This blog is long overdue. My aversion to sitting down and writing about what I’ve been up to is clearly something that I need to get over.

I’ve never appreciated the concept of blogging. If what I get up to is that interesting, surely I should be saving it for the autobiography? Joking aside, for political and work related purposes, how does a blog guarantee accountability? I could write ten blogs, offering my take on current events, detailing NEC gossip and describing the view out of my window (it’s pretty good right now, if you’re interested – there are trees and everything), but in fact have done no work at all. Surely the sudden appearance of numerous posts on internet message boards in my name would suggest that I’ve not been working, rather than that I have. Conversely, I could be working hard, to the point where when I’m faced with the decision of whether I should live my life, or write about it, I choose living it every time. When I feel the need to write, I grab my diary, not my keyboard. We need more accessible accountability structures which aren’t so reliant on following the letter rather than the spirit.

But rest assured, get over it I will. I will finally post up what I’ve been doing for the past couple of months later this week.

Anyway.

Women. Women are an issue for me. Literally. The LGBT student movement has traditionally been dominated by gay men. So much so, in fact, that we have to guarantee women’s representation at every level of our campaign. We have a women’s place officer (moi :P), our committee structure ensures that there are women’s places representing every caucus, and, most recently of all, we now insist on gender balance for all delegations to our conferences. Each CM is entitled to send four delegates to conference, two of whom must be women. I was so proud that we achieved gender balance on conference floor this summer for the first time. However, there were of course repercussions. Numbers suffered when CMs were unable to send their four elected male delegates. The new rules meant that the number of first time women delegates was higher, meaning that although half the bums on seats belonged to women, relatively few of those women took the plunge, stood up and spoke.

In order to run a fully inclusive campaign which delivers for *all* LGBT students, these women must become fully active. This year, our Under Construction campaign aims to do just that. It recognises that the democratic structures are in place within our campaign to facilitate representation of the caucuses, but also that the members of these caucuses do not yet fully participate in our movement. This is especially true of women. The first of our Under Construction days, aiming to ‘build our movement’ (catchy title…) focuses on activating women, increasing their participation, and helping them to find their voice and speak up for themselves.

Under Construction: Women will take place in Cardiff Uni SU on the 20th October. Have a look on officeronline for details. The event includes workshops and talks on subjects ranging from ideas to encourage women to join student groups, to public speaking and how to develop women’s political voices. This day is aimed at all LGBT students – you don’t have to identify as woman to attend. Those who will benefit most are those who *don’t* have many women members in their LGBT student groups.

There will be further Under Construction events this year, for each caucus. The next after Under Construction: Women will be Under Construction: FE on the 6th December in Birmingham.

Come and help build your movement!

The Blogs on this site represent the individual views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the policies or practices of the National Union of Students.

All links in blogs will open in a new browser window.

The permanent URL for this specific blog entry is: http://www.officeronline.co.uk/blogs/claireanderson/273073.aspx