Gilson, H.

English

UEL Research Repository at University of East London

Educational Psychology Research and PracticeVolume 9, Issue 1, 2023Review of the talk Off Air with Jane and Fi at the Women of the WorldFestival, by Jane Garvey, Fi Glover, June Oscar and Meera SyalHannah GilsonTrainee Educational PsychologistUniversity of East LondonOn the 10th of March, I was fortunate enough to attend atalk titled Off Air with Jane & Fi at the Women of the WorldFestival, held in the Royal Festival Hall, in the SouthbankCentre, London. I was drawn to this event by the names offormer BBC broadcasters Fi Glover and Jane Garvey, whohad kept me amused during lockdown with the Fortunatelypodcast — light-hearted chatter about everything and noth-ing. I found their podcast comforting because I had so muchin common with them (middle-class mums who had beendiscombobulated by the pandemic) and valued the strengththey gained from female friendship. So, when I came to thislive show, little did I expect such a thought-provoking ex-ploration of multi-faceted experiences of womanhood, whichplaced me straight into my educational psychologist mindset— thinking about the power of language, storytelling andcommunity psychology. Above all, it made me think aboutthe children we work with, considering what the future lookslike for young people growing up in our society in 2023.The conversations flowed easily between humour and de-bate about the most serious problems pervading society to-day, including misogyny, bullying, racism and deprivation.Alongside Fi and Jane were two inspiring speakers — thefirst was June Oscar, Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres StraitIslander Social Justice Commissioner, who spoke movinglyabout the work she has done to raise awareness of the prob-lems facing her community and the support they need, espe-cially with helping women to recognise the dangers of foetalalcohol syndrome, which she explained is particularly preva-lent in the aboriginal community.The second guest was actress, writer and comedian MeeraSyal, who delighted the audience with tales about some ofher most famous characters. What struck me most was whenshe spoke about storytelling as being at the heart of our hu-manity and a powerful tool for antiracism and social justice.She explained why she personally opposes the recent move-ment towards removing colonised perspectives from art andculture, instead favouring the addition of layers of rich de-scription, by telling all sides and especially valuing the narra-tives of those who have been marginalised and discriminatedagainst. This resonated for me as being the reason why par-ticipatory epistemologies are such a vital part of EP research,as creating opportunities to promote the stories of the peoplewe are working with, especially children, whose voices areso often unheard, is one way we can fulfil our duty for socialjustice.The overwhelming strength of the event was the focuson inclusivity — although focused on celebrating womenand non-binary people, there were several men in the audi-ence who were greeted warmly by Fi and Jane. The wholetalk was subtitled, while a British Sign Language interpretersigned the whole show and added several moments of hu-mour with some well-timed gestures. The audience even hadopportunities to shape conversation through microphonesand spotlights throughout the auditorium.The only moment of discord in the evening arose froma question from a young audience member, saying that asa representative of “Gen X” she felt that “Boomers” didn’trespect men’s rights. This was greeted by an audible inhalefrom the largely over-50s female audience — a very Britishexpression of disapproval. While Fi and Jane protested thatmen’s rights had been given plenty of respect for centuries inour patriarchal society, what occurred to me, was how suchnominal labels as “Gen X, Y and Z”, “boomers”, “millen-nials”, “Brexiteers”, “snowflakes” and so forth are so oftenused to signify and create division, adding to the conflict un-derpinning much of the debate around issues currently facingour society. Throughout our work, EPs look for opportunitiesto use language which promotes shared understanding, ratherthan dismissing others, and so we need to consider how wecan promote mindfulness of the impact of such words.It was June Oscar who addressed this question most elo-quently, by suggesting that in Western society perhaps wespend too long thinking about our rights, whereas in her abo-riginal culture, responsibilities are of primary importance —encompassing what we owe to our family, our fellow citi-zens, our planet and ourselves. This message made me re-flect on the systemic nature of responsibility and how EPsare well-placed to build these connections through our workwith community psychology. In fact, after having gone tohear Fi and Jane speak, it was actually the opportunity ofhearing June Oscar, whom I hadn’t heard of previously andwho came from a completely different background to myself,that I really valued the most and whose work I plan to followmore closely in the future.Events like this offer opportunities for us to get out of theecho chamber and lean in with curiosity to listen to a per-2 GILSONspective we may not have considered before. One of ourresponsibilities as EPs is to keep learning about the world,different cultures and the myriad of experiences young peo-ple might be facing. And so next time I am looking for anevening’s entertainment, I will look beyond the familiar andinstead seek out new stories.Copyright: © 2023 by the authors.This article is an open access articledistributed under the terms andconditions of the Creative CommonsAttribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/ ).

Review of the talk Off Air with Jane and Fi at the Women of the World Festival, by Jane Garvey, Fi Glover, June Oscar and Meera Syal

https://repository.uel.ac.uk/download/e8334a4b8cfe6194e3ad7d7a970f71f35e48c74985763b26227f0c1ddd27652b/56545/Educational%20Psychology%20Research%20and%20Practice%202023%209%201%20Gilson%20%28WoW%20Event%29.pdf

Review of the talk Off Air with Jane and Fi at the Women of the World Festival, by Jane Garvey, Fi Glover, June Oscar and Meera Syal

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

UEL Research Repository at University of East London