Concerning Proposed Changes to Student Visas

I have not blogged much about this, but it is something that angers me greatly and affects me personally. The direction that UK immigration policy has been moving in the past few years is unjust, xenophobic and damaging to the vibrancy and diversity of the country. Now there are further proposed changes to student visas and this is a move that will benefit nobody. You can read about these changes here.

This prompted me to write to both my MP and the MP of a friend of mine who would be drastically effected by the proposals, specifically about the move to prohibit part-time working and force non-EU students to leave as soon as their course ends. I have copied what I wrote to them below adapted to be used by anybody, and I ask you to also use some or all of what I have written to send a message to your own MP. You can find your MP here.

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Dear Madam/Sir,

I am writing to you to voice my concern regarding the proposed changes to student visas for those outside of the EU and the implications this will have.

There is a PhD student at the University of York and is originally from the USA. His thesis investigates the royal progresses of Queen Elizabeth I and through his hard work examining archive materials he has made unique historical discoveries about this period of British history. He is part way through his research, yet already knows that his heart belongs to the UK and this is where he would like to remain and work once he has completed his PhD. He is also a superb teaching, inspiring undergraduates at York as to the value and pleasure to be gained from History!

Yet this is all put in jeopardy by the proposed measures. Teaching is a vital part of the PhD process - it trains the educators of the future, its a vital career skill and one that helps to disseminate innovative research findings to new audiences. By not letting non-EU students undertake paid employment during their studies you would deprive them of this vital career skill, and a vital mechanism by which they can earn enough money to live on in order to continue research that benefits the UK - culturally and economically. Nobody benefits from such legislation.

Insisting that non-EU students leave at the end of their course also a ludicrous measure. For one, when do you deem the end of a PhD students course? It is not a clean cut process - there is a hand-in, the Viva defence and the process of tidying up any research we might be undertaking in partnership with others. By essentially deporting and then allowing re-entry once a suitable job has been found will only harm your immigration statistic too, surely? But also, you are insisting that having been in the UK for over 4 years, that in that time a student will not have made the UK their home. Being in the country where one has developed years worth of personal and professional ties is often essential to successfully building a career in academia, especially building upon existing research. Surely having cultivated a world-leading researcher in their field, the UK would want to benefit from and support their ongoing career?

Within universities across the country, a significant proportion of the staff and students come from overseas originally. They bring with them different perspectives, different experiences and wealth of knowledge that makes the UK research environment so rich.

I believe that these proposed immigration policies will make the UK a less appealing place for immigrants - but your party seem to have missed the point. It will make the UK a less appealing place for the most brilliant and resourceful people in the world to undertake innovative research and education. Please do not play to the xenophobic rhetoric. Nobody benefits from such legislation. 

Yours sincerely,

Women’s Rights Are Human Rights

This post was written in my capacity as Gender Ambassador for Chat for Change. Check out their website for lots of other amazing youth bloggers chatting about gander equality this month!



“Women’s Rights Are Human Rights” - a famous quote, often attributed to Hilary Clinton, but widely used by many to highlight the need to recognise women as equal to men.

Next week sees the start of an event at the United Nations, the Commission on the Status of Women, which specifically seeks to examine how the rights of women are being assured around the world. The event will bring together a record number of government officials and civil society organisations this year as it also marks the 20th anniversary of a landmark conference held in 1995 in Beijing. Globally, however, the past few years have seen countries want to regress on the promises made at these previous events. The rights of women and girls have come under threat.

Women, and girls in particular, are often seen as a group who can be politically ignored. In some countries the face restrictions on their ability to vote. In the vast majority of countries there are fewer women members of parliament than men. Men’s concerns are societal issues and “women’s issues” are relegated to a niche area of policy. We should not be marginalised – women make up around 50% of the population and the specific challenges facing us across our lifetime deserve due attention in local, national and international policies.

This year, 2015, presents us with several turning points in which we can accept the current situation or advocate for the rights of all human beings to be assured no matter their gender or where they are born. With a summit to present the next international development agenda in September and a major climate change summit later in the year, the future of the planet for decades to come will be shaped in the next 12 months.

