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Gender Equality Now!

Tuesday, 10th June, 2pm – 7.15pm

Corpus Christi College, Oxford

Part of TORCH‘s Women and the Humanities programme, Gender Equality Now is a day of discussion about gender equality in higher education, as we work to create a manifesto for equality in the academy. This event is free, but please register here! 

I haven’t blogged in ages – I hoped the Easter vacation would leave time for some useful blog-thoughts, but instead I got a nasty case of bronchitis, and then we moved house! It’s almost relaxing to get back to term time and the usual Oxford business. (I can say that because it’s only week 1…) This post serves as a return to the blog, and of course it’s relevant to many of my interests – I have written before about some of the challenges facing minorities who work in higher education. I’m really hoping that this day will be the start of more open discussion at Oxford about the gender gap. As co-convener with Tim Whitmarsh, we very much want this day to be about making demands of the academy and about beginning to craft a manifesto for change. Too often days about gender equality in HE descend into discussions of how women should dress and act to “get ahead”, which normally results in workshops about adopting a business-femme look and speaking up more confidently in seminars. The institutional and societal causes of gender equality can’t be solved by women as individuals adopting a sassy attitude and rebranding themselves, and I think it’s more empowering for us to make demands of the academy than for us to work out ways to change ourselves to fit its increasingly antiquated expectations of what makes someone an academic. Gender equality now!