Update for the year

http://www.su.rhul.ac.uk/asset/News/6001/Imogen-Tyerman-WMGO.pdf

So it's time to show you what I've been up to all year as your Women and Marginalised Genders' Officer. I hope most of you who have needed to have met me and known who I am, and that you might recognise some of the events and activities that were held on campus throughout the year. I thought I'd go through each sub-heading of my manifesto, and then give a bit of info on anything I did outside of these categories!

Education 

Film Screenings

Throughout the year I showed films that relate to women and marginalised genders' issues and facilitated discussion of them afterwards. The first one as part of Black History Month in October was Dark Girls, which I screened jointly with Dunola, our BME officer. I also showed Obvious Child, In the Time of the Butterflies, and Miss Representation.

Women in Academia

As part of Women's History month I organised an event on women in academia. We covered a range of topics at this event that were raised by both staff and students. Of course the gender-pay gap was one of them, which is particularly noticeable at RHUL, but we also talked about gendered marking, parenting and academia and representation of BME women in academia.

I think everyone came out of that talk a bit angry at the injustices within the university system, but more knowledgeable and able to do something about them which I hope will happen in the next through years. For more on the event, watch this space!

Pronoun Guides

One student made a pronoun guide to give out to people to educate them on their pronouns. I asked them if they could make it available to everyone for students to fill out themselves and they were happy to, so I printed out a load and they are now available for all to use upstairs in the SU.

Liberation Library

In January, I went to London 5 other students involved in liberation issues. We went to various bookshops across London and picked up books relating to liberation issues we felt would be good to have in a liberation library. The library is being set up upstairs in the SU and these books will be available to anyone with an interest in these issues to come and read.

Vote

Not so much as educating as encouraging people to do so. I found at the GM where a motion was proposed to lobby the college to call the new library the Emily Wilding Davison library there was a lot of misunderstanding about her role in women's suffrage. You can read my blogpost here about how women got the vote.

I also wrote more about women in politics for The Orbital, trying to get people involved because they cared, not because they were being told they had to vote because someone died for their right.

Royal Holloway's Own History

There is so much history at our university and I wish we made more of it! For women's history month I worked with the archives to get people learning about our college. We printed old magazines, had a successful women from Royal Holloway exhibition, and worked with the RHUL Sport Inclusion Officer to get then and now pictures of sports teams at Royal Holloway.

Wollstonecraft

One of the big events of women's history month was a discussion on Mary Wollstonecraft. It was organised by students at Royal Holloway and you can read more about it here.

Liberation Station

This has been running all year and I'm glad to have been on so many of the shows. It's been a brilliant thing to do and engaged lots of people.

Abortion

I went to an abortion rights conference and learnt a lot myself. I've been talking to them since and trying to get together information for those who may need to have an abortion talking about what to do and other issues.

Representatoin 

Campus connect 

Got in contact with the people who administrate campus connect as they only provided male and female for gender options. They couldn't change it this year, but from next year onwards, they're adding a third.

Transgender Awareness Week 

Organised a vigil for transgender day of remembrance. Held a workshop making leaflets and posters for transgender awareness week and ordered stickers to distribute during this week.

NUS reclaim your campus

Did a RHUL carries that weight campaign to show support for sexual assault victims and abuse survivors on campus.

As well as this I ran an activism burn-out session, sold white ribbons to raise money for End Violence against Women, and organised an Intersectionality 101 panel, which sadly didn't happen.

Women in Art

Along with Royal Holloway's Picture Gallery curator Laura McCulloch, I ran an event on Suffrage and Art, where Laura discussed the only painting by a female artist in the picture gallery.

As well as this, one of the volunteers ran an event talking about the Erinna statue in the North Quad. Not much research has been done into it before, but it's a really interesting piece and it seems like we have an early feminist in our midst!

Confidence 

Love your body week

We had cool stickers and recipes to give out during this week too!
To read more about Let's Talk About Body Image go here.
To see the zines go here.
I also ran a winter warmer campaign through November which you can read more about here.

Safe Space in the SU

I talked to the SU about doing this during Fresher's Week this academic year. I hope it's something that might be full-time one day so that people having panic attacks or who get harrassed on a night out can sit in a quiet place for a little bit.

Sport

Worked with the Inclusions Officer to try and get women-only gym introductions. We didn't get a massive amount of sign-ups, so I think it's best this is done during fresher's week.

Self defense

Looked into running these with sports clubs at Royal Holloway along with LGBT+ society, but insurance and education in this area meant we couldn't run it easily.

Others

Health Centre

At the beginning of the year, I spoke to the health centre about getting free condoms- available all the time on campus. We realised all of them were being sent there and Royal Holloway is entitled to free condoms from the R U Clear scheme, so that was good!

Medicine Night

 

Had a riot grrrl night in medicine to raise money for charities during women's history month. We played music by women all night, had pin the rosette on the suffragette and an awesome raffle!

Tampon Tubs

Some unis started doing these, and now I've got everything to set up some at Royal Holloway. For more info on them see here.

