Women and Imperial – everyone deserves to be happy here

Are women unhappy at Imperial? Some, it seems, are. Some men are too. Whether these are vocal fractions of a silent majority, or simply a vocal minority remains to be seen, but it doesn’t really matter. Every student at Imperial deserves freedom to be him/herself and to thrive to his/her full potential, minority or not – and women at Imperial are a minority. Within the central Union we do a lot of work for many of the recognised minorities but have done little recently for women.

Historically we have had a women’s officer, women’s society, and a women only social space, but as time wore on and gender parity drew ever nearer, work on women’s rights fell by the wayside, replaced by newer, fresher campaigns. Perhaps we stopped fighting for gender equality because we thought the battle was won, or perhaps members of the Union became convinced that the stereotypical burning-bra-brandishing brand of feminism could gain little traction at Imperial and thus discarded it, failing to replace it with an equally passionate but different coloured effort through oversight. Either way, the Union slowly let the feminist narrative slip further and further down the agenda. I imagine it is easy to become complacent and to believe that women are represented and catered for when Women in Science Engineering and Technology (WSET), winners of President’s Award in 2010, are so blazingly successful in their every endeavour, forgetting that WSET in fact has defined a very narrow if extremely valid scope of operation for itself and never endeavoured to address many of the issues that affect many women daily. As a result we now have no feminine voice on campus. Traditionally this voice would have found itself through, first the Women’s Officer and then the Gender Equalities officer. For whatever reason, this mechanism is not currently effective, as recent articles in Felix have brought to blinding light.

If students do not feel comfortable expressing feminist (or any) perspectives, something has gone very wrong

We recently gained access to the data from the Student Experience Survey carried out in October. On first glance it appears that 10.2% (382/3763) of undergrads, 3.5% (28/792) of PG-Taught and 7.9% (21/267) of PG-Research students answered ‘Yes’ to ‘Do you feel [your gender has] affected the quality of your experience at Imperial negatively?’. There are many ways this could be interpreted as we do not yet know whether it was women or men who felt their experience had been compromised; but for now, all we can say (and rest assured the breakdowns will be shared as soon as we have them) is that 10% of undergraduate students feel their experience has been negatively affected by their gender – and this is unacceptable. The College is taking this very seriously.

The Union has a duty to ensure all students it represents have freedom of speech and freedom from harm. If students do not feel comfortable expressing feminist (or any) perspectives, something has gone very wrong. If women do not feel represented and supported in our current system, something has gone very wrong. It is difficult for a student who does not feel empowered to develop into everything he/she can be, and that is what the Union is here to help achieve.

I’m not sure what direction this debate is going to take; indeed as an elected representative it isn’t my place to make executive decisions but to collect views and act upon them. We may end up with a feminist society, a gender equality society, a women’s officer, a regular forum facilitated by the Gender Equalities Officer, who is here to be the mouthpiece on these issues, or something entirely new. To work out where to go next we will be co-hosting a forum with those who have recently voiced opinions for all those interested in gender issues two weeks from now – please attend if you have any views you would like to be considered.

In the meantime if anyone would like to share any thoughts on this issue please feel free to comment or email me on dpwelfare@imperial.ac.uk.