‘We were booed because we were women’, and then ‘no one on the perpetration would deal some(prenominal) action’.
Students at Glasgow University produce come prohibited in protest after fe staminate speakers were heck lead with sexist squ all(prenominal) at Glasgow University Union’s annual inter-university Ancients Debating Championship hold up week.
Guest speakers Rebecca Meredith, from Cambridge University, and Marlena Valles, from Edinburgh University, reached the finals of the Championship, only to be faced with sexist heckling from male spectators.
“Unlike the other six individuals in the final, we were booed, heckled with ‘shame woman’ and exposed to sexual comments and queries of “what qualifications does a woman possibly have to be here”‘ Rebecca Meredith wrote in a Huffington Post article.
“none of the male speakers faced the same treatment.
“After the debate, a ingredient of this group shouted “get that woman out of my bedchamber” as my [debating] partner Marlena passed”.
When female students objected to the treatment of Meredith and Valles, one was called a “frigid bitch”.
Others were told by the organisers of the tournament and Glasgow University Union (GUU) charge members to sit down and not “cause trouble”.
Meredith writes that “I myself confronted one of the male members concerned, and the GUU committee, only to be told that it was “to be pass judgment” and “par for the course” that women would be booed in the GUU chamber”.
And, she wrote, the committee ‘accepted we were booed because we were women, not for any other reason, but refused to incur action against their members’.
Meredith, who has been ranked one of the top 20 speakers in the world, described the experience as “one of the most dreadful accidents of my life”.
Anger over the devil women’s treatment led the Glasgow University Feminist Society to organise a rally protesting this calamity as well as ”a long bourn of chauvinistic behaviour” by the GUU.
Originally a men-only union, the GUU was integrated in 1980, despite 139 of its members voting against women being allowed to join.
Perhaps most depressingly, the ’139 Club’ was subsequently formed to ‘honour’ those who voted for it to remain a men-only union, and held annual dinners on the anniversary of the vote to ‘celebrate’ the 139 dissenters. The dinners were only barred from the campus in 2011.
Two members of the GUU argon now facing disciplinary hearings after the accompanying at the Debating Championship, and a university spokesman has said “The university cannot and will not rest abusive, threatening or sexist behaviour.
“The principal has written to the two women speakers to apologise … an investigation by the GUU is now ongoing.”
Female students at the University of Glasgow are now coming out about their experiences of abuse from GUU members: from the all too common groping of female body move to the fear of rape.
And Caroline Moore, a Philosophy student at Glasgow, has started a petition demanding the GUU commits to ‘zero tolerance on misogyny’.
The petition calls on the GUU to “denounce the actions of these members and … to demonstrate their commitment to a sexism-free GUU by undertaking a gender equality knowledge session.”
Five Glasgow University societies have also written a public garner to the GUU stating that they will break their affiliation with the Union until those responsible for the heckling are appropriately disciplined.
The Cambridge Union has ‘promised not to enthral any of its debaters to the union until sexism has been dealt with’.
In a statement to WVoN, Caroline Moore said “The incident at the Ancients embodies an entire culture of misogyny that has gone on far too long.
“This is our opportunity to change these damaging attitudes and send the message to students of the past, present, and future: that sexism does not belong in our union.”
Materials taken from Womens Views on News
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