Podcast, Stories
The Culture of Genius and Women Impostors in Academia
The culture of genius and women impostors in academia
Underrepresentation and discrimination of women in academic
Author: Maria Angel-Ferrero
Image: Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash
As a woman who has “made it” into Academia, by surmounting both the gender and origin barriers, I believe I have to step out of the “safe” silence that neglect the voice of many women in Academia.
The gender gap is still a prominent issue in Academia, especially in STEM. Women, despite universities and government policies against discrimination, remain vastly under-represented in the ivory.
Women, compared to male peers, earn less, take longer to get tenure, occupy fewer top tier positions, receive fewer grants and scholarships, just to name a few.
On top of all that, women in Academia are expected to work harder, produce more research, participate in multiple projects, take on more service and teaching hours, nurture their students, listen and show compassion for their colleagues, and outperform male academics, to just maybe get equal chances and treatment.
This constant (unequal) pressure women academics have to cope with it’s exhausting. This (un)justified quest for fair recognition of their work is probably one of the main causes for the impostor syndrome, and consequently burnout and depression.
Unfortunately, this is still the reality for many women in different fields and career paths.
This inequality of gender has its deepest roots in the encoding of our society about who has and who hasn’t; who is the active giver and who is the passive receiver; who is born with, and who is born without.
I grew up in a “macho” society. A society that had decided the roles for men and women even before I could think there was a choice to make. Women were nurturing teachers, men were prominent professors. Women were caring nurses, men were distinguished doctors. Women were applied seamstresses, men were fearless fashion designers. I could go on with the list, but I think I’ve made my point.
Now, I’m not saying that being a teacher or a nurse is of less merit than being a professor or a doctor. This has nothing to do with merit, impact, or status of those careers.
The position of women has been determined upon what the (macho) society believes fit our female intrinsic characteristics: nurturing, caring, loving, applied, giving. These, of course, tied to our “natural” role and biological ability to carry and give birth to a child.
Not only our role as women would be to carry, give birth to, nurture, love and take care of our child, but to carry, nurture, love, and take care of society, and specifically our male counterparts.
As a young adult I ‘d always been told by my male relatives to “make my way up”, “study and work two times harder”, and “don’t let any men stand in my way or decide for me”, because “You need to be independent and tough.”. But, I never actually realized that being a woman would mean not being a man. I never thought not being a man would mean that much for the rest of my career.
I’ll always remember an expression that shocked me and got on my nerves every time I heard it: “El hombre propone y la Mujer dispone”. Translated to English will be something like: Men make the (sexual) proposal and women dispose — determines the course of the event. Women are always the passive object of the story.
Being a woman in our society, and especially one like Latin America, is a synonym of “not having the balls” or “not wearing the pants”.
This fight — or competition, if you prefer the term — with men, starts at a very young age, when a little girl realizes that compared to her brothers, cousins, or father, she is missing something.
Photo by Hello I’m Nik 🎞 on Unsplash
The penis envy
“Why I don’t have a penis, mom?”
Sigmund Freud claimed that women suffer from Penis envy, I’m not here to judge how misogynist he was or not. But it might reflect how our society has coded men as possessing (a penis)— and thus all the economic, political and societal privileges it might come with — and women as lacking (a penis) and being a passive object that needs completion by the active (male) subject.
Our culture has for long, unfortunately, rewarded men for what they have and devalue women for what they (don’t) have. Some classical examples are the casual statements “Grow a pair” or “Stop being a pussy”. Feminity or traits that have (wrongly) been associated with femininity are seen as weakness and pejorative traits both in women and men. Here again the statements like “don’t cry like a little girl” suggesting that boys are not allowed to express their emotions or “you throw like a girl” to imply that women are weak. Men are frequently mocked when they leave any “men-business” decisions to their wives or women colleagues and are (miss)treated as “pussy” or as “not wearing the breeches”. Apparently, women are always nurturing and caring mothers, but men are authoritarian and strict fathers. At least, this is what our encoding is telling us.
And this codification that we have accepted — or suffer from — has since then characterized women’s physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization needs.
The impostor syndrome
The impostor syndrome refers to “high-achieving people who have difficulty internalizing their accomplishments and who fear that they will be exposed as a fraud.”
Psychologist Pauline Clance and colleague Suzanne Imes coined for the first time the term “impostor phenomenon” in 1978 in a study they conducted with women patients. They gave this name to high-performing but inwardly anxious women that did not experience an internal sense of success.
“Women who experience the impostor phenomenon maintain a strong belief that they are not intelligent; in fact, they are convinced that they have fooled anyone who thinks otherwise. […] In other words, these women find innumerable means of negating any external evidence that contradicts their belief that they are, in reality, unintelligent.”
Clane and Imes identified six characteristics present in “impostors” individuals:
- The Impostor Cycle: confronting an achievement-related task leads to anxiety, self-doubt, and worry, which leads to over-preparation and/or procrastination, followed by accomplishment, a feeling of relief, the discounting of positive feedback, followed by perceived fraudulence, increased self-doubt, depression, and anxiety.
- The need to be special, to be the very best, a perfectionist.
- Superwoman or Superman aspects: the urge for taking on every possible task, leading to workaholism and expression of a need for external validation.
- Fear of failure.
- Denial of competence and discounting praise.
- Fear and guilt about success.
Women as impostors
Because of (our) society’s encoding of women as eternal pursuers of the “penis privilege”, women have been forced — or encouraged — to build a facade and assume a (false) identity to build confidence and exercise authority.
While many studies have suggested the prevalence of the Impostor Phenomenon — to avoid the interpretation of dealing with an illness — in women and minority populations, there is strong evidence that it has nothing to do with gender, race, or any intrinsic characteristic of the individual. Rather, it has to do with the environment they evolve in. And I will explain these further later.
But first, let’s just assume that in fact, women were more likely to “suffer” from the Impostor Phenomenon just because of their birth gender.
Assuming this would mean that from a “genetical” point of view women, and any other marginalized group, are unsuitable to cope with the high pressure and competitiveness that characterizes top-management positions or any other career path. In that manner, we will be agreeing that women are incapable of acknowledging their talents and too shy to pursue high goals and achievements at the risk of being a failure.
We, then, would be saying that women fear not only failure but also any potential success. We would be saying that they lack self-confidence.
By assuming this, we would be proving that the (ill) encoding of our society as men having and women lacking is true.
Then, one question arises: who was first, the egg or the chicken?
