Sophia Network

Embrace your inner girl

In this TED talk, Eve Ensler, author of the Vagina Monologue, wonders if there's a girl cell in all of us. She uses metaphorical language to question the qualities we value in our society and those we suppress. She tells the stories of the amazingly resilient girls she has met through her organisation V-Day that works to end violence against women and girls. Visit the TED site to read an interactive script of her talk. If you can't spare 20 minutes to listen to it all, then click to hear her performance at the end of 'I'm an emotional creature'. Love it.

HT: Richard Bromley

Article: Working with girls by Jenny Baker

There must be lots of Sophia Network members who are working with girls and young women. I'd love to hear about your experiences which may well be different to mine. Please contribute in the comments below with tips, ideas, disagreement or questions.

When my boys were little, we did the whole nursery rhyme thing. Humpty Dumpty and Incy Wincy Spider were learned with enthusiasm and repeated ad nauseum. But we hit trouble when Harry heard the nursery rhyme ‘What are little girls made of?’ for the first time. Incensed that boys could be described as ‘slugs and snails and puppy dog tails’, he wrote his own version. Instead of the essence of femininity being ‘sugar and spice and all things nice’, he decided that the little girls were made of ‘wee and poo and blobs of goo.’ Looking back I’m proud of his early stand for gender justice, although I can’t say that I agree with his conclusions!

When a baby is born, the first question asked is whether it’s a boy or a girl – after all there isn’t much else distinctive to say about a newborn. And from that moment, boys and girls are brought up very differently – girls cocooned in pink fluffiness, boys expected to be active and adventurous. The debate rages about how much influence nature and nurture have, but there’s no doubt in my mind that our gender is a complex mix of the two. We can’t ignore gender in our work with young people, and there’s an urgent need for both male and female youth workers to understand the distinctive needs of both girls and boys. But there’s also a fair amount of twaddle written about gender, particularly within the church, so I think we need to bear the following in mind in any discussions about it.

Too much too young

Lots of coverage today for the report commissioned by the Home Office into the sexualisation of young people and children. Dr Linda Papadopoulos, a psychologist was asked to look at how sexualised images and messages may be affecting the development of children and young people and influencing cultural norms. She also examined the evidence of a link between sexualisation and violence. You can download a copy of the report from the Home Office website and it's worth a read. There's an executive summary if you're short of time!

I'm pleased that Papadopoulos extended the remit of the report beyond its original brief, as she explains in the foreword: 'Although the original intention of the review was to focus on how sexualisation is affecting girls, it quickly became evident that we could not talk about girls without acknowledging the concomitant impact on boys and the hyper-masculinised images and messages that surround them. The scope of the review was therefore widened to encompass the sexualisation of all young people and to look at how hyper-sexualisation and objectification of girls on the one hand, and hypermasculinisation of boys on the other, perpetuate and reinforce each other.'

The report looks at issues such as the accessibility of pornography, images used in advertising, TV, films and music videos, new technologies and parental responsibility. Papadopoulos makes 36 recommendations for action and the Home Office identifies the key ones as:

• launching an online ‘one-stop-shop’ to allow the public to voice their concerns regarding irresponsible marketing which sexualises children
• encouraging the government to support the Advertising Standards Agency to take steps to extend existing regulatory standards to include commercial websites
• requiring broadcasters to ensure music videos featuring sexual posing or sexually suggestive lyrics are only broadcast after the watershed
• ensuring games consoles are sold with parental controls already switched on. Purchasers can then choose to unlock the console if they wish to allow access to adult and online content

Other recommendations are for 'lad's mags' such as Nuts and FHM to be recognised as being inappropriate for children, so that they are only on sale to people aged 15 and over, and shops can be prosecuted for displaying them at eye level or next to publications for children.

The report also suggests that 'increased funding should be made available for staffing, provision and training of existing youth workers so that they feel confident and sufficiently skilled to have discussions with young people around sexuality, sexist and sexual bullying and gender inequality. More materials are also needed to support youth workers to develop such work.'

The new goodnight kiss

This is a disturbing book from the States about teenage prostitution and the sexual bullying of girls - Oral sex is the new goodnight kiss. Visit the website to read an extract from the book and to see clips from the documentary that accompanies it.

