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By joining this community you are agreeing to receive communications from LBSU regarding this community.
This community organises on behalf of students at Leeds Beckett who self-identify as Women, and those who experience oppression as women.
We welcome you to join the Women Student’s Community! We are dedicated to empowering and uplifting women students, as well as those who experience oppression as women. Our mission is to create an inclusive and supportive environment where every student feels valued, heard, and empowered to excel in their academic and personal lives.
By joining our community, you will become part of a network of inspiring individuals who share common experiences and aspirations while studying at Leeds Beckett. We believe in the power of connections and aim to foster meaningful relationships among our members to organise around the unique challenges faced by women in higher education.
We celebrate and embrace the diverse identities within womanhood. As such, we welcome students who self-identify as women, including those with complex gender identities that encompass 'woman'.
Collaboration is key to our community. We stand in solidarity with other marginalised groups, recognising the importance of intersectionality. We promote inclusivity and diversity, championing the rights and voices of students of all backgrounds, including but not limited to faith, disability, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, and race. We prioritise the safety and well-being of our members, fostering an environment that is free from threat and intimidation. As such, we do not tolerate racist, anti-Semitic, islamophobic, fascist, sexist, xenophobic, ableist, LGBT-phobic or ageist views expressed within any of our spaces.
We're delighted to offer you free membership to any student community you identify with, giving you access to exciting opportunities to get involved in change-making activity as well as providing you with valuable information and resources to support your journey at Leeds Beckett.
By joining, you'll also gain entry to a private online community forum where you can connect with fellow students in your community to discuss shared experiences and agree on priority campaigns.
Throughout the year, there will be numerous opportunities for you to participate in both online and on-campus activities. We encourage you to have your voice heard and get involved. If you have any ideas for activities you'd like to see or specific feedback regarding your experience as a woman studying at Leeds Beckett, don't hesitate to get in touch with our Student Community Organisers by emailing lbsu-community-organisers@leedsbeckett.ac.uk.
To become a part of a Student Community, you need to first update your details to identify yourself as a member of that particular community. Here's how you can do it:
If you encounter any difficulties or have any questions regarding joining a community, please feel free to reach out to us at studentvoice@leedsbeckett.ac.uk . We will be more than happy to assist you.
The following priorities outline our guiding vision for making women’s lives better.
We recognise that priorities evolve with time and new ideas emerge. We embrace this dynamic nature and encourage active participation, welcoming fresh perspectives, new priorities, and celebrating achievements as they happen.
We will work to strengthen engagement with the Community based on passion rather than employability, through visible, accessible and empowering activities and events that forge an open and inclusive community for women students to network and seek support from their peers.
We will ensure that intersectionality remains a cornerstone of the Women's Community by acknowledging and respecting the different experiences of womanhood and ensuring that all types of women are welcome and represented in the activities of the Campaign and the wider Students' Union.
We will develop opportunities for laidback creative spaces within the Students' Union where women can build a sense of community, discuss shared interests and learn from each other.
We will host 'of interest' events about topics that educate and represent women students and their diversity, such as colourism in the black community, or trans misogyny.
We will work with the University and the Students' Union to undertake positive action initiatives that increases the representation of diverse women, including women of colour, disabled women, trans women and women of differing sexual orientations, in staff roles, student leadership roles and promotional materials.
We will invite diverse guest speakers to deliver empowering talks about what they have achieved to inspire and develop confidence in women students who may choose not to pursue a career in a particular industry based on the lack of visibility of women like them.
We will work with the Students' Union to identify possibilities for delivery of women in leadership and mentoring schemes that support women students to succeed.
We will launch a campaign at Leeds Beckett, based on the Everyday Sexism campaign, to raise awareness of women students' common experiences of sexism, misogyny, harassment or assault.
We will work to highlight the experience of women in education through campaign activity and guest lectures that engage, challenge and educate our peers.
We will campaign for an end to period poverty at every opportunity by engaging our MPs, promoting petitions, educating our peers to recognise that not all women have a uterus, vaginas or periods and to remove the stigmas about periods, and working with the Students' Union and University to offer a free supply of period products.
We will advocate for the decriminalisation of sex work and lobby the Students' Union and University to provide support for student sex workers including the provision of information on sex work and student sex workers' rights. We will also campaign to reduce the cost of education, a contributing factor for those who go into the sex industry, and campaign against the rise of 'sex for rent'.
We will work with the University and Students' Union to ensure that the work undertaken on Support, Report, Respect is continued and extended so that both organisations' commitment to changing the culture around sexual harassment and violence is visible to all, helps foster trust in their ability to deal with reports, and supports those impacted.
We will lobby for Consent Workshops to be offered to student representatives, societies and sports teams and lobby the University to extend Active Bystander training to bar and door staff in local bars and clubs so that our students feel safe and confident that staff know how to address incidents of sexual harassment and violence.
We will lobby the University to continue and extend funding for the support provision for student survivors of gendered violence to ensure that appropriate emotional support is available.
We will lobby the University to provide a personalised approach to mental health support to ensure that the differing issues that affect different women, such as women of colour and those experiencing gender dysphoria, are understood and respected.
We will develop an awareness campaign for staying safe on campus and in the city in light of the Zero Tolerance survey results which highlighted that students do not feel safe in spaces such as halls of residence, sports facilities, bars/clubs, Leeds in the evening and Headingley and Hyde Park.