As part of Book Week Scotland, we at Fife Centre for Equalities (FCE) are hosting a free Book Reading Event, which aims to raise awareness of speaking to young people about relationships, navigating the world around them and recognising unhelpful gender stereotypes.
The event will welcome two authors - Alan Bissett and Lynne Crawford - to St Bryce’s Kirk in Kirkcaldy to speak about their books, both of which are considered a great tool to start conversations with children and young people. We hope that young people, parents, carers, teachers and anyone working with young people will come along to find out more and take part in the discussions with the authors.
Alan recently wrote the book Lads: A guide to respect and consent, after being involved in developing Police Scotland’s That Guy campaign. Through his experience of this campaign, which asks men and boys to consider the role they play in speaking up to end violence against women, Alan went on to write this book. Continuing his work speaking to boys and young men, this non-fiction book aims to help them navigate relationships, deal with negative online influences including porn and incel culture, and recognise and respect boundaries.
It is described as a toolkit that will help boys and young men call out bad behaviour and understand the serious issues facing girls today. Written with a conversational tone, the author aims to help his readers “feel confident navigating relationships, so that everyone feels happy, heard and respected, while being the best version of yourself.”
FCE is a partner within the Fife Violence Against Women Partnership (FVAWP) and along with other local organisations, work towards raising awareness of the impact of violence against women, while working towards the goal of ending violence against women in all its forms.
The FCE team said "our aim at FCE is to make sure everyone is included in conversations about healthy relationships. We think that by communicating and better understanding, we can help every person and community in Fife develop their sense of belonging and have their contributions valued."
Laura Pearson, coordinator for Fife Violence Against Women Partnership said: “It’s so vital to have resources available that can open up conversations about difficult subjects. Talking about things such as restrictive gender stereotypes with younger children can then make the conversations around consent and porn a bit easier when they are older. Books enable young people to learn at their own pace, but also think about what truth these books contain for them and to question what they are seeing round about them.”
It was an experience of speaking to her daughters about gender stereotypes and experiences within their classrooms that prompted local author Lynne Crawford to write her book The Petriarchy. She hopes that by sharing her story in the form of a captivating doggy adventure, the book will be appealing to children while also enabling other adults to use the variety of different experiences captured within the story to have conversations with their children and children they know.
Lynne said: “My dream for the book is for it to be taught in schools. The research shows that patriarchy negatively impacts boys and girls in different ways. Research shows that by the time kids go to school they recognise males as being brilliant. This disadvantages girls who, when speaking up in class, can be ignored by the boys. Also, I found research that showed boys are socialised to disconnect from their emotions around the age of five, so I added a chapter explaining how to process negative emotions.”
Copies of both books will be available to purchase at the event and there will also be a raffle giving all audience members the chance to win one of the books showcased at the event, with a personalised signing by the author.
The event takes place on Friday 22nd November from 1pm-4pm at St Bryce Kirk Kirkcaldy. Places are free, but online booking is required.
Any enquiries to Fife Centre for Equalities on 01592 645310 or info@centreforequalities.org.uk
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