Feminist U kicks off with pilot event: SU initiative targets inequalities in leadership

As one of only two elected female executives, Students’ Union Vice-President (External) Navneet Khinda is an anomaly — but she’s ready for that to change.

In an Oct. 2014 Students’ Union survey, male and female University of Alberta undergraduates expressed an equal interest in running for a student election. But, females are disproportionately unlikely to run in elections — from 2004 to 2012, only 22 per cent of SU executive candidates were female.

“Equal interest, different outcomes. There’s something in the middle that’s going wrong,” Khinda said.

Khinda said she believes the tipping point between this interest and outcome is gender.

She’s looking to combat this disparity with Project Feminist U, an initiative to create a venue for conversation surrounding gender, politics, leadership and feminism at the U of A. The initiative is kicking off with a pilot event on campus from Feb. 3 to 5, featuring nine workshops and discussions hosted by groups from the U of A and Edmonton’s feminist community.

The initiative’s two main goals are to mitigate gender-based barriers to involvement in leadership and politics, and to work towards the goal of the U of A becoming a “feminist campus.”

“By that, I don’t mean one where everyone is a self-proclaimed feminist, but where if we’re talking about issues, we just make sure we have a gendered lens when looking at it,” Khinda said.

Khinda was first inspired to start the project after noticing that explicit mentions of feminism are missing in current rhetoric meant to empower women. While popular messaging is encouraging, she noted a marked absence of discussing how to integrate feminist thinking or a gendered lens — that is, examining how issues impact people of different genders — into one’s everyday life.

Khinda said this omission comes from the perceived “divisiveness” of feminism.

“(Feminism) is controversial, for some reason. But I think most good ideas are,” she said. “It’s so uncomfortable to really focus on structures that prevent people from doing things. It’s uncomfortable to talk about how you benefit from some ideas while others don’t. But we’re never going to learn unless we confront our discomfort.”

To combat this “discomfort,” the project is committed to being “educational, not confrontational,” Khinda said. She’s optimistic that the sessions lined up for the pilot event will give all students — regardless of their gender studies background — a welcome opportunity to dip their feet into feminist discussion.

Sessions include an intro HTML and CSS workshop from Ladies Learning Code, a workshop about combating harassment, and a discussion on how men can be better allies to women.

While there are no concrete plans for future Project Feminist U events following the pilot event, Khinda expressed interest in partnering with other student groups to host more feminist-minded events on campus. As well, she mentioned discussions at the pilot event may influence potential recommendations to Students’ Union and university policy.

Khinda acknowledged that the project’s lofty goals won’t be fully accomplished by hosting one event. But, opening the conversation on feminism will help empower U of A students limited by gender boundaries, she said.

“Students in your own community feel uncomfortable. Students feel like they can’t reach their potential because of invisible structures that exist,” she said. “So, it’s our responsibility to address them — whether they affect you or not.”

A full list of the pilot project’s events and locations is located at uasu.ca/PFU.