A more plausible and less indulgent explanation would be that given by Professor Shan Slank, where environmental factors, and especially the culture of “genius” —which is largely bounded with sexist and racist ideologies — contribute and promote the impostor syndrome in women and other marginalized groups.
Photo by Taylor Smith on Unsplash
The culture of genius
The culture of genius, as termed by Mary Murphy and Carol Dweck, describes an organizational (and societal) culture where intelligence is conceived as a fixed entity of individuals that cannot be changed or incremented. Those who are born intelligent are therefore more suitable for intellectual job positions, while those who don’t possess the intelligence are doomed. In this kind of environment, people perceive genius and brilliance as more valuable characteristics than intrinsic motivation, passion for growth, and learning.
And the culture and environment in which we evolve— as women, men, or humans in general — not only influence the way we perceive ourselves (i.e. as intelligent or not) but also how we perceive and evaluate others.
If talent and intelligence are (wrongly) attributed to male gender because they have historically — and here again we are generalizing and erasing one important part of the history — occupied intellectual and top management positions, there is no wonder why women (and men) assume an identity that fits with the culture in which they evolve.
Thus, many women and men assume a behavior that fits with male attributes — here again wrongly coined, as I believe there is no such thing as male or female attributes, but our society has coded it as if (i.g. Feminine vs masculine culture traits in Hofstede work) — even when those behaviors go against their natural personality. An example of this is when women use a bass voice tone to show authority when her normal tone is rather treble. Or, when we hide the effort put into a task as we fear it’ll be seen as a weakness. Genius wouldn’t need to put that much effort.
In cultures where “talent” is innate, we think of our achievements and success as results of chance and/or external factors. We constantly compare ourselves to “talented” individuals that occupy positions at which we aspire to, leading us to underestimate our talent and skills. But, since we want to triumph and fit in society, we act as if we were talented enough to attain those goals. The famous “Fake it until you make it”, which doesn’t imply we are faking our intelligence or talent, but that we think we are faking it. And thus we enter an eternal loop.
This facade eventually triggers a dissonance and a sense of fraud, and in the long term might harm self-esteem and cause depression and burn-out.
Impostor syndrome and women in academia
Unconscious and unintentional biases against women in Academia are not something new, unfortunately. Several studies both in social and science fields show that women underrepresentation and discrimination in Academia is not anecdotical.
We have been witnessing a proven trend of women prematurely leaving higher education and Academia. One of the prime reasons for this is the disparity in terms of experiences and opportunities for faculty tenure positions between men and women.
The Academic career path, and especially in STEM disciplines, is culturally understood to require “brilliance” or “raw talent”. This culture of Genius practiced in Academia only reinforces the disparity. Studies show that fields with a greater belief in the natural and inherent “brilliance” required for research (philosophy, math, physics, music composition) had a far lower percentage of female PhDs.
Likewise, several studies show — and here again is far from being just an anecdotical conclusion — that women (and men) who were attending graduate school in a male-dominated department reported lower levels of academic self-concept than those in more gender-balanced programs. Or that women faculty seem to struggle with extreme perfectionist tendencies, which inhibits our ability to feel fulfilled by our endeavors and our ability to produce academic work at the same rates as our male peers. This unjustified modesty leads to our (in)ability to cite our own work and cite that of male peers more, even when ours is more relevant.
Not surprisingly, studies also show that women have to provide more evidence than men to be seen as equally competent; we perform more service and teaching in the quest for gaining respect. We are indirectly accepting additional gaps in salary as service and teaching are (often) less valued than research.
Women academics are not only constantly struggling with disparity and discrimination, but we are falling in the (ill) encoding of our society and assuming we lack something to thrive and stay in Academia.
We are trapped in this ill binary systematic view of gender, genius, and talent.
We are the impostor. This becomes even more endangering as we see women in power positions to continue “nurturing” the gender gap in Academia.
Now, we can be impostors. Many of us are. We are not alone.
The feeling of not belonging, of being a fraud is, unfortunately, something many women and men have to deal with at least once in our lives.
However, we should not forget we are wearing a mask.
We have to remember how we got where we are. The challenges and obstacles we surmounted. The unfairness and (miss)treatment that we survive. We have to do our job right and reverse the course of the ship before we hit again the iceberg. As women who “make it” into Academia, we have the responsibility to raise our voice for the women who can’t. We may have won our battle, but there is still much to fight for. We can’t stop now. We won’t stop now. It’s time to pull down the facade and unlearn the mistaken codes of gender.
Sources
- Mason et al. (2013) Do Babies Matter?: Gender and Family in the Ivory Tower Rutgers University Press,. JSTOR.
- Gasser et Chaffer (2014) ,“Career Development of Women in Academia: Traversing the Leaky Pipeline” The Professional Counselor
- Center for WorkLife Law (2015) “Double Jeopardy? Gender Bias Against Women of Color in Science”
- King et al. (2017) “Men set their own cites high: gender and self-citation across fields and over time” Socius.
- Leslie et al. (2015) “Expectations of brilliance underlie gender distributions across academic disciplines” Science
- Guarino et Borden (2017) “Faculty Service Loads and Gender: Are Women Taking Care of the Academic Family?” Research in Higher Education
- Clance PR, Imes SA (1978) The imposter phenomenon in high achieving women: dynamics and therapeutic intervention. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, and Practice 15:241–247
- Clance PR, O’Toole MA (1987) The imposter phenomenon: an internal barrier to empowerment and achievement. Women Ther 6:3, 51–64
- Ruti M. (2018) Penis Envy and Other Bad Feelings The Emotional Costs of Everyday Life, Columbia Unniversity Press.
Maria Angel Ferrero is Assistant Professor in Finance and Entrepreneurship at the University of Montpellier School of Management (IAE), in France. Her teaching pedagogy is based on active learning approaches and the use of technology and gamification. She is highly involved with the entrepreneurial ecosystem in France and Colombia always in the quest for providing students with better entrepreneurial education and learning experience. Her cross-disciplinary research brings together behavioral finance, psychology and entrepreneurship theories and approaches to explore the behavior and thinking of entrepreneurs. In 2016 she was awarded the prize for Best Ph.D. Thesis in Corporate Finance awarded by the French National Association of Finance. She runs a blog on Medium.comwhere she shares her toughts on education, science and pedagogical innovation. You can find her in social media twitter @mangelferrero , Medium @miss.startup , Instagram @miss.startup
Stories
The Kafala System – A Gateway into Slavery & Human Trafficking
The Kafala System – A Gateway into Slavery & Human Trafficking
Author: Katie Shevlin
The familiar sound of blasting car horns and the babble of Arabic chatter drifted up to the balcony where I sat with my coffee. It signalled ‘business as usual’ on the congested streets of Beirut.
