murdoch family will fight tooth an claw to make sure his bid goes through. It is likely that this will happen by public means as well as devious means. Already we have been told that News International has directly threatened Ed Miliband. So I would expect blackmail, threats and all kinds of cloak-and-dagger tactics to be deployed against politicians, members of Ofcom, the police and journalists on other newspapers.
When you add to this the fact that the Tories are gauleiters who have benefitted most from Murdoch's dictatorship, there is still a formidable organisation trying to push for his SKY takeover. The right-wing agendas they push in everything from industrial relations to social policy, education, economic policy and the pursuit of wars around the world, have been the policies of Rupert Murdoch. They stand to lose most from Murdoch's loss of power, and in particular David Cameron stands to lose a great deal as the undertow of the ship News International starts to drag others down with it. His relationship with Rebekah Brooks and his decision to employ Andy Coulson and to suffer from memory lapses when it comes to the fact that he was warned about him, suggest that he is on the verge of becoming a lame duck Prime Minister already.
So despite all the revelations about the Murdoch press being uncovered, and the liklihood of further revelations in the coming months, we're not out of the woods yet by a long way. There will be a fighback from the Murdochs, there will be a significant number of people in the Tory party who will try to further Murdoch's interests, including, I suspect, David Cameron and George Osborne, whose careers remain too entangled with the Evil Empire for comfort.
Martin Luther King also said "Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals." Now is the time everyone in the country stands up and demands independence from the opression of the dead hand of Newscorp. Things are moving but we still have a fight on our hands. It ain't over till the fat lady sings...
Friday, 10 June 2011
Is Stonewall Institutionally Transphobic?
Organisations can be institutionally racist, sex discriminatory, homophobic by their very structures and procedures. This is when the way it functions in terms of its structures or systems acts against the interests of one particular group.
I am currently trying to see if I can get Ofsted to change its standards for assessing teacher training providers because I believe they are institutionally racist. This is not to suggest for one moment that Ofsted intends to discriminate against black people or Asians who want to become teachers but that the unintended consequence of the way it functions can cause teacher training providers to be less likely to choose black or Asians students to come on their courses. Black and Asian teacher trainees are more likely to need to take time off from the course for family reasons, either having family responsibilities or relatives abroad. Yet Ofsted penalises teacher training providers if too many students interrupt their courses. If this continues teacher training providers will become less likely to admit black and Asian students onto their courses, and the teaching profession will remain dominated by white teachers.
This is not what Ofsted intends but it is the unintended outcome of one of Ofsted’s systems.
The unintended outcome resulting from structures or systems within an organisation is what causes most institutional racism, homophobia, sex discrimination etc. It now appears that the unintended consequence of Stonewall’s activities is transphobic. Stonewall may well be institutionally transphobic.
The problem comes as a result of its activities as a provider of diversity training for teachers. It provides training for teachers and other education professionals in diversity issues about Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual (LGB) people. So far so good, but most people these days don’t talk about LGB people, they talk about LGBT people, so when Stonewall sends its trainers to train teachers, despite the fact that nothing is said about trans children, the senior managers of the school are very likely to tick the “done LGBT equality” box, some may even consider that T has been covered.
But this is not all. Stonewall’s conference this year is a huge event entitled, without a hint of irony, "Education for All" and has attracted some big names including Gok Wan, Sue Gregory, one of the heads of Ofsted, and the hideous Nick Gibb, the Schools Minister. The event is being held in the sumptuous surroundings of the British Library.
This highlights the problems with the way funding and such like, from charities and other sources finds its way to Stonewall but not to other groups which are inclusive of trans people. As a result, whilst Stonewall can attract big name individuals and hold conferences which people who have power over schools will attend, trans organisations have neither the funding nor the visibility to do this.
