Last weekend I attended the UK Feminista Summer School, at the University of Birmingham, along with 500 other feminists. We spent two days in a variety of talks and workshops on feminist activism, with issues ranging from reproductive rights, to the sex industry, to the role of men in feminism. It was really exciting to engage and debate with so many other feminists, of all ages and genders, and I came away feeling inspired to help make feminism a central part of reigniting political activism on university campuses.
As a student feminist, I've long been frustrated by the political apathy of so many of my fellow students. In my first year at Warwick my dad, who studied there in the late 70s, commented that it wasn't like in his day - no big, campus-wide protests, no anti-war banners covering the SU building and little by way of strident student politics. In the most recent Warwick SU election two male candidates stood for the role of Democracy Officer, one of whom had submitted the manifesto "I f*cking love votes." What a choice. It's not just in the 'real world' that I feel let down by politics! I would love to see more students engaging and getting passionate about political life, but when both the students' union and the cabinet office are as white and male as each other, it's not hard to see why so many students feel disenfranchised from both campus and UK politics.
Female students, in particular, often seem uninterested in what politics has to offer them. It's enough, seemingly, that we're at these universities, racking up our own debts, working for degrees alongside our male contemporaries. And, of course, we can vote if we want to; feminism has done its job, hasn't it? On the day of last year's General Election, after weeks of trying to engage my best friend in the election debates, I sent her a text reminding her of the suffragettes who had died for her right to vote. The gist of her response was "ok, fine. Who should I vote for?"
Many students I know, who did vote, now wonder why they bothered. However, in alienating almost the entire student population, the ConDem government has achieved one thing: finally getting thousands of students passionately and actively engaged in politics via both the tuition fees protests and the UK Uncut actions. Feminism, too, has seen a recent resurgence of activism, with SlutWalks taking place across the world and the Eff Off Hef campaign in June, against the opening of a new Playboy club in London. Students and feminists alike are angry, and they're taking to the streets to make their voices heard. Student feminist societies have been around for years, but it's time to start getting louder!
Let's harness this new-found passion for political activism, to get feminism back on campus and engage more women in student politics. After all, university is as much an education about life as it is about Philosophy, Italian or Engineering. Our predecessors have earned us a great many privileges, and yet, for all our so-called "equality", we seem to have accepted that feeling unsafe on nights out is a normal part of student life for women. Surveys suggest that one in four female students have experienced unwanted sexual behaviour, whilst one in seven have been physically or sexually assaulted. Common responses to these issues are to place the onus on the actions of female students, advising them not to go out after dark, or, in the case of the Toronto policeman who sparked the wave of SlutWalks, to "avoid dressing like sluts." Instead, feminist campaigning ought to be at the centre of how students' unions tackle sexual harassment and assault, to make university a genuinely safe place for women.
Beyond campus, Government cuts are hitting women the hardest - our jobs, our access to reproductive health services, support for victims of domestic and sexual violence. Students, soon to be joining the scramble for jobs, need to be part of the fight-back in whatever way we can. If we don't defend our own rights, who will?