Engender blog
F-words: Emojis can be feminist too
Amy King is a PhD researcher at Edinburgh Napier University and Digital Officer at YWCA Scotland - The Young Women’s Movement. Her PhD investigation into online violence and the mechanisms of harm in language often take her research to weird and wonderful places, including contemplating the harm - and hope - of the humble emoji.
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Do you remember the first time you used an emoji? I have to admit, I don’t. But I do remember the first time my Mum sent me one, about 7 years after they had become a mainstream element in digital communication. Now I’m priming her for the GIF library on WhatsApp. I’m lucky, though - my Mum has never sent me the wrong emoji before, like a crying laughing emoji in a sombre context, or an awkward emoji shoehorned into a sentence to prove she’s ~down with the kids~. And that’s important because emojis carry specific meaning, have acceptable and unacceptable uses, and they often hold crucial extralinguistic detail that we rely on to ensure we’re understood properly.
F-words: Reporting violence against women
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Iris Pase is an Italian freelance journalist based in Glasgow. Passionate about feminism, human rights and postcolonialism, she worked on Newsmavens’ feminist debunking and fact-checking project “Femfacts”. She's currently one of the blog editors at YWCA Scotland, where she’s created Femtorial, an Instagram project which aims at making feminist discourse accessible. You can find her work in The Independent, HUCK Magazine, and Culture Trip, among others.
According to the World Health Organisation, about 35% of women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual violence in their lifetime. This means that one in every three women will experience violence at least once in her life and just on the basis of gender. As a consequence, she might have mental and physical health problems afterwards.
F-words: Gypsy/Traveller women in Scotland
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Dr Lynne Tammi has worked in the field of Community Development for over three decades. Currently she is the Interim National Co-ordinator for Article 12 in Scotland - a young people-focused human rights and equalities NGO - and a freelance Human Rights Consultant and Advocate. She is of Irish and French Traveller heritage, and writes for us here about the links between language and discrimination.
In considering the language used to categorise and indeed denigrate Gypsy/Traveller women, an examination of the role of the media in the ‘othering’ or cultural denigration and exclusion of the Gypsy/Traveller community en masse is crucial.
Creators of ‘folk devils’ and drivers of moral panics who with “a lexicon of verbal abuse [keep up] a constant level of bigotry” (Cohen, 2002), these virtuosos of meaning-making construct ‘conceptual maps’ - a system, if you like, to code (or de-code) the signs and symbols of who or what are to be assigned the status of 'outsider' - and present them to us as both truth and threat. Consider the following Mail Online (2011) reportage on what was to become the forced eviction of the largest Gypsy/Traveller site in Europe, at the time:
GUEST POST: Being a Black Woman in Scotland: A Unique and Complex Experience
In this guest blog, Aleisha Omeike writes for Engender about the need to recognise the unique experiences of Black women. Follow Aleisha on Twitter at aleisha_omeike.
CN: this piece references and quotes racist language and slurs.
In this piece, I have shared some of my opinions and observations being a mixed-race woman (White Scottish and Black African) in Scotland. The experience of Black (and minority ethnic) women in Scotland is a unique and complex one. I have chosen to discuss two of the most under addressed of these experiences, including the ongoing trauma and detrimental influence racist abuse can have on women of colour and the hypersexualisation of Black women.
With the large engagement in the Black Lives Matter Movement, I hope that Scotland can begin implementing the change so desperately needed to start improving Black women's experiences.
Guest Post: Hyper-sexualising queer women is a social injustice - it's time to change the narrative
Denisha Killoh is a proud member of the LGBT+ community with experience of fighting for change for marginalised groups. As Pride month draws to a close, she reflects on the need to take action to end discrimination against lesbians.
Follow Denisha on Twitter @denishakilloh
We live in a day and age where people are quicker than ever to call out injustices in society. Recently, we’ve seen an unprecedented rise of social activism, as a direct influence of social media, allowing anyone with a cause and a platform to fight for change.
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Engender Briefing: Pension