It’s do great to hear from our student awardees while they are in-country doing their research. Thanks @FranEarp for this video from Laos @#NextGenAg4D
Let me tell you a story about being a sporty woman in Australia today.
And why it’s relevant to the #Matildas win.
This story started when I was 2 years old and my grandpa registered my younger brother for membership of a football club after his birth … but didn’t do this for me or my older sister when we were born.
It continued when I was 7 and my other grandparents won a big trailer raffle and saved the new basketball in it to give to my younger brother *in front of my older sister and I* as he was their oldest grandSON.
It continued when I was 12 and the school banned all girls from playing footy on the oval at lunchtime because sometimes when we kicked the ball our knickers showed (and we weren’t allowed to wear shorts).
It continued when I was in Year 12 and won the Open Cross Country Run event at school, yet that night my father asked my younger brother how he performed in the run (he came 7th or something) and my father didn’t ask me how I went till my mother made him. (My father was a kind, decent man who never deliberately hurt me but was also very much a product of his time.)
It continued when my son played Under 10’s Aussie Rules and I ran water for the team the entire year but when it came time for end-of-year photos, the team coach wouldn’t allow the women team helpers in the photo (but my boy’s father who was the team runner and all other men helpers were in the pic).
This is an incomplete list. And yes, it’s very minor in the general scheme of oppression and discrimination faced by so many people in so many ways.
But almost every woman on earth has stories a bit like (or very like) mine, and they hurt. Because while most men certainly face unfairness in their lives, they don’t face systemic oppression just for being male.
Yet for women such stories are part of the fabric of our lives. We never know when the harm will come or how much it will hurt, but we’ve been psychologically braced for it at all times since we were little girls.
There are stories in the media already about the kinds of harm some Matildas players have faced since they were little girls, too.
One of them talked about how she was forced to play for boy’s teams when younger and sometimes had no team at all: because she was a girl. One talked about her club having no women’s toilets or other facilities, which made their games very difficult. Others have spoken about the years and years where they played to crowds of just a few hundred, and have had to continually fight tooth and nail for fair conditions and pay (which was only kind-of achieved just a couple of years ago).
This means their current achievements are even more extraordinary, because they were gained despite a cacophony of oppression and male derision running like a poisoned stream alongside everything they did on a sporting field (and off of it).
It means the sheer guts they displayed last night is even more remarkable because they all had to overcome the myriad ways others tried to undermine their confidence at every stage of their sporting lives, as well as focus on the game.
And still, they had the courage and mental toughness to stand up and win.
For this reason, they’re true heroes in ways that male sporting stars rarely are. And this is why we women are so proud of last night’s victory, and so utterly absorbed by it.
We recognise the unbelievably difficult slog it is just to survive in a world dominated by men’s power. We’ve all (in sport, and elsewhere) suffered the hurts of being regularly ignored, laughed at and demeaned.
So the victory feels like a victory for all women, and an even bigger victory for the little girls who’ll suffer a little less in future because those incredible women have eased the path for those coming after them.
There are literally no words for how wonderful they are, for what we owe them, and for how much we wish them well for whatever comes next.
Forever and ever, let’s play like GIRLS.
#PlayLikeAGirl
#TilitsDone
Calls to update university student safety survey after fears true extent of #sexualassaults on campuses remains unknown. Universities Australia has not yet decided whether it will commission a third survey, despite @AusHumanRights recommending they do so.
https://t.co/yE103ZHeZa
#JobOpportunity 📢. Join us in advancing #GenderinAg research.
Apply for this position and support @CGIARgender in developing, guiding and conducting gender impact assessments across the @CGIAR research programs and initiatives
Read more: https://t.co/DlZiQ9vhid #OneCGIAR
"Community-led #academic perspectives are crucial and yet #feminist publishing remains heavily Western-centric."
@FranEarp of @jcu writes about her research into racial hierarchies in feminist academia and publishing: https://t.co/N43G5GWq7T
“The idea of development is wholly metaphorical” Associate Professor Morgan Brigg is discussing definitions of relational development that acknowledge the emergence of European wealth through dispossession and European self-making efforts
We’re live and listening to Associate Professor Morgan Brigg and Associate Professor Mary Graham in our first 2023 online seminar ‘Indigenous Peoples and Relational ‘Development’: From disavowal to embrace?’
The DSAA committee has been busily working away on some super exciting member-only events. Kicking 2023 off with our online seminar next Friday! Register now and if you’re not already a DSAA member you can become one at our website!
Have you registered for our DSAA Member-Only Workshop 'Indigenous Peoples and Relational ‘Development’: From Disavowal to Embrace?'
You can register here https://t.co/VlR3pTuRrR
and if you're not a member and you want to join you can become a member now https://t.co/Ng7mXkjpdz
Have you registered for our DSAA Member-Only Workshop 'Indigenous Peoples and Relational ‘Development’: From Disavowal to Embrace?'
You can register here https://t.co/VlR3pTuRrR
and if you're not a member and you want to join you can become a member now https://t.co/Ng7mXkjpdz
The amount people saying @galdemzine was their first commission is a testament to how many new voices they brought forward to the media landscape at large. They catapulted so many careers forward, all with a lack of ego, and total faith in us. We’re forever grateful. ❤️
Are you a woman from a low- or middle-income country wanting to disseminate your parasitology research to an international audience? If so, apply for our Equity in Parasitology (EQUIP) Scholarships to attend @WAAVPPARA in Chennai India.
The deadline closes at 23:59 GMT TOMORROW!
@klchnr Couldn’t agree more with this @klchnr! It’s so commercialised that it often only makes space for empty conversations about gender equality and empowerment without making promises for real change.
1/ Today marks International Women’s Day. As a PhD candidate studying female empowerment, I feel a certain obligation to commemorate this day. However, I must admit that I’m not entirely sure what I should say.