Did you know that we have a Women’s Student Officer on campus?
This week, we had the amazing opportunity to meet with Mackinlay Ingham, who is not only a second year Music, Theatre and Entertainment Management student at Falmouth, but also our Women’s Student Officer for Falmouth and Exeter Cornwall Campus for this year. We had a chat with her about what she gets up to in her role, what she’d like to achieve this year, and what she thinks about intersectional feminism.
What does the role of ‘Women’s Student Officer’ involve?
My job is essentially to advocate on behalf of any student who identifies as female on our campus. I feel the way I can be most effective in this role is to support, in any way that I can, the existing platforms that we have that support any female identifying members of our community, such as FemSoc, Her Campus, the councilling and support services that the FXU offers us, and also working with the students who want to make changes.
What do you hope to achieve during your time as Women’s Student Officer?
This title is relatively new – it’s only in it’s second year – and so I want to build the foundations for the role of Women’s Student Officer, so when someone takes over from me at the end of this year, they have the best opportunity to make change. I also want to raise the profiles of the existing support structures on campus. I want women to know that they can go to FemSoc and be listened to, they can go to Her Campus and use it as a platform to get their voices heard. I want to make sure that these societies have the most accessible message possible, in terms of who can join the society and what the society offers. I want to spend this year gathering feedback from a wide range of women across years, across courses, to identify any recurring themes, and put steps in place to create positive change.
Ultimately, we’re at university to learn, to change, to grow, and to gain life experience and confidence. What I would really like to achieve is to educate the people who identify female as to the issues that they will face, like the pay gap, for example, and the extent to which the workplace is male dominated. I’ve been there and got the t-shirt. I know that sometimes I will walk into a meeting room, put my foot down, and have people call me ‘bitch’, where when a man does the same thing, he will be called ‘assertive’.
However, I don’t want to deter anyone from trying to succeed, or to create any anti-male sentiment. What I want to do is to make sure the women on this campus are as prepared as possible for leaving university and entering male dominated industries, so that they have the relevant tools to overcome the barriers that are in place. I want to use my own life experiences to encourage women to break their own glass ceilings.
What would you like to see changed on the campus?
I’ve had requests to set up a women’s only meeting time. A lot of space in the world is male space, and while gendered space shouldn’t exist – space is just space, after all – the only way we can start to rectify this problem is by putting measures in place. I don’t want it to be backwards in its exclusivity; it’s important to give space for women to meet other women, to create a safe space for women to understand themselves and to grow their confidence. Ultimately, I think it’s important to see the strength in bringing people together.
We need a stronger presence of female role models reflected around the uni, such as in guest speakers, for example. It’s all well and good telling women that they can succeed, but we need to be demonstrating female success. People have also raised issues such as CSM lad culture, and hostile attitudes towards discussions of feminism.
There’s a lot of talk about positive change, about gender equality, about issues in the world, but there isn’t much action. There’s definitely something to be said about educating about the past, but if all we do is look back, how do we move forward? I want to open up discussions, to interact with existing debates: why do we need feminism today? Why do we need a FemSoc? Why do we need a Women’s Student Officer? Do we need a Men’s Student Officer?
The way I see my role is that I’m not here to voice my own opinion: I’m here to advocate on behalf of those who feel their voice isn’t heard, and to give people the chance to ask those questions. There’s no perfect answer to any of them, but it’s important for people to be listened to, to have the chance to form their own opinion, and to not have someone else’s opinion forced upon them.
Why is intersectional feminism important on our campus?
The way I see it, you can’t separate parts of a person’s identity, as it all interlinks. In terms of the issues that you face, you can’t separate out the factors that have influenced what you face and why you face it; it’s all a combination of factors. For me, I’m a woman and I’m also disabled – I couldn’t separate out for you the situations I find myself in, whether they’re because I’m a woman, because I’m disabled, because I’m a young adult, because of my sexuality, or because of my favourite colour.
Our campus has a higher ratio of female students to male students, and within that female population there are many different views on feminism, many different identities and minorities, and many who don’t think that feminism applies to them. There’s a lot of fear around feminism, where people think “I can’t class myself as a feminist because I can’t do X, Y, and Z.” But ultimately, it’s simple. When I’m explaining it to people I always use the Beyonce song ***FLAWLESS, with the line from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: “Feminism is the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.” This is applies to everyone, regardless of your sexuality or your race or your abilities. We need intersectional feminism because everything interlinks; we can’t separate out the different aspects of a persons identity, and equality shouldn’t be threatened by this.
How can students reach out to you for help, or talk about any of the issues they might have?
You can find me through the Liberation and Faith Committee’s Facebook page. Equally, you can go through the FXU, Her Campus or the FemSoc, who would all be able to direct you to me. Alternatively, you can find me on Facebook and drop me a message!