TOP girls’ schools have begun a campaign to get prominent women in science, history, art and music onto the curriculum and overturn the “default” position of exam boards to feature mainly men.
Successful women such as the singer Annie Lennox, the artist Tracey Emin and the scientist Rosalind Franklin should be studied as part of GCSE and A-level courses, say leading headmistresses, who today launch a crusade they hope will sweep the country.
The girls’ schools’ leaders are publishing a draft list of women they say should be central to exams in future. This weekend exam boards said they were prepared to consider changes for syllabuses taught from next year.
The move follows a petition launched by Jesse McCabe, 17, calling for more female composers on the music syllabus. She took action after realising her Edexcel A-level papers featured 63 men and no women.
Helen Fraser, chief executive of The Girls’ Day School Trust, whose schools have 20,000 pupils, told The Sunday Times: “I don’t believe that there are a group of men sitting in the exam boards saying, ‘How can we exclude women?’ But when you see that one exam board can come up with a list of 63 composers to study and all of them are men, you do have to wonder what is going on.
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“There seems to be a kind of default to a male list, whether we are talking about who should feature on bank notes or on exam syllabuses.”
Fraser, a former managing director at Penguin publishing, said that in the OCR English literature A-level syllabus only eight of the 45 books listed as suggested texts were by women. “Where is Rose Tremain, or Barbara Kingsolver, or Penelope Fitzgerald?” she asked. “In the last 200 years, when women were given the chance to get their hands on paint, to compose, to invent, they absolutely flew, but I feel the exam boards have not caught up with this.”
New GCSEs and A-levels are due next year as part of a government drive to make exams harder. The first new syllabuses will be taught from 2016.
Marie Curie, Rosalind Franklin, Dorothy Hodgkin and Mae Jemison, the first black woman in space, are among scientists proposed for the A-level chemistry syllabus. A-level art history should include artists such as Emin, Frida Kahlo, Barbara Hepworth and Grandma Moses, campaigners say. Among women they want studied in history are Eleanor of Aquitaine, the writer Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, campaigner Elizabeth Fry and Nancy Astor, the first female MP to take her seat in parliament.
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“The contribution of women in history far exceeds the wives of Henry VIII and the women of World War II, as significant as these are,” said a spokesman for the girls schools. “From Cartimandua, Queen of the Brigantes, to Nancy Astor, women have been making their mark since the dawn of time.”
Fraser added that many girls’ schools were now creating their own informal syllabuses to address the bias: “If we do not give young women role models, present and historical, how are they going to aspire to make their mark on the world?”
Streatham and Clapham High School recently spent a week studying Ada Lovelace, the mathematician thought to have written instructions for the first computer program.
Headmaster Dr Millan Sachania said he felt that A-level music needed reform to include performers such as Nicola Benedetti and Björk.
McCabe, a pupil at Twyford High School in Acton, west London, said she launched her petition after writing to Edexcel and being told that few female composers had been “prominent in the western classical tradition”. Three thousand people, including the composer Judith Weir, the master of the Queen’s music, who many believe should be studied for A-level herself, have backed McCabe.
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Last week the teenager said: “Some people are saying it is tokenistic and sexist to include women, but I don’t agree.”
Caroline Criado-Perez, who led the campaign to put Jane Austen on the £10 banknote, replacing Charles Darwin, also supports her. Margaret Kerry, OCR’s director of education and learning, said: “In the development of our draft new music syllabuses, we have worked hard to create a diverse, inclusive and flexible repertoire, featuring a range of female composers and artists, from Nina Simone, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald to Shirley Bassey, Lady Gaga and Adele.”
Edexcel said: “It’s right to encourage study of the broadest range of composers and performers. We are going to consider how we can best showcase great male and female musicians through our revised music A-level, which will begin in autumn 2016.”
AQA said: “There are many opportunities for students to learn about women and their work in the subjects we offer qualifications in.”
Frida to Fanny: the females to study
A-LEVEL CHEMISTRY
The girls’ school leaders want to see the following women added to the syllabus:
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Marie Curie — first two-time Nobel laureate
Rosalind Franklin — used x-ray crystallography to help discover the structure of DNA
Carolyn Bertozzi — helped to design artificial bones as well as eye-friendly contact lenses
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Dorothy Hodgkin — used x-rays to determine the structure of biologically important molecules
Mae Jemison — the first black woman in space
A-LEVEL HISTORY OF ART
The syllabus names periods rather than artists. Women who could be studied, the campaigners say, include:
Frida Kahlo — Mexican painter and feminist icon best known for her self-portraits and volatile love life
Grandma Moses — American folk artist who started painting at the age of 78
Barbara Hepworth — English sculptor and a leading figure in the colony of artists who lived in St Ives during the Second World War
Tracey Emin — English artist whose work includes the controversial My Bed, an unmade bed featuring items such as underwear, condoms and stained sheets
A-LEVEL HISTORY
Women who should be more prominent include:
Eleanor of Aquitaine — one of the wealthiest women of the Middle Ages who became Queen Consort of France and England
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu — writer and aristocrat most famous for her observations about Eastern life via her Turkish Embassy letters
Elizabeth Fry — the driving force behind laws that encouraged more humane treatment for prisoners
Octavia Hill — a reformer who helped develop social housing for the poor and one of three founders of the National Trust
A-LEVEL MUSIC
Composers and performers who could be added to Edexcel’s music syllabus include:
Nicola Benedetti — the Scottish classical violinist
Björk — the Icelandic experimental singer and songwriter who has sold more than 20m records
Fanny Mendelssohn — a German pianist, composer and sister of the more famous Felix Mendelssohn
Judith Weir — the British composer and the first female master of the Queen’s music
Billie Holiday — hugely influential American jazz singer and songwriter