It was reassuring. The day before, I’d been driven through suffocating clouds of black smoke. Rising from heaps of burning rubber tyres, thrown onto blazing bonfires by angry crowds of men. I welcomed the arrival of my French flatmate Arielle, who joined me with a pot of tea. She reckoned it would be safe enough to explore the city – albeit with caution. Being an Arabic student living in the city, I trusted her advice gleaned from local networks.
Glancing over to the flats opposite, a young Asian woman dressed in a white work uniform stepped onto the balcony. Getting down on her hands and knees, she began scrubbing the surface of the lengthy veranda with active vigour. As she did so, a frowning Lebanese woman towered over her cross armed, scrutinising the frantic cleaning.
Aghast and confused, I turned to Arielle, who casually explained live-in maids were common in Lebanon. Seen as ‘property’ and ‘treated like dirt’. So, although things seemed pretty normal on the streets of Beirut, a darker side began to unfold. The kafala system, an inherently abusive sponsorship arrangement, leaves migrant domestic workers vulnerable to a gateway into slavery and human trafficking.
They call it the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, a frequency bias. You know the way you notice something new, at least it is new to you and suddenly you are aware of it all over the place? In reality, there is no increase in occurrence, it is just that you have started to notice it. No prizes for guessing what I began to see everywhere.
On reaching to close the bedroom shutters to get dressed, a middle-aged Black women was hard at work on the balcony directly opposite. Looking drawn and exhausted, she wore a shabby nightshirt and a yellow scarf sitting askew on the side of her head. Heavy blankets were shaken over the balcony and given their weight, she’d perfected the knack of throwing them high in the air to land perfectly on the elevated clothesline.
Given the close proximity of living spaces, when our eyes met I flashed over a friendly smile. The look of alarm etched on the woman’s face in return took me aback. In a flash, her back was turned and she hastily unwound the wide canopy. And when the blank screen dropped, she was out of sight.
My heart sank at the possibility that perhaps fear was behind her failure to return a friendly gesture. Perhaps, she was warned not to communicate with others? Staying in what was a relatively low-income neighbourhood of Beirut, I found it surprising that domestic workers were hired there at all. However, they’re excluded from Lebanese Employment Law, including the National Living Wage ($450 per month). Instead they’re governed by the oppressive kafala system – when salaries vary significantly or not paid at all.
Ethiopian women waiting for their sponsor at Beirut Airport – even though the Ethiopian government has banned women for working in Lebanon.
Image: courtesy of the author.
Migrant domestic workers in Lebanon are trapped in a web woven by the kafala system. At any one time, there are over 250,000 women in Lebanon – mainly from the poorer African and South East Asian countries. They expect to complete their contract before returning home to the families. The families who sorely depended on the dollars wired from abroad for their survival. The legal residency of the worker is tied to the contractual relationship with the sponsor. Leaving workers vulnerable to exploitation and abuse – with little prospect of redress.
The written consent from sponsors, essential to change jobs or return home early, is rarely granted. The systematic and harrowing abuse of migrant workers is endemic in the reports available. Women suffer regular beatings and are assaulted for minor errors, imprisoned in small rooms,starved, deprived of sleep, banned from leaving the house and passports are routinely confiscated.
More extreme reports tell of sexual abuse and exploitation. Often resulting in torture and murder. According to the activist group ‘This is Lebanon’ two migrant domestic workers die in Lebanon every week. Either murdered, suicide or a murder disguised as suicide. Others fall/pushed from balconies – some while trying to escape.
Image: courtesy of the author.
It was time to head out. The narrow chaotic streets led me the way to downtown Beirut. The distinctive scent of mint and lavender filled the air and I thought an outdoor market could be near. I love markets, they always provide a unique opportunity to experience a new culture and soak up the vibrant atmosphere. While sampling street food and being amazed at the mixture of goods on offer.
Wading deeper into the sprawling market, locals crowded around stalls displaying everything from underwear to parts for bicycles. People shoved or elbowed their way to the front, shouting over each other, grappling to catch the vendors attention. In the thick of the bedlam, a forlorn Asian woman trailed behind her employer. With her tiny frame and wide eyes, she looked more like a 13 or 14-year-old child.
Like me, she looked out of place. Wrapped like a parcel in the middle of a crowd of Muslim women. Their heads covered in an array of eye-catching veils and scarves. Whilst her long black hair blew freely in the breeze. She was waiting patiently, while her sponsor painstakingly held and gently squeezed one tomato after another.
Studying the red flesh until she was satisfied – then continued the search for more. If you’re like myself, you’ll pick up a bag of oranges, quickly scan for any rotten ones and then throw them in your basket. So, the scrutiny and care some women take when selecting fresh fruit and veg never fails to amaze me, when I travel around the world.
Without any cue or eye contact, the maid instinctively lifted the bag of carefully selected fruit and added to her already heavy burden. Armed to the teeth with interest and curiosity, I enjoy learning about people’s lives when I travel. Although I was eager to speak to a domestic worker any attempt seemed futile. The women, rarely alone or out of reach.
Or as I’d considered earlier, could a smile even be dangerous? Ras An Nabaa was by no means a tourist hotspot and English not widely spoken. It crossed my mind that perhaps these circumstances, whilst oppressive for workers, may actually be welcomed by employers. It added another layer of armour, to the already strict conditions that stopped domestic workers from seeking help. There were no passing tourists.
Arielle believed ‘the Lebanese were racist’. Whilst taken aback by her rather sweeping statement, it became clear from the reports that much of the prejudice towards these workers is underpinned by racism. Anecdotal evidence suggests that nationality and skin colour were important detriments of salary.
Many choose to employ Bangladeshi women. They are the least expensive to recruit and work for the lowest salary. Followed closely by Indonesians and Ethiopians. Who are routinely paid less than $200 a month – for a 7-day week, with no set work hours. Women from the Philippines are said to be the highest earners at $300+ a month. Whilst some women are treated well by employers and considered to be part of the family; many others are mistreated.
I never made it far out of Ras An Nabaa that day. I came across a small, modest, restaurant and chatted to Beria who ran the place for her father. She was as desperate to use her polished English skills as I was to hear them. The muted TV screen was flashing ‘breaking news’ style headlines. Behind the screen, men, their faces distorted with anger, were punching their fists into the air. Glancing over at Beria for some clue, she threw back her head and laughed “everything is fine!”. I was not convinced.
