An Intersectional Conundrum
The Recorder reported upon a clash at Plashet School between “religious and secular staff” with regard to a new equalities policy. It might otherwise be described as a clash between those who adhere to a traditional understanding of sex and gender and those who don’t.
This is the first of two related issues that have given rise to concerns from, primarily Muslim parents. The first is the new equalities policy and the second is the operation of an ‘equalities club’, run by staff during the school day.
Following concerns from parents, two staff involved in the equalities club walked out just before an Ofsted Inspection, which contributed to a down-grading of this previously ‘outstanding’ school to ‘good’, (though in behaviour, attitude and the personal development of its students it remains outstanding). The staff claim to have left because of threats received from parents or groups supporting parents. It is now clear that the police are aware of the threatening messages received by staff.
We have to read a little between the lines.
It appears that several staff members have sought to introduce concepts and ideas about sex and sexuality into the experience of some of the students of this all-girls school. Whether this was known about by the senior staff is not clear. It is also believed that some staff have been supplying protesters with inside information, either directly or indirectly.
This comes in the wider context of ‘drag-queen story times’, schools colluding with students to change their ‘gender identity’ without informing parents, boys identifying as girls and violently or sexually (or both) assaulting girls at school, the introduction of reading material which looks like porn under the guise of its educational value and that this is being done on both sides of the Atlantic. It is clear that there is a determined attempt to broaden what is acceptable to teach children with regard to sex and sexuality.
Whether this is grooming and an attempt to sexualise children or an endeavour to appropriately introduce new ideas and life-chances for children depends very much upon which side of the fence you sit. And possibly, your age.
What we do know is that parents have become alarmed and they have put pressure on the school. The Recorder reported that the school closed the “ ‘equalities club’ because religious parents claimed it promoted LGBT+ lifestyles”.
A group called SRE Islamic seems to be coordinating the parental campaign. Whilst they will clearly be labelled as reactionaries, their approach, at least as it is outlined on their website, seems fairly traditional and even progressive in that it encourages conversations between parents and children on topics that would previously have been taboo.
This is likely to run on for some time. It appears to be one of the fault lines in the contemporary culture wars. There might be a middle way, but we are not confident. Those pursuing a ‘woke’ agenda are in many ways the evangelists of a new religion, albeit a religion without God. They are as convinced as to their moral superiority as any crusader or jihadi.
In the world where one’s virtue is now determined by the degree of oppression you experience, how do we choose between the assertions of the graduates of Queer Theory and the demands of Muslim parents? Both are victims of the cis-heteronormative-racist-Islamophobic-patriarchal-capitalist society in which we all struggle to exist. In the post-modernist philosophical world, there are no enduring values, just competing groups. That has not, however, prevented the ideological successors of post modernism from inventing a new hierarchy of values that they promote, and which, if they are successful, will mean that the values of the parents at Plashet School are screwed.
We have seen that the Green’s spokesperson, Danny Keeling has already weighed in on this topic. What, we wonder, will be the response of the deputy cabinet member for Equalities, and renowned expert on Queer Theory, Cllr Dasgupta?