With International Women’s Day coming up on the 8th March, there is no better time to add your voice to the call for gender equality. Take to twitter to state #WomensRightsAreHumanRights this Sunday (or everyday for that matter). Tag your tweet to #CSW59 to share your thoughts with those in New York next week. Search for your countries UN Mission in New York and email them your concerns. But most importantly, spread the message in your own community. Tell your friends and family that you believe in gender equality and make it a reality through you own life too!

You can download a mini-zine featuring the key points to raise to protect the rights of girls in the future international development agenda here. This can be printed on A4 paper, a cut made along the bold grey line in the middle of the page and then folded into a miniature magazine.

Social Justice – Taking Action on Gender Equality

This blog was written for Chat For Change on the subject of social justice. Visit this platform and get chatting yourself to discuss the importance of human rights to young people!

The difference between “Social Justice Issues” and other “Social Issues” is the idea that we have a moral duty to address an issue of social justice.

A social issue may be specific to a place and have negative consequences, but there are other influencing factors as to whether it should be addressed or not. For example perhaps the idea of graffiti in a neighbourhood, some people will think it is a menace but others will call it art. In contrast social justice issues are often connected to human rights. A social justice issue might be the lack of access to something that is considered a “right” and is often connected with the idea of equity.

This is why gender inequality is often talked about as a social justice issue – because it is about people being treated differently and having different access to their rights based on their gender. Gender inequality is not just one thing and is made up of lots of other social justice issues – the discrimination against women in being allowed to own property, discrimination based on gender when moving from one country to another, violence against a person based on their gender, and many more.

It is this last issue, gender based violence, that I want to highlight as one we should talk more about. This type of violence comes in many different forms – intimate partner or domestic violence (which takes place within relationships or families), sexual violence, genital cutting, early and forced marriage. These are often very sensitive topics. They are connected with a lot of emotions for survivors of violence. And our culture often says that we should not speak about them in public as they are private matters.

However, if we do not speak about them, then these injustices will continue to happen. It is a difficult conversation to start and many adults do not think these are topics to discuss with young people. But there are startling statistics about how many young people have been subject to violence based on their gender, be that male, female or another gender identity. It is too late to wait to have those conversations as adults – we need to create safe spaces to discuss these subjects with all young people so that they are empowered to address violence amongst their peer groups and prevent it from happening.



It is an issue of social justice, everyone has a right to a life free from violence, and as such we have a duty to address it. What programmes have you come across that work towards achieving gender equality and ending gender based violence?

It’s Pointless for Girlguiding to Support No More Page 3

This morning, I walked through Sheffield City Centre and was met by two poster boards each showing a woman in her swimming costume. It made me happy. They were billboards advertising the “This Girl Can” campaign and I’m looking forward to a chance to get back in the pool this weekend.

But it wasn’t until I saw Twitter that I felt the need to blog – the reports of the end of near naked women in The Sun newspaper were premature. Or rather, by the fact it was The Times (owned by the same corporation as The Sun) that announced the demise of the feature it was actually a malicious and misogynistic hoax. Printing a naked woman in The Sun today, to me, has just made it clear how much the editors, owners and decision makers at that paper must hate women, how threatened they felt by women celebrating the tiny victory that was the covering up of breasts on a feature that still aimed to objectify women.

One article in the New Statesman suggested that it was a mistake for the campaign to be asking so nicely for what it wants, but actually it’s about what kind of society we want to create. No More Page 3 is not about taking away one picture from one newspaper – that is the symbolism. It’s about creating a society where young women feel valued and respected, where they can live free from the fear of sexual assault, and where we have a media that is free to say what it wants but chooses not to contribute to creating the systemic inequalities that prevent us from achieving that society we want.

I have to admit that when I first read the news this morning I thought – how to we get the people behind The Sun to listen? Do we play to the economics? Do we boycott – though arguably those of us who have a problem with Page 3 already don’t buy it! Do we need direct action? But we don’t need more cultural violence and focusing on economics just supports the idea that money does equal power.

Then I was thinking that, actually, it’s pretty pointless for Girlguiding to support No More Page 3 (bear with me feminists). 88% of Senior Section members polled voted for the organisation to put its weight behind the campaign – but that’s a bunch of people who The Sun editors probably believe are predominantly white, middle class, 16-25 year old women (we can have the debate about the real demographic profile of Girlguiding sometime else – the media don’t work with facts, they work with assumptions). They’re not exactly, and I am returning partially to the economic argument, the prime Sun purchasing audience are they?

