On Monday, 10th June an online feminism panel was put on by York Needs Feminism and University of York Amnesty International. This was to highlight the relevance of gender equality on and off campus. The panel, which discussed the issues of online feminist activism, featured guests from around the UK. The panel included Susy Langsdale, Those Pesky Dames and representatives from the York Campaign for Body Confidence.
Susy Langsdale is the Womens Officer at Cambridge University and one of the people behind “Cambridge Needs Feminism”, while Those Pesky Dames are a blogging collective who upload videos discussing themes of feminism. Meanwhile, the York Campaign for Body Confidence was founded by four teenagers from York who are “trying to make a positive difference in their city” by promoting “a healthy, realistic body image”.
The panel specifically discussed how feminism has developed with the rise of the internet. Topics of discussion included the rise of online feminism, where it might lead to in the future and problems that have arisen, such as dealing with trolls.
The online panel is part of the York Needs Feminism campaign, which throughout the summer term has been attempting to bring to light why feminism is still so important to York students. A continuing aspect of the campaign has been the “York Needs Feminism” photo shoots, which have seen numerous students pose with a whiteboard containing their own reasons why they believe it is still relevant.
Saskia Papdakis, one of the Women’s Officers at the University of York, told York Vision about the evening. Speaking before the event, she commented, “the York Needs Feminism campaign online has had an immense amount of support on Facebook and now we’ve got feminists coming from around the country to chat about the various aspects of online activism and online feminism, what could be a better way to celebrate!”