California: US history no longer consists entirely of dead white dudes

A new California law (PDF) requires that California public (=state-funded) schools include (PDF):

(a) The contributions of both men and women in all types of roles, including professional, vocational, and executive roles.
(b) The role and contributions of Native Americans, African Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, European Americans, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans, persons with disabilities, and members of other ethnic and cultural groups to the total development of California and the United States.

Curiously, the NPR coverage has reported this as: "California Brings Gay History Into The Classroom" and reporting on all the usual suspects are saying all the usual things.

But I find the headline curious.

Ok, so there are good reasons we might consider history lessons featuring or emphasising LGBT people, or comflicts over LGBT rights issues and prejudice to be "gay history", but it's a problematic label, and it's strange that that's what is being picked up by the media.

A good reason to consider such history lessons to be "gay history" is that it might have particular importance to LGBT students by reducing stereotype threat. It can also be descriptive of the particular political focus of a course, in the way of "women's history" courses, where the purpose is to understand overall trends in political and historical trajectories for a particular group.

But there are other important ways in which this is US history, and the change in emphasis from straight white non-disabled men to ... um, more people, is one that is important for all students. Making history more representative can improve the welfare of individuals of any demographic by reducing bias in the classroom. It might help, in the long run, to challenge widespread prejudices.

But there's another point, that I have written before, and it's that many of the major confrontations between oppressed people and privileged people are ones everyone should learn about. When I was at school, we were taught that segregation was "black history", as if no White people were involved in that at all, as if Jim Crow laws dreamed themselves up all by themselves, and crosses burned themselves onto lawns, and Black people lynched themselves. But that's not how it happened, and kids need to know that. Even, and maybe especially, when the history that they're taught is one we're not proud of. How else will they learn?

--IP

Fair pay?

I've been meaning to write about men and patriarchy on here for a wee while, and then Kate and an anonymous commenter started an interesting dialogue on Kate's post, so it was a good push in the right direction.

This is not a post about the Telegraph. This is not a post "defending" feminism. This is also not a post about saying who has it "worse". This is a post about the often-heard cry of "What about the men? The patriarchy hurts men too!" that I shall refer to as PHMT.

Let's take the example of equal pay. Equal pay for equal work. It's been feminist orthodoxy for longer than I care to think about, with the rationale that work is (equally worthy) work, whoever is doing it.

It's certainly the case that there is a gender-based trend with regard to certain work being unpaid or underpaid. This is a feminist concern.

It's also the case that not all the work that is underpaid is work done traditionally by women. There are a whole bunch of hard, skilled, boring, or dangerous jobs out there that are done predominantly by blue-collar men. Often: non-White men. Often: immigrant men. Often: working-class men.

For sure, I don't want to be paid less than my male co-workers for doing the same job: it's just not fair.

I also don't want the same shitty National Minimum below-the-breadline wage as the bloke next to me on [some basically shitty job]. My work is work. His work is work. We should both be able to put roofs over our heads and food on our tables. If we can't, that's also not fair. I also happen to think it's not fair that some people have to work basically shitty jobs.

So fair pay, to my mind, means something more than just saying "I want same number of pounds sterling per hour as the men I work with". It means "we all get fair pay". It means we have to re-think how the money is distributed and how the work is distributed. It means we have to re-think what fair means. "The same for men and women" is part of it, but not all of it.

The patriarchy does hurt men too, in lots of ways. (Lack of) Fair pay is just one way, and we can say that and also, at the same time, say that there is a specific problem with discrimination against women in pay and employment.

But PHMT is a problem feminism needs to take seriously. If for no other reason than that the Fair Pay Problem shows that men's liberation (and antiracism, anti-xenophobia, and anti-classism) are part and parcel of women's liberation.

--IP

Speaking out

As feminists and queers and queer feminists, the writers of this blog come up against a lot of societal resistance to our views - and the ways in which we live our lives.

But today at work I was lost for words at lunch time when someone started complaining about call centres and the 'Paki fucks you have to talk to.' 'I tell them to put someone Scottish on the phone so as I can understand them.'

What on earth can (or should) a person (with strong feelings against racism and discrimination of all kinds) say to this?

I want to hear your thoughts.