#WomenEd Blogs

by Tracey Leese     Twitter During the recent school holidays I took my sons to see an exhibition which celebrated the engineering STEM work of Mary Adela Blagg (1858- 1944).  Blagg lived in the market town of Cheadle in Staffordshire her whole life, having taught herself mathematics by reading her brother's text books – and dur...

by #WomenEd Deutschland Twitter Since #WomenEd Deutschland was founded in 2018 many events have taken place in person and online. Regional groups have been established in Munich, Frankfurt, and the Nord-Rhein Westphalia region. Over the years events have evolved away from focusing on developing skills women in education need to fit into existing in...

by Emma Howard @howgeography247 and Gurjeevan Malhi @missmalhislays This is the speech we made at the 2023 WomenEd Unconference with the aim of getting all women to think about how they are raising the women around them. Are we thinking about their strengths and giving them direct feedback on how to get better? Gurjeevan: Well a warm welcome t...

by Miss Kiran Satti @Miss_K_Sunray3 Barbie is so much more than the stereotype that has been projected onto her. Barbie is our teacher. Barbie is our doctor. Barbie is Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Barbie is Malala and Michelle Obama. Barbie, in my opinion, is a definition of femininity – and it's important I say 'a' and not 'the' definition of feminin...

By Vivienne Porritt   @ViviennePorritt Our team of Global Strategic Leaders were thrilled we gained Registered Charity status before Christmas. It was even more special as these are the charitable objects we want to achieve: to promote equality and diversity for the public benefit by eliminating discrimination on the grounds of gender by raisi...

By Viv Griffiths Jacinda Ardern's resignation announcement last week, without apparent prior warning, naturally came as a shock. She gave a characteristically honest and at times emotional speech explaining her reasons for stepping down from her role as prime minister of New Zealand: "Politicians are human. We give all that we can, for as long as w...

by Christina Astin @ChristinaAstin (Chair of Planet Possibility), Marilyn Comrie @GetMeMotoring (Director of The Blair Project) and Olivia Keenan @oliviakeenan1 (SEPnet and QMUL). Some young people, including girls, are put off studying physics because of misconceived stereotypes. Planet Possibility is a consortium working to change this, radically...

by  Kerry Jordan-Daus @KerryJordanDaus

I have been reading Mary Ann Sieghart’s The Authority Gap (2021), the stories of expert, talented, successful women, occupying a wide range of powerful leadership roles, recounting their lived experiences of being treated as a ‘Miss Nobody’, silenced, ignored and disrespected despite their clear expertise, intelligence, brilliance.

by Nicole Rodden @NicoleRodden1

At the #WomenEd global unconference this weekend the word ‘anger’ was repeated. ‘Anger and hope leads to change’ by Dr Jill Berry. Being falsely called aggressive and angry, a stereotype of black women in particular, as mentioned in Caroline Verdant’s session. The need for an Angry Girls Club being set up in schools for girls to vent, mentioned by Emily Rosaman. Similarly, words like ‘vent’, ‘rage’ and ‘shock’ were used to describe some of the injustices within people’s stories linked to instances of racism and sexism within the sector.

by Tanya Hall @TheRealTMH

A recent Twitter post by @AdamMGrant got me thinking about the assumptions associated with women in education: are 'women who assert their ideas, make direct requests, and advocate for themselves liked less' and are they 'less likely to get hired?'  So, I go back to my first promotion to 2nd in faculty – an internal post – where I was interviewed by the HOD and Headteacher. After being successfully appointed I was told later – quite some time later – that the headteacher had referred to me as a ‘firecracker.’ What did he mean by that?

 by Anna Ambrose  @AnnaAmbrose

On Friday 6th March, 2021, I noticed a thing on my Facebook feed. It was the last day (for now at least, fingers crossed) of home-schooling for families in England. And men were busy thanking their amazing wives* for home-schooling their children. There were gifts. Flowers. Champagne. The works. How lovely.

[*Obviously not everyone is married. But these posts were genuinely all about wives, so I may over-use the word in what follows.]

By Christina Astin @ChristinaAstin

The proportion of girls choosing A level physics and pursuing STEM careers has remained stubbornly low for decades. But recent research should give us hope. We understand much better now what helps fix the leaky STEM pipeline. Unfortunately, society still peddles the view that science is not for girls. Does it matter and can school leaders help?

by Annelouise Jordan @Leazy84  Based on @WomenEdBookClub discussion.

The Lost Girls, by Charlotte M. Woolley, truly redefined me as a teacher and, when I say redefined, I truly mean it.

Fact - science is sexist. Charlotte writes about the sexism found in science with reference to the ‘scientific evidence’ published in typical women’s magazines such as ‘Playboy’ with the headlines ‘Do men cheat on their women? The science says yes!’ So if science is sexist then so are we, most of us rely on science, we listen to the scientists, government advisors link closely with scientists. This therefore is extremely damaging to society and even us as educators.To know it is sexist automatically made me think to myself, am I really certain of the things I believe to be true?

by Dr Valerie Daniel @Valerie_JKD

As a black professional woman I am in this intersectional space of being somewhat respected by my peers whilst still being marginalised within the wider society. I say ‘somewhat’ respected because my entire journey here in England from 1989 until now has been fraught with ‘you are too passionate’; ‘you are very sensitive’; ‘I don’t mean to be offensive or anything but.......’ and my personal favourite ‘You have a chip on your shoulder’.

by Patrick Ottley-O'Conner @ottleyoconnor   Father and Husband

The United Nations @HeForShe movement has reported that they are seeing the stereotypical gender roles of women at home become more apparent during lockdown and want to highlight positive male models with their new lockdown hashtag of #HeForSheAtHome. Globally women do more than men at home and @HeForShe are asking men to share photos to amplify support & show how you are being #HeForSheAtHome and amplify the aspiration for gender equality.