Information
- Category:
- Organizations - General
- Description:
- Women-only Women's Committees are vital for women's political and social representation.
Recently several Women's Committees and Women's Officers have come under attack.
This group aims to counter these attacks and support women's right to have women-only, inclusive, safe-space committees.
This is an open group to (hopefully) provide information and advice for everyone who supports women-only Women's Committees and supports an autonomous Women's Campaign.
Please feel free to use this... (read more) - Privacy Type:
- Open: All content is public.
Admins
- Bronach
- Lizzie
- Jenny
- Amy (creator)
Events
1 past eventSee All
- York Feminist Women's Group In...
G/001 (Goodricke Seminar Room)
Tuesday, February 19 at 5:00pm
We Support a women-only Women's Committee!
JoinBasic Info
- Name:
- We Support a women-only Women's Committee!
- Category:
- Organizations - General
- Description:
- Women-only Women's Committees are vital for women's political and social representation.
Recently several Women's Committees and Women's Officers have come under attack.
This group aims to counter these attacks and support women's right to have women-only, inclusive, safe-space committees.
This is an open group to (hopefully) provide information and advice for everyone who supports women-only Women's Committees and supports an autonomous Women's Campaign.
Please feel free to use this... (read more) - Privacy Type:
- Open: All content is public.
Contact Info
- Office:
- Your local Women's Committee
Recent News
- News:
- UPDATE: The Women's Committee motion passed by 43 votes, thus male members of the Union are now constitutionally allowed to attend Women's Committee.
It's not all doom and gloom though - 361 people voted against the motion, so there are 361 students at York who take women-only space seriously and respected women's right to hold women-only meetings.
Watch this space for events or perhaps debates/meetings here at York where we can get together (all 361 of us!) and don our feminista hats :)
The University of York Student's Union has had a motion submitted to a UGM which calls for Women's Committee to no longer be women-only. The motion suggests that Women's Committee is sexist and discriminatory as it excludes men.
However equality does not mean treating everyone the same – if a group is disadvantaged, it will need particular representation in order to overcome this and have the same influence as another group who hold more rights and are therefore more influential. Women-only space is a positive action to redress the discriminatory balance between men and women therefore it is NOT sexist.
Women are massively underrepresented politically at every level - only 18% of MPs are women. In order to ensure women are represented, every major political party in Britain has autonomous women’s officers and women-only committees and events. The national Gender Equality Duty ENCOURAGES organisations to have women-only committees. Every other university with a Women’s Committee is women-only. It is recognised politically at every level that women-only representation is the best way to advance women’s rights.
Aside from this, women-only space is vital in providing a safe space for women. There are issues women might not be comfortable talking about in front of men but which are vital to the Women’s Campaign: female genital mutilation, abortion, pregnancy, menstruation, female vaginal health. Women from some cultures and religions are not even allowed to talk about certain subjects in men’s presence. Women who choose to veil their faces can usually only remove them in a women-only environment and most cultures around the world provide some form of women-only space. Thus women-only safe space is not only safeguarding women’s representation , it is a move towards cultural inclusivity.
On a practical level, women-only space is often the only place a woman who has been attacked or raped can feel safe. I will give you an example which I have been given permission to use: a female student was raped three years ago by a male student. The male student was not convicted, unsurprising given the extremely low conviction rate for rape, so for the next three years this female student had to endure the presence of this man at campus events, in classes, during Union meetings. The ONLY place she could go and not feel threatened by his presence was the Student's Union women-only Women’s Committee.