Now Stonewall will obviously counter that they are simply campaigning for their people and are not involving themselves in trans issues. They probably do not wish to involve themselves in trans issues. The problem is that in both these examples, their activities result in problems for trans people, in that issues of transphobia in schools are not included in training for teachers and that issues of transphobia are not raised with people like Nick Gibb and Ofsted who have an increasing amount of power in the increasingly centralised education system. This may not be Stonewall’s intention but it is the outcome of Stonewall’s actions. It is institutional transphobia.
So what could Stonewall do about this? It is clear that for an organisation which promotes diversity to be institutionally transphobic is a serious blow for their credibility, as such they need to find ways of ensuring that trans people are not specifically disadvantaged by their actions.
Firstly, Stonewall could agree to permit a percentage of its funding, from those donors who do not object, to be channelled to trans organisations. Or it could ask those donor organisations to donate, say 5% of what they donate to Stonewall, to trans organisations. This would enable trans people to set up education conferences and attract top names like Stonewall does as well as start to build up an element of visibility and acceptance in the way Stonewall has done.
Secondly they could make it clear, as part of their diversity training to teachers, that they do not cover issues of discrimination of trans children and to provide schools with contact details of organisations which can.
I know Stonewall is an organisation which does not include trans people but that does not mean that they are absolved of all responsibilities for trans people. The BNP is an organisation, which acts against the interests of black people yet it was forced to alter the way it does things to avoid being institutionally racist. The fact that Stonewall’s actions, indirectly but concretely, are discriminatory against trans people in general and trans children in particular, means that it is time they took steps to rectify this.
I am currently trying to see if I can get Ofsted to change its standards for assessing teacher training providers because I believe they are institutionally racist. This is not to suggest for one moment that Ofsted intends to discriminate against black people or Asians who want to become teachers but that the unintended consequence of the way it functions can cause teacher training providers to be less likely to choose black or Asians students to come on their courses. Black and Asian teacher trainees are more likely to need to take time off from the course for family reasons, either having family responsibilities or relatives abroad. Yet Ofsted penalises teacher training providers if too many students interrupt their courses. If this continues teacher training providers will become less likely to admit black and Asian students onto their courses, and the teaching profession will remain dominated by white teachers.
This is not what Ofsted intends but it is the unintended outcome of one of Ofsted’s systems.
The unintended outcome resulting from structures or systems within an organisation is what causes most institutional racism, homophobia, sex discrimination etc. It now appears that the unintended consequence of Stonewall’s activities is transphobic. Stonewall may well be institutionally transphobic.
The problem comes as a result of its activities as a provider of diversity training for teachers. It provides training for teachers and other education professionals in diversity issues about Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual (LGB) people. So far so good, but most people these days don’t talk about LGB people, they talk about LGBT people, so when Stonewall sends its trainers to train teachers, despite the fact that nothing is said about trans children, the senior managers of the school are very likely to tick the “done LGBT equality” box, some may even consider that T has been covered.
But this is not all. Stonewall’s conference this year is a huge event entitled, without a hint of irony, "Education for All" and has attracted some big names including Gok Wan, Sue Gregory, one of the heads of Ofsted, and the hideous Nick Gibb, the Schools Minister. The event is being held in the sumptuous surroundings of the British Library.
This highlights the problems with the way funding and such like, from charities and other sources finds its way to Stonewall but not to other groups which are inclusive of trans people. As a result, whilst Stonewall can attract big name individuals and hold conferences which people who have power over schools will attend, trans organisations have neither the funding nor the visibility to do this.
Now Stonewall will obviously counter that they are simply campaigning for their people and are not involving themselves in trans issues. They probably do not wish to involve themselves in trans issues. The problem is that in both these examples, their activities result in problems for trans people, in that issues of transphobia in schools are not included in training for teachers and that issues of transphobia are not raised with people like Nick Gibb and Ofsted who have an increasing amount of power in the increasingly centralised education system. This may not be Stonewall’s intention but it is the outcome of Stonewall’s actions. It is institutional transphobia.
So what could Stonewall do about this? It is clear that for an organisation which promotes diversity to be institutionally transphobic is a serious blow for their credibility, as such they need to find ways of ensuring that trans people are not specifically disadvantaged by their actions.