Author Sharlene Azam explores the phenomenon of middle-class US teenage girls trading sex for money, drugs and luxury goods. The book and film are 'a wake up call for parents showing them how girls are groomed by our culture into seeing sex as "no big deal" and the attention-getting behavior that's leading some girls into trading sex for money, drugs or clothes.'

The website includes chapter excerpts, video clips, as well as a magazine-style pdf called Toxic that explores the key issues.

From your experience, does this kind of thing go on in the UK? Or is this an American trend that we have yet to emulate? I'd love to know.

Teenage girls - unhealthy eaters

The first year of the new National Diet and Nutrition Survey (NDNS) by the Food Standards Agency has found that teenage girls have the most unhealthy diet in the country according to this report in the Guardian.

The FSA said it was concerned that teenage girls between 11 and 18 are failing to eat enough foods essential for growth and good health. They tend to eat food high in saturated fat and sugar, with fizzy drinks being particularly popular, but they aren't getting enough nutrients such as iron and calcium. In addition, in spite of recommending that children don't drink alcohol at all, the report found that 4% of boys aged 13-15 and 12% of girls of the same age said they usually drank once a week or more.

The fact that teenage girls are eating so unhealthily is interesting because they are more likely to be reading about diets and weight control in magazines. A study reported in Pediatrics magazine in the States three years ago found that 'frequent reading of magazine articles about dieting/weight loss strongly predicted unhealthy weight-control behaviours in adolescent girls, but not boys, 5 years later.'

1980s posters about girls

It's history week here at Sophia. UK Youth have reproduced some posters created in the 1980s by young research workers and young women which looked at the risks of being young and female. They addressed the issues that the girls felt they faced, and challenged stereotypes.

These posters would be a great discussion starter to use with young people, both girls and boys. What do they say about what life was like in the 80s? What has changed in the last 30 years? Do any of these statements still need reinforcing? What do they want teenagers of the opposite sex to understand about them today?

You can buy copies of the posters through UK Youth's Lulu site (scroll down the list of publications). There's one about boys causing trouble, an assertion that it's really good being a girl, a plea for girls not being judged on their looks, a reminder that girls hate being called slags, and a picture of a girl at the sink highlighting the bad things about being a girl.

HT: Ali Campbell

Article: The wounded healer by Ann M Weatherley-Barton

 Understanding and valuing self does not come in a vacuum but through God’s people expressing his love and commitment to others, especially to our marginalised and disenfranchised young people. Over many years both my husband and myself have discovered that only long-term commitment to young (and the not so young) offers anything that is really deep and abiding in people’s lives. We are totally committed for the long term with young people and anyone else who comes our way. We have found that without that conviction very little changes especially for those whose lives are in crisis.

In life-long process we have found, as Ken Leech put it so succinctly in his book, ‘The Eye of the Storm’, there is a need to ‘go through people’s hell with them’. For us it is at the heart of our mission and calling while also being at the very heart of the gospel. How can we expect anyone to understand what the love of God is and what it means unless we show them? Francis of Assisi reputedly said: “Always preach the Gospel and sometimes use words.” What a way to live your life. I wouldn’t say that has been my life’s song but if I try and sing this tune then I might be who God wants me to be.

I long rid myself of phrases like “discipling,” and even “getting alongside people” which I now find irksome because it smacks of me doing something to someone else that might or might not be what someone needs. All of a sudden I have come the ‘expert’ for someone else’s life and of course I have all the answers to all their problems. Of course I do. Then I become a “textpert,” finding the perfect biblical verse for every situation known to humanity! The desperate person gets lost in my arrogance, my knowledge and my sole intention of “sorting someone out”.

Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing bad about discipling as long as we are open and humble enough to recognise that we need to be discipled ourselves. Discipling needs to undertaken with a servant’s heart where arrogance and know-it-all attitudes have no place. I don’t even think about such words these days. I would rather spend my time listening and learning from others.

