My troubles as a woman are not defined by your stereotypes of my troubles as a woman. Vote for Changing the Narrative on Women’s Issues
Shani Orgad and Rosalind Gill, authors of Confidence Culture, perfectly summed up an issue prevalent in women empowerment programs: Society's diagnosis of gender inequality in the workplace is that 'we' are the root of our problems. Women's lack of self-confidence, self-love, and self-worth is the plague harming women's ability to prosper in university and work environments.
https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2022/03/limits-women-confidence-workplace-inequality/626562/
Except... It is not.
The gender discrepancy in the impacts of COVID-19 is a prime example. A study conducted by Madgavkar et al. (2021) found that women’s jobs, globally, are 1.8 times as vulnerable to this crisis as men’s jobs. Women also made up 39 percent of global employment, yet accounted for 54 percent of overall job losses as of May 2020.
https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-work/covid-19-and-gender-equality-countering-the-regressive-effects
Why does this matter for my campaign?
Expanding the She Leads Programme for Women
The 'She Leads' programme at QUB is an astounding, empowering event for women to learn the social and work-focused skills to have confidence, drive, and community-support to help her efforts in improving at university and her future workplace; However, I want to expand the programme to recognize the contributing factors to women's struggle to grow in certain fields. As best said by Orgad and Gill, our problems as women have been historically-attributed to internal factors rather than the plethora of external factors. I aim to expand the 'She Leads' programme to educate women on the problems prevalent in their fields and create a space for us to discuss solutions and strategies to tackle them in our lives.
Creating Events to Acknowledge and Discuss Cultural Issues as Women
I aim to increase student's awareness of cultural impacts of women's issues. As an American, I have been faced with issues concerning the overturn of Roe v. Wade taking away abortion rights, the plethora of sexual assault stories finally leading to the #MeToo movement, and more. However, there are women among the student union from countries facing high rates of femicide, heightened inequality for career progression, among other issues. The link below shares gender inequality statistics from both private and public sectors in Northern Ireland. The injustice we face as women is not new, nor is it abruptly ending any time soon. I aim to draw more attention to these issues and create communities for women to safely discuss the challenges they face.
https://wrda.net/2020/02/07/gender-inequality-in-northern-ireland-where-are-we-in-2020/
Drawing Attention to Problems Women Face at Queen's University of Belfast
Coming out of the horrific COVID-19 lockdown, it is imperative to address issues that women still face post-pandemic. I vow to actively be the voice for women studying at QUB and ensure that Queen's is doing everything possible to support women through their journey through education. With recent protests against cost-of-living increases and the strikes for Industrial Action, a lot of women are sitting in a vulnerable position with statistics saying women were financially hurt the most after COVID-19. These are issues I will stand to make sure are heard and recognized throughout QUB.