2013/14 President Says Hello

Hey, everyone. I figured I should do a little 'Hello' spiel to any new faces and to anyone already involved who isn't familiar with me. I'm also going to tie in a little introduction to what the Feminism Society does and how it operates. Please note, anything I'm about to say does not necessarily represent the views of this society or any of its committee or members.

So. My name is Rose and I'm the 2013/14 FemSoc President.  I study English and Classical Studies here at Royal Holloway, and I'm about to re-take my second year. Things I like: cake (you'll learn more about that during any events that require refreshments) photography, peppermint tea, writing, positive attitudes to mental health and gender equality. I also like trying to make a difference in areas of society I feel are problematic (mainly the last two. I don't worry too much about the representation about cake. Although... http://rhul-fem-soc.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/food-guilt-societys-tool-to-make-you.html)

So, it was a bit of a no-brainer when I started here to try and get involved with things I thought were important within our SU (that's Student's Union.) I won't go into the inner dealings of GMs (General Meetings) Sabbs (Sabbatical Officers) and heated debates by way of microphone, because I don't want to overload you.

I got involved in second year, because I was too busy thinking I was a super awesome fresher in my first. At the beginning of my second year, I soon realised there were quite a few like-minded people within our union, and I started learning about some really important issues that hadn't really crossed my mind - trans* people's representation, BME representation and LGBT issues. Getting involved with the Feminism Society made me realise that every minorities representation in society interlinks, and it's important for us all to realise that.

For a while, like anything new, I was a little nervous about turning up to FemSoc events as I went by myself, but I can honestly say that now there are at least 6 members who are close friends. And I mean the kind of friends you Skype, not the ones you wave at awkwardly in Crosslands every now and again. So, FemSoc is friendly, and really welcoming. There were loads of great social events last year - we went out for meals, for drinks, hosted Come Dine With FemSoc (that also turned into an impromptu birthday celebration for me) went to SU club nights together and travelled into London for events, amongst others. There was a huge variation, and that's something we're going to continue doing next year - if you don't like clubbing or you don't drink alcohol, totally not an issue. We try to make sure every event is accessible, both in terms of disability and also atmosphere.

As well as social events, most of our sessions are designed to get our members thinking about Feminism as a whole, and also individual issues and how Feminism looks at them. Last year we talked about politics, diets, body hair, sex, porn, mental health, the representation of BME women in the media, Islam and Feminism amongst plenty more. Some sessions the society invited speakers to visit us and lead them, and others we would set up ourselves and just chat about. We also linked up and put on joint sessions with other societies, including the Islamic Society, the Afro-Caribbean Society, the Debating Society and the LGBT society. Like I said before, we work hard at being intersectional.

As well as discussions / presentation events, the society has also worked on campaigns that directly affect our University and its members. It's proposed and passed many motions at GMs (sorry if I've lost you here. I'll post a crib-sheet on Student's Union language at some point to ensure everyone understands why Twitter goes berserk every few weeks) that support other student women. For example, the society wrote to and offered our support to students at a University which was being targeted and harassed by anti-abortion activists, and did the same to a university finding it difficult to set up their own Feminist Society. On campus, we've worked with Sabbatical Officers and Students Union staff to ensure our SU is a zero tolerance union - put simply, it and its staff have a zero tolerance approach to sexual harassment. Sexual harassment is a huge issue within society, and university campuses don't escape that. We've helped implement an atmosphere that means there are ways of dealing with and reducing the occurrences of these issues, and that students feel comfortable reporting anything.

I plan on writing another post within the next couple of weeks about why I think Feminism is still so important in our world today; there's way too much to include within this. I hope this has been an interesting overview about the society and the kind of things it does - if you have any other questions relating to the society, feel free to send me or any of the committee a message or post in our Facebook group. It would be great to see a lot of new faces in September - I hope this post has sufficiently piqued your interest.