Caring for people on a long-term basis is not a walk in the park or an activity to boost our flagging self confidence, just so we can say: “Look what I’m doing!” We need to grasp the truths that the Bible teaches about what it means to be Christ-like and, we must know it deep in our hearts and spirits. It is a life-long learning curve. We have to go inward and outward in our spiritual walk. We must learn how to love ourselves in order to be able to truly love others. If we try and understand the depth of the love that cost Christ to hang on a cross for us and grapple with that sacrifice, then we may have our blueprint of how we need to be with and for others who are in total despair and on the brink of life.

Living Dolls: the return of sexism

I'm looking forward to reading Natasha Walter's new book Living Dolls: the return of sexism when it's published next month.

There's an extract from it in today's Times Online, exploring the sexualisation of girls and young women, which ends with a great quote from Rachel Gardner of Romance Academy:

“Feminism is now seen as sexual promiscuity, which is such a narrow view of empowerment. Liberation isn’t just about promiscuity. For some women, liberation may be about having a new sexual partner every week, but for a lot of women it will be about finding someone to be with for your whole life, growing together over the years, and you never hear about that any more. What liberation means to me is that in any sexual relationship you are cherished and you cherish.”

You can help make this change

I  like these postcards by designer Tom Lovell for Ctrl+Alt+Shift, demonstrating how damaging opinions can start to be changed by small actions. They highlight the attitudes prevalent in some parts of the world that mean that girls and women bear the brunt of poverty, as well as holding the most potential for transforming their communities - there's more information here from Plan UK and here from the Girl Effect. 

What do you think are the damaging beliefs that limit the opportunities and potential of girls and boys in your community? What are the small actions you can take to change those opinions? 

How pink is your Christmas?

Last year in the run-up to Christmas, we highlighted the gender-stereotyping of toys. This year, Pinkstinks - the campaign and social enterprise that challenges the culture of pink which invades every aspect of girls' lives - has a Christmas campaign calling for the Early Learning Centre to stop its pinkification and gender-stereotyping of children’s toys. They are quick to point out that ELC is not the only culprit but as they claim to be centres for learning, it's only fair to critique exactly what our children are learning from them. And if it's that girls and boys should be channelled into narrow gender stereotypes rather than having a wide world opened up to them, then parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents would be wise to ask themselves if that's what they want to support.

You can read more on their blog where there's an inspiring story about 13-year-old Philipe Johansson and Ebba Silvert from Sweden who reported Toys 'R' Us to Sweden's Advertising Ombudsman because all the boys in their Christmas catalogue were portrayed as active, and all the girls were portrayed as pink and passive. The Ombudsman decided that the Toys ‘R’ Us catalogue “discriminates based on gender and counteracts positive social behaviour, lifestyles, and attitudes” and the company was issued with a public reprimand. So this year the catalogue will be different!

UPDATE: There's an interview in The Guardian with Abi and Emma Moore who launched PinkStinks which begins: 'Towards the end of the great war, in June 1918, America's most authoritative women's magazine, the Ladies' Home Journal (it still exists), had a few wise words of advice for fretting mothers. "There has been a great diversity of debate on the subject," it wrote, "but the generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger colour, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl." '

What do you say to an eight-year-old girl?

You meet a friend with her eight-year-old daughter when you're out shopping, or at church, or over at her house for lunch. You don't know the little girl very well, so what's the first thing you say to her? I had a very interesting conversation with Mark Green at LICC the other day, and he observed that adults tend, in that context, to comment on the girl's appearance: 'You look very pretty today,' or 'That's a lovely dress'. And if that's the only thing we commend them for, or always the first thing that we notice, aren't we giving a rather damaging message that mirrors what they pick up from the rest of our culture - that what matters is the way these little girls look, that if they want approval or attention then they need to look pretty?

That conversation has made me think a lot. Particularly when I met my six-year-old niece last weekend at my sister's birthday lunch. I don't see my niece that often, and my first instinct was to say how lovely she looked because she was dressed up for the party. And then I realised that that was what all of us were saying to her, but none of us were commenting on what her brother was wearing! So I ended up talking to her about school, and the writing she was doing and who her friends were as well as telling her that I liked her funky boots. 

Children and teenagers need good interaction with adults outside of their family. I think there can be a nervousness around child/adult interactions, where people aren't sure what's appropriate and I don't want to add to that! So perhaps a comment on a little girls' dress or a teenage girl's hair is better than nothing. But can't we do better than that? Give me some suggestions for starting conversations with girls and young women that aren't focused on their looks, and perhaps we can all be more aware and better equipped for the future.

