This week at Her Campus, our specially selected university celebrities are Sophie and Char, two second year English Literature students, who also happen to be on the exec for Josephine Butler College’s Feminist Society! (cue applause!)
Feminism is FABULOUS: It’s an incredibly important social movement advocating social, political, legal, and economic equality for women and men. I don’t know about you, but that sounds pretty great to me. Inevitably I couldn’t have been more excited to catch up with two women who are being active in promoting progressive feminist discussion and campaigning here at Durham…
Can you remember what first got you thinking about feminism?
Sophie: Growing up with two brothers, I questioned why they had the freedom to walk home late at night when I did not.
Char: My dad’s friend said he preferred books written by men over books written by women, and I wondered if he would have enjoyed same books written by women more if they had had a man’s name on the cover.
Sophie and Char
Why is feminism important?
Sophie: Because women are only represented by 29% of our cabinet (a record high), even though we constitute 50% of the population. Because, due to the wage gap, women effectively work for free for almost two months of the year. Because rape culture teaches women to feel ashamed, rather than teaching people not to view women as targets. Because 1 in 3 female students are victims to sexual assault and 97% of those girls did not report their assault to the university. And because men have been taught that they shouldn’t express their feelings, evident from the fact that 17% of men have been treated for a mental health issue compared to 29% of women.
Char: Because women are only represented by 29% of our cabinet, even though we constitute 50% of the population. Because women work for free for almost two months of the year. Because rape culture teaches women to feel ashamed, rather than teaching people not to view women as targets.
What roles/positions do you have in the Josephine Butler Femsoc Exec?
Char: Honestly, we’re still finding our feet at the moment, so we don’t have set roles. It was a very small society when we got involved, which means that so far it’s been about revamping and getting boring administrative things sorted, like deciphering handwritten email addresses from freshers’ fair!
Who can get involved in Femsoc?
Sophie: Literally anyone. Feminist or not. Femsoc is a society where we debate about feminism. That debate can include whether feminism is needed or not. If you have any view and want to discuss it, you are more than welcome.
Char: ANYONE. Even if you’re not a feminist. Even if you’re a man. Even if you’re the porter who asked if femsoc was ‘no boys allowed’. If you live in the patriarchy, femsoc is for you. So basically everyone ever.
Unfair and unrealistic gender norms and ideals effect EVERYONE
What kind of things have you got planned for femsoc this year?
Sophie: We wanted to rejuvenate JB Femsoc this year and make it more active; not only as discussion group but also focussing on fundraising and campaigning. We meet at Josephine Butler once a week (Thursdays at 6!) to discuss articles we’ve seen in the news and other general feminist issues. Last week we spoke about rape culture and whether men feel included in the feminist movement.
Josephine Butler, the British social reformer who gives the name to Butler College, was a feminist herself- could you give some examples of how Butler femsoc might be inspired by this figure?
Char: She is so fabulous. We want to put posters up around college telling people about how great she is and what she did. One of the things she did was help found Cambridge’s second college for girls – Newnham College – which, for femsoc, is inspiration for continuing her efforts to secure women’s educational rights. We plan to do some fundraising over the year, and one of our ideas was to raise enough to sponsor a girl’s education in a less privileged country where the education of girls falls short of that of boys.
Josephine Butler
Is there any myths that you’d like to debunk about feminism?
Sophie: When sitting at JB societies fair, a girl about to sign up suddenly looked up and said ‘you’re not man-hating feminists are you?’ Yes. We are all radical lesbians and we want to sacrifice all men to our female over-lord. I think the most damaging myth about feminism is that we are just concerned with females. In fact, a lot of our discussions have been about how men are put into gender stereotypes just as much as women are. Feminism is about gender equality for all.
(Credit to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Beyonce <3_<3 )
YASS.ANYONE can be a feminist- Regardless of gender, sexuality, age, ethnicity, religion, or any other category you can think of. Plus, who doesn’t want to part of a global movement which just so happens to include hilarious individuals like Caitlyn Canon, who proudly and unashamedly (and rightly so!) states in her twitter bio that she is ‘Feminist. Really gay.’
Can you recommend any interesting media related to feminism?
The blog ‘The Everyday Sexism Project’ is a great website to have a look at. It is an open discussion blog where anyone (not just women) can post about their personal experiences of sexism on a day to day basis. (check it out here: http://everydaysexism.com/)
And just for fun…
Where’s the best place to have sophisticated feminist discussions over coffee in Durham? (i.e. tell us your favourite café!)
Char: Soph and I have had many a feminist discussion in Leonard’s, but ‘sophisticated’ doesn’t really happen when you are also shovelling food into your mouth at the same time.
If you could magically transport yourself anywhere in the world for a weekend trip, where would you visit?
Char: We would travel to a magical, fantasy land of complete gender equality. Failing that, maybe Dubrovnik? It looks nice there.
Thanks so much to Sophie and Char! [performs top secret feminist handshake sequence]