Training girls to be invisible

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She gives examples of development of society. In such women ,as Aphra the classroom giris learn Behn (1640-1689). In her the lesson that they and time she was a very well women in general are insigSEXIST ideas and attitudes are very deeply embedded in society. None of us have escaped from their effects although some people are now beginning to question these ideas and attitudes.

Within al capitalist society, the family and school are two powerful agencies of socialisation. It is in these institutions that most people form their ideas, attitudes and personalities and where sexism is perpetuated.

In Invisible Women -the Schooling Scandal, Dale Spender draws upon a great deal of her own research and that of other people to show how sexist practices have operated in the education system and how sexism occurs in the classroom.

Supremacy It is her view that education and schools play a significant role in constructing male supremacy and in perpetuating male dominance and control in our society. They also 'teach' girls to feel interior, to be passive and docile and undermine their confidence and self-esteem.

Dale Spender begins by examining the knowledge which is available in the curriculum of most schools (and in society in general). Most of this knowledge has been made by men. In it music, the writers and the scientists.

According to Dale Spender this is a one-sided view of history and culture. There are, and have been, women who, despite the difficulties confronting them, have made contributions to knowledge and culture but they are and have been largely ignored.

Writer known writer, who had seventeen plays produced and wrote 13 novels. Yet today she is virtually unknown, while some of her less successful male contemporaries are part of the established tradition.

In her time she was strongly condemned by male critics because she did not have a classical education, but this did not prevent her plays from becoming very popular.

Insignificant

Through the absence of women from knowledge and the textbooks, girls learn that women have had nothing to do with the of the

Ann Duggan reviews 'Invisible Women - the Schooling Scandal" by Dale Spender, published by Writers and Readers

Publishing Cooperative. led them to question what happens to girls in mixedsex schools.

R.R. Dale who supports mixed-séx schools, argues that mixed schools are a preparation for real life, and single sex schools are an unreal experience. According to him in mixedsex schools the natural eggression of men and submission of women makes its presence. • "Maybe nature intended man to be leader and women to provide the stability:"

The evidence that Dale Spender puts forward from her own research and the research of others overwhelmingly supports her argument that education and school play a significant role in constructing male supremacy and in perpetuating male dominance and control in our society.

In documenting the exclusion of women from knowledge made by men, Dale does say that while all men benefit from such knowledge not all men have been equally represented in its construction.

She says that blacks, vorking class people, old people, non-heterosexual people and disabled people have been similarly excluded from the construction of knowledge.

However she says that even when these groups are taken into account, researchers often concentrate on the men of these groups rather than the women.

Dale Spender describes how in recent years women inside and outside educational institutions have got together to discover knowledge about women's contributions to society. Despite many difficulties some resources have been built up documenting research and writings from women, particularly women from the past whose work has been in danger of disappearing. She argues that women and girls in schools and other "educational institutions should get together to discuss the issues affecting women.

This conclusion could be generalised to women in every sphere of life where women's issues have been ignored or marginalised and not just in education.

In the labour movement there is a real need for women in trade unions and in political parties to get together in caucuses to work out how to make women's issues a priority and how they can collectively tackle sexism.

It is by doing this and beginning to fight for their rights that women can start to regain the confidence, strength and self-esteem which has been destroyed by society and in particular by the education system.

Invisible Women - the Schooling Scandal is not an easy book to read - one Its weakness to me, is in Dale Spender's unclear view of knowledge. She almost implies in places that knowledge which is made by men is invalid simply because it has been made by men.

This is, for Marxists, obviously an absurd view on the validity of knowledge. We can acknowledge that women's contribution to knowledge has been largely ignored but it doesn't follow therefore that all knowledge developed by men is invalid.

Certainly, this is an interesting and thought-provoking book and one in which everyone must recognise some of their own experiences of education.

For teachers, it must raise many questions about our classroom practices and attitudes towards the boys and girls we teach.

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men are the central figures, the makers of history, art,

fight for a WORKERS GOVERNMENT Orgorose.