International Women's Day 2019

Four free public discussion events, part of a wider programme to celebrate International Women’s Day 2019 organised by the Gender and Society Research Hub, Northumbria University and our partners:

Thursday 7th March: 'Photography, gender and emotion in activism' - how photography has been used by women activists in Canada and the Peruvian Andes. Jean Spence (activist), Carol Stephenson and Katy Jenkins (University of Northumbria)

Tuesday 12th March: 'Women of Tyneside: Communities & Collections' - Women of Tyneside Project Co-ordinators, Clara Shield and Gemma Ashby (Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums), explore the journey of the project and the impact on the museum collections.

Thursday 21st March: 'Girl-Kind North East' - Girl-Kind runs workshops with girls from schools across the region helping them turn their experiences, thoughts and ideas into creative interventions. Sarah Ralph and Mel Gibson (Northumbria University) and Sarah Winkler-Reid (Newcastle University).

Tuesday 9th April: 'Hijab: Hi, I’m Just Another Being' - Sisters Taj Khan and Tasneen from Hijab Sisters will talk about how visual imagery is both part of the problem and part of the solution for the politics of the hijab.

Events take place at Berwick Hall, Newcastle City Library, 33 New Bridge Street West, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 8AX. 

Please enter the library via the Princess Square (cafe) entrance.

Doors open and refreshments available from 5.30pm. All discussions are 6pm - 7pm.

For more information please click here.

Emerald Publishing is launching a digital marketing campaign that celebrates women in academia; those who are leading change but often battling against a lack of equality and old-fashioned systems.

The campaign is aimed at celebrating – and keeping – female talent in academia, in doing do positioning Emerald as the brand that helps drive equality, understands the issues and celebrates women in academia having a voice.

The campaign is aimed at highlighting the hard-hitting statistics and personal stories around the challenges women are likely to face through their career in academia, while also showcasing the academic talent of tomorrow that we risk losing unless we address this important issue.

Katy Shaw, Professor of Contemporary Writings at Northumbria, stars in the campaign and speaks about her experiences -  see her video here. 

For more information about the campaign visit www.emeraldpublishing.com/balanceforbetter/

This session will look at how photography has been used by women activists in Canada and the Peruvian Andes. Jean Spence, (activist and former Durham University Lecturer) and Carol Stephenson (Northumbria University) will explore the emotional charge of photographs of miners in Cape Breton, Canada. Katy Jenkins (Northumbria University) will explore images captured by women in relation to contesting large-scale mining projects in Peru. The presenters will explore how women activists use photography to generate emotional responses to their campaigns.

Refreshments from 5.30pm, event 6pm -7pm at Bewick Hall, City Library, Newcastle.

Dr Ashleigh Blackwood, Leverhulme Postdoctoral Researcher (Northumbria University) will give a public lecture at Boldon and Cleadon Community Library to mark International Women’s Day.

The research she is discussing at the library is from her current work on the University’s newly-launched Leverhulme-funded major project ‘Writing Doctors: Medical Representation and Personality, ca.1660-1832’ and will be focused on the hidden history of women’s contributions to and participation in medicine prior to their being permitted to study for medical degrees, or in fact within higher education at all.

Dr Jennifer Aston, Lecturer in History (Northumbria University) will join novelists and fellow historians as part of a 44-minute special radio programme discussing ‘Women, relationships and the law past and present’. The programme will be available shortly after broadcast via https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002zgc

Eight connected stories. One life-changing event. Eight female Maori directors worked together to produce this portmanteau film which offers a fascinating insight into Maori culture. The film compromises 8 x 10 minute segments, presented as a continuous shot in real time, unfolding around the funeral of a small boy who died at the hands of his caregiver. Waru means eight in Maori. The vignettes are all subtly interlinked, each following one of eight female Maori lead characters as they come to terms with Waru’s death and try to find a way forward in their community. The film will be introduced by Victoria Bazin and Anamarija Horvat (Northumbria University). Tyneside Rape Crisis will do a collection on the door. Tickets available from Tyneside Cinema: www.tyneside.co.uk

Dr Claudine van Hensbergen, Senior Lecturer in Eighteenth Century English Literature (Northumbria University) is giving a keynote lecture; ‘Female Wits and Muses: Professional Women and the Arts in the Eighteenth Century’ held at Sheffield University’s Humanities Research Institute to mark International Women’s Day.

Newcastle Cathedral’s women’s choir, Schola Cantorum, are preparing to sing a liturgy that has not been heard in public for almost 600 years. The medieval worship service, The Liturgy of the Nails, is a collaboration between the Cathedral and Professor Lesley Twomey, Professor in Medieval and Golden Age Hispanic Art and Literature (Northumbria University) and will be performed on Saturday 9 March to celebrate International Women’s’ Day.

Constanza de Castilla was a precursor for female academics and a trailblazer for her time. She was one of very few female writers in Castile and the only female liturgist in Spain.

Click here for more information https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/about-us/news-events/news/cathedral-partnership/

An exhibition of feminist posters, from the personal collection of Penny Remfry, North East feminist activist. Demonstrating the wit, artistic style and politics of feminism in the 1970s, these posters also resonate with contemporary feminist concerns.

Northumbria University Library foyer, City Campus.

Women of Tyneside Project Co-ordinators, Clara Shield and Gemma Ashby (Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums), explore the journey of the project and the impact on the museum collections. They will share their experiences of how museum and community development practice can work together to encourage communities to access and influence their heritage collections.

Refreshments from 5.30pm, event 6pm -7pm at Bewick Hall, City Library, Newcastle.

Girl-Kind runs workshops with girls from schools across the region helping them turn their experiences, thoughts and ideas into creative interventions. The co-founders, Sarah Ralph and Mel Gibson (Northumbria University) and Sarah Winkler-Reid (Newcastle University), will introduce the project. Participants will be invited to engage with girl-made artefacts from the project and discuss the issues they raise about what it means to be a girl in the North East.

Refreshments from 5.30pm, event 6pm -7pm at Bewick Hall, City Library, Newcastle.

Penny Remfry, feminist activist who’s been involved in numerous local, national and international campaigns, initiatives and organisations, will give a guided tour of a selection of feminist posters from the 1970s and reflect on their contemporary relevance. Followed by a discussion.

Northumbria University Library foyer, City Campus, 6pm -7pm.

Sisters Taj Khan and Tasneen from Hijab Sisters will talk about how visual imagery is both part of the problem and part of the solution for the politics of the hijab. They’ll talk about the contemporary political context for Muslim women in the UK, the broader context of media and growth of Islamophobia as well as women’s reasons for wearing the hijab. They’ll invite discussion about how the campaign was formed and what it’s designed to achieve.

Refreshments from 5.30pm, event 6pm -7pm at Bewick Hall, City Library.

An afternoon symposium hosted by Northumbria University’s Humanities Institute and Gendered Subjects Research Group. While some current women’s activism receives considerable attention (e.g. the 2018 centenary of suffrage for some women, #Timesup, and #MeToo) other forms are comparatively neglected (e.g. Black and Minority Ethnic women’s campaigns against oppressive migration policies). The history of women’s activism has also been overlooked or misrepresented by the media and academia. The symposium will examine how feminist activism has been represented and remembered, and how that activism continues to inform political movements in the 21st century.

Lipman Building, Northumbria University. For more information, contact rosemary.white@northumbria.ac.uk