A boy with badly stained front teeth appeared, carrying a small wooden crate piled high with plump, shiny aubergines. The 15-year-old Ahmed a Syrian refugee with Afghan green eyes, sported an Elvis-esque quiff. Beria had given him a job, “so he can eat and get a small allowance for cigarettes and transport”.
She often provided food for his 6 siblings, orphans living in the Shatila refugee camp, on the outskirts of the city. The racism experienced by Syrians in Lebanon, meant they were rarely offered jobs and struggled to survive. Being a Christian, Beria had wanted to help. It seemed like racism seeped into the lives of many people in Lebanon. Just like in many other countries.
I headed home after a scrumptious dinner of kofta served with a side of mutabbla, (garlic mixed with baked aubergines). I wrapped it all up in warm flatbread – straight from the oven to my plate. It was early evening and as usual the streets were pretty sparse of women. Having little need to go outside except to go shopping, they were behind closed doors – along with their maids.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Katie Shevlin’s passions in life include travel, writing, research, photography and contributing to the fight to eradicate violence against women. Having travelled to over 60 countries, she has been able to blend her interests, to raise awareness of women’s oppression, and its manifestations, in countries around the world. Attempting to speak to women to learn about their lived experience is crucial, especially in the developing world, since quite often it is the first time anyone has shown an interest in her life and opinions.
Find Out More
If you are interested in learning more about the campaign to end the kafala system, Katie recommends following ‘This is Lebanon’ on Facebook/Twitter. A group of activist women, many previously employed as migrant domestic workers, they offer women support to escape their abusers. Also assisting them practically, by confronting employers to battle for individual workers human rights. Having travelled widely, I have written other accounts of violence against women, mainly in Asian countries. Please contact Katie for further information or to let me know you are interested in this topic:
katieshevlin62@gmail.com
07488767877
If you would like to read more of Katie’s blogs about women around the world and solo female travel
Stories
Feminism in spite of all
Feminism in spite of all
Author: Ana Pardo
Estrella de Diego, a female Spanish curator, recently shared a peculiar work situation through her social media. Her male colleagues had suggested that she try to workon subjects other than feminism or projects involving female artists, which had been her focus for several years. De Diego is currently professor at Universidad Complutense de Madrid and considered a major expert of feminist art theory in Madrid.
They advised that she was at risk of being ‘pigeonholed’, and inquite a patronising way, it was suggested that she should try and speak about different topics. This led De Diego to ask herself, what did being ‘pigeonholed’ mean? Why were male critics, art teachers and curators not given the same pejorative label when they spend years and in most cases, most of their professional livesworking on the same topic?
When it comes to female artists or work made by women in art galleries and museums, the numbers and statistics are outrageous and they are still repeated and maintained everynow and then. The Guerrilla Girls group have over the last decades repeated the same action to signal this inequality. In 1989, they claimed that less than 5% of the artists in the modern art section of the MET were female, but 85% of the nudes were female. In 2004, numbers differed very little: 3% of female artists versus 83% of female nudes. And finally, in 2011, according to their poster, there were less than 4% of female artists in the modern art section but 76% of the nudes were female. These statistics repeat worldwide: Among a collection of more than 1160 oeuvres, there are, in 2020, only six works made by three female artists in Prado Museum in Madrid: Clara Peeters, Artemisa Gentilleschi and Sofonisba Anguissola.
Leaving aside some purple washing attempts (meaning art institutions include a number of activities linked to feminism to give the impression that they have achieved gender equality when they actually have not), in recent years, there have been numerous attempts to bring this imbalanceinto the spotlight.
Perhaps one of the most polemical was when Michelle Hartney undertook guerrilla action at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2018. There, under the label of iconic paintings from Pablo Picasso or Paul Guaguin, she offered feminist guidelines, explicitly highlighting the macho, chauvinist attitudes of these painters, who are considered to be among the genius figures of the 20th century. The aim was not – as critics of the action accused – to take down the paintings from the gallery, but to widen the context of those iconic paintingsto the viewers.
Months after, feminist activist artists Guerrilla Girlsalso undertook a similar action called ‘Three ways to write a museum label wall when the artist is a sexual predator’, highlighting the sexual abuse perpetrated by some artists, which is still frequently ignored.
Both actions were visually engaging and broadcast worldwide, and the controversy rose. But it seems to be that when itcomes to feminism and art, there is always some controversy.
Months before Hartney took action, some newspapers reported that the Baltimore Museum of Art was selling part of its collection – specifically works from Andy Warhol, Franz Kline, Kenneth Noland or Robert Rauschenberg and buying works of female and African American artists from Amy Sherald to Jack Whitten, including Isaac Julienand Mary Reid Kelley. Again there was some controversy when the director of the museum openly claimed that there were some gaps in their collection due to conscious or unconscious prejudices, and that the museum wastrying to rectify this.
To help understand the museum’s actions, it is interesting to bear in mind that more than 65% of the Baltimore population are African American, and the museum director took actionas a way of integrating the museum with its local population.
The question is, would there have been the same controversy if instead of selling a painting from Franz Kline to buy the work of a female artist, the museum had used the proceeds to purchase another mainstream piece? It would seem thatmore than 30 years after the Guerrilla Girls first started signalling the difficulty women had to enter in museum collections, we’re still trapped in the same debate. Although the situation has improved, there are a scarce number of women who make it into exhibitions or receive awards. When attention is drawn to this fact, or women take action to address this problem, we are still at risk of being ‘pigeonholed’.
It is important to bear in mind that the equal participation of women in any profession, especially in the art and culture field (for these are the spheres I am more familiar with) is not a feminist question. It’sa democratic question. Women are not a collective, we are not a minority, we are 50%of the world population and the fact that we are still not included equally, female artworks still struggle to reach the art market, and female artists and criticsare not awarded is a result of a structured system based ongender inequality-patriarchy.
Related to thisquestion of patriarchy comes the last question I would like to pose -the question of gender quotas that is sadly still present in the art world.
Only when critics and curators claim thatthewider integration of women artists in a world still dominated by men is needed, is the gender quotaquestion taken into account.Suddenly, when gender quotas are discussed, the question of artistic quality becomes far more important – despite the fact that an unspoken quota of sorts has always existed, which favours male artists. The quality of the work by female artists who benefit from gender quotas is scrutinised far more than that of male artists. The fact that female artists usually have to deal with more difficulties and obstacles to reach the same levels achieved by male artists is often overlooked.
