Femifesta? A Feminist Manifesto for the 21st Century

Abstract

I discuss the challenges that feminist activists in academia have raised about how to deal with violence against women and girls (VAWG) and gender-related violence (GRV) through education and training. Whilst VAWG and GRV have been on feminist agendas since the early days of the Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM) in the 1960s and 1970s they were rarely linked with key demands for equal educational opportunities. It is still the case that feminist work on VAWG is rarely coupled with feminist studies in mainstream education. Drawing on a European Union (EU) funded study in the Daphne programme III—the GAP-work project—I consider strategies to address questions of VAWG and GRV for children and young people through education. This entailed involving ‘youth professionals’ and educators in four countries, namely Ireland, Italy, Spain and the UK in training. Drawing on this international educational work, I present an outline of a Feminist Manifesto or a ‘femifesta’ for education. This brings together feminist demands for policy changes in mainstream education through sex and relationships education to deal with VAWG and GRV, with feminist pedagogies to transform social and sexual or gender relations in schools.

Keywords

• activism
• education
• feminism
• Gender Based or Related Violence (GBV) (GRV)
• manifesto
• sexual abuse
• sexual harassment
• Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG)