Modernity and misogyny: girls’ education in the crosshairs of nationalist ideologies

• In Event: Critical and feminist analyses of policy and media discourses

Proposal

Qualitative and quantitative data show improved metrics for access and overall relative quality of education for girls around the world (World Bank, 2018). Whether it is increased enrollment, improved facilities, or enhanced opportunities, these barometers of progress showcase political will, global collaboration and increased stakeholder buy-in to promote prospects to support girls’ education. While neoliberal agendas are deeply embedded within these arguments, it is still relatively undeniable that the status of girls and women has been improving over the past three decades, especially in the domain of education.

Simultaneously, and increasingly over the past decade, moving from the deep shadows to the light is the rhetoric and practices of nationalist ideologies promoting the most negative facets of nationalism. While nationalism can speak to unity, common heritage, and identity, it is also embedded in a strong “us” versus “them” dynamic where the “us” is predicated on markers that can be related to language, religion, caste or ideology in an effort to bond people to a common identity (Banerjee, 2003). Nationalism is also primarily a project of both colonization and patriarchy. Factors such as the development of national bureaucracies, provision of citizenship, and the growth of middle classes (Thapar-Björkert, 2013) center primarily around colonizing principles. Furthermore, nationalism is embedded within patriarchal structures of power. Thapar-Björkert (2013) contends three reasons for this: the first, that the collective process of nationalism was assumed to be the same for men and women; second, women’s contributions to the development of the nation are seen oftentimes as unimportant or secondary to men’s contributions, and finally, the foundations around which nationalism developed, emerged out of writings in the 17th and 18th centuries, where the division of labor and the “natural characteristics of the sexes” (p. 5) were codified. With the rise of political energy centering on nationalism, a reawakening of misogyny threatens the gains made towards rebalancing centuries of marginalization of women and girls in every domain, including education, which is the focus of this theoretical exploration assessing the overall threat to girls’ education globally.

Drawing from varied regions of the world, including India, the United States, the Netherlands, Pakistan and France, among others, this paper will draw connections between the rising and existing threats of nationalism and girls’ education, potentially disrupting gains that have been made over the past thirty years. The paper will also seek to critically frame how we use language to soften or avoid naming how rising misogyny is directly related to rising nationalism. Nussbaum (2018) speaks of rising misogyny in the US as centering on three emotions: Anger (at the changing roles and demands of women to be heard); envy (especially around access especially to higher education institutions); and disgust (at women’s bodies and the functions of maturity and aging), and all three of these emotions are present in shifting discourse on girls’ education.

This paper seeks to understand how the links between misogyny, neoliberalism and nationalism cyclically return to be the new normal. For instance, in Park’s (2015) exploration of the Korean New Women at the start of the 20th Century, she argues:
“Nationalism tends to demand the surrender of individual and other group priorities to those of the nation, a tendency that is even more evident in colonies and in nations that fear foreign powers. Korean male nationalists under Japanese imperialism labeled the New Women’s attempt at women’s liberation an individualistic desire. Thus, Korean nationalists demanded that the New Women surrender their feminist identity for the sake of the nation” (p. 54).

History has not changed these fundamental tensions. More recently, Tseng (2016) portrays the friction between Taiwanese female athletes and national ideology. Studying documentaries on how these athletes are represented in public discourse, Tseng (2016) found there were still gendered labels and a conscious focus to ensure the audience was aware of both the feminine and emotional qualities of the athletes. There were also frequent reminders that “influential characters and coaches who are significant to these female athletes to highlight the dominant role of men in the sports domain” (p. 912) existed.

International attention focused on India in December 2012, after the brutal rape of Jyothi Pandey but the recent release of the Thomson Reuters (2018) poll on women’s safety found that India scored the lowest across all three measures: the risk of sexual violence and harassment, danger from cultural, tribal and traditional practices, and increased danger from trafficking. Violence against girls and women takes many forms, from brutal rapes to harassment including aggressive actions against girls and women who celebrate Valentine’s Day, or who otherwise do not behave in a manner deemed appropriate for Hindus. Incidences of violence against Hindu women who are either in a relationship, or perceived to be in a relationship with a Muslim man under what is seen as a “supposed Muslim conspiracy” called Love Jihad is growing (Harriss, Jeffrey, & Corbridge, 2017, p.6). International criticism towards India is growing (Outlook, 2018) with attention also being paid to the growing intersectional violence towards girls who are also not Hindu (Muslim and Christian) (Dossani, 2018).

Sustained practices over the past four decades have helped change how girls’ education is addressed, in policy and practice and in relatively stable processes across the world. With the rise of nationalism, the resulting misogynistic actions and influences over girls’ education, this conceptual paper, is directly connected to the conference theme of Education for Sustainability and the GEC’s call for deeper understandings of the manifestation of gender in education. The threats posed by increased misogynistic nationalism hinder both the instrumental and transformative outcomes of education. Questions of how the larger costs of neoliberal and market-oriented development approaches, the kinds of development we seek, are all embedded in a richer understanding of how modernity, misogyny and nationalism are reshaping how girls access education.

Author

• Supriya Baily, George Mason University