Gozen Soydag, a learning support worker at a Catholic secondary school, was dismissed for her Instagram posts which promoted traditional Christian values like chastity before marriage and the nuclear family. Despite her popularity with students, the school deemed her online presence 'not in line with the school’s ethos and mission statements'.
Gozen Soydag, 37, was a learning support worker at a Catholic secondary school. READ MORE:As its thousand strong pupils are frequently reminded, the ethos of St Anne’s Catholic High School for Girls is rooted in Christian doctrine.
In February 2023, she was let go from her role as a learning support worker to year ten students – girls at the start of their GCSE studies - for which she was paid £1,000 a week for four days work. Gozen Soydag was let go from her job as a secondary school learning support worker on account of her Instagram posts, which frequently celebrated traditional Christian values
Certainly, the incident raises the question of whether devout Christianity is now, as Gozen fervently believes, ‘the last cultural taboo’. Where her path departs from many other women her age, however, is that she is also a passionate believer in the word of God, having started going to church in her early twenties.
Her path to finding her faith, she explains now, has its origins in an adolescence and early womanhood that was defined by being diagnosed aged 12 with Hidradenitis suppurativa, a chronic skin condition that causes painful lumps and abscesses under the skin. Then, aged 22, she had what she describes as a ‘transformative’ appointment with her longstanding consultant. It sounds utterly devastating.
Gozen found her Christian faith in her early 20s after struggling for more than a decade with Hidradenitis suppurativa, a chronic skin condition that causes painful lumps and abscesses under the skin Today, certainly, there is little evidence of her once debilitating condition, bar a few scars on her jawline and chest.
With almost 30,000 followers on Instagram, Gozen's posts often attract thousands of likes and hundreds of comments ‘I’m all about empowering women to make their own choices and to know themselves – because when you know who you are or your purpose, then you’ll know who to align with in marriage, if that’s what you want.’
‘My family thought I was crazy,’ she admits. ‘However, I considered it a privilege to provide young people with the support they needed.’ In turn, the school seemed to value her: ‘The headteacher would often commend me on the work I had done with the students.’ Like other women her age, Gozen leads an active and varied life. She also happens to be a passionate believer in the word of God
‘When I posted, it was to create discussion, not to say this is the ideal life,’ Gozen insists. ‘In it, the woman talks about how, if her husband wants her to fix his dinner, she will do it, if he wants her to sit down, she’ll sit down. Either way, the senior team at St Anne’s did not like it and Gozen – who insists it was only in that meeting that she discovered her personal social media pages should be private - agreed to take it down.
‘I replied that I had taken it down from my personal Instagram page as that had the biggest following, but I was happy to take it off the others too,’ she says. Gozen was devastated that she wasn't given the opportunity to say goodbye to her pupils when she was dismissed
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