As many of you will know International Women’s Day takes place annually on 8 March internationally
International Women’s Day celebrates the histories and achievements of women around the world as well raises awareness of the continued need for action to address gender inequalities that exist today.
Queen Mary is proud to be celebrating International Women’s Day! We are celebrating this event throughout March with our biggest and most collegiate celebration to date.
Take a look at the events programme which is open to our staff and students to mark this important month. We'll be adding to this as the month goes on so keep an eye out!
Here are some examples from our exciting programme:
Lunch and Learn Talk: My HR Journey
This talk explores insights into Leonie's background including her personal HR Journey from beginning as a HR Assistant and progressing to my current role as Strategic HR Business Partner and a member of Queen Mary's HR Leadership Team. This talk also reflects on holding down a senior position alongside caring responsibilities for a parent.
Time: 11:00am - 12:00pm
Date: Thursday, 16 March 2023
Location: Online, via MS Teams: Sign up via Eventbrite.
Speaker: Leonie Malvo
100 more by 2030! How to create a more gender-balanced democracy
As we look forward to the next election, join us to take stock and reflect on what more can be done to build a more gender-balanced democracy! While there are currently 225 women in the House of Commons, an all-time high, women continue to be underrepresented in Parliament, local government, and public life as a whole. To rectify this, 50:50 Parliament has set an ambitious target to have 100 more women in Parliament by 2030.
As the UK's major political parties select their candidates for next year's general election, this panel discussion will take stock of their efforts and consider what more can be done to achieve a better, more gender-balanced democracy. In addition to drawing on ongoing research from Queen Mary's School of Politics and International Relations on the motivations and experiences of women political leaders, we will ask our panel to reflect on the actions and successes of leading pressure groups including 50:50 Parliament, the Conservative Party's Women2Win group, and the Labour Women's Network.
Chaired by Dr Javier Sajuria, we will be joined by Frances Scott (the founder of 50:50 Parliament), Professor Rainbow Murray, Kiran Mahil, and Emma Best AM to evaluate how much progress has been made in recent years and formulate strategies to rectify the historic underrepresentation of women in public life.
Time: 6:00pm - 7:30pm
Date: Thursday, March 23, 2023
Location: Skeel Lecture Theatre, The People's Palace, Mile End
Lunch and Learn Talk: How do Women Get Forgotten? Recovering women’s work in the history of international thought
Standard accounts of the history of international thought rarely mention any women. It’s as if no woman has ever had anything significant to say about world politics, or at least not prior to the late 1980s. And yet, you don’t have to actually look very hard or very far to find many women, from many different backgrounds and parts of the world, individually and collectively making important contributions to explaining and understanding world politics throughout the twentieth century. This talk will discuss some of those women, how it is that their legacies have been so easily forgotten, and why the question ‘where are the women?’ is one we must always keep on asking as feminists and scholars.
Time: 12:30pm - 1:30pm
Date: Wednesday, 15 March 2023
Speaker: Professor Kimberly Hutchings
Please share your experiences of the month and let us know what you have engaged with, participated in and enjoyed. There is also still time to add to the programme or submit a Spotlight Profile. Please contact Liz Grand (l.grand@qmul.ac.uk) and Carol Malcom (c.malcolm@qmul.ac.uk) if you would like to be involved.