Women's Collective

This year the Women’s Collective has certainly had an active presence on campus, holding countless events and initiatives, as well as many mobile offices connecting with students on the issues that affect them.

At the start of the year we campaigned on sexual health awareness and drove the effort to provide free condoms to students throughout o-week. For International Women’s Day we held a special formal event with Deidre Swan who spoke on the barriers for women when climbing the ladder in their industries. Our Share the dignity campaign spanned the months of March and August, where we held collection stations and locations where students were able to donate products that were then donated to Share the Dignity.

This year we have also held 4 book clubs and plan to hold another before the end of the year! Since the release of the NSSS survey the Women’s Collective has been working hard to push the university to improve their prevention and repsonse to sexual assault and harrassment. This includes representing students on multiple working groups and committees within the university. We also held a mindfulness workshop, instructing students and attendees on mindfulness practice methods for exams and coping with stress.

We created and published the UQU Women’s Personal Safety Pamphlet, guided by Positive Prevention. The pamphlet is empowerment-based and focuses on what to “DO” to handle different types of personal safety problems. This semester we also held a body painting workshop at the Un-fair, where students volunteered themselves as canvases to be painted on by ther students, with words or phrases relating to diet culture that were meaningful to them.

We also held two discussion panels at Gatton on the topics of Agriculture and Veterinary studies. During Body Image and Eating Disorder Awareness Week we held a discussion panel called You as You Are Panel which focused on the issues of body image, diet culture and eating disorders. Also, look out for our feminist film screening coming up as well! Finally, as we committed to do at the start of the year we have successfully installed dispensaries for free period products in Central Library, BSL, The Food Co-op, The Union Complex, Gatton Library and Herston.

Remember to stay updated with the Women’s Collective on our social media so you can hear about future events! Greta Simpson