Online Resources 

Before I leave I'm going to get all the resources available to WAMGO online in an easy to find area. This includes leaflets on non-binary gender identity, pronoun guides and abortion information.

Forums

Held forums regularly throughout the year to talk about issues faced by women and marginalised genders on campus. We did lots of crafts.

Women's History Month

A lot of what I did was talked about here, but here's a full guide of what was on that month:

The Campaign for Women's Suffrage

Royal Holloway's Feminism Society were lucky enough to be able to have June Purvis, from the university of Portsmouth to come and speak about The Campaign for Women's Suffrage during Women's History month.

Purvis' main research area is the Suffrage movement in Edwardian Britain, and it was easy to see how passionate she was about it as she begun speaking to the audience. As well as her extensive knowledge, she also has a lot of suffragette memorabilia that she has collected over the years and even brought some of to share with us. She has written many books in this area, including a biography of Emmeline Pankhurst and Women's Activism: Global perspectives from the 1890s to the present.

One of Purvis' books about Women's suffrage

The event occurred just before this term's general meeting, in which we discussed a motion to lobby the college to name the new library the 'Emily Wilding Davison' library. You can imagine how passionate people were about getting this motion passed, and they were even more so after spending an hour hearing how women had fought for our vote. It led to a large debate on the motion, which, though upsetting to see people so against it, was ultimately a good thing, seeing so many students ready to share their opinion, and in the end the motion passed with over 100 votes more than the opposition.

The return ticket that Emily Davison bought to Epson Derby
which for many shows that she did not intend to get fatally injured that day.

Our Suffrage history is not something that should be easily forgotten. Both Royal Holloway and Bedford New College did amazing things for women's education, something I've only really begun to appreciate. Bedford College, founded in 1849 was the first institution for women's university education in the UK. Neither Cambridge nor Oxford can boast such an early date, despite being the oldest universities in the UK. And even after they admitted women, women could not graduate until the mid 20th century!

The plaque which can be found outside the Bedford College building

From early on, Royal Holloway was a place where women could get involved about issues that they were passionate about and have a voice in the discussion. The university had a political society where they would debate about current topics, and a diary of one student, named Winifred, describes a debate that occurred over women's suffrage, where the time had to be extended to account for the passionate opinions. She notes that both the Principal and Vice-Principal were in favour of suffrage, though there were still many students, including herself, that were not. 

When considering the movement for women's suffrage, it is important to remember the two groups fighting for it: the National Union for Women's Suffrage Societies, which was a mixed-gender group, fighting in a peaceful and constitutional manner, and the Women's Social and Political Union, a militant, women-only group founded by the Pankhursts, which Royal Holloway College tried to deter students from getting involved with for fear that they might disgrace the respectable reputation of the college.

The NUWSS campaigned for at least 40 years before the WSPU was formed. With the motto 'deeds not words' this union aimed to take a more up-front approach to the issue of suffrage. Though many may disagree with their tactics, it is easy to see why the Pankhursts felt it necessary to take stronger action for the cause, and it is important to remember that they weren't the only people taking forceful action.

On the 18th October 1910, when 300 women went to the house of commons in protest, policemen were brought in, and women were kicked, punch, dragged by both on-foot and mounted police. Furthermore, those who were imprisoned were force-fed when they went on hunger strike, and comics and writings depicting this show us how horrific it was. In fact, the reason the suffragettes begun to damage property was because the government had damaged their bodies. As well as this, there was a cultural fear created, showing husbands bending to their every wish and being ruled by their suffragette wives.

'What is a suffragette without a suffragette household?'
One example of anti-suffrage propaganda

Of course, there is a lot more that happened during the suffrage movement than this, and if you're interested in finding out more about our college's involvement in it, the archives are a great place to explore! You can access there collection online, or if there's anything you'd like to see in person, send them an email to arrange a viewing. Have a look at their item of the month for March, a copy of The Suffragette in memory of Emily Wilding Davison here.

We are incredibly lucky to be part of a college with such a fantastic feminist history, and it is something that by many students is overlooked. Hopefully the college board will listen to what the Student's Union has to say about the naming of the new library, so we can finally have something that boasts of this history.

Elections!

For those involved with Women and Marginalised Genders on campus there are two things to look out for this term.

Firstly, the NUS Women's Conference is happening in March. Elections for delegates are happening online now, so if you want to run make sure to apply before Wednesday 4th of March; voting opens on Friday 6th if you just want to elect!

https://www.su.rhul.ac.uk/news/article/6001/liberation/

We'll be holding forums before the conference to talk about the motions, elections in the NUS and what you want the delegates to represent.

Also, the annual SURHUL elections are coming up and nominations are OPEN for a new Women and Marginalised genders' officer. Why not give it a go?

You can read a job description here and download a nomination pack from surhul.ac.uk.

 If you have any questions feel free to get in contact with me on here, through Facebook, or by emailing women@su.rhul.ac.uk

Nominations close Monday at 12 Midday so what are you waiting for? Go for it!