If equal representation within the art community is to be achieved, female artists must resist claims that focusing on that lack of equality results in their being ‘pigeonholed’. As much as the dominant male voices in this community want to silence us, we must continue to fight.
After four years living in Edinburgh, Ana has recently finished her PhD in History of Art at Edinburgh University. During this time, she has been involved with different art projects related to the promotion of emerging artists, constantly questioning the role of the critic in Art History. Both in Edinburgh and in Spain, her homecountry, she has been involved in different activist groups focused on questions of migration (Migrant’s Pride), feminism (Feminism in Edinburgh) or political ones (CREE, Consejo de Residentes Españoles en el Extranjero).
Stories
An Invitation to Join the Conversation about Race, Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion in Academia
Let us work past the fragility of our privileged identities and enact a structural change in our system
Author: Maria Angel-Ferrero
Image: Courtesy of the author
In the past weeks, we’ve been witnessing a global movement against racism, discrimination, injustice, dehumanization.
The role of Academia and Education has never been more important. We can do better. We need to do better.
The moment we are going through requires us to develop informed, necessary, and meaningful conversation around racism.
We have become blind to numerous forms of racism happening in Academia, such as the underrepresentation of Black, Latinx, Muslim, Jewish, and indigenous faculty and students. Or the lack of diverse perspectives in our syllabus. If we acknowledge that racism exists inside Academia we can then develop the skills to work past the fragility of our privileged identities and enact a structural change in our system.
We need to do better, Professor Jasmine Roberts explains.
The reason I started The Faculty was to open the conversation about a better Academia. I wanted to create an open space where academics, educators, scientists, students, and everyone who wants to disrupt the education and scientific research system can share stories and thoughts. A place where we can question ourselves and our systems and enact the change we all need. A place where we share ideas and develop actions to change our approach to education, science, and research.
The Faculty is a place where academics, educators, scientists, students, and everyone who wants to disrupt the education and scientific research system can share stories and thoughts.
As the editor, I would like to call all academics and non-academics to join the discussion on how we can make our classrooms, curriculum, and schools a more inclusive one. I would like you to help us lead the change and share your insights on how we can talk and educate ourselves and others about race and ethnicity. I believe that together we can lead the change. So if you want to contribute to the conversation, please join us here.
My most sincere gratitude and appreciation to all the faculty, staff, students, professional educators, post-grads all around the world who are joining the conversation and have shared with us their most personal stories, inviting us to lead the change and do better.
But I wish to take a moment to acknowledge Jasmine Roberts, Uju Asika, Indu Viswanathan, Jessie Dumont, Beth Bradford, Ph.D.and Gus King.
I believe this is just the start. The start of a genuine change. You are welcome to join the Conversation, please join us here.
Maria Angel Ferrero is Assistant Professor in Finance and Entrepreneurship at the University of Montpellier School of Management (IAE), in France. Her teaching pedagogy is based on active learning approaches and the use of technology and gamification. She is highly involved with the entrepreneurial ecosystem in France and Colombia always in the quest for providing students with better entrepreneurial education and learning experience. Her cross-disciplinary research brings together behavioral finance, psychology and entrepreneurship theories and approaches to explore the behavior and thinking of entrepreneurs. In 2016 she was awarded the prize for Best Ph.D. Thesis in Corporate Finance awarded by the French National Association of Finance. She runs a blog on Medium.comwhere she shares her toughts on education, science and pedagogical innovation. You can find her in social media twitter @mangelferrero , Medium @miss.startup , Instagram @miss.startup
Stories
Edinburgh Women’s Aid
Katharina Heisig (co-editor WomenBeing Mag), interviewed Linda Rodgers, CEO of Edinburgh Women’s Aid, an organisation which provides support and advocacy services to women, children and young people affected by domestic abuse.
Since the social distancing measures have been implemented, domestic abuse helplines have seen a significant increase in calls and online requests for help. How does violence against women escalate in times of crises, is the number of those affected increasing or does it get worse for those who are already exposed to it?
I think the data for the increase came from Refuge, the charity that operates the helpline for England. Speaking to the Scottish National Domestic Abuse and Forced Marriage Helpline and from our own experience, I would say that this isn’t what we’re seeing in Scotland, more worryingly, I would sa
y that we’ve seen a drop in new referrals coming in. We have seen an increase in agencies contacting us looking for support to work with women and children that they are concerned about and looking for us to share our expertise. The reality is that for women and children who are living with an abuser, lockdown makes it that much harder for them to reach out. We are really concerned for those whose small breaks from control were crucial to their survival. For example, going to the shops, when the perpetrator was out at work, when they went to appointments, taking the kids to school. All of those opportunities to step away for a minute or two have gone.
I suspect that domestic abuse doesn’t necessarily increase as a result of the lockdown – in terms of the numbers of women and children exposed to, but I am concerned that the risks to women and children from perpetrators increases. We’ve seen Karen Ingala Smith from ‘counting dead women’ stating that 16 women have been murdered by their partners or ex-partners between 23 March and 12 April. This is significantly higher than normal. Domestic abuse – as coercive control – involves the micromanagement of women’s and children’s lives with rules which, if broken are punished with violence or the believable threat of violence. The level at which someone can be micromanaged, if they are in the vicinity of the abuser 24/7 is increased, and the likelihood of a perceived infraction of the rules is also going to be increased. Many women speak to us of walking on egg-shells, of the rules shifting and changing all the time so that they don’t know what they are going to do wrong, only that it will be ‘wrong’, far too many women tell us that they thought he would kill them. Living in close proximity to that abuse under lockdown must be terrifying.
Why is it more difficult for victims to reach out for help during lockdown?
It’s never easy for survivors of domestic abuse to reach out for help. They will have been told by the abuser that it’s their fault. Non-specialist services that they come into contact with will have told them, intentionally or unintentionally that it’s their fault. And there is a good chance that the abuser is the perfect partner/father/family man/provider and the reality of living with abuse has impacted on the woman’s confidence, self-esteem and mental health. The women we work with are amazing and strong. Every woman we work with will have managed their situation and will have managed their own safety and the safety of their children in an impossible situation.
However, this lockdown will make it harder for women to come forward, because the monitoring of their movements will increase under lockdown – the small gaps and spaces for action will be all but closed to them.