Yes I want to teach other young women that our opinions matter, that they are powerful and can affect change. They are, but maybe not in the way we think.

When you look at the list of organisations signed up to support the No More Page 3 campaign, they mostly focus on girls and women's issues, youth issues, related to education, and many perceived as middle class domains. Nearly 60% of The Sun readers are over 45 years old. 60% of them are men. Over 50% of the readership are men categorised as belonging to social classes ‘CDE’ – and they definitely weren’t in the 88% of 16-25 year old Girlguiding members.

The Sun is a corporation, it doesn’t have morals, it serves the needs of its shareholders to earn money. We can’t make a for-profit newspaper take any action other than that which serves its economic interests. But it is run by people, probably a lot of men, but there will be women in their lives too. We want to end of Page 3 to come about because women are valued and it will come to an end when those people who run and control The Sun do just that.

I say that it is pointless for Girlguiding to support the No More Page 3 campaign, because they currently do so surrounded by their peers – organisations that by their nature value young women already. Yes, we should continue to support and promote the petition. Yes, we should continue to promote the value of participation in peaceful protest and democratic mechanisms. But we need to wake up to the fact that the only way the Page 3 nudity will truly be gone for good is when everybody who prints, edits, buys and looks at it understands why it needs to go. Girlguiding supports girls and young women to develop their full potential, to become confident individuals who will change the lives of those around them – this more than petition signing will contribute to the end of Page 3 nudity.

My proposal. Back to those “This Girl Can” posters. We want societal change, we want positive images of young women that celebrate them, not objectify them, we need to make that change. Let’s put “The Alternative Page Three” everywhere; let’s get organisations and individuals who might even have supported Page 3 to realise how it benefits them to value young women; let’s encourage those dissatisfied with our current media portrayals to write, to take their own photographs, to take over and create their own media outlets; let’s work together to create a culture of respect, a culture of consent and a society that cares about all its members.

So yes, sign the petition, but don’t just do that. Value the women in your life and do everything in your power to make sure everyone else values them too. Because they are awesome and deserve respect.

Today the people behind The Sun disrespected them. What are you going to do about that?

Rethinking (Dis)ability

This post was originally written for Chat for Change.

What is a disability? The use of this word is charged with social, political, environmental and emotional meaning. How I am using it in this blog post is to reflect a characteristic of a person which is not catered for generally by society and thus results in barriers to different forms of participation.

Often people living with disabilities are depicted purely through the iconography of somebody in a wheelchair, leaving out the needs of everybody who might be disabled by society in a different way. 

A person passing me in the street would rarely categorise me as having a ‘disability’ – however my varying levels of ability that classify me as having dyslexia and dyspraxia mean I use a number of additional tools to undertake certain written and reading activities. The problem is the same as for wheelchair uses, those with a hearing impairment or with a visual impairment – society sets things out in a certain expected way, such as steps up to a shop or library, and a disability is something which requires a person to need an additional tool to enable them the access the same facility or service, such as a ramp or lift.

Having a disability is often stigmatised and as such creates inequalities in access to employment, education, health care, housing services. People living with disabilities are often discriminated against and when this is combined with gender inequalities it can create a double level of discrimination against girls and women living with disabilities. If girls are less likely to complete primary or secondary education in many countries, then where there is another barrier which prevents access to education, such as a disability, girls will be particularly affected.

If we think about it, over the course of our lifetime each of us has differing capabilities and differing additional needs at various stages. I would argue that the nearly everybody in the world would benefit from thinking more about accessibility in all that we do at some time or other.

When we plan our facilities, services and programmes we need to think through as many scenarios as possible to help us cater for the diversity of potential users – but we will never be able to anticipate every need, and that is why it is also important to be adaptable. When we come to realise a barrier to somebody’s access and participation, we need to be willing to speak out, find solutions and make change happen!

Toilets - A Gendered Issue

When I was 17, I spent five weeks in Ghana on a volunteering project. Whilst there I taught English in the local school and worked with a local NGO (funded by WaterAid) to build toilets for families. Whilst now I am critical of the usefulness of having British teenagers mix concrete, dig holes and build walls when local people could have been learning these skills and possibly even been employed to do so,  I quickly realised the value of the project as a whole. 

