Gillian looked at the head-girl with mischief in her eyes. "Fancy you an authoress, Joey! Well, when that happens, you'll have to grow up, of course!"
"Never!" said Jo with decision, as she turned away and led them up the road to 'Die Rosen' and Kaffee und Kuchen.
(Elinor M. Brent-Dyer, The Chalet School and the Lintons, W. & R. Chambers, 1934, pp318-9)
As
Shulamit Reinharz states, feminist researchers believe that it is important
to provide information about the background and experiences of the researcher,
because, as Liz Stanley points out: "researchers' understandings are necessarily
temporally, intellectually, politically and emotionally grounded and are thus
as contextually specific as those of 'the researched'."
Or, in plain English, there is no absolute, scientifically truthful statement
which I can make about girls' school stories; only the truth as I see it,
and it is impossible to understand the "I" without further information.
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Of course, it should also be remembered that the information
provided here is restricted to my own perceptions, as well as being highly
selective. I have not, for example, included a great deal of information
about friends, family members and other relationships, both because this
would be unfair to the other people involved and because I can only tell
my own story. Therefore, although My Own Schooldays
provides a memoir of my schooling, it is not intended to be a full autobiographical
account of my childhood and teenage years. Similarly, while my home page
provides an outline of my professional and personal background, it by no
means gives a full account of my adult life. And My Experiences as a
Disabled Researcher
gives only a partial account of my research experiences.
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While this group of lexias
still exposes more personal details than are perhaps comfortable, many
hundreds of women and girls have also exposed their personal lives in order
for me to carry out my research. My thanks to them all - what follows is
only fair.
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Ju Gosling, 1998
Photo: Bob Jones/Gaze
Dr Ju Gosling aka ju90's ABNORMAL: How Britain became body dysphoric and the key to a cure is available now for just £3.09 for the Kindle or in a limited-edition hardback with full-colour art plates for £20 inc UK postage and packing. |