New Turn: Women in the 21st Century

Women in the 21stCenturyFebruary 18th, 2014

Lina Sinjab,Syria Correspondent,

BBC

Carolyn Makinson, Dir. International

Rescue Committee

Carla Buzasi,Editor-in-Chief, Huffington Post

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The nearest stations to Queen Mary University on the London Underground are:Mile End on Hammersmith and City, District and Central linesStepney Green on the Hammersmith and City and District lines.

ContentsMap.p2-3Welcome.p4Media Partner.p5Timetable.p6-7Events.p9-17Contact.p18

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ArtsOne 37ArtsTwo 35Arts Research Centre 39The Bancroft Building 31Bancroft RoadTeaching Rooms 10Computer Science 6Engineering Building 15Fogg Building 13G.O. Jones Building 25Geography 26IRC 14

Informatics TeachingLaboratories 5Joseph Priestley Building 41Library 32Law 36Mathematical Sciences 4The People’s Palace/Great Hall 16Queens’ Building 19Temporary Building 61Blomeley Centre 48Bookshop 22Careers Centre 19Clock Tower 20The Curve 47Ground Café 33

Queen Mary University London E1 4NS

Carolina & AndreaNew Turn Co-Chairs 2013-14

Women in the 21st Century

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With debate raging about the meaning of Feminism to Genera-tion Y, we have spared no expense in bringing together some of Britain’s most influential women for a day of talks, work-shops and breakout sessions.

Our guests range from those who feel that feminism should be solely on personal interpretation and experiences to speakers who think that the next battle for women’s rights should be fought in the developing world. There will also be talks from several speakers who do not consider themselves to be femi-nists.

Women In The 21st Century will offer a myriad of perspectives on women’s rights and we hope everyone will have the oppor-tunity to see issues from a new angle, whether learning about the challenges women face in little-known professions or con-sidering areas which sometimes escape mainstream feminist dialogue such as race, class and transgenderism.

I hope you will join us for a sociable, engaging and stimulating day.

Welcome

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New Turn is the only independent, London-wide, student poli-tics society. We bring some of the most interesting and impor-tant speakers in Britain to join us in conversation and debate. We run lively social events with students across London, from casual pints at the pub, to Get Lifted’s busy soul nights.

New Turn believe that anybody can get involved in politics, and that being interested shouldn’t lead to costly joining fees. We keep our membership low at only £5 annually, which gives you access to almost 30 events per year.

We provide our members with the opportunity to help run political workshops in schools across London. We aim to in-troduce specific issues in public life, such as the skill of diplo-macy or the workings of the financial system, in a practical and engaging manner.

We hope you not only join, but become active members in making politics interesting for others. Please go to: newturn.org.uk for more information.

New Turn would like to thank Queen Mary University’s administration and student union for their help with hosting Women in the 21st Century.

Women: Progress through history 10-10.45 Great Hall

In the workplace, should we positively discriminate in favour of women? 11-11.45 Blomely Rooms

What has the Arab Spring meant for women in the Middle East? 11-11.45 Great Hall

Violence against women11-11.45 To be announced on the day

Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Women in Law 11-11.45 Laws 210

Women & the development process 12-12.45 Great Hall

LUNCH 12.45-1.30*

Is the fashion industry undermining women? 1.30-2.15 Blomely Rooms

Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Women in Business 1.30-2.15 Laws

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Timetable:

Is Religion & Feminism compatible? 1.30-2.15 Great Hall

Feminism & Sex 1.30-2.15 Skeel, The People’s Palace

Can Generation Y take Women’s rights forward? 2.30-3.15 Great Hall

Educating Women 3.30-4.15 G.O. Jones Building

Women in film, theatre & literature 3.30-4.15 Laws

Expanding Feminism: Race 3.30-4.15 Blomely Rooms

Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Women in Politics3.30-4.15 Skeel, The People’s Palace

Capitalism and Women 3.30-4.15 G.O. Jones Building

What’s Next?4.30-5.15 Great Hall

*There is one cafe open on campus called: Ground

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Events and Speakers

Speakers and events are subjet to change at short notice. We commit to hosting at least 10 events on the day. Any speakers pulling out will be replaced as soon as possible.

Women: Progress through history

In the workplace, should we positively discriminate in favour of women?

Our opening panel will discuss the progression of women as key societal actors in the past 100 years. We hope to start the conference on a largely con-templative note, looking at the successes of the feminist move-ment and the challenges that still face women going forward.

Nell Beecham, Paulina JakubecChair: Frances Brill

In many work enviornments women are under represented in senior positions. This debate will tackle whether the best so-lution in the short term is to positively discriminate in favour of women until a balance is met.

Carole Stone, Dr Alexandra Beauregard, Carla BuzasiChair: Ian Dunt

10-10.45 Great Hall

11-11.45 Blomely Rooms

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What has the Arab Spring meant for women in the Middle East?

In Egypt, when the revolution started there were pictures of women and men campaigning together in the streets, some-thing that would previously have been unheard of. Soon after however, came the sto-ries of rape and sexual assault not only in Egypt, but also in Syria and Libya as several Arab Spring countries descended into chaos. We ask our panellists their opinons on what the Arab Spring has meant for women.

Lina Sinjab, Rim Turkmani, Dr. Maha Azzam, Chair: Julia Macfarlane11-11.45 Great Hall

11-11.45 To be announced on the day

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Violence against women

“Rape culture,” “Female Geni-tal Mutilation” these are just some of the terms that under-pin violence against women world over. What can be done to prevent the violence against women continuing, not only in developing nations but also in Western liberal societies.