We are seeing perpetrators of abuse, using COVID19 and the lockdown to abuse in different ways. (I’m always cautious about giving examples in the media – abusers read the media too, if a woman is using social media, her abusive partner will be using the same social media. If we give examples of the tactics abusers use, other perpetrators will use that to abuse.)
Since face-to-face meetings are no longer possible, what alternative services do you provide to support victims and how are you trying to minimise the risk for those who reach out?
We had a pandemic action plan so our amazing team here at EWA moved seamlessly from providing face to face services to telephone and online modes of support. We contacted all the women and children we support to explain to them what the support they would be receiving would look like under the lockdown.
As soon as we saw the way that the world was going we arranged meetings with all of the women in our refuges to explain to them what might happen. Our refuges are shared spaces, so this meant that we had to explain to women that they would be considered a single household and what this would mean for them if someone in the house had to self-isolate.
We had plans for ensuring that if we had spaces in refuge that we would still be able to admit new women while meeting social distancing criteria.
We recognised that if women weren’t able to make contact with us, the police might be the first agency to engage with them. So as soon as the lockdown started we worked with the police to develop an emergency admission process so that we can admit to refuge at any time day or night if the police become aware of a woman / woman and children at risk.
Edinburgh Women’s Aid co-ordinates the MARAC in Edinburgh (a meeting to increase the safety of victims at high risk of murder or serious harm). We realised that it might not be easy for agencies to conduct risk assessments and of the key role of the police as first responders. We’ve included an additional criteria which takes into account if victims are unable to engage with other agencies so that we are not missing out on women at high risk just because we don’t have a risk assessment for them.
We are teleconferencing regularly with a variety of agencies that come into contact with women and children affected by domestic abuse so that we can minimise any service generated risks and plan how best to support them to safely confide and be directed to specialist services. We are lucky that our partners in Edinburgh – the local authority, Police Scotland Domestic Abuse Investigation Unit and NHS Lothian Gender-Based Violence Services – are all committed to working together to increase women’s safety.
Police Scotland have distributed posters about what to do if you are affected by DA to every supermarket and pharmacy in Edinburgh. We are aware that some supermarkets and pharmacies are only allowing one member of a household in at a time, this might give women a space to make contact with us. We are working with NHS, local BME women’s organisations (Shakti and Saheliya) and the local authority to ensure that the information is available in community languages. We are working with the local authority to ensure that their resilience centres have spaces where disclosures can be made safely and training has been provided on what to do if someone discloses, how to support their safety and signposting.
The government has increased the support and the funds for charities and domestic abuse services will receive an extra £2m. Will that be enough for you to adapt to the circumstances and provide the support needed?
We are hugely grateful that the money was made available by the Scottish Government so quickly. It meant we were able to organise laptops for staff and wifi in refuges.
My main concern is what is going to happen when the restrictions begin to be lifted. I think that our services could easily be overwhelmed by the numbers of women and children seeking support at that time. We know that leaving is the most dangerous time for women – most women murdered by partners or ex-partners are killed when they are trying to leave. Therefore I think there will be a high point of danger as women take the opportunity to leave when the restrictions are lifted.
People are speaking about the potential for PTSD as a result of the lockdown in general. I think the mental health impact of having been locked in with an abuser for weeks or months will be tremendous and we need to have the services in place to deal with this.
It feels at the moment, that rightly, the funding and activity focus is on what we need now, but I think as a frontline specialist service, we need to be given the space to work out what we are going to need when…
Finances are going to be needed at that point and not just for one-off payments such as computers and wifi, but for long term additional staffing resources to ensure that all women who need our services are able to access them.
How has the financial struggle of potential donors affected your capacities?
It has been inspiring how amazing people have been during this crisis. At a time when we would expect people to be thinking about themselves, their own struggles, their own families we have been blown away that so many are also thinking of the women and children we support and making donations to us. It’s a real testimony to humanity – each individual who has donated money to us, each student taking part in a fundraiser, each worker who has donated an Easter egg, each small business who has donated some of their stock and all of this at a time when there is so much uncertainty in their own lives. I honestly tear up every time I think about it. It feels like it’s those in society with the least to give and the most to lose that are thinking about the women and children in our services just now and I’m just so grateful.
We have seen requests for foodbank and supermarket vouchers for basic food items increase significantly since the lockdown. Women are experiencing poverty as a result of losing jobs and income as a result of the lockdown and are having difficulty accessing benefits. Compared to the same period last year we have provided more than double the amount of vouchers to women. A significant portion of the amount raised by individuals will be spend on supermarket vouchers.
We are really lucky that our main funders – the Scottish Government, City of Edinburgh Council, Robertson Trust, Children in Need, RSMacdonald, State Street Bank have all been really understanding about the changes we’ve needed to make to the way in which we deliver our projects.
Going forward, obviously, the uncertainty of the financial markets may have an impact on how much major funders have to give, and that’s something we are thinking about now.
What can we do when we suspect someone might be a victim of domestic abuse?
If you are worried about someone who you think may be being abused or is in a toxic relationship, pick up the phone to us 0131 315 8110 or the 24hr Scottish Domestic Abuse and Forced Marriage Helpline – 0800 027 1234 which also has a webchat on their website sdafmh.org.uk.
We can help you to work out what to do.
Domestic abusers rely on isolating their victims. Reassure your friend or family member that you are there for them and that you’re not going anywhere. Reassure them that they don’t deserve to be treated this way. Understand that they are the expert in their own safety, they may make choices that you don’t understand, but be there for them. Remember, leaving an abusive relationship can be dangerous, choosing to say is sometimes the safest option. Reassure them that there are services like Edinburgh Women’s Aid that are there for them, that will believe them and respect their choices.
Where and how do you reach out to the public to raise awareness for this pressing issue?
There are posters with the national helpline number on them in every supermarket and pharmacy
We are online at www.edinwomensaid.co.uk
We are on Facebook – Edinburgh Women’s Aid
We are on twitter @edinwomensaid
We are on Instagram “edinbwa”
Follow us, share, retweet, like!
Podcast, Stories
Intuitive eating and body positivity
For our first podcast episode, we sat down with Gillian McCollum and Danni Gordon who both help women reconcile their relationship to food and their bodies. From intuitive eating to body positivity, we talked about body image in a weight obsessed society.
Who are Gillian and Danni?
