Skip to main content

International Women’s Day at Birkbeck

A podcast, a lecture and an exhibition mark International Women's Day 2014

Saturday 8 March is International Women’s Day. To mark this annual event, this month’s episode of our Birkbeck Voices podcast features an all female line-up of Birkbeck academics and our President, Baroness Joan Bakewell; the Birkbeck Big Ideas series focuses on women’s work in the 21st century; and an exhibition highlights the story of women refugee academics.

Birkbeck’s Female Voices

In this month’s Birkbeck Voices podcast, academics Dr Rosie Campbell (Politics), Dr Janet McCabe (Media, Film and Cultural Studies), Dr Sarah Lamble (Law), Dr Ioanna Boulouta (Management) and Professor Annette Karmiloff-Smith (Psychological Sciences) talk about their research into issues affecting women. Whether it’s politics or prisons, board rooms or science labs, or considering how women age in popular culture, their insights show that despite advances towards gender equality there remain many crucial issues to be addressed.

Baroness Bakewell brings an international perspective, reflecting on her recent trip to Burma, where she met Aung Sang Suu Kyi, the Burmese opposition politician who spent 17 years under house arrest and is now determined to change her country’s constitution to enable her to run as President. She also discusses the changes to women’s roles in society over the last 60 years, reflecting on her own experiences at the women-only Newnham College, Cambridge in the 1950s and her subsequent career at the BBC.

Birkbeck Big Ideas for International Women’s Day

The Birkbeck Big Ideas series of talks and workshops at the Ideas Store, Whitechapel continues on Friday 7 March with a talk by Dr Rosie Cox on “Women's Work in the 21st Century: Old Problems, New Horizons”. Dr Cox will examine the problem of the ‘double burden’, which sees women working outside the home in greater numbers, without a corresponding redivision of work within the home to counterbalance this.

The talk will explore what work is like for women in the 21st century and how we can make sure new horizons overcome old problems.

Exhibition highlights stories of women refugee academics

‘The space between’ is a free photographic exhibition documenting the journeys of four women refugee academics. It will be on display at the Peltz Gallery in Birkbeck’s School of Arts at 43 Gordon Square from Tuesday 4 March – Monday 10 March (weekdays 10am-5:30pm, Saturday 10am-1pm, Sunday closed).

More news about: