EITHEROnce upon a time, women, or the class of people formerly known as women, couldn’t attend college. The academy was considered the province of men, and women were kept out.
later the rules were loosened Women could study, only with fewer resources. They I could take the exams, but not getting full titles. They she could sit with the men, but not be treated as an equal. All this happened in the relatively recent past.
Magdalene College, Cambridge, first admitted female students in 1988. According The board, “the flag of the Magdalena flew at half mast when the women entered the college, and some students also chose to don black armbands. Students also reportedly marched through the streets of Cambridge carrying a coffin to mourn the ‘death’ of the university.”. This was not in the 19th century; it was thirty-five years ago.
progress and retreat do they do not alternate, but coexist
The belief that public spaces and institutions belong to men has not been extinguished. Although women can enter spheres that previously excluded them, they It can still be made to feel unwelcome. As Rachel Hewitt explores in her next book in its naturewomen have they have repeatedly been made to feel like impostors in supposedly masculine preserves (sports, academia, politics) through the devaluation of his achievements, the threat of physical and sexual violenceand the absence of practical resources such as bathrooms. Hewitt points out that this can continue to occur even when women are making progress on these areas; progress and regress do they do not alternate, but rather coexist, the latter feeding on the former.
A current example of this could be the treatment of university feminist societies. It might seem cause for celebration that these societies have flourished in the 21st centuryenturand yet, until this month, the Bristol University Students’ Union was seeking discipline one of those societies and its founding president. Because? Raquel Rosario Sánchez and Women Talk Back! dared to organize neither in the presence nor for the benefit of men.
Given academia’s long history of excluding any woman, not to mention the gender-based inequalities that persist in higher education, for example, 80 percent of university rectors are men, UK universities have a gender pay gap higher than the national averageand he sexual harassment of female students is common in all institutions — you’d think a little feminism would be the bare minimum when it comes to promoting diversity and inclusion. Unfortunately, apparently not. In a particularly grotesque twist, those who seek to nullify Women answer! had the nerve to say that they were those who are excluded.
It’s a strange frame. On the other hand, universities have has never been particularly good at coming to terms with his History of female exclusion. I started my studies in 1993, at an Oxford university that accepted women for the first time in 1979. I never remember the institution.either in fact, the university as a whole, seeming particularly ashamed of its past. Every time the topic came up, the focus was on celebrating the women who had blazed a trail, as if whatever theyhad to overcome (tradition, habit, lack of self-confidence) hadn’t had anything to do with it. do with the university itself. It was as if the students were meant to feel, not resentful that other women have been denied opportunitieseither wary of how “included” really werebut grateful to be there at all.
Bristol University has opted for a typical combination of denial and complacency. my favorite part of his online “history of gender equalityis the reluctance to mention that women could not have medical examinations until 1906 (The first woman to start studying medicine at Bristol was elizabeth casson, in 1913, the same year that students carried out “a hold-up on the suffragette shop on Park Street”). Women could not vote — or, until then, study medicine — because of their biological sex, not their gender identity. That should give the university pause when it comes to throwing students to the wolves for believing in the political salience of biological sex. However, when Rosario Sánchez faced intimidation and harassment for her feminist beliefs, the University of Bristol did not support her, leading her to launch a separate legal case (she lost, but the university were forced to admit that she had been a victim ofunacceptable behavior”).
Such statements exist to remind female students that public space is masculine, all of which
I personally know Rosario Sánchez and Women answer! In 2019 I spoke in one of his events, on the subject of feminism and writing. out there were protesters, most them male, feeding the same bitterness certain men have I always felt when thinking that women are doing something that doesn’t focus them. For these men, the “exclusion” is for the women to meet in a room for two hours to talk about his lives and needs. it is not centurIt is to be said these rooms are not for you and that you have there is no place in them. it is not centurrias of legal, scientific, philosophical and political thought in which women barely deserve a mention. They are the women who have anything.
shortly before the 2019, having run the gauntlet of those who were shouting outside, I went to the women’s toilets. There I saw painted on the tiles: a Seasymbol s (masculine) plus the legend “we are here”. The intention was obvious: to make women aware of the possible presence of men in a closed space while they are in a state of nakedness. Such statements masquerade as celebrating inclusion, but they work exactly the opposite. They exist to remind female students that the public space is masculine, all thisand that if we want any degree of privacy, we must stay at home, with the children and the kitchen sink.
This is the reason why the recent decision by Bristol Studentyes Union to allow the existence of a women-only feminist society, following legal action by four members of Women answer! – Of great importance. It has been framed as feminists being granted the right to “exclude trans women”.”, but this is a completely skewed way of looking at it. It must be understood in the context of the historical and current marginalization of women in the public sphere.
when feminists are accused of “excluding”, what we are actually witnessing is a restatement of the claim by men’s rights activists that if women want to participate in public life, they you should not expect any “special treatment” (meaning that female biology or female vulnerabilities to male sexual violence should not be acknowledged). If women want to go to college, they you should not expect any space, club, or gathering that do does not welcome men. This ignores the fact that women’s access to public life is contingent on women having the necessary spaces and resources to face the reality of male domination.
In the end, “we’re here” on a bathroom wall doesn’t say much. Male people, whatever they are called, have always “already” been here. you have always believed have a right to define all spaces as belonging to you. Your scribbles on the toilet wall are the 21 centurand equivalent to the black armbands worn by Magdalena students. What you are doing is nothing new. Once again, it tries to tell us that despite our nominal inclusion, nothing has changed.
What feminist students—brave women like Rosario Sánchez— are doing is nothing new either. youHey will continue to do so. You may not like it, but so do we are it’s hereand each victory makes it a little easier for us to stick around.