You don't have to search far to find the dangers of lack of access to adequate sanitation. The WHO estimates that almost 800,000 child deaths a year are caused by diarrhoea - that's about 1 in 9 worldwide. Open defacation spreads disease and contaminates water supplies amongst the most vulnerable populations. 

Then there are the specific threats that a lack of access to a toilet creates for women and girls in particular. Most people will have heard the reports of two girls in India who were raped and murdered when they left their home to go to the toilet in nearby fields. Attacks like these are all to common place as 1 in 3 women around the world don't have access to a place to safely go to the loo! Yes, when talking about violence against women and girls we need to tackle the reasons why violence happens with the people who are committing these acts, but in this case we could do so much by ensuring everybody has access to adequate sanitation facilities.

Girls and women also face challenges on how to deal with their periods when they have limited access to private sanitary facilities. Once she has started her period a girl will regularly miss school if she doesn't have access to suitable toilets whilst there - estimates vary between 6 weeks and 2 months of each year, that's a lot of education to be missing! There are critical issues to be addressed in providing facilities, but also in providing access to materials that can keep a young woman clean and healthy during her period without unsustainable economic or environmental consequences.

This week I read countless articles about innovative sanitation systems, each developed from specific local needs and circumstances. From the solar powered, self cleaning loos in India to the rickshaw port-a-loos across Africa and Asia and the use of readily available materials (bamboo among them) in any context. This is a challenge that we need to innovate our way out of and we can do that if we invest our time and resources in the right places. 

What Are Your Gender Equality Priorities?

This blog was first published on girlsmatter.org.uk.

From closing the gender pay gap to ending violence against women and girls, many actions could improve our lives in the UK.

Through my role as a Post-2015 Ambassador for the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, I have attended many events and talk to UK politicians about how they could take action on gender inequalities at home and around the world. In that space I try to convey the diverse experiences of the hundreds of thousands of girls and young women who aren't able to be there with me - a very difficult task!

That's why I find it particularly exciting when there is an opportunity for everybody to easily and directly contribute their own views on such an important issue.

What progress has been made to improve the lives of women and girls?

Twenty years ago, a landmark event took place. Beijing, China played host to the UN Fourth World Conference on Women, and 189 countries (including the UK) signed up to the resulting declaration and platform for action.

In June this year, the UK government released a progress report on how they have tackled gender inequalities in line with the outcomes from Beijing - and now they are asking for your thoughts. This week the Government Equalities Office has launched an online survey asking for your thoughts on two questions.

- What progress has been made to improve the lives of women and girls in the UK since 2010?

- What future priorities for women and girls should the government focus on in the next five years?

Tremendous progress has been made around the world since the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action were signed, and you can help to ensure that progress continues for years to come.

Have your say

Head over to the Government Equalities Office website right now to find out more about the consultation and to complete the survey. It takes just five minutes to have your say and to shape future government policy on gender equality.

Where do your draw the (poverty) line?

If you've been following this blog for a while, you might know that Out For Equality started as my 'Take Action' project after participating in a World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts event back in 2010. That is why I'm particularly excited to be participating in Chat For Change - a human rights project set up by Erin Wicking in Australia after she too participated in a WAGGGS event. Chat For Change is all about speaking out for human rights, with a different focus subject each month, through blogs, videos and events. This month the subject is "Poverty" and this is my blog:

When I was 18, one of my first essays in the first few weeks of university asked me to define the poverty line - how do we decide who is poor and who is not? What about extreme poverty, absolute poverty, relative poverty? Is a $1 a day a useful measure? What about the poorest 10% of a population? Or those earning less than 50% of the median income in a country? The questions go on.

Looking back at this question after the intervening 6 years and I know from my experiences that the idea of a poverty line is only partially useful. A poverty line lets you decide where poverty is growing or receding, it's lets you make nice statistics and for bureaucrats to pat themselves on the back for making sure there's less 'poor' people in a given year for example. But it makes me uncomfortable because statistics can be manipulated, numbers can be twisted, and they don't tell you about the daily lived realities of the people either side of the line. Poverty doesn't effect "10%", it effects real people. 

That's why instead of focusing on the numbers, we should focus on the solutions - we should focus on enabling everybody to live a fulfilling life regardless of their economic means. 

Ending poverty is not about 'giving them more money' especially as, in the UK at least, the dominant discourse has a distinctly colonial flavour. White people give money to some more white people who make the decisions about how and where they will spend the money which will be eagerly received by black and brown people (largely in Africa and increasingly in Asia). 