Links from Youthwork the Conference

It was great to meet so many people at Youthwork the Conference. Here are some links if you want to follow up aspects that the Sophia Network were involved in.

We celebrated our second birthday at the Sophia Network reception - thanks to Jo for yummy cupcakes! If you want to join the network, or sign up for the new members' section, then click here.

Ruth Hassall and Paul Wilcox did a condensed version of our mentoring training on Saturday afternoon. If that has whetted your appetite for more, or if you have people on your teams or in your church that would benefit, we'll be doing 14 training dates next year in partnership with Urban Saints and CPAS. Details are being finalised at the moment and dates will be up on www.mentoringtraining.org.uk very soon, but the first event is in Luton on 16 January 2010 and you can book here.

And then in Adolescence - bodies, brains and behaviour, I mentioned several studies that have been highlighted on the blog in the last few months.

• survey of teenage boys by the Guardian and the Women in Journalism study of the portrayal of boys in the media
• study of sexual bullying among young people by the NSPCC and the University of Bristol
• effect of early puberty on girls
• Girlguiding survey of girls
• study of teenagers in Scotland and mental health

I recommended two books: Blame my Brain by Nicola Morgan and Young Masculinities by Stephen Frosch. You can find out more about Chris Curtis' work in Luton with LCET here.

Girls' Attitudes survey by Girlguiding UK

Girlguiding UK is 100 years old this year and to mark their centenary they have undertaken a comprehensive study of the views and opinions of girls aged 7 to 16 across the UK. Girl Guides identified five areas that the survey should cover to find out what their peers thought: family and relationships; education; society; environment and health and well-being. You can find the results of the survey on a dedicated website where you can download a report on each of the areas. Press coverage of the survey has tended to focus on body image and the fact that '46 per cent of girls aged 11 to 16, and 50 per cent of girls aged 16 to 21 would consider cosmetic surgery to make themselves thinner or prettier. The figures are even higher among under-16s who are not doing well at school. Only 19 per cent of girls whose performance was satisfactory or poor said that they would never have invasive surgery to improve their appearance.'

But there's more to the survey than that. For example on gender roles: 'In some areas, girls’ responses reflected traditional ideas about gender roles - the majority of girls associated men with looking after the car and women with carrying out the housework. However, with regard to childcare activities, discipline and managing household finances, girls where far less likely to favour either gender. Around half of 7- to 11-year-olds and 16- to 21-year-olds claimed that these tasks were likely to be shared equally between men and women, rising to around two thirds of 11- to 16-year-olds.'

On role models: 'A third of all girls across the younger age groups (7-16 years) chose Cheryl Cole as the best role model for girls of their age, making her by far the most popular choice. Among 7- to 11-year-olds, no other candidate was named by more than one in ten girls overall. However, their second choice, with 8 per cent of the vote, was the Olympic swimmer Rebecca Adlington, and JK Rowling and Katie Price/Jordan also scored relatively highly with 7 per cent each. Katie Price/Jordan was a much more popular second choice for 11- to 16-year-olds polling 15 per cent of their votes. Fewer than one in ten selected any other individual, but US First Lady Michelle Obama was chosen by 8 per cent. The oldest girls were equally unconvinced by the merits of any one individual on the list. However, Michelle Obama achieved the most votes, with 17 per cent of 16- to 21-year-olds citing her as the best role model. Cheryl Cole remained popular, achieving second place with 15 per cent. The only other women to achieve votes in the double-figures were Rebecca Adlington and JK Rowling.'

