International Women’s Day – UEL celebrates

Friday 8 March 2019 is International Women’s Day and at UEL we are spreading our celebrations across the week and at both campuses in strong support of this campaign. Staff and students sharing their art, performance, poetry, gathering for readings and sharing of best practice – all working towards progressing gender equality. Including:

• ‘Reclaiming Women’s Bodies’ performance and Q&A – USS, Studio 3, 12.30 – 2.00 pm, 6th March
• Psychology Research Writing room for academics – RB.G.13, Stratford, 2.00 – 4.00pm, 6th March
• Women in Sport – including panel discussion and Q&A – SportsDock, Docklands, 6th March
• Poetry and art exhibition, 8th March
• ‘Many Voices’ Reading Group – Adichie‎’s ‘We Should All Be Feminists’, RB.G.13, Stratford, 12.00 – 1.30 pm, 11th March

Finally watch out for #balanceforbetter on social media

Please keep an eye on the intranet page as we get more updates.

Wednesday 6 March

‘Reclaiming Women’s Bodies’ – USS, Studio 3, 12.30 – 2.00 pm

Performance and panel event consists of three feminist performance artists sharing their professional practice and exploring the meeting points:

• a performance by Liselle Terret (as Doris La Trine performing Flushed), a 15 minute LiPSicK feminist, comedic, grotesque and physical neo-burlesque performance about bulimia.  She recently performed at the Royal Court Theatre curating Take Up Space Cabaret and last year she hosted Women of the World Wickedly Wild Cabaret at the Southbank Centre, London.
• Mia Cunningham, the first ever Shropshire young poet laureate will perform her new piece in response to the #MeToo movement that aims to empower and give strength to many women’s voices who were not heard and still aren’t, especially within the BAME community. Mia sees International Women’s Day as an important celebration of feminism, power and a way to acknowledge women’s struggle.
• Dr Lynne McCarthy who performs protest as part of Speaking of IMELDA, a direct-action feminist performance group based in London.  Lynne will be showing short extracts from several short films and talking about how IMELDA’S performance-protest helped to challenge the legislative restrictions on abortion across Ireland leading to new legislation for safe abortion rights. The event will be chaired by Clare Qualmann, a multi-media performance artist.

Liselle, Clare and Lynne are all part of the academic team leading the BA (Hons) Drama, Applied and Performance at UEL within the music, creative writing and performance department. Mia is a second year undergraduate student on this degree. Refreshments will be available and all students and staff are welcome.  This will be an amazing and unique opportunity to watch lauded feminist creative performers in action.

Women in sport – Sports Dock

On Wednesday 6 March Sports Dock will be welcoming 60 to 80 local primary school children as part of UEL’s week of celebrating International Women’s Day. The children, boys and girls, will meet with female coaches who will run taster sessions with the children in sports such as football, volleyball, rugby and taekwondo.  Then they will then sit with the coaches and female athletes and have a Q&A session with them. Vanessa Wallace, a third year UEL sports and exercise student and para athlete will speak to the students about her inspiring story and what it takes to be an athlete. Vanessa recently won gold in the shot put events at the World Para Athletics championships in Dubai.  Following this the children will go to the arena to watch an all-female volleyball game.

Throughout next week, from Monday to Friday, keep an eye on the plasma screens on both campuses as they will be displaying videos of the daily lives of female athletes. The videos will show the athletes in their everyday wear and their sports kits and reveal how important sport is to their lives.  Athletes come in all different shapes and sizes and anyone can play sport.

Event for academics – ‘Psychology Research Writing room’, RB.G.13, 2-4pm

A ‘Psychology Research Writing room’ will be held on Wednesday 6 March at the Stratford campus in room RBG.13 from 2.00 to 4.00 pm. The School of Psychology holds regular research ‘writing room’ sessions aimed to enrich the research environment within the School by building confidence in writing for publication and strengthening writing skills. These sessions are linked to the Schools Athena SWAN action plan. To celebrate International Women’s Day, the School would like to invite academics from others schools to share how these sessions are facilitated. Refreshments will be provided. This is a great opportunity to network with other academics and researchers.

8 March – International Women’s Day:

Online

UEL is running a campaign encouraging staff and students to take selfies with cards relating to this year’s theme of #balanceforbetter.

Poetry

The Poetry Group, headed up by published poet and UEL student Sonia Quintero will be opening up their meeting to everyone and focusing on female poets in celebration of International Women’s Day.

Art

There will be exhibition of art by female UEL artists in the entrance area of the Cass School of Education at the Stratford campus.

Sports

On this day female students will be invited to the Sports Dock to participate in various sports.

University on Women’s Entrepreneurship

Before Christmas the Research & Enterprise team had an UEL student working as an intern carrying out some research for the University on Women’s Entrepreneurship in London and the key challenges women entrepreneurs face. On International Women’s Day, the R&E team are planning to release a short PDF booklet of the findings along with a social media campaign with illustrated infographics.

11 March:

‘Many Voices’ reading group – 12.00 – 1.30 pm, 11th March, Stratford campus in room RBG.13 – Staff, students, public welcome!

The ‘Many Voices’ reading group was formed in 2016 and aims to bring many voices, from within and outside the university, into academia for dialogue, collaborative learning and sharing.

“Sitting in a circle and reading out loud is a very powerful way of opening up a discussion and creating community. Dialoguing together creates a space where the heart is at the centre and people feel safe to share their own experiences in an equitable and non-judgmental environment.”

In honour of International Women’s Day, the group will be reading from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie‎’s ‘We Should All Be Feminists’.  This will be held on Monday 11 March at 12.00 to 1.30 pm at the Stratford campus in room RBG.13.  No prior reading is required and printed copies of the reading will be available at the meeting. Staff, students and members of the public are welcome!