Friday 5th October

Hope you’ve all had a successful first week of lectures and you’re not too overwhelmed with work already!

We had our first Women’s Committee meeting of the year on Wednesday, lots of new people attended and I’m really excited about the campaigns and events we have planned for the year.

We’re planning a campaign on equal pay – challenging the shocking fact that women graduates still earn 15% less than male graduates within five years of graduation. On 30th October we’ll be taking part in No Pay Day – a national campaign to raise awareness of the fact that the pay gap is the equivalent of women only being paid until 30th October while men are paid until the end of the year.

Later in the year we’re looking at a campaign on body image and eating disorders – over a million people in Britain have an eating disorder and young women and students are the group most often affected. Earlier this week I met with university health service to discuss how we’ll work together on this campaign, and on initiatives throughout the year to raise awareness of eating disorders and the support available for people affected.

In Week Four (22nd October) we’ll be holding a pro-choice campaign week. This is part of a campaign organised by Abortion Rights, the national pro-choice campaign, to mark the anniversary of the 1967 Act which partially legalised abortion in Britain. According to a recent LSE study, access to safe, legal abortion has been more important in advancing women’s equality in this country than legislation on equal pay or equal opportunities. Despite this, it’s expected that MPs will soon (unless the recent speculation about a November election is true!) debate a Bill which could restrict these rights. It’s vital that the 75% of people who support a woman’s right to choose take action now to prevent any rolling back of these rights.

If you’re interested in being involved in the campaign please get in touch – bryony.shanks@sheffield.ac.uk or come to our next meeting – every Wednesday at 4pm in the Pennines.

Also coming up soon is the annual Pink Aerobics event! Taking place on October 19th as part of Breast Awareness Month, this event aims to raise money for charities such as Breast Cancer Care, as well as raising awareness of the issue among students. The event is open to all students and involves people participating in an aerobics class (not as energetic as it sounds!) on the concourse while wearing at least one item of pink clothing. We raise money through sponsorship and also through collecting donations on the day. If you’d like to get involved – either by participating in the aerobics or helping with fundraising - please get in touch, or just turn up on the day.

Also this week I attended the first Ethical and Environmental Committee meeting where we discussed our plans for the year ahead, including how to improve recycling, encourage students to use more environmentally-friendly transport, and how to take forward the Union’s policy of opposing our university’s investment in arms companies. On Wednesday I also spent some time helping the Palestine Society to collect signatures on a petition in support of a Palestinian student who is being prevented from returning from Gaza to Bradford University to complete the final year of his degree – if you’d like to find out more or sign the petition please visit www.letkhaledstudy.co.uk.

That’s all for now – as ever don’t hesitate to get in touch if you’d like to find out more about anything discussed in this blog, or discuss anything else about the women’s campaign in Sheffield.