Women and Gender Studies

Magnificent digital archive charting the history of the Royal School of Needlework. It currently has 100 digital objects of hand embroidery online alongside blogs and other online documents covering the history of the school and major works it has produced for coronations and royal events

This project represents the first study in Australia and New Zealand to examine the degree to which a domestic violence disclosure scheme (DVDS) provides an effective intervention for victim-survivors of intimate partner violence in enhancing their safety. The findings from this project are relevant to current policy discussions and evaluations of the DVDS in all Australian states and territories, as well as in comparable international jurisdictions, including New Zealand, Canada, the United States, Scotland, England and Wales.

In the so-called West, feminist activists and scholars have long been traumatised by the erasure of their histories via dominant patriarchal narratives, which has served as an impediment to the intergenerational transmission of feminist knowledge. Recently, while acknowledging the very real and ongoing impact of this historical omission, some feminists have issued a call to turn away from a narrative of women’s history as ‘serial forgetting’ and towards an acknowledgement of the affirmative capacity of feminist remembering. At the same time, memory theorist Ann Rigney has advocated for a ‘positive turn’ in memory studies, away from what she perceives to be the field’s gravitation towards trauma and instead towards an analysis of life’s positive legacies. In this article, I combine both approaches to investigate one feminist memory-keeper’s archive, analysing what it reveals about ‘the mechanisms by which positive attachments are transmitted across space and time’. Throughout her life, little-known ‘between-the-waves’ Australian feminist Ruby Rich (1888–1988) performed multiple intersecting activist activities. While she created feminist memories through her work for various political organisations, she also collected, stored and transmitted feminist memories through her campaign for a dedicated space for women’s collections in the National Library of Australia. Propelled by fear of loss and inspired by hope for remembering, Rich constructed a brand of archival activism that was both educational and emotional. In this paper, I examine the strategies Rich employed to try to realise her dream of effecting intellectual and affective bonds between future feminists and their predecessors.

Ever evolving technologies in the workplace create new mediums for sexual harassment, and employers and staff need support on how to prevent and respond to the potential harms. This research offers crucial insights to aid Australian employers and policy-makers in understanding and combating workplace technology-facilitated sexual harassment (WTFSH) effectively.

Ruhi Khan, ESRC researcher at the LSE, argues that as companies increasingly use artificial intelligence and people gravitate towards relying on large language model chatbots like ChatGPT for ubiqu…

Compiled by Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the highest standard of physical and mental health (SR health), the Independent Expert on Protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity (IE SOGI), and the UN Working Group on discrimination against women and girls (WGDAWG).

Amazing resource compiled by expert Norena Shopland which comprises timelines for each of the 22 counties of Wales (plus the historic county of Gwent).highlighting key local events and personalities as well as national milestones towards LGBT plus liberation. Each document is presented as a colourful pdf document which can be downloaded.

No Knives Better Lives has published a report on violence between girls in Scotland. The report explores the experiences of girls and young women with interpersonal violence, through focus groups and interviews with 16 young women and 4 practitioners. Findings show: disrespect towards family and friends was a common trigger of violence; perceptions of limited support from adults led young women to solving conflict or bullying with violence; young women were both ‘viewers’ and ‘producers’ of harmful content online; and daily exposure to violent content online led to desensitisation

Being a parent, unpaid carer or paid care worker in Wales, Scotland or England too often means being forced into hardship. Silvia Galandini and Claire Spoors introduce Oxfam’s new paper, which sets out how to break the link between care and poverty.

Nearly four years in the making, the review into gender-affirming healthcare for English youth was published on 10 April - here’s what you need to know Gay times summary of links to original report and responses.