Empower: the new Feminist Society to hit Imperial?

Empower, founded by two fourth year students at Imperial College London, held its first event last weekend, in the form of an icebreaker at the Union Dining Hall. Tea and cake were provided, along with a surprise VIP appearance in the form of Imperial’s new President, Professor Alice Gast, who gave a 10-minute speech to the assembled group of around 30 students. During the evening, founder Sophia Lewis set out their aims for the group.

“Empower is a support network aimed towards women. We have three aims: to improve self confidence and well-being by having a positive environment where people can set out goals and achieve them; [the teaching of] professional skills; and charity”.

While charity work may seem incongruous compared to the empowerment of women, the founders see it as integral to their mission: “through charity you can be encouraged to learn skills such as time planning, organisation, budget management and leadership; and raise money for charity, helping support women in less fortunate positions.”

The idea for Empower came about “over falafel”; Ms Lewis describes herself as “ambitious ”, however, Ms Lewis noted that “a lot of things we were being told in hospital [both women are medical students] went against this…the idea that girls can’t be academic”.

So do they feel that things are different for women in STEM (Science, Engineering, Technology, Mathematics) subjects compared to those in other disciplines? “Of course!” says Ms Lewis, ‘Oh you’re a girl, you’re no good at maths; you’re a girl, you’re no good at physics; you’re a girl, why do you want to do engineering? Why do you want to be a surgeon, or…’ People will tell you this your whole life. We are so lucky in the UK to be given a lot as women, but there still remains a baseline attitude of inequality.”

Within the group, which was made up of people from a variety of years and subjects, the focus seemed mainly to be on personal goals related to self-confidence, as opposed to overarching aims relating to campaigning within society. While some people have been critical of the group, questioning its necessity when Imperial Feminist Society was founded three years ago, both Empower and FemSoc agree that their groups have different goals.

When asked for a statement, a representative of FemSoc said “I think that the roles of the two societies are different; we’re more about political discussion and activism, whereas they’re more about networking and professional skills. However, there is plenty of room, and we are more than happy for the two societies to coexist and work together.”

Empower is similarly friendly towards FemSoc, and are open to collaborating with them in the future. “Empower is about collaboration, about working together to achieve goals, and it doesn’t matter whose idea it is, or who’s organising what, the point is addressing gender inequality and imbalance,” says Ms Lewis. “We both want to achieve that, and it doesn’t matter how it comes about.”

Professor Alice Gast, who is the sixteenth head of Imperial College and the first woman to be appointed to the role, has expressed support for the group. As well as taking time out of her schedule to attend the meeting, she said “I think it’s terrific to have interdisciplinary collaboration, where students from different years can come together to support one another, share ideas, and become mentors.”

Professor Gast was particularly enthusiastic about the mentoring scheme, which aims to provide women students with support from older years, saying “I think that [in terms of mentoring] more senior students benefit from it as much as the younger students do.” During her speech, she mentioned her experiences in being both a mentor and a mentee, and commended the valuable contribution it provided to her academic life.

However, not everyone has been so sold on the idea of Empower. In terms of criticism, the overwhelming complaint has been that people don’t know what the group aims to do; with such a large range of goals, some people feel that Empower may lack a single focus.

Further controversy came in the form of the promotional video they posted on Facebook over the summer that featured the girls in bikinis. Sophie was aware of this criticism, saying that those who were complaining seemed to think that “a woman can’t be ambitious and intelligent, and wear a bikini at the same time”.

The group is also yet to have been granted official society status, as their application to the New Activities Committee hasn’t gone smoothly. Their application wasn’t accepted in its initial form, and Empower will be meeting with the committee to re-evaluate their application in November before reapplying.

The women behind Empower still remain optimistic, both for their group, and for the future of women at Imperial. “Everything is possible”, says Ms Lewis, “and when you have a team, a committee, a society around you, all willing you to do well and to achieve, there is no reason why you can’t!”