Equality, Diversity & Inclusion
Just another University of Greenwich blog
Limerick referee Joy Neville tells BBC Sport of her journey to the top level of rugby union refereeing.
Neville, a former Irish rugby international, will also become the first woman to referee a Pro14 game when she takes charge of the Ulster and Southern Kings game on Friday. More
A statue commemorating the life of the suffragist, Millicent Fawcett, has been unveiled opposite Parliament.
She campaigned for women’s right to vote during the early 20th Century and is seen as one of the most influential feminists of the past 100 years.
Prime Minister Theresa May paid tribute to the “truly great” campaigner’s “lasting impact” after it was unveiled.
The bronze casting, by the artist Gillian Wearing, is the first statue of a woman erected in Parliament Square. More
Scotland are teaming up to empower more girls to discover the fun and fitness of rugby in a ground-breaking new partnership.
The new programme called ‘Guides into Rugby’ aims to encourage Girlguiding Scotland members age 10 to 14, many of whom may never have played rugby before, to experience Scottish Rugby’s Tartan Touch, a fun, simplified non-contact version of the sport.
As the leading charity for girls and young women in the country, with 50,000 members aged 5-25, it is hoped thousands of girls will have the opportunity to discover what rugby has to offer. More
We have published our gender pay gap report for 2017
This report sets out our headline gender pay gap figures, the reasons why we have a pay gap and how we are addressing it.
“I came back to a load of photocopying,” says tax specialist Richard Cahill of his return to work at a major international company after the birth of his second child.
“Basically they wanted to make the point that they weren’t happy with me,” he says of his former employers.
He had taken the time off under government rules which since 2015 have allowed mums and dads to share parental leave – but according to a new report from MPs, his story is typical of many working fathers who want to take a more equal share of childcare but fear their employers’ reaction if they ask for flexible work.
Government efforts to support fathers in the workplace have not yet delivered despite good intentions, says the report, from MPs on the Women and Equalities Committee. More
Photoshop had not been invented, but most female bodies in Victorian art were effectively airbrushed – usually painted by men as idealised objects of beauty.
Annie Swynnerton saw things differently, and blazed a trail for female artists.
When she was elected to the most exclusive society in British art, the Royal Academy (RA), it was a male-only club.
It was 1922 and she was the first woman to join since the Academy’s foundation 154 years earlier.
In fact, it had taken the RA so long to let Swynnerton in that she was 77 by the time she was admitted – and most men relinquished their positions at the age of 75. More
A hundred years ago, teams of women were playing in front of large crowds and making big money. Then the Football Association banned them from its grounds. Here’s the story of the fall and rise of women’s football, told through 10 objects collected by the National Football Museum. More
Boxer Nicola Adams has been turned into a Barbie doll for International Women’s Day, which is on Thursday, 8 March.
Nicola, who has twice won Olympic gold medals, is the first UK star to join Barbie’s ‘Shero’ range – designed to honour inspiring women.
Manufacturers Mattel say they chose Nicola because of her outstanding contributions to boxing.
“I am so excited and honoured to be Barbie’s first ever UK Shero and the first ever boxer Barbie,” Nicola said.
The Nicola Adams doll has boxing gloves, boxing gear embroidered with her ‘Lioness’ nickname and her distinctive cropped hairstyle. More
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LAURA JAMES – AUTHOR |
On 26 March it is the start of World Autism Awareness Week and with this in mind we have chosen Laura James as our Inspirational Diversity Champion of the Month. In the UK, there are 700,000 people diagnosed with autism, according to the NAS. One of those people is Laura James. Laura is a journalist, author and columnist and her work has appeared in many national and international newspapers and magazines, and she’s the author of nine books. Laura’s ninth book, Odd Girl Out, is a memoir focusing on her autism, the book tracks a year of her life as she comes to terms with the diagnosis. Laura always felt like she was different – but it took more than 40 years for her to find out why. At the age of 46 she was told she was autistic. Laura was being tested for a condition related to Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a connective tissue disorder, when a nurse recognised she was having an autistic meltdown. Laura presumed she had made a mistake but Laura visited her GP who referred her to a psychiatrist. After carrying out a six-hour assessment, she was given her autism diagnosis. At first Laura told only her family and close friends and found telling her husband and children quite uneventful, everyone else found out when she wrote an article about her diagnosis for The Guardian. Straight after her diagnosis things hadn’t changed very much, but then she had therapy which was amazing. Her therapist specialised in autism and understood how she thought and really helped with the things she found difficult. Through therapy and writing and everything that came after she learned to identify her feelings, put in to perspective the reason she always felt very fearful and learnt coping strategies like wearing noise cancelling headphones. Laura feels passionate about breaking the lingering stereotypes around autism and normalising the condition in conversation. She feels that ‘It doesn’t make you less of a person, just different.’ In an article for Good Housekeeping magazine Laura about her life and book said the following: ‘I want neurotypical women to read it so autism isn’t this big scary thing,’ Laura says. ‘When I was growing up people didn’t speak about depression – there was a proper stiff upper lip, whereas now there’s loads of people talking about health and wellbeing, including the royals. ‘If we could get to that stage with autism, where it’s mainstream and normalised, I think the world will be a much better place.’ To find out more about Laura see here https://twitter.com/girl_by_the_aga and to find out more World Autism Week see here http://www.autism.org.uk/get-involved/world-autism-awareness-week.aspx
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The days of male-dominated music festivals could be drawing to a close, after 45 events pledged to achieve a 50/50 gender balance by 2022.
Brighton’s Great Escape, the Cheltenham Jazz Festival, Liverpool Sound City and the BBC Proms are among those who have signed up to the initiative.
It is supported by Garbage star Shirley Manson, who recently called the music industry’s lack of equality “insane”.
Last year, 80% of festival headliners were male, a BBC study discovered. More