Category Archives: Gender

Helena Costa: French Ligue 2 Side Clermont Foot Name Woman Boss

Helena Costa

Portugal’s Helena Costa is to be the highest-profile female manager of a European men’s team after being named head coach of Clermont Foot in France.

Costa, a former scout for Scottish Premiership side Celtic, has coached the Iran women’s team since 2012.

The 36-year-old, who has also coached Benfica’s male youth teams and the Qatar women’s side, will join Clermont at the end of the season.

“It should help the club enter a new era,” said the Ligue 2 club.

Prior to Costa’s appointment, the highest-profile female coach of a men’s team in Europe was Carolina Morace, who took charge of Italian Serie C1 team Viterbese for two matches in 1999.  More …

 

‘Women’s Hour’ Top Ten Most Powerful Women

Woman’s Hour on BBC Radio 4 has announced its Power List for 2014, naming those it judges to be the UK’s 10 most important women. The programme elected a panel to pick the top 10 “game-changers” – women who have fought for what they believe
in, and have dedicated their time to making a difference to the lives of those around them. So who are they?  Find out more here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26935313

Inspirational Diversity Champion of the Month – March 2015

Sian Massey

March is International Women’s Month with International Women’s Day being held on 8 March.  For this reason we wanted to highlight a women whose career is particularly difficult to be successful in.  Sian Massey was chosen following a suggested by our HR colleague Paul Caruana who has seen Sian ‘in action’ whilst watching his beloved West Ham United.

Sian Massey is a female football official making her way in the difficult world of professional football.  She turned professional in March 2010, her first Premier League appointment was on

28 December 2010, as an assistant in Blackpool 2-0 away win at Sunderland.  Now Sian regularly officiates at all levels of English football from the Premiership all the way through the lower divisions.

Although not the first female football official, Amy Fearn and Wendy Toms having gone before her she is well known because she was the involved in the controversial incident where Sky Sports employees were sacked for making unprofessional\sexist remarks regarding her performance.  She, however, is now considered to be one of the best assistant referees in the country.

Sian also officiates at women’s matches being heavily involved in the women’s world cup tournaments of 2007 and 2011 and no doubt will be involved in the forthcoming world cup in 2015.

 

Supreme Court Judge Launches ‘Women in the Law’ Lectures

Baroness Hale of Richmond, the most senior female judge in the United Kingdom, has launched a guest lecture series at the University of Greenwich’s School of Law.

The talk to students by Lady Hale, the first and only woman in the Supreme Court, marked the start of the series entitled Women in the Law. She also answered students’ questions about her career as a lawyer.

Lady Hale became a High Court Judge in 1994 and was appointed Lord of Appeal in Ordinary in January 2004. She is now the Deputy President of the UK Supreme Court.  More http://www2.gre.ac.uk/about/news/articles/2013/a2810-supreme-court-judge-launches-women-in-the-law-lectures

Bristol University

Orchestras ‘still hostile to women’

Orchestra

 

Prejudice and hostile attitudes keep the upper echelons of classical music off-limits to many women, arts chief Jude Kelly has said.

The top of the profession is still “a place of too great an absence for women”, she said.

“Women still tell me they find orchestras can be hostile, can undermine them deliberately, that executive directors can be sceptical.”

Ms Kelly said deliberate decisions to promote female talent had to be taken.

“This is not about women doing it for themselves,” she said. “It’s about chaps who run orchestras and people who run music colleges getting behind women.”

“People tend to appoint in their own image. It’s a tendency of men to support other, younger men and feel paternalistic towards them. More … http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-25881668

Inspirational Diversity Champion of the Month – December 2013

 EVELYN GLENNIE – PERCUSSIONIST

Evelyn Glennie Pic 2

 

3rd December is International Day of Persons with Disabilities, with this in mind we have chosen Evelyn Glennie as our Diversity Champion for December.

Evelyn is a Scottish virtuoso percussionist.  She studied at Ellon Academy and the Royal Academy of Music, and was also a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland.  She has been profoundly deaf since the age of 12, having started to lose her hearing from the age of 8.

Evelyn  is the first person in musical history to successfully create and sustain a full-time career as a solo percussionist.

She regularly plays barefoot during both live performances and studio recordings in order to feel the music better.  Evelyn contends that deafness is largely misunderstood by the public. She claims to have taught herself to hear with parts of her body other than her ears. In response to criticism from the media, Glennie published “Hearing Essay” in which she discusses her condition.

