A review of Gender, Education, and Training, edited by Caroline
Sweetman. 1998.
Our schools are still schooling for subordination and domination, not
for equity! Occasionally I look around for some new perspective, to open a new
window on the world. Right now I am riveted by Sweetman's collection of
unruly articles on the relation of gender to education and training for
sustainable development worldwide.
Women are usually educated to fit into a scheme of development that is
overwhelmingly patriarchal--in the first world as well as the third
world. But that model has proven unsustainable, largely because it does not
accept change in reproduction and population issues. Instead, women must
become central in shaping the direction of development. To take that
position of leadership, they need to develop their own strong gender
analyses of local situations, and work out their own solutions.
In other words, women's subordination does not change if women are
simply schooled to accept their usual marginal positions in society.
That is why here in the United States girls and women are doing better,
more or less, than boys and men academically--but there is still only
about 15 percent representation of women in the US Congress, and women
still earn only 75 cents to a man's dollar, and do most of the unvalued,
and crucial development work of reproduction and raising of children:
Our schools are still schooling for subordination and domination, not
for equity.
The articles in this book describe local initiatives all over the world.
Set your equity imagination on fire with this international anthology.
--Review by Linda Purrington, may be quoted freely with credit given.
Title IX Advocates, lpurring@earthlink.net
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