Tag Archives: diversity

Interviews

“In a time of chaos, create”: The First Generation Network

Dr Daniel Smith interviews current second-year Rufeida Alhatimy about a new network for King’s students from backgrounds under-represented among university students.

Dr Daniel Smith (DS): So, Rufeida, you and I spent a lot of time last semester talking about wordplay in English Renaissance literature, but now I hear you’re taking on a new challenge, representing the First Generation Network as an officer within the Student Union. I’m particularly interested in this wonderful initiative as I’ve been co-ordinating the English Department’s Widening Participation (WP) programme this year. Can you start by telling me what First Generation Network is?

Rufeida Alhatimy (RA): Studies have shown that students from a first generation background find the transition to higher education and beyond more taxing and challenging, and the network seeks to help tackle the boundaries and barriers that some of these students face. First Generation Network is one of eight “liberation networks” built into the KCLSU structure, run by students for students to promote positive change and representation. We cater to students who are from Widening Participation backgrounds, those in or leaving care, those whose parents didn’t go to university and those from low-participation neighbourhoods to improve their university experience and create a home away from home.
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Gender and Sexuality, Life writing, Creative writing and Performance, Performance Research Group

Women are being excluded from the stage. It’s time for quotas.

by Julia Pascal, Research Fellow, Department of English, King’s College London

It’s a century after some British women were allowed to vote, and a statue of the suffragist Millicent Fawcett has been unveiled in Parliament Square, so why is women’s presence on the English stage still unequal to men’s?

In a recent survey, the Sphinx theatre found that just a fifth of English theatres were led by women, who between them control just 13% of the total Arts Council England (ACE) theatre budget.

The feminist campaigning organisation the Fawcett Society has called for quotas to get more women into key positions, after its Sex and Power Index revealed startling gender disparities in the public arena. The situation in theatre, where I have worked all my life, is a startling gauge of the marginalisation of women.

The Conference of Women Theatre Directors and Administrators began auditing the number of females on stage in the 1980s. That we are nowhere near equality, almost 40 years later, was only too evident at the Olivier awards this year, when the prizes for best director and best new play went to men. When women do not have equal representation in theatre, it is impossible for them to have an equal chance of winning prizes. The Equal Representation for Actresses campaign group is among those pushing for change, but the male ruling elite refuses to share power.

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