Top writer’s fury at ‘sexist’ homework school gave to her daughter
Mum ‘corrects’ maths paper
A lEADING author has criticised ‘ sexist’ school worksheets for containing outdated stereotypes about men and women.
Award-winning writer Maggie O’Farrell was so furious at the content that she made alterations to the sheets – changing girls’ names to boys’.
Her husband William Sutcliffe, 49, also a novelist, tweeted a picture of one of his three children’s maths homework f eaturing changes made by an ‘unimpressed’ Miss O’Farrell.
One of the questions originally asked how much weight a woman called ‘Ellie’ had lost after paying a visit to a health resort, but Miss O’Farrell had changed the name to read ‘Elliot’.
She then changed ‘ Dara’ to ‘Diana’ and ‘ Arnie’ to ‘ Annie’ on the subsequent two questions, which dealt with paying a deposit for a mountain bike and doing daily sit-ups.
The questions appear to have come from a worksheet published by TeeJay Maths, who describe themselves as ‘Scotland’s No.1 Maths publisher’.
On Twitter, Mr Sutcliffe, who is from london but living in Edinburgh, wrote: ‘My daughter’s “curriculum f or excellence” maths homework (used through Scotland) features sums about women going on spa breaks and calculating weight loss; men buying bikes and doing sit-ups.
‘Very unimpressed wife has changed the names of the worksheet.’
Miss O’Farrell, 48, won the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2020 for her novel Hamnet.
Her editing of the homework divided opinion, with many criticising the questions as ‘sexist’, ‘ harmful’ and ‘grim reading’.
One commenter wrote: ‘Grim reading. Sexism is deeply ingrained. Well done to you both for not accepting this.’
Karen Ingala Smith said on Twitter: ‘Feminists have challenged harmful gender stereotypes for decades.
‘This is either unforgivable naivety or wilful resistance or both; whichever way, it is harmful.’
Others pointed out that questions focused on weight loss could lead to eating disorders.
However, others expressed a different opinion.
One person wrote: ‘Sure, in middle of the worst term teachers hav [ sic] ever experienced, when they are crammed into rooms with 30 kids, no ventilation, no distancing, when they are trying to teach kids in front of them & kids isolating & cover isolating colleagues... find yet another way of criticising them.’
And in response to the questions being described as ‘grim’, another commenter said: ‘War is grim.
This is a liberal storm in a teacup. Recalibrate please.’
A spokesman for Hodder Gibson, publisher of TeeJay Maths books, said: ‘This content is old and we are sorry that it is still in circul ation; we have worked through many years of resources to ensure that content is updated and will be updating this to ensure that the contexts we use are truly appropriate.’
last night a spokesman for Miss O’Farrell said she had no further comment.
‘Another way of criticising’