Gillian is an intuitive eating coach and body positive yoga teacher who battled 15 years with chronic yo-yo dieting and binge eating. She spent most of her 20s and 30s believing that to be healthy she had to be thin. Gillian recovered from her disordered eating after discovering intuitive eating and the Health At Every Size movement. She is now a certified health coach and yoga teacher who supports other women to find peace with food and their bodies.
Danni is a body positive advocate who used to resent her body for almost 23 years. In 2016 at 33, she radically changed her attitude towards her body by attending some self-development courses. This was the catalyst for starting her own project to improve everyone’s body confidence. The Chachi Power Project is now a flourishing business that helps people unpack the harmful cultural messages we project on our bodies through workshops, talks, events and retreats.
What did we talk about?
Diets don’t work and we have known this since the 1950s.
Feeling like we have to control what we eat and change our bodies to achieve health is a relatively new thing. Diets only appeared in the last 120 years with research dating back to the 1950s already questioning their effectiveness. In 1992, a National Institute of Health panel of weight-science experts finally concluded that diets don’t work. Their research showed that the majority of people who go on diets will regain most or all the weight they lost within 5 years. In fact, they found that diets can cause long term weight gain for up to ⅔ of the people who embark on them, with adverse physiological and psychological consequences.
But what about weight loss for health?
The common myth ‘everyone knows that being overweight is unhealthy’ stems from scientific evidence that shows a correlation between higher weight and disease risk. But the important distinction between correlation and causation is often overlooked in this evidence. Causation being the behavior that actually causes the disease. But fat isn’t a behavior and doesn’t necessarily cause a disease though there can be a connection. It’s also worth recognising that doctors, scientists and researchers are raised in the same diet culture we all live in. Therefore, a lot of bias already comes into studies before they even start. If weight science was to include weight stigma and cycling in studies, we’d have a better chance at reducing chronic disease.
Body image is a much stronger predictor of health
In fact, research has shown that how we feel about our body will more likely influence our health because of the long-term negative effects on our mental health and wellbeing. We live in a fatphobic culture that is making the vast majority of people feel unsatisfied with the way they look. Such preoccupation around food and body can develop into serious eating and anxiety disorders. Anxieties that will end up controlling our relationships to ourselves, others and the world.
Insidiously, diets are often promoted as solutions that will put us back in control. They will sell us the idea that if we control our weight, we will control our health and how others perceive us. But what really happens is that we are outsourcing our health to an entire industry that will proceed to tell us what to eat, when to eat and how to eat. We will grow to mistrust our own bodies and abilities, learning to trust diets instead.
Health At Every Size and Intuitive Eating
Health At Every Size is a weight-inclusive approach to health that first appeared in the 1960s based upon the work of the Fat Acceptance Movement. It’s a holistic approach to health that rejects the idea that a smaller body is an indication of good health.
Intuitive Eating sits within the Health At Every Size framework and is a non-diet approach to health. It followed research from Evelyn Trivole and Elise Reych, two American dieticians who after a long time of prescribing meal plans to clients, realised that diets weren’t sustainable nor effective. It’s also part of the wider Body Positivity Movement which fights for the acceptance and respect of all bodies. Intuitive Eating works hand-in-hand with improving our own body image. The practice will then also require us to challenge the negative feelings we have about our body.
Tips to start Intuitive Eating
This can be a hard one to hear but there is no shortcut when it comes to intuitive eating. Step one: no more diets. When you make this decision, it’s important to be patient and kind to yourself. It will almost certainly be hard at first to be intuitive towards your body’s needs. Most likely, diets will have made you silence your own internal voice for so long. So the first step is to develop a new relationship to your intuition.
Know that it will probably feel very scary to stop dieting. You might be attached to its sense of control and so intuitive eating might come across as an apparent loss of control. But it’s diet culture that made you think that you were out of control to begin with. So put the trust back in yourself. Believe in your own abilities and connect back to your body.
Tips to build a positive body image
Unlearning negative patterns of thoughts is a long windy road. The first step you can take towards feeling good about your body is simply to stop saying negative things about it. Negative thoughts won’t leave all at once but by not speaking them out loud, you stop putting energy into them. Eventually the focus in your brain will shift. And stop criticising other people’s bodies. It is toxic to everyone involved. Diet culture plays a big part in how you feel about your body, but you are responsible for what you project onto others.
Whilst you are responsible for nourishing your body, you are also in charge of what you feed your brain with. You get to decide what you take on board and what you reject. Free yourself from the toxic messaging of diet culture which makes girls as young as 13 years old go on diets and portrays fat people as obesity apologists for just existing in media. Recognise that the percentage of bodies you see online and in media is not representative of the real diversity of human bodies. Bring real life to your social media, follow body positive advocates and fill your feed with diverse bodies.
Listen to our entire conversation on our podcast
Keep in touch with Gillian and Danni
Break up with diet culture
Facebook @intuitiveeatinghealthcoach
Instagram @gillianmccollum
Feel good about your body
Facebook @chachipowerproject
Instagram @chachipowerproject
Twitter @chachi_power
Stories
Transformation of lives: How does empowerment of Black housewives correlate with economic productivity? 1994- 2011; Eastern Cape in South Africa.
Transformation of lives: How does empowerment of Black housewives correlate with economic productivity? 1994- 2011; Eastern Cape in South Africa
By Ntombizifikile Mkoyana for WomenBeing Magazine
This script aims to highlight how transformation and empowerment of Black housewives lead to economic productivity. Women empowerment refers to offering training, sharing of skills and knowledge to enable women to be marketable and or financially able. This writing will also talk about human rights violation and examine if the end product contributes to the paralysis women’s abilities. Housewives are perceived as different from women who go to work and earn a salary. This writing talks about the authority that empowerment offers to women’s en route to a marketable sphere where many obstacles like gender inequality and different pay scale do still exist. Housewife is a female who is unemployed and stays at home to look after the family and the home, her main roles are to clean the house, cook, look after the children and home maintenance.
The transformation and empowerment of Eastern Cape housewives towards building economy efficiency have measured an increase in the past few years. Before 1994, housewives were the casualties of socio-economic and political agenda driven from racial segregation. Women had limited resources if any were within their disposal at all. Restricted social engagement and the absence of empowerment painted a different image about these women’s abilities. The conflicting views discredited housewives who were then assumed to be parasitic individuals with zero contribution towards economic growth. These women were always subjected to scrutiny that made them being perceived negatively, stigmatised, aligned and identified as direct contributors to poverty. These judgements were recorded despite the time spent by these women nourishing their children with love, rendering full parental care and maintaining family stability. Even today the housewives’ credentials and abilities towards economic growth are easily declared dubious.