She takes part in over 100 concerts a year as well as master classes and “music in schools” performances; she frequently commissions percussion works from composers and performs them in her concert repertoire.  She also plays the  Highland Bagpipes and has her own registered tartan known as “The Rhythms of Evelyn Glennie”.  In 2012, she collaborated with Underworld at the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games performing live in the stadium.

Evelyn was awarded an OBE in 1993 and became a Dame in 2007.

She has won many other awards, including:

  • Best Chamber Music Performance in the Grammy Awards of 1989
  • Scot of the Year 1982
  • Queen’s Commendation prize for all round excellence 1985
  • Scotswoman of the Decade 1990
  • Best Studio and Live Percussionist from Rhythm Magazine 1998, 2000, 2002, 2003 & 2004
  • Walpole Medal of Excellence 2002
  • Musical America Instrumentalist of the Year 2003
  • Sabian Lifetime Achievement Award 2006
  • Percussive Arts Society: Hall of Fame – November 2008

‘Lumberjill’ Memorial Unveiled in Dalby Forest

A memorial to the “lumberjills” – the women who worked in forestry during World War Two – has been unveiled in North Yorkshire.The sculpture in Dalby Forest, near Pickering, is a steel fabri…cation of a felled tree and two lumberjills.

Some 9,000 British women were recruited to work in forestry during the war.

The lumberjills carried out heavy work, felling trees by hand, working in sawmills, loading trucks and driving tractors.

The timber was made into telegraph poles, road blocks, packaging boxes and gun butts for the war effort, and even crosses for war graves.

Sculptor Ray Lonsdale won the Forestry Commission competition to create a lasting memorial to honour the women. More … http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-24843320

lumberjills 1

Sportswomen of the Year 2013 Shortlist Unveiled

 

Sportswoman of the Year 2013The 2013 Sunday Times Sportswomen of the Year shortlist has been unveiled.

Equestrian’s Charlotte Dujardin, cricketer Heather Knight and cyclist Becky James are all in contention for the 26th edition of the main award.

Athlete Christine Ohuruogu, bobsleigh’s Shelley Rudman and triathlete Non Stanford are the other candidates.

Other awards are Young Sportswoman (under 21), Disability Sports Person, Lifetime Achievement Award and the Helen Rollason Award for Inspiration. More …
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/athletics/24891264

Inspirational Diversity Champion of the Month – November 2013

TANNI GREY-THOMPSON – PARALYMPIAN

Tanni

November is Inspirational Role Models Month and with this in mind we have chosen Tanni Grey-Thompson as our Inspirational Diversity Champion.

Tanni who was born with spina bifida is considered to be one of the most successful disabled athletes in the world. She was christened Carys, but her sister referred to her as “tiny” when she first saw her, pronouncing it “tanni” and the name stuck.

Tanni first representated Wales at wheelchair racing in 1984 making her paralympic debut in Seoul in 1988. Over her career she won a total of 16 paralympic medals, including 11 golds, held over 30 world records and won the London Marathon six times between 1992 and 2002.

She retired following the Paralympic World Cup in Manchester in 2007. In preparation for her retirement from the track, she expanded her television presenting career on BBC Wales, SC4 and BBC One.

Tanni is a non-executive director for UK Athletics, sits on the board of the London Marathon and the board of Transport for London. She is Chair of the Women’s Sports and Fitness Foundation Commission on the Future of Women’s Sport. She is Vice-Chairman of the Laureus World Sport Academy and a trustee of the Sport for Good Foundation. She is also a Council member for the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust and an International Inspiration Ambassador. As well as this she is the Patron of the Tees Wheelyboats Club, a group providing disabled people with access to the Rivers Tees and Chair of the Tony Blaire Sports Foundation.

In March 2010, she was created a Life Peer, in 1993 she was awarded an MBE and OBE for “services to sport”, and in 2005 became a Dame. She has been BBC Wales Sports Personality of the Year three times; in 1992, 2000 and 2004. In 2000, she came third in the BBC Sports Personality of the Year, and she also received the Helen Rollason Award for her performance at the 2000 Summer Paralympics.

In July this year the University awarded Tanni a degree of Honorary Doctor of Science in recognition of her long service to disability and disadvantaged people, as well as to sport and the Paralympic games.

April Ashley, Transgender Icon: Liverpool Exhibition Opens

A year-long exhibition has recently opened at Liverpool Museum dedicated to the astonishing life of April Ashley. It examines how one of the first British people to undergo gender reassignment surgery helped to change society.

The exhibition focusing on her extraordinary journey from George Jamieson to April Ashley MBE draws on her own photographic archive and documents to look at the wider impact of changing social and legal conditions for all lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.  More http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-24271931

April Ashley