Oodles of feminist love,

Rose Walker

#LiberateSURHUL

On the 29^th of May 2012, the Students' Union Annual General Meeting at RHUL voted to introduce four liberation officers onto our executive committee: a Disabled Students Officer, Black & Ethnic Minority Students Officer, LGBT+ Officer and Women & Marginalised Genders Officer. To many at other universities, this won't seem like a big achievement – many Students' Unions already have these officer positions, and to those with any interest at all in liberation, the necessity of their existence is obvious. However, the successful passing of this motion was the result of a sustained campaign to convince students of the importance of putting liberation at the heart of what SURHUL does. SURHUL has traditionally been a very inward-facing union, with a focus on student activities and internal politics rather than on campaigning, and the introduction of these officers is a massive step forward.

The introduction of these officer positions, and particularly of the WMG officer, has been a major aim of RHUL Feminism Society this year. Our members have attended NUS Women's Conference, as well as many feminist events where they have spoken with other students, and have often been faced with dropped jaws when they told others that SURHUL was entirely without a Women's Officer – especially considering the rich feminist histories of Royal Holloway and Bedford College! Whilst the creation of the Feminism Society in the last academic year was fantastic, we were aware that it was not enough for us to run Women's Campaigns from inside our society, and that in order to truly “liberate SURHUL” we needed someone to represent the interests of women at the heart of the Union. The creation of the WMG Officer will allow NUS Women's Campaigns to be co-ordinated from within the Union, as well as ensuring that issues of gender equality are taken into account in every decision the executive committee makes. In a Union where, over the last few years, we have had bitter arguments over the introduction of women's officers, women-only votes for NUS Women's conference delegates and the introduction of gender-neutral toilets and the use of gender neutral pronouns in General Meetings, this truly represents a massive step forward.

An incredible amount of work went into the campaign to introduce liberation officers. Meetings and working groups were held over several months with interested groups in order to produce the motion that was taken to the AGM. It is probably not a controversial statement to say that this was probably the most campaigned upon motion that a SURHUL GM has ever seen, and the fact that such effort was expended in trying to convince students of the value of liberation shows how important this motion was to the people involved.

When it came down to it, the main arguments raised against the motion were administrative and bureaucratic: that, for example, the introduction of new officers would make the executive committee too large. In the end, however, the 100+ students present at the meeting decided that liberation is much more important than issues of bureaucracy, and the victory was by a landslide majority. The fact that an amendment to make the officer positions non-voting was voted down shows that the students in the room had genuinely been convinced of the importance of liberation groups having a genuine say at the heart of Union affairs.

There is still much work to be done to truly “liberate SURHUL”. The new positions will not come into effect until the academic year 2013/4, and in the next year, the Equality and Liberation Officer who currently sits on the executive committee, as well as all liberation activists on campus, will need to work hard to build energy and awareness around the liberation campaigns in order to build towards a position where these roles can elected next year. Royal Holloway Feminism Society will continue to be involved in building awareness around women's issues, and also – importantly – of issues of intersectionality. We are proud to have been a part of passing an historic motion for SURHUL, but we know that the fight does not stop here.

RHUL Feminism Society would like to thank everybody who was involved in the creation and success of this motion. We'd also like to thank the fabulous Kelley Temple, NUS Women's Officer Elect, who came along to lend her invaluable support to the motion.

Further success from the last general meeting.

By Flick Myerscough

In addition to the femsoc motions listed here: Rhul Fem Soc Making Waves in Surhul Genral Meetings since 2011 - we saw two other important gender equality motions passed at the last general meeting.

Motion to challenge and oppose the recent HESA (Higher Education Statistics Agency) changes to information required from students.

To provide some background for this motion, I’m going to post an edited version of the speech I had prepared, should the motion have been unstarred. This is followed by some questions and answers which I thought might arise, and some links to other sources of information.

HESA (Higher Education Statistics Agency) works with public universities in the UK, collecting and disseminating statistical information. They are proposing changes to their equality and diversity monitoring section. These changes, as listed on the HESA website, include a move from a student gender field, with answers of male, female and indeterminate, to a compulsory student sex field, with answers of male and female, and a separate student gender field, optional for institutions, asking if a student’s gender is that they were assigned at birth. Universities can, and some currently do, add categories or change guidance, such that students who identify under the trans umbrella can answer the current question. (HESA guidelines state that the indeterminate category is meant only to represent intersex students.) But a change made on an institutional level, does not guarantee statistical representation on a national level. The proposed changes aggravate this situation, and deny the existence of intersex people. The separate gender question, as currently worded, also risks “outing” transitioning students, or those who have already transitioned.

