International Women’s Week

We had a very busy week at Bancroft’s celebrating International Women’s Day. Various societies, clubs and departments put on activities for the school to enjoy in order to raise awareness of issues affecting women. Here are some words from some of the groups that took part.

Bancroft’s Muslim Association,

Tara Khan, U6W

International Women’s Day is always a significant event for our school community and to celebrate this we ordinarily host a week of activities. This year, the Diversity and inclusion Committee decided to organise a whole school assembly, to discuss underrepresented women from a range of different communities. Tara, Zayba and Yusuf from the Bancroft’s Muslim Association highlighted the Islamic medic and social worker Rufaida Al-Aslamiya, from the seventh century. We emphasised the importance of the accessibility of female power from a wider range of backgrounds rather than what is traditionally taught. In another, smaller, assembly delivered on Wednesday 8 March, we focused on the importance of women in Islam and debunked stereotypes of women in Islam, with factual evidence from the Holy Quran and well-researched studies. The experience of individual research here, allowed us to examine our personal interests of equality within the BMA and present these passionately, not only to the rest of our society, but also to the whole school.

Jewish Society, Yonni Levy, L6S

During the Jewish Society’s fortnightly Jewish Lunch, we looked at inspirational women in the Jewish religion as part of International Women’s Day. Coincidently, IWD coincided with the Jewish festival of Purim and one of the key characters in the Purim story is a courageous and heroic woman, Queen Esther. Esther was Jewish and was married to King Achashverosh. The story explains how she saved the Jewish people from an evil man called Haman, who worked for the King and was plotting against the Jews. Representatives from the Jewish Society also spoke in the IWD assembly about Hannah Szenes, another inspirational Jewish woman, who was recruited by the British during World War II to parachute into enemy territory and be a spy.

Afro-Caribbean Society, Chizara Oti, U6

For International Women’s Day, Bancroft’s Afro-Caribbean Society contributed to an assembly celebrating the intersectionality of IWD. Faith and Chizara spoke of the fight that many African and Caribbean women put up against colonialism – a topic not commonly discussed in history. Their presentation mainly focused on Queen Nanny and the Dahomey Amazons of modern-day Benin. This was followed up by a hair-braiding workshop on the Tuesday of the same week. This workshop attracted large crowds, particularly from the junior school, providing a platform for ACS to promote cultural appreciation, rather than appropriation, of traditional AfroCaribbean hairstyles.

EqualiTea, Jaya Robertson, L6S

For International Women’s Day, EqualiTea society spoke in assembly about the inspiring, Indian feminist, Kamaladevi Chattopdhyay. We aimed to educate others about her life of amazing achievements and progressive advocacy whilst exploring the diversity of feminism. We wanted to highlight the importance of recognizing those who have helped us as a society to get to this stage. We also held a debate over the question “Do working parents hinder the development of their children?” The meeting was very successful with a range of students and teachers attending to either put forward their opinion or simply listen and have some tea! It was lovely to create a safe space in which people could express their own mindsets and for parents in the room to be able to share their experience of having both a career and children. This respectful, informative conversation was a perfect example of why our society exists.

Congress, Aaron Dhiman, L6N

The School Congress wanted to educate their peers about period poverty, an issue seen all around the world. We decided to take the stage by presenting a whole school assembly addressing the topic, revealing some shocking statistics, and highlighting just how prominent the problem is. Not only were we able to introduce our new menstrual products scheme for female bathrooms within the school, we were also were able to promote the non-uniform day in support of IWD, when money raised was donated to Period Poverty UK and Toilet Twinning. The reception from the assembly was extremely positive and the week was nicely topped off with streaks of purple on Own Clothes Day! For more information see: https://periodpoverty.uk https://www.toilettwinning.org/why-60/

STEMinists, Ritika Chakraborty, L6E

During International Women’s Week, the STEMinists Society, who try and get more girls into STEM subjects, set up a stall where students could come and write on postcards with details about famous women in science and send them to their friends. The postcards showed women scientists, ranging from recent ones like Katherine Johnson, to more historical ones such as Marie Curie. We then delivered the postcards to everyone to enjoy their inspirational International Women’s Day messages!

It didn’t stop there. We were honoured to welcome two Old Bancroftians who spoke to our students. OB Rioghnach Sachs visited us to deliver a fascinating talk on the

Ancient Greek female poet Sappho, who Sixth Form classicists are studying as part of their A Level course. Rioghnach’s talk, entitled Lesbians without Labels, was based on her own research work for her PhD at King’s College, London. The Sixth Form heard from OB Rainbow Murray Professor of Politics at QMUL. Prof. Murray is an expert on representation, political institutions, gender and diversity, as well as the Faculty Lead for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion. As an academic in a maledominated discipline, she is ideally placed to talk about the challenges faced by women through both her academic work and her own personal experience. She gave our pupils of all genders a great deal of sound advice for career progressions: mentorship, being an ally, front-loading your CV, choosing priorities and looking after your health.

We also had an inspirational assembly from Karen Emmanuel, CEO of Key Productions. She outlined her career path from school to successful CEO and outlined the role of a CEO and the qualities needed to succeed in this role.

The mathematics department put on a treasure hunt for the Thirds. The maths teachers were all famous female mathematicians in disguise and it was the job of the Thirds to work out who they were. The students that collected the most mathematicians would be awarded a prize. The winners are……… You’ll have to wait until Junior assembly to find out!

As you can see, there was so much going on and this isn’t an exhaustive list. A huge well done and thank you to everyone who was involved for making it such a successful week. We hope that the pupils have learnt something new about the different issues facing men and women around the world.