The minister argued that the feminist revolution was‘the single biggest factor’
contributing towards economic decline in the United Kingdom, because women,
who had previously had very few educational or vocational opportunities, were
suddenly able to pursue a career. Instead of challenging inequality, feminism has
‘trumped egalitarianism’. Moreover, middle-class women’s‘assortative’mating
rituals have meant they apparently‘choose’successful men, thereby worsening
social divides. Wefind an excellent example of a postfeminist discourse wherein
feminism is‘taken into account’(McRobbie 2008 ), whilst it is simultaneously
blamed for social problems of women being overly—successful at the expense of
(particularly working-class) men. This is a form of divide-and-conquer tactic that
works effectively to divert our attention from issues of post-industrial decline in the
UK United Kingdom as a result of late-modern global capitalism (shifting the jobs
from UK manual labourers to more poorly paid developing-world workers) and the
knowledge economy. Ignoring the Coalition government’s‘wide-scale savage cuts
in education, health and welfare...on-going social and structural inequalities’and
an associated increase in women’s and children’s poverty, this is an interesting
strategy whereby feminism becomes the straw woman for economic and social
demise. The postfeminist logics at work mean the Universities’minister of the
United Kingdom was effectively blaming feminism for entrenching class divisions
and hierarchies and even for overall economic decline in the United Kingdom.
Another aspect of the anxiety and panic over gender and education is that what is
called the‘feminization’of schools and schooling, which is seen as negative and
harmful (emasculating) for boys (Skelton and Francis 2009 ). The advent of more
feminine modes of testing (fewer‘sudden death’exams), and‘softer’subjects (like
sociology or drama) as spelling trouble for boys, has emerged repeatedly. In 2002 a
columnist with The Daily Mail suggested that‘wholesale feminisation’had made
the education system‘unfair and discriminatory against boys’(Phillips, 19 August
2002 ). Four years later, The Daily Mail published another story on how‘[b]Boys
are being failed by our schools’, citing Dr. Tony Sewell who blamed a‘feminised’
system and teachers who, instead of encouraging the development of‘male traits
such as competitiveness and leadership...celebrate qualities more closely asso-
ciated with girls, such as methodical working and attentiveness in class’(Clarke, 13
June 2006). In addition to recommending recruitment of‘more male teachers,
particularly to primary schools’, Dr. Sewell is quoted as calling for the‘replacement
of some coursework withfinal exams and a greater emphasis on outdoor adventure
in the curriculum’:
We have challenged the 1950s patriarchy and rightly said this is not a man’s world. But we
have thrown the boy out with the bath water...It’s a question of balance and I believe it
has gone too far the other way.On 11 October 2008, The Daily Telegraph, in‘The future is female...’, similarly
‘reveals’how women‘are poised to become the dominant force in the workplace
over the next decade, paving the way for a dramatic feminization of society’(Sawer
and Henry 2008 ). Although the article is about jobs, the educational discourse of
26 Postfeminist Educational Media Panics, Girl Power... 391