Sophia Network

Friday summary - gender in the news

• The Equality and Human Rights Comission published a report this week that highlights the incredibly slow rate of change in the number of women in positions of leadership and influence across 27 different areas of work. The report finds that 'while women are graduating from university in increasing numbers and achieve better degree results than men, and despite level pegging with men in their twenties, they are not entering management ranks at the same rate, and many remain trapped in the layer below senior management.' You can download a copy of the Sex and Power 2011 report, and read a summary of its findings here. 

• There's a very interesting article by Lesley Crawley in the Guardian, comparing her experience of sexism in two different professions - as an engineer and as a priest. As an engineer she encountered intimidation, oppressive attitudes and pornography in the workplace but says, 'although these events were difficult, it was possible to manage well as a woman in the secular workplace, because the structures were not sexist. So I knew that the law of the land entitled me to work as an engineer, and that the procedures of our company demanded equality. Furthermore, almost all of the managers, and especially the managing director, were enthusiastically committed to equality.' However, as a priest she says, 'The Church of England is different, because the sexism is institutionalised, and that makes it more oppressive. Parishes can vote to opt out of discrimination legislation, and this compromises the whole church, as sexism is seen as tolerable. In fact, we aren't meant to call prejudice against women "sexism" at all: it is meant to be called "legitimate theological difference". For me, if it walks, swims and quacks like prejudice, then it is prejudice.' Read the whole article here.

• A level results were out yesterday and lots of youth workers will have been celebrating or commiserating with the young people they know. A gender breakdown shows that the number of A* grades issued to boys has gone up from 7.9% to 8.2% while girls' performance dips slightly from 8.3% to 8.2%. The gap between boys and girls at grade A in science and maths has gone down from 0.9 to 0.3 percentage points. But there's still a marked difference in the subjects that boys and girls take at school. 13 per cent of those who take performing or expressive arts A levels are boys, while only 7.5 per cent of those who take computing are girls. There's a breakdown for different subjects in the chart on this page.

• And finally, there's an excellent article on the Restored website about the implicit gender messages given in traditional Christian youth work talks on sex and relationships. Kat Brealey studied the literature of the abstinence movement for her masters, and says, 'Abstinence is concerned with guarding against sexual activity in the present, but in doing so introduces young people to harmful sexual patterns in which men are released from any culpability for their behaviour and women are held responsible, whether or not sex is consensual.' Read the whole article here.

How do you respond to sexist comments?

So what have you made of the sacking of Andy Gray over sexist comments? It started last Saturday when he and Richard Keys suggested that Sian Massey needed the offside rule explained to her, and ended today when other suggestive comments he'd made came to light. There's lots online about it if you missed the details.

Some say that women need to get a sense of humour. I think comments like this are very revealing, but hardly surprising when 98% of the FA council and all of its main board are male. A study by Stephen Bradbury of Loughborough University  concluded that 'there is a deeply masculine culture, and overt and casual sexism inherent within the men's game,' and Uefa have descibed football as an 'institutionally sexist old boys' club.' I have little interest in football myself but 150,000 women and girls play football in FA affiliated competitions, 20,000 women have attained the FA coaching badge, there are 853 active female referees registered with the FA in England and 42% of children in the FA Tesco Skills programme are girls. Why shouldn't women have the opportunity to contribute to that world in different ways if they are skilled for it?

One pleasing outcome of the sexism row is that the FA had lots of call from women wanting to find out how they can become referees. I think that's a brilliant response to sexism whether you find it in football, church, your family or the workplace - not to be defeated by it, but rather to be determined to continue with what you feel called to. How do you respond to sexist comments?