I want to propose a different route to ending poverty. Whilst I think there are key projects that are necessarily for a fulfilling life such as education, healthcare, employment and being able to live free from violence, we need to co-commission any project with the community it will affect. By delivering poverty eradication strategies with local partners we enable people as creators of their own future, we will deliver more sustainable projects and we will deliver development which is relevant to that community, not to the small elite group of people who are funding or planning it. 

Relative poverty also isn't a concept we can ignore. This methodology would therefore be as appropriate to communities in the UK and Australia as anywhere else in the world - through the non-discriminatory provision of support and resources, we can enable everybody to become agents of development in their own communities. 

Training the Next Body Confidence Ambassadors with #FreeBeingMe

"When you comment on a picture on the internet, make it about the person/how you feel" - this was just one of the many suggestions this weekend on how to encourage friends and family to become body confident.

With some great timing to coincide with International Day of the Girl on Saturday and Body Confidence Week this week, I was excited to be leading a training last weekend for 26 young members of Girlguiding to become peer educators. 

4 Peer Education

4 Peer Education is Girlguiding's peer education initiative and something I have been part of since 2007. Through 4 I have delivered sessions for my peers on everything from bullying to alcohol abuse and the skills and knowledge have come in useful when helping friends through personal situations. Currently, Girlguiding's peer educators can lead sessions for members, other youth groups and schools on three topics: Youth Health (developed with Department of Health), Healthy Relationships (developed with AVA), and Free Being Me. This last initiative focuses of body confidence and was developed by the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts and the Dove Self Esteem Initiative. it is being delivered all over the world and the goal is to reach 3.5 million girls by 2016.

Free Being Me

This weekend's training for 26 young women in the Anglia region of Girlguiding concentrated on the Free Being Me resource. First we defined the image myth that dominates our media and society and then we broke it down. We covered practical skills for challenging this myth including spotting the changes in airbrushed images and talking to their friends about the subject. The suggestions in the photo above were their ideas on how they can break down the image myth in their day to day life. 

I was honoured to witness their development over the weekend - leaving on Sunday afternoon as confident and enthusiastic peer educators and ambassadors for body confidence. It was fantastic to hear that some of them are even leading their first sessions for Girlguiding units this week! 

Body Confidence For All!

I hope to help Free Being Me to grow and develop girls body confidence across the UK but it would be great if politicians would take notice of the impact of this programme, learn from it and ensure that all young people in the UK can be body confident by providing similar activities through schools. 

"Objectivity is Male Subjectivity"

I am now a little over two weeks into my PhD. I am looking at spaces in museums in the city of Sheffield - not a topic that is explicitly about gender, but as I believe there is a gendered perspective to most things I'm sure I will be thinking about it over the next three years.

Last week I sat in my first lecture for a module I have to take as a refresher on quantitative methods for the social sciences - that is, mostly statistical analysis. A few slides into the presentation there are a few bullet points on categorical variables - those that can be divided into discrete categories. Option one was binary variables and surprise, surprise the example read e.g. Sex male/female. Now the lecturer clearly sensed the discomfort with what he was proposing as he was met with affronted and quizzical looks and whispered comments. At least a half dozen students in the room are doing specifically feminist research. He moved swiftly on. 

Whilst I acknowledge that there are varying interpretations of both sex and gender as a binary, trinity or continuous spectrum, it seems lazy and ill thought out to include it as an absolute in a lecture when it can easy be anticipated that the students will have varying positions. It's incidences like these that make me uneasy with the use of quantitative methods as supposedly objective research. To me it is clear that categorising any data is done on the basis on personal bias and subjectivity, just in a more hidden and sometimes socially accepted way than more qualitative methods of research. 

This morning I was reading an article by Grayson Perry in the New Statesman - about the "default man". You can read it at http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2014/10/grayson-perry-rise-and-fall-default-man. Perry identifies this as an identity group which dominates  politics and big business. He also uses the phrase "objectivity is male subjectivity" which I believe is extremely applicable to academia. 

Whilst there is a growing visible presence of research that seeks to break down patriachical norms that I've come across, I think there is still a fair way to go before the notion of objectivity and a white straight male bias no longer dominate research across all disciplines.