Firstly, Stonewall could agree to permit a percentage of its funding, from those donors who do not object, to be channelled to trans organisations. Or it could ask those donor organisations to donate, say 5% of what they donate to Stonewall, to trans organisations. This would enable trans people to set up education conferences and attract top names like Stonewall does as well as start to build up an element of visibility and acceptance in the way Stonewall has done.
Secondly they could make it clear, as part of their diversity training to teachers, that they do not cover issues of discrimination of trans children and to provide schools with contact details of organisations which can.
I know Stonewall is an organisation which does not include trans people but that does not mean that they are absolved of all responsibilities for trans people. The BNP is an organisation, which acts against the interests of black people yet it was forced to alter the way it does things to avoid being institutionally racist. The fact that Stonewall’s actions, indirectly but concretely, are discriminatory against trans people in general and trans children in particular, means that it is time they took steps to rectify this.
Thursday, 9 June 2011
GRS without psychiatrists? Maybe...
Is there already a route, still not very widely known, for transsexuals who wish to access surgery without having to go through to a psychiatrist? It is looking like there may well be.
It depends on the provisions embodied in the Equality Act, which is a piece of legislation the Tories are working very hard behind the scenes to get rid of, or at least to manufacture an excuse to get rid of. The Act makes provision for a trans person who, with no surgery and who lives in a different gender (and passes in that gender) permanently to change their legal sex/gender. The only proviso being that they can pass in their new gender (and a pretty nasty and very discriminatory proviso at that). They can then live their lives as men or women with all their ID in their acquired gender.
Once this has been accomplished, it has been suggested that trans people can simply go to their doctor and request surgery to enable their body to conform to their legal gender. It is unlikely that the doctor would have any grounds for refusing this treatment. If a patient turns up and he is legally male then a double mastectomy should be available with no psychiatric consultation required. Indeed this is the case with legal males who suffer from gynecomestia.
This could be important since it may well end the monopoly on gatekeeping, which the psychiatric profession has on GRS. Of course it is a completely untried route as yet, but given that a pre-op transsexual told me recently that she would say anything or do anything to obtain her GRS it is significant that this possibility is opened up. In effect this makes a mockery of the psychiatric consultation, which, as both Sandy Stone and Judith Butler have described as effectively little more than a game, the rules of which trans people have to abide by while they are transitioning.
This is something for transsexuals, who are not confident about approaching psychiatrists, to think about. Will it work? That is a big unknown, but there do appear to be some in the NHS who are prepared to take the possibility of this new route seriously...
It depends on the provisions embodied in the Equality Act, which is a piece of legislation the Tories are working very hard behind the scenes to get rid of, or at least to manufacture an excuse to get rid of. The Act makes provision for a trans person who, with no surgery and who lives in a different gender (and passes in that gender) permanently to change their legal sex/gender. The only proviso being that they can pass in their new gender (and a pretty nasty and very discriminatory proviso at that). They can then live their lives as men or women with all their ID in their acquired gender.
Once this has been accomplished, it has been suggested that trans people can simply go to their doctor and request surgery to enable their body to conform to their legal gender. It is unlikely that the doctor would have any grounds for refusing this treatment. If a patient turns up and he is legally male then a double mastectomy should be available with no psychiatric consultation required. Indeed this is the case with legal males who suffer from gynecomestia.
This could be important since it may well end the monopoly on gatekeeping, which the psychiatric profession has on GRS. Of course it is a completely untried route as yet, but given that a pre-op transsexual told me recently that she would say anything or do anything to obtain her GRS it is significant that this possibility is opened up. In effect this makes a mockery of the psychiatric consultation, which, as both Sandy Stone and Judith Butler have described as effectively little more than a game, the rules of which trans people have to abide by while they are transitioning.
This is something for transsexuals, who are not confident about approaching psychiatrists, to think about. Will it work? That is a big unknown, but there do appear to be some in the NHS who are prepared to take the possibility of this new route seriously...
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