Written by Sophie Young, second year student and Gender & Sexuality Education Advocate
Our college community had the pleasure of celebrating the vibrant and diverse cohort of female-identifying students that reside at Emmanuel College over an afternoon of sharing stories, honouring achievements and learning from our guest speakers.
Aligning with this year’s International Women’s Day theme, #BreaktheBias, Emmanuel College board member and Corporate Governance Manager at HOTA, Emma Szczotko, spoke to our students of examples of bias, discrimination and gendered issues, as well as suggesting practical tools to address power imbalances. Through her diverse career, she noted the importance of female visibility in leadership and the workforce, noting ‘we can’t be what we can’t see’.
At Emmanuel, I believe our female dominant leadership team continues to inadvertently inspire other women to strive for academic, sporting and cultural success through the visibility of women in leadership positions. Opportunities for female support and advocacy have also been achieved through the curation of the Women’s representative under the Gender and Sexuality Education Advocate position at Emmanuel. In this role, I am passionate about addressing female-specific health issues that are often neglected in public domains, instead aiming to promote sexual health and wellbeing through education and conversation.
We were extremely grateful to have junior General Practitioner, Sylvie Giguere, speak at our afternoon, effectively promoting dialogue and awareness for female-specific health complications amongst our audience. Event attendees also had the opportunity to get a headshot, taken by alum, Rhys Ward, to boost their digital, professional profiles.
Overall, the afternoon was a great success and a powerful catalyst for continuing conversations that address gender disparity in the wider community.
