We were asked to respond to this consultation as an Association which has been involved in nominating people to the panels. Our response is below – many thanks to all the members who were involved in drafting it. Individuals are also able to respond – so if you feel strongly about this issue please visit http://www.hefce.ac.uk/research/ref/pubs/2011/03_11/consult/ to submit your comments.

The Feminist and Women’s Studies Association welcomes the attempts made in the REF 2014 draft criteria and working methods to support staff whose ability to produce outputs has been negatively affected by their circumstances. However, we believe that the provisions made for pregnancy and maternity leave are woefully inadequate. The proposal under ‘clearly defined circumstances’ specifies that the number of outputs submitted can only be reduced once 14 months of maternity leave has been taken. This does not go anywhere towards compensating for the impact of any period of maternity leave and subsequent return to work on an employee’s productivity. The alternative, to submit women who have taken maternity leave as having ‘complex circumstances’ which might justify a reduction in outputs (although this is not guaranteed), leaves too much discretion to individual institutions which may be tempted not to follow this route in order to avoid extra bureaucracy and potential problems.

Read the rest of this entry →

Finn Mackay’s article:

http://www.thefreshoutlook.com/index.php?action=newspaper&subaction=article&toDo=show&postID=5629

Stuart Basten’s article:

http://www.thefreshoutlook.com/index.php?action=newspaper&subaction=article&toDo=show&postID=5644

Dear all,

It gives me great pleasure to announce this year’s essay competition results. This year’s winning essay is:

Dieuwertje Dyi Huijg ”Tension in Intersectional Agency. A theoretical discussion of the interior conflict of white, feminist activists’ intersectional location”

The shortlisted essays which together with the winning essay will be published in the Journal of International Women’s Studies are:

Emilia Aaltonen ”‘Punching Like a Girl’: Embodied Violence and Resistance in the Context of Women’s Self-defense”

Jeanne Firth ”Health Choices and Heavy Burdens: Race, Citizenship and Gender in the ‘Obesity Epidemic’”

Aristea Fotopoulou ”Intersectionality and Queer Studies as methodological frameworks for social research”

Maria do Mar Pereira ”Gender Studies is Proper Knowledge, But…: Discourses of Dismissive Recognition of Feminist Scholarship”

Congratulations to all winners, and to everyone who contributed to making this round such a success! The judges agreed that the quality of essays received was strong, as always, though with a few more from the Social Sciences.

The FWSA is pleased to announce a new initiative in search for original and exciting cover illustrations for its biannual newsletter. We encourage artists, photographers and illustrators to submit a piece of their work for consideration as a cover image. Images should be – in the broadest possible sense – inspired by or relatable to the topics of women, gender and/or feminism. Artists whose work is selected for our newsletter cover will receive a feature in the form of an interview and/or prose piece in the same issue as well as a free copy of the newsletter. Please see below and attached for detailed submission guidelines and a submission form.

The FWSA Newsletter is a biannual publication with a readership of nearly 300 national and international subscribers from a wide range of disciplines and interest areas related to women, gender and feminism. In addition, the newsletter is distributed at a variety of conferences and locations relevant to FWSA’s remit. The newsletter is published in January and July.

Submission Requirements

Read the rest of this entry →

The British Historians of Women in the Americas (BHWAs) will hold their annual conference on Wednesday 6th July 2011.  The conference will be held at Brunel University, West London, and will run in parallel with the Feminist and Women’s Studies Association’s ‘Futures of Feminism’ conference.

We welcome papers on any aspect of women’s and gender history in North America, South America and the Caribbean.  Papers that investigate women’s lives from single or multiple vantage points whether topically or geographically are equally welcome.  Scholars working on related topics are encouraged to put together a panel of two to four papers.  Speakers at the event will have the opportunity to submit their paper for consideration in the BHWAs’ journal, History of Women in the Americas.

The event has two keynote speakers: Professor Steven Reschly, Truman State University, who will be speaking about his research on Amish women and consumer culture, and Professor Catherine Clinton, Queen’s University Belfast (tbc).

A 300 word abstract should be submitted to Jay Kleinberg (jay.kleinberg@brunel.ac.uk) and Rachel Ritchie (rachel.ritchie@brunel.ac.uk) by Friday 6th May 2011.  All other enquiries about the conference, the BHWAs and History of Women in the Americas, should be directed to Rachel Ritchie (rachel.ritchie@brunel.ac.uk).
Those interested in attending the conference as a delegate are also more than welcome.  Please register your interest by Friday 6th May 2011.

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

The average container ship can carry about 4,500 containers. This blog was viewed about 19,000 times in 2010. If each view were a shipping container, your blog would have filled about 4 fully loaded ships.

In 2010, there were 20 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 31 posts. There were 10 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 2mb. That’s about a picture per month.

The busiest day of the year was March 10th with 352 views. The most popular post that day was Join.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were userpages.umbc.edu, facebook.com, sussex.ac.uk, mail.live.com, and palgrave-journals.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for fwsa, imageining the female body, registration, feminist and women’s studies association, women’s studies uk, and feminist association.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

Join April 2009
2 comments

Conferences and Events April 2009
4 comments

About Us April 2009
8 comments

Upcoming Conferences and Events September 2009

2010 Annual Student Essay Competition April 2009
2 comments

We have put together some of the material circulated on the listserv with respect to the impact of current education cuts on women. Feel free to add to this resource bank and/or comment:

http://womenagainstthecuts.wordpress.com/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/26/student-protest-public-sector-cuts

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1332811/TUITION-FEES-PROTEST-Students-streets-girls-leading-charge.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1332811/TUITION-FEES-PROTEST-Students-streets-girls-leading-charge.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/video/2010/dec/08/students-protest-gender-gap

Read the rest of this entry →

THE FUTURES OF FEMINISM

NEW DIRECTIONS IN FEMINIST, WOMEN’S & GENDER STUDIES

Annual FWSA Conference, 5-7 July 2011, Brunel University

Keynote Speakers: Professor Rosi Braidotti (Universiteit Utrecht)
Professor Shirin Rai (University of Warwick)
Dr. Susan Watkins (Leeds Metropolitan University)

Since the final decade of the twentieth century, discussions about and within feminism have often focused on feminism’s place and relevance in today’s Western societies and on the conceptualisations of the relationships between different strands and waves of the movement. This conference seeks to redress the focus on internal and generational divisions by exploring potential feminist futures and investigating new directions in feminist, gender and women’s studies across activism, theory and practice in a range of disciplines and through a variety of social and cultural phenomena. As such, the event aims to address both where feminism is going as well as where it has not yet been, including areas of enquiry which have been neglected or ignored in past decades and approaches which conceptualise or help to shape potential feminist futures. We welcome paper and panel proposals from a range of disciplines across the sciences, arts and humanities. Topics may include, but are by no means limited to:

•     New directions and developments in feminist, women’s, gender and queer studies

•     Post and third-wave feminisms’ roles in the futures of feminism

•     The impacts of new forms of (transnational) activism and the ‘global’

•     Critical pedagogy and feminist futures

•     Feminist historiography and its influences on feminisms’ futures

•     Feminist developments and futures in literature, popular culture, the media and on screen

Please email 250 word proposals for 20 minute presentations or 750 word panel proposals to the conference organisers Dr. Jessica Cox and Nadine Muller at futures-of-feminism@fwsa.org.uk by 1st April 2011, and feel free to send any queries you may have regarding this event to the same address. Further information is available on the conference website at http://
futuresoffeminism.wordpress.com/

For more information about the FWSA, including current competitions, joining information and contact details, please visit: www.fwsa.org.uk