Professor Ruth Kelly, Mary Kaldor, GlosswitchChair: Melanie Gingell QC

Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Women in Law

Women and the development process

Our “Breaking the Glass Ceiling” panels are focused on the pro-gress women have made and the challenges they are yet to overcome in a particular profes-sion that is traditionally male dominated. This panel looks at the legal industry and the chal-lenges that face women who wish to work within an area where out of 12 Supreme Court Justices only one is female.

Diana Good, Tinu A AdeshileChair: Jane Mcneill QC

The UN’s Millenium Develop-ment Goal number 3 aims to, “promote gender equality and empower women” within de-velopment settings by 2015. We hope that by inviting some of the most prominent names in development and humanitar-ian response, we will be able to get an overview of how close we are to this goal and wheth-er it was realistic in the first place. This panel will also take an indepth view of the plight of women in humanitarian crises.

Carolyn Makinson, Barbara Stocking, Chair: Nina Caplan

11-11.45 Laws 210

12-12.45 Great Hall

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Is the fashion industry undermining women?

Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Women in Business

The fashion industry has been accused of not only reducing women to nothing more than sexual objects, it has also been forced to come to terms with the pressure it places on women to conform to certain unrealistic body images. With this in mind, we challenge our panellists to answer whether the fashion industry truly has the best in-terests of women at heart.

Kim Winser, Willie Walters,Britt Lintner, Nancy Dell’olioChair: Sara McCorquodale

Our “Breaking the Glass Ceiling” panels are focused on the pro-gress women have made and the challenges they are yet to overcome in a particular profes-sion that is traditionally male dominated. This panel looks at businesses in general and que-ries what it takes to get women reaching the top of companies such as those in the FTSE 100.

Morag McLureSylvana CaloniChair: Rowena Ironside

1.30-2.15 Blomely Rooms

1.30-2.15 Laws 210

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Is religion and feminism compatible?

Feminism and Sex

Many feminists have accused several of the world’s promi-nent religions of using doc-trine to undermine the rights of women. They have often countered, accusing many feminists of ignorance and at-times, orientalism. Can a re-ligion still be pro equal rights if the expectations they place on members is defined by sex?

Arif Ahmed, Berners-Wilson, Faeeza Vaid Chair: Patricia Rogers

Feminism and sex have at-times had an uncomfortable rela-tionship. The balance between someone using their body as they please and yet, still being exploited often seems blurred. We ask this panel to answer how women can reconcile feel-ings of empowerment and sex-ual liberation within a world that often uses sex as a tool to control and dehumanise them.

Hannah Betts,Kelly Temple

1.30-2.15 Great Hall

1.30-2.15 Skeel, The People’s Palace

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Educating women

Can Generation Y take women’s rights forward?

Until recently, in the western world, it was a common belief that women were intellectu-ally inferior to men. Since that myth has been overturned, we ask, “is the education system supporting women to the same extent as men?” This question, is also being posed from an in-ternational perspective as we are proud to welcome the for-mer Minister for International Development to the panel.

Maria Neophytou, Rushanara AliChair: Katy Dawe

Generation Y has been labelled the “apathetic generation.” Ap-parently, it’s the generation too busy languishing in hipster-based-irony as opposed to caring about social progress. With this in mind, is this as good as it gets?

Viv Regan, Sadhbh O’Sullivan, Rosa BennathanChair: Serena Kutchinsky

3.30-4.15 G.O. Jones Building

2.30-3.15 Great Hall

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Women in film, theatre and literature

Popular culture has often had a way of relegating women in to the status of second class citi-zenry. From the lack of female protagagonists in novels, to the sparsity of female film direc-tors, there is a clear gender im-balance within the performing arts. We ask the panel to not only attempt to find solutions to the current situation but to also look at how the status quo has affected the portrayal of women in modern society.

Melody Bridges, Lucy Kerbel, Dr B.J. EpsteinChair: Babs Williams

3.30-4.15 Laws 210

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Expanding Feminism: Race

Feminism is often observed to be a movement that works as a monolith and as a result fails to account for the various swathes of opinon within its cohort. Many people of ethnic origin say that this has manifested it-self in a negative way and left them excluded from a move-ment that they feel is over rep-resentative of white feminists.

Hannah Pool, Amma AsanteChair: Sarah Sarwar

3.30-4.15 Blomely Rooms

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Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Women in Politics

Politics has often been a tra-ditionally male field in Britain with some countries on the con-tinent making more headway than others when it comes to working in politics. Why does Britain lag behind and what are other countries getting right?

Esther McVey MP, Ambassador Laetitia van den Assum

3.30-4.15 Skeel, The People’s Palace

Capitalism andWomen

It has often been said that capi-talism by its very nature subju-gates women within society due to uneven divisions of labour. Those in support of capital-ism would however argue that technological advancements were at the forefront of reduc-ing the workload of women in the home and thereby enabling them to seek paid employment.

Katie Lam, Louise Pennington, Michele BarrettChair: Dr Lisa McKenzie

3.30-4.15 G.O. Jones Building

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What’s next?

Jody Day, Sarah Crown, Sarah Sarwar, Victoria SmithChair: Katie Lam

4.30-5.15 Great Hall

Looking back at the day, where do we go from here?

Contact Us:

Website: conference.newturn.org.uk/Facebook: facebook.com/newturns

Email: [email protected]: new_turn

Laetitia van den Assum, Ambassador,

Dutch Embassy

Esther McVey MPMinister for Employment

Rushanara Ali MPShadow Education

Minister