This study focuses on two categories of women: some working at Magwa Tea (Lusikisiki) and those in Ntabankulu who were offered scholarships by Hayi Le Mbila (Funded by Canon Collins Trust UK). The sampling was done by the researcher as she engaged directly with the scholarship programme and involved in talking with women employed at Magwa Tea. In total 100 women aged 22- 56 were interviewed. Women were asked similar questions, based on disruption to jobs and workforce.
Disruption to jobs
The 2011 disagreement between the management and the Magwa Tea employees led to uncertainty and or job insecurity. Many of the women interviewed gave similar responses. N (a 50-year-old, the names are omitted) one of the employees said, “it was a terrible situation, I was worried because I had my financial budget and commitments (school uniform, feed my children, pay my bills and continue paying the builders) when the problems started.” The ability of this lady demonstrates how empowerment led to employment, and later economic independency as she was paying the builders for home improvement. The job security was the key factor.
Workforce
Similar answers were obtained. The only difference was on taking on extra shifts when there was a shortage of workers. B (a 26-year-old) mentioned that the presence of the majority of women gave made her feel safer, as their united voice boosted their confidence in knowing that “women are capable too”. She spoke about how she took more shifts when there was a shortage so that she could earn more. She mentioned that extra cash gave her financial freedom to save.
Rural women provide, work hard and once empowered they know their fundamental rights. If given a chance they maintain food security (buy food, grow their vegetables and take paid work).
Picture by South African Tourism on Flickr.
No changes were made to the picture. Creative Commons attribution fulfilled.
Independent researcher under the Global Support Services Consultancy (South Africa and U.K.) and mentor of the CEO/ founder of Dali’s HEN (H – health, E- education & N -nutrition).
Stories
Why we need to rethink female leadership
§Why we need to rethink female leadership
There is power in embracing, not ignoring, our cyclical nature as women.
By Natalia Bonilla for WomenBeing Magazine
When I first read a feminine leadership article in Forbes magazine calling it “the future”, I flipped out.
How could feminine traits be considered powerful in the workplace?
In a time when 79 % of top executive positions are held by men according to Hays 2017 report, it is easy to take for granted that the only model of leadership is the hegemonic masculine one.
Women who try to reach top positions are often confronted with this expectation that they should behave like men do to get a job or maintain a power position.
When meeting this expectation, female leaders are posed with this question of whether or not they are betraying their inner voice, personality and agency.
It shouldn’t be this way.
After surveying more than 60,000 people in 13 countries The Athena Doctrine, research led by John Gerzema and Michael D’Antonio, revealed how people were fed up with a hyper-masculine type of leadership that exerted control over teams through aggression, tyranny, manipulation and even, violence.
The report which was later published in a book also revealed the leaders of the “future” should be more empathic, tolerant and open to collaboration.
The thing is we don’t question the concept of leadership itself and we should start to.
We take it for “granted” that leadership is associated with masculine traits instead of wondering, which of those traits have been normalized as a form of power and why?
Masculine leadership has ruled through centuries by males and also by female leaders, from high profiles like Queen Elizabeth I and Margaret Thatcher, who have recurred to this management style to maintain “influence” or exerting “violence” to persuade others.
We need to rethink female leadership in the US and worldwide because, in order to succeed in the current entrepreneurial ecosystem, it often implies women may suppress their feminine qualities to “be taken seriously” because that is how the game plays out.
And I’m not talking about wearing or not wearing makeup, dressing “girly” or putting on high heels.
I’m talking about expectations such as “show force when talking”, “a strong presence”, “an unwavering determination”, “a go-getter attitude”, a “hunger to achieve results”, “a long to-do list”…
These are expectations that harm our relationship with ourselves as women, as leaders and as CEOs.
As a business coach and researcher, I have worked with the extremes: female leaders embracing or rejecting their feminine qualities while disregarding or obsessing over their masculine ones.
How are the dynamics?
Those who reject their femininity to the extreme become consumed by competition, envy, emotional disconnection and feel a strong desire to dominate an Other.
Those who embrace their femininity to the extreme become consumed by sensitivity, the beautiful world of dreams and ideas and showcase a lack of order, confidence and materialization in the physical world.
It is easier to talk about how charming feminine leadership is while disregarding the masculine leadership but that is not the case.
Neither is right or wrong.
To my understanding, this kind of pattern does not help form better leaders because feminine and masculine leaderships do not cancel each other out.
They complement each other, just as the balance between masculine and feminine energies help human and leadership growth.
If we don’t first heal our notions of “what a leader is” and “what leadership should be”, progress in our workplace and in our personal lives will be slow and even stagnant.
If we don’t heal our notions with “our femininity” and “our masculinity”, we will keep exteriorizing thoughts, behaviours and actions harming the growth of our personal relationships and, of course, our enterprise.
Embracing masculine and feminine traits in our leadership will only strengthen our chances to become better leaders, women and humans.
So, finally, I want to leave you with these questions to reflect upon:
Answer:
• What is femininity to you?
• How do you express femininity and in which areas of your life do you allow yourself to do so?
• What is masculinity to you?
• How do you express masculinity and in which areas of your life do you allow yourself to do so?
• What is leadership to you?
• What should a leader be?
• Ultimately, what kind of leader do you want to be?
Let your responses guide you to the type of acceptance work you need to do or have.
May you allow yourself to be more and do less, work smarter and not harder to achieve your dream goals.
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If you seek guidance to develop these leadership skills for you or your team, look forward to helping you grow.
Schedule a 15 min. commitment-free clarity session with me here or write to me at hello@nataliabonilla.org
Natalia Bonilla is an international female leadership & business strategy coach, conflict journalist and news producer with more than 10 years of experience in 12 countries. She holds a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Puerto Rico, a M.A. in International Relations from the University of York, a Pg.Dp. in Peace and Conflict Journalism from the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
You can follow her on Facebook @nataliabonillaprojects, Instagram @nataliabonillainc and @luminainc.
Stories
Lunchtime Activism
One Monday in 2017, Hannah was on the way home from her lunchbreak. She walked past a small group of men and women with rosaries in their hands, murmuring prayers outside the Chalmers Sexual Health Centre in Edinburgh. A member of the group handed her a leaflet as she was passing by, and Hannah realised that this was a vigil ‘to pray for the end of abortion’, as stated on the leaflet.
Read more on Page 32 of WomenBeing Magazine.