The proposed sex field is claimed in some places on the HESA website to be intended to record students “legal” sex and in some places their “biological” sex. (The current gender field claims to record biological sex.) Both these terms are problematic. The recorded sex of a student may vary between legal documents. The biological sex definition does not necessarily reflect how a student lives, or, when the indeterminate answer is removed, represent intersex students.

We can make a difference on this. HESA have stated in responses to other campaigners that they are rethinking their use of “legal” sex, and that the final coding of the form is still under consideration. They have questions on their website about the proposed changes and have stated via twitter that they welcome feedback. We should contribute to this effort, to ensure that all students are represented in national and institutional statistics in a non-discriminatory manner. This motion mandated: (1) The VP Ed Welfare to raise these issues with SMT before the implementation of these questions for 2012-2013. (2) The VP Ed Welfare to contact the HESA to raise these issues, and to seek clarification on what they mean by "legal" and "biological" sex. (3) The VP Ed Welfare to report back to the I&R senate on steps taken.

How is it that legal sex varies?

To give an example, HESA, following a FOI request stated that their “legal” sex category was intended to match staff information forms, where the field matches the binary options offered by HMRC. But ECU (Equality Challenge Unit) defines it as the sex on a person’s birth certificate, which is not necessarily the same as the sex of their birth.

Why is this something the SU, specifically, should be campaigning on?

The students union is responsible for representing students’ interests. To campaign on these issues is in the interests of students.

But I don’t know any students who this effects? (or similar)

Even if there were, hypothetically, no students who were individually negatively affected by the changes and known to be such, the Gender Equality Duty, set down in the Equality Act 2006, requires all public institutions, including further and higher education institutions, to be proactive. That is, they should actively promote equality between all students of any gender or none. If equality is important to the student body, we should be campaigning to ensure this general duty is met, by our institution and others.

If other people are campaigning, why should we?

In short, why shouldn’t we? It’s important that HESA get as much feedback as possible from the student body, particularly those affected by the changes, to ensure that the best steps forward are taken.

Gender recognition under threat in UK universities

Update on the HESA gender statistics affair

Equality issues and the Equality Act (2010)

Annex A - Changes to the Student record for 2012/13

We have a little list: HESA psychic consultation gives offence

Changes to Gender in the Student Record

Motion to update Schedule 6: SURHUL Equality and Diversity

This motion probably requires less background. Schedule 6 is a section of the SU constitution concerning equality and diversity. Gender identity was not previously included as something students were protected from discrimination due to. This motion added gender identity to schedule six, and amended the harassment glossary to include ‘Intrusive questioning about someone’s ethnic origins, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or transition. Deliberately using incorrect pronouns or gendered language towards or about an individual.’

We expected protest against this motion, particularly the part about deliberate use of pronouns being harassment. “What if people made a genuine mistake?” people might ask.

You know when someone has made a genuine mistake. They apologise. They look awkward. And so on. “You _genuinely_ can’t tell some people’s gender identities though.” You also can’t tell some people’s religious beliefs by looking at them. This doesn’t mean making discriminatory remarks about religion is ok. (Just as a disclaimer, I am not trying to claim that religious and gender-based discrimination are entirely similar, they just provide a useful parallel in this aspect.)

“People have different ideas about what constitutes harassment. [Leading to a request to remove the clause regarding use of incorrect pronouns.]” We would argue that, if anything, this makes it MORE important to specifically outline what will not be tolerated. Without this specification, the use of pronouns could become a grey area. Instances of harassment would be more difficult to investigate, and this would make it more daunting for a student to feel able to report an instance. If the union is against the incorrect use of pronouns anyway, then it should be in the constitution, so that student members are aware that there could be disciplinary consequences should they harass someone else by deliberately using incorrect pronouns. So it lessens the possibility of harassment due to genuine ignorance, a plea itself a contested term, so probably best to avoid.

As it was, all we got was a thinly veiled reference to people passing motions to make things more politically correct :/.