International Women’s Week

International Women’s Day occurs on 8 March every year. Its purpose is to celebrate the achievements of women, whilst also highlighting the challenges that women worldwide face daily. To raise awareness to this important day and the themes it promotes, the University held its ‘International Women’s Week’, which consisted of a wide variety of activities and talks.

FemSoc, the University’s Feminist Society, held a stall inside the Union building on the Tuesday to ask why we need feminism. This is a very important question, which is answered in part by UN’s theme for International Women’s Day 2014: “Equality for Women Is Progress for All”. Most feminist issues (this also holds true for other egalitarian themes) don’t just affect one particular group of people; they have much wider implications on society as a whole and this is why awareness is so key.

The stand was also a chance to raise money for Southampton Women’s Aid by offering cakes to anyone who donated, and being a member of the Feminist society myself, I even jumped behind the stall for a while. Southampton Women’s Aid are a great local charity who provide specialised support to women who are experiencing abuse, whether it’s at home or in a relationship. They also offer workshops for those affected and have a school outreach programme which aims to educate young people about healthy and safe relationships.

Raising Awareness for International Women’s Week

The Feminist Society’s main event was on the Friday where they hosted a discussion panel in the University’s Bridge bar. The night was accompanied by some great live music, featuring some very talented female performers, including brilliant local band Mama Smokes. The University’s Circus and Folk society also had performances, all of which helped to celebrate the talent and creativity of the University of Southampton’s female population.

A brilliant performance from local band Mama Smokes

The discussion panel itself was made up of representatives from Amnesty Society, Christian Society, Islamic Soceity, Ahlul Bayt Society, LGBT, FemSoc and finally Robogals Southampton, who are a student-run organisation whose aim is to encourage wider female participation in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) subjects. Each speaker on the panel introduced their subject and talked about the issues faced by women within that field, and ultimately what has and can be done to overcome them. This was then followed by an open question and answer session, where the audience could participate and find out more about the topics raised.

Sparking an interesting discussion

The theme of the night was “Empower Each Other”, which was mirrored by the wide range of societies who collaborated on the evening, all with the common objective to celebrate the work of women as well as highlight the struggles faced worldwide. As well as the discussion there were several stalls to check out, which provided additional information on the likes of Hijab awareness, Robogals and Amnesty.

The week was littered with many other talks, including the ‘Network of Networks’ held in the Garden Court, a careers panel featuring four graduates from the University of Southampton who have all had success in very different fields and events celebrating the work of women in astronomy and technology.

International Women’s Week was a great success and really helped showcase the achievements of women in many different sectors. It also showed that there is still a lot of work to be done, but the positive response across campus makes me believe we are heading in the right direction.

James