And on being a girl: 'The majority of girls across the entire age range believe it is better to be a girl than a boy (82 per cent). Reasons given by the youngest girls are relatively simplistic and cluster around images of boys as rough and dirty, in contrast to girls, who have the freedom to wear nice clothes and have sleepovers with their friends. 81 per cent of 11- to 16-year-olds believe it is better to be a girl. Like the younger girls they enjoy being able to wear nice clothes and make-up, but they also feel that they are more in touch with their emotions than boys, a view shared by 16- to 21-year-olds. 78 per cent of 16- to 21-year-olds believe it is better to be a girl. Fashion and beauty remain popular reasons, as well as emotional maturity, but the older girls also cite the ability to have children as a factor in their decision. Interestingly, despite advances in gender equality over the last 40 years, a significant minority of girls in each age group feel that they are at a disadvantage in comparison to boys of the same age. One in six 7- to 11-year-olds feel that they hardly ever, or never, get the same opportunities and this number rises to one in five of 11- to 16- year-olds. However, confidence does increase with age. One in two 16- to 21-year-olds feel that most of the time they are given the same opportunities as men. However, this appears to depend on life experience, as unemployed girls are much less likely to feel they have equality of opportunity (21 per cent) than those in education (54 per cent).'

Interesting to compare these results with those of the survey on boys from a few weeks ago. Lots of food for thought here - have a good browse through the Girls' Attitudes website.

Pink stinks

 Pinkstinks is a 'campaign and social enterprise that challenges the culture of pink that invades every aspect of girls lives.' Their current website is for parents and aims to raise awareness of the toxic gender stereotypes that are promoted to girls in the media and celebrity culture and what can be done to combat them. They are in the process of creating a website for children called cooltobe.me where they'll tell the stories of alternative role models for girls that will 'inspire motivate and enthuse girls about the possibilities and opportunities open to them.' Pinkstinks has been started by twin sisters Abi and Emma Moore and was born when Abi was working for CNN. She was filming a scientist called Naomi Halas who was pioneering a new way of treating cancer, but at the time the woman dominating the news was Paris Hilton who had just been released from prison. You can download some of the stats and research that has inspired their project here, and you can find their t-shirts, mugs and bags here.

Interview with Christine Miles, Caris magazine

Tell us a bit about yourself – work, life and interests!
I’ve worked in journalism now for about 12/13 years. For most of that time I’ve also worked as a part-time youth worker, either in church- or council-based settings. I’m the features editor at the Church Times, but for a while now I’ve been neglecting my “real job” by also trying to edit Caris — a teen mag for girls launched in autumn 2007 and supported by the CT as well as some women outside the CT — which hopefully offers an entertaining, fun and inspiring God perspective to life, the universe and all things teenage.  

Personally, I have a particular heart for 11-14s… it’s such a key age in terms of inspiring young people, and in helping them to connect with God. Stats show that boys tend to hotfoot it out of church at the age of 12, and girls not long after. I did the same when I was a teen. I left aged 12. I didn’t leave because I wasn’t interested; I was bored of hymnbooks and ladies in hats. I thought if God was real he had to bigger than what I had seen thus far. I wanted a bit of passion; a bit of reality; a bit of God on a Monday morning at school! I really had a love for God and would tell my friends about him, but I was struggling with what I now understand was probably the transition from a childhood faith into a more adult faith, and being part of church because I wanted to be there, not because my parents took me. It was great having had a heritage of Sunday school Bible stories, but I needed to meet with Jesus for myself not just hear stories about him. And I needed to know how knowing God connected to life as a 12/13 year old. Was he just “out there”, or could he make a difference to it all? I also remember feeling really confused about what actually made you a Christian, and how did you know that you definitely were — I mean, no one gave you a certificate saying so!
   
So it was great when, aged 15, I heard more about trusting in Jesus and the cross, and particularly when someone took time to talk and pray with me to be filled with the Holy Spirit. After that I finally knew God had come close to me, and had touched my everyday life. Teenage life would never be the same.
   

I want Caris to help girls connect with God in their life as a teenager: to get his perspective on how loved they are, understand that life has a purpose, be inspired that they can make a difference, and understand that in God there’s hope for healing from emotional hurts. Through doing Caris I’ve also realised how important it is for Christian girls to realise that there are others out there who also love God. There’s so much peer pressure. It’s such a hard time in life to stand out from the crowd. You really need some encouragement!
   
Outside of work I’m just really enjoying getting stuck into getting to know people in the area that I live in Tottenham, London. We’ve just had a community street party, which was fab, as we have people from all over the world in our street. I am loving making new friends, and the feeling that God’s got some great things in store for where I live.

