Open letter to the Cambridge Union
Why the CUSU Women’s Campaign is no longer participating in the Cambridge Union’s discussion on sexism
It is with disappointment that the CUSU Women’s Campaign is pulling out of the public forum intended to discuss institutional sexism and the Cambridge Union Society. As the CUSU Women’s Officer, I have made this decision in consultation with the Women’s Campaign Committee, because I am no longer confident that the event will serve the original purpose of discussing the concerns that have been raised about the Cambridge Union Society, such as why there are so few female speakers, are pole dancing classes good exercise or objectification, and whether the Union takes sexism and feminism seriously. Ironically, we are pulling out of the event because the Union entirely failed to take the event seriously. Continue reading
The next Women’s Forum is in a week:
As one of the open places in CUSU Women’s Campaign, I’ll be kicking off a campaign on Gender and Development in Michaelmas. Currently in an embryonic stage, the aim is to get more women thinking about the relationships between gender and development, what it means to them, and how they can get involved. I’ll be using Gender Agenda to regularly post ideas of what I might get up to next year and comments on articles, issues etc that I find that can start to get you thinking too. I’ll be advocating no particular understanding of development and hopefully one of the first discussions to be put on will be concern this very subject. In order to keep the discussion accessible, I’ll invite a mixture of academics, businessmen and women, charities and grass roots organisations onto panels.