Below, details of some of the events I have been – or will be – taking part in over the autumn, as part of publication of ‘What Should We Tell Our Daughters?’ ( Unless otherwise stated, this will usually be the title of the session…)
Please come along – and join the discussion…
.
Friday 23rd August
6.30pm Greenbelt Festival
Venue: Cheltenham Racecourse, Gloucestershire
Monday 9th September
‘Finding a public voice’ Key Note Speech at Induction Day: Camden School for Girls, North London.
![IMG_0277[1]](https://localhost:8888/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/img_02771.jpg?w=400)
( above, picture taken with the Camden Sixth Form leadership group – what a team!)
Thurs 19th September
“How to be Female and Awesome.’ 4pm Blenheim Literary Festival with Guardian columnist Hadley Freeman and Polly Morland, author of The Society of Timid Souls -Or How to be Brave (published by Profile).
further details from: http://blenheimpalaceliteraryfestival.com/literature-events-2013/thursday-19/how-to-be-female-and-awesome.
Saturday 21st September – mid afternoon – Brighton
Labour Women’s Conference. Debate with Bonnie Greer and Caroline Criado-Perez on ‘everyday sexism and how to fight it..’ A thousand strong audience here; according to Harriet Harman, who spoke later in the day, this was the largest ever political meeting of women held in this country, certainly in recent times.
( You can just about spot the One Nation logo behind my head!)
Tuesday 24th September
Discussion on BBC Woman’s Hour about the book with Erinn Dhesi.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03bds3m
( Erinn and I just before we went into the studio: her first time on national radio, she was amazingly calm!)
Thursday 26th September – Publication Day!
‘Meet the Author’ Interview on the themes of the book with Nick Higham on BBC News 24.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-24282455
Saturday 28th September,
Noon, Wigtown Book Festival
Venue: County Buildings Wigtown, Newton Stewart Scotland DG8 9JH
Daily Telegraph review of my session. Complete nonsense to suggest any of the men were shrinking in their seats. But hey – you’ve got to add colour to a report don’t you?
Thursday 3rd October
6.30p.m. City Books Event. Brighton and Hove Sixth Form College, Dyke Road, Hove BN3 6EG
Further info:
01273 725306
Also on October 3rd:
10 pm. Discussion about the themes of the book on Nightwaves, BBC 3’s arts and ideas programme. The interviewer was Anne McElvoy, who was, as in all my previous encounters with her on radio, in a ‘spatty’ frame of mind. I think she thinks of me as the archetypal progressive lefty comprehensive-education- supporting ‘muesli eating’ feminist whom she needs to challenge at all times. My aim here, as always, is to demonstrate the grace, good humour and gritty combativeness that goes with my kind of politics.(All that muesli eating helps, I reckon…..)
Link to the programme here.
Sunday October 6th
Appearance on Fiona Phillips’ BBC London programme to discuss the book and the question of role models for young women. Below, with Fiona Phillips and Briony Kimmings, actress and playwright.
Link to programme here; my interview took place over the last half hour of the programme.
Monday October 7th
Guest on The Current, CBC’s breakfast show; discussion with Jen Gerson and Roxanne Gay on the theme of whether Miley Cyrus and Rihanna are empowered or exploited…..
Tuesday 8th October
7pm Blackwell’s Bookshop, Oxford
48-51 Broad Street
Oxford
OX1 3BQ
Thursday 10th October
Evening Event at Toppings Ely
Venue: St Peter’s, Broad St Ely CB7 4BB
further info:
Friday 11th October
Lunchtime Key note talk to: the Association of Maintained Girls Schools, London.
Saturday 12th October
12.30pm Wimbledon Book Festival, with Viv Groskup
1 Archway Mews, 241 Putney Bridge Rd, London SW15 2PE
Tuesday 15th October
7.30pm Off the Shelf Literature Festival, Sheffield
for further details: Tel 0114 273 4716/0114 273 4400
Thursday 17th October
Event with Stella Creasy MP at Royal Society of the Arts on ‘What Should We Tell OUr Daughters?’
You can listen to the podcast here.
This is a full recording including audience Q and A.
Tuesday 22nd October
Evening Event with Newham Books and Helen Lewis, deputy editor of the New Statesman.
Venue: Wanstead Library
Wednesday 30th October
Lady English Lecture
Melissa Benn: ‘What should we tell our daughters? Equality and feminism in the 21st century’.
Hosted by:
St Hilda’s College
Wednesday, October 30, 2013 – 17:30
Jacqueline du Pré Music Building
Oxford
You can watch the video of the lecture here.
Saturday 16th November
2.30pm Chorleywood Bookshop Festival
With The Guardian’s Hadley Freeman
More details here: http://www.cwlitfest.org/events.html
Sunday 24th November
3.30pm Folkestone Book Festival
Wednesday 27th November
Bristol Festival of Ideas, Watershed. 6.30 pm
(sold out)
Sunday 1st December
Cambridge Winter Wordfest with Alison Wolf, author of The XX Factor. Venue and time TBC
more details: Cambridge Wordfest, 7 Downing Place, Cambridge CB2 3EL
T: 01223 515335
(sold out)
I shall also be doing a number of talks and debates in early 2014 – in Cardiff, the Lake District, Plymouth, East London among many places – to mark publication of the paperback of ‘Daughters.’ Details will appear on this website soon.
I saw your interview on Meet The Author on News24. I teach girls at a reasonably high performing provincial girls grammar school. We used to be part of a joint sixth form and the boys who took A-levels here then made an enormous difference to the interplay in class. We are independent of that now, but now take a few boys of our own. The same truth remains, despite the far smaller number of boys: they make a huge difference because of their verbal contributions, but the girls allow them to dominate. All of us teachers find teaching sets at sixth form trying because even if boys are not in any one set, few girls step up to fill the void and the result is endless deathly silences when they are asked to voice opinions. But this isn’t simply because boys are boys. A very few of the girls are similarly dominant characters too and will take chances. My Year 12 History set includes one girl who is forthright and will take a chance in class debates. What happens? The other girls let her dominate even though she is far from being one of the academically strongest. In other words the other girls behave towards her as they typically do to boys – my conclusion is that it is a form of confident behaviour, rather than gender, that so many girls seem instinctively to defer to. The problem is therefore a little subtler than it is sometimes presented as. I have lost count of the number of highly academically able girls in my sixth form sets who, frankly, might as well not be there.
Guy de la Bedoyere
Guy, thanks for this, it’s very interesting. If you get to read the book you will find that I do set out the problems in a much more complex and subtle way. But I remain convinced that girls’ behaviour – confident or otherwise – originates, in some respects, in their home environment. Obviously, temperament and life stage comes into it. But, fundamentally, a girl who finds her opinion respected in her own family will surely be more likely to give her view – maybe not in sixth form – but at some point in life, she will speak out.