How did you get into journalism?
I trained in magazine journalism after an English literature degree. I’d been interested in journalism as a teen after seeing some women in my church who were journalists, but wasn’t really sure I had what it took. I wish someone had mentored me then. I would have done things so differently! But getting on my journalism course was a real God-thing. I applied late. They agreed to interview me, but the course was full. Friends at church were praying that someone on the course would be offered something better. And the day of my interview the tutor told me one place had opened up that morning — a girl had been offered a traineeship on a paper with a job at the end of it. After my interview, he offered me the place over and above everyone on the waiting list. I took the place mostly on the basis that it seemed like such a God opportunity.  

You launched Caris in 2007. What started it all off? Tell us about your vision for the magazine.
When we were doing the research into setting Caris up we really had the feeling that something was going wrong with childhood in our country. Then a rash of reports came out reflecting that children and young people in the UK were saying that they were desperately unhappy; that childhood was going wrong for them. A lot of people feel that a lot of advertising and media influences on children and young people are not having a good effect on them. We wanted Caris to be part of the answer… inspiring girls towards loving and accepting themselves, loving others, loving the planet, and loving God.

Bunty for Girls

I had a nostalgic half hour on the train today reading the 1972 Summer Special of Bunty that was free with the Guardian today. I used to read Bunty when I was younger, and remember the Four Marys well!

It's interesting to compare this magazine with those aimed at girls today. This edition of Bunty has a curious mix of traditional female stereotypes and feisty role models. There's a story about the Four Marys - four girls all called Mary from different backgrounds who are at the same school together - who have lessons on housework and get marks on how well they do the cleaning. But there's also stories about: 16-year-old Sally Stevens who runs her own business called Emergency 666 where 'she's ready to go anywhere and do anything to help her clients at a moment's notice'; Peggy the Promette, also 16, who rows out in stormy seas to collect Bob Moffat's lobster pots because his lumbago is bad - she and her friend get caught in a storm and have to cling to a buoy when their boat sinks but fortunately they know how to send an SOS message with a bell and a handkerchief and get rescued (Moral of the story: always have a clean handkerchief); and then there's Rose Budd who is starting a career as a model and has her photo taken in a haunted house to prove that the hair lacquer she's wearing really works.

Most entertaining story in this edition is about Carol Lawson who inherits Claremont College, a broken-down school where she offers to teach anything to anybody in order to keep it going. Her latest client is Mrs Ponsonby who brings her daughter Tommy to Clare and says, 'I am the secretary of FFF - the Feminine Freedom Fighters! It's a man's world, but we are working for equality for women. And the only way is for women to be the same as men, able to take over all their jobs. That is how Tommy is to be trained!' So Carol teaches Tommy - real name Thomasina - to box, march like a man, stoke the boiler and dig a ditch - after all that's what real men do. Then back comes Mrs Ponsonby to say that Great-Uncle Edwin has left them loads of money only if Tommy hasn't been indoctrinated by her mother, and a solicitor is on the way to check that Tommy is feminine enough. Cue changing into frilly dresses and trying to be ladylike. Fortunately Thomasina is scared by a mouse, proving that she is a real girl after all - so that's all right then. Anyone else remember Bunty? What comics or magazines did you read when you were younger? You can read a 12-year-old girl's verdict of this edition of Bunty here.

Day conference - Women leading the way

A day conference for female leaders and managers in the youth sector is being held in London on 19 November 2009 at the Business Design Centre in Islington. Speakers at Women Leading the Way include Terry Ryall, CEO of youth volunteering charity V, Julie Bentley from the Family Planning Association and Dinah Cox, Director of Rosa who will be talking about leadership, ambition and challenges to success. Sessions during the day include emotional intelligence, recruitment and selection, NLP, the power of influence and image consultancy(!) Download a flyer for more information. If you're not able to make the conference then do check out Rosa's website. They are a grant-making organisation for people working with women and girls, which is useful to know.

Also, UK Youth are hosting a day conference in Leeds on September 8 2009 for people working with girls and young women. More details here. They say: Youth work with young women has a long history, but an uncertain future. Due to targets, current funding mechanisms and a focus on troublesome male youth. This one day conference of presentations, workshops, and groupwork will seek to draw lessons from past and present practice. It will consider how we can find ways in which girls work can develop and expand in the future.'

One in three teenage girls abused by their boyfriends

Research from the NSPCC and the University of Bristol has found that one in three teenage girls suffer some form of sexual abuse in relationships with boyfriends, while a quarter suffer physical violence such as being slapped, punched or beaten. One in six have felt pressured to have intercourse, while one in 16 have been raped. Around 90 per cent of 13- to 17-year-olds of both sexes have been in intimate relationships, and girls who are in relationships with older boyfriends are more at risk of abuse, with three-quarters of them reporting that they have been victims.

A small minority of boys report having been pressurised into sexual activity - around one in 17 - and around 20 per cent have suffered physical violence from their girlfriends. However, it would seem that girls are more likely to keep quiet about the abuse they suffer, feeling that it's somehow normal or through fears that they would lose their boyfriends. It's alarming that so many think that abuse or violence is an acceptable part of what should be a loving relationship.

The report recommends that:

• Schools should raise awareness amongst pupils of the harm caused by controlling and physically or sexually abusive behaviour.
• Schools' peer support groups, which mainly tackle bullying, should expand their remit to provide support for young people suffering violent relationships.
• Professionals dealing with child protection and domestic violence cases should also check the safety of young people in the family who are in intimate relationships, especially girls with much older boyfriends.

You can read more about the report on the NSPCC site, and you can download a summary of its findings here. There's a case study of a 14-year-old girl in an abusive relationship on the Guardian website which gives an insight into some of the issues. The NSPCC is hosting a day conference on 'promoting safe sexual cultures in education settings' in London on 2 October which looks very interesting. More details here. How do you think youth workers should be tackling this?

Review: Cherished by Rachel Gardner, (IVP:2009)

When I received my copy of Cherished, I suddenly felt quite old! It is quite a while since I thought about relationships and, as my husband may testify, life is much too busy to even consider sex! So reviewing a book which focuses on ‘boys, bodies and becoming a girl of God’ seemed a strange concept. Then I had a brainwave. In true youth work tradition, I would ‘empower’ a young person to write a review – or in other words do my job for me. (Well, I seem to have made a career of it, so why stop now?!) I asked my beautiful and brilliant sister-in-law, who is currently excitedly planning her pre-fresher IKEA visit, to read and review Cherished as well. Here’s her review, followed by some thoughts of my own.

‘I thought Cherished was a good light book, which was really easy to read and meant that you could pick it up and put it down as you wanted.

I felt that the book covered some really good issues that girls face in teenage life.  One of the things which I really liked about it was that it said it was ok to have boyfriends, was ok to care about your appearance and it was ok to like boys looking at you.  I think that sometimes as teenage girls, and especially as Christians, it can sometimes come across wrong to have boyfriends, make an effort with your appearance or to like the attention of boys and almost like you have done a terrible thing if we do, or want these things, when actually those are normal and all part of growing up and changing from a girl to a woman.  It was nice that someone was saying it was ok.

Back to school

This is the time of year when Clarks is full of small children being fitted for new school shoes. Spare a thought for all those littlies who will be starting Big School in the next couple of weeks, some of them only just past their fourth birthday. Stats from the DCSF last month showed how many children had reached early learning goals as a baseline before the implementation of the Early Years Foundation Stage from September 2008, and revealed a gender gap with girls outperforming boys. One in four boys couldn't write their own name compared with 15% of girls, and one in five couldn't count to ten. Girls were also found to be more creative than boys, whereas boys had a slightly better 'knowledge and understanding of the world' with 54% able to build objects with appropriate tools and techniques compared with 48% of girls.

Does it matter? Teachers have long recognised that boys and girls develop at different rates and some people would argue that boys' motor skills aren't as well developed as girls' at age five, so it's not surprising that they find it difficult to write - they'll catch up. But it does matter if boys get labelled as underperforming, or their lack of success puts them off school, or one-size-fits-all targets means that they're seen as problems right at the start of their school career.  Others would argue that all children should start formal school later and small children need more freedom to play. This publication from the DCSF is really interesting, addressing some of the myths of the role of gender in education while the Teachernet website has research and evidence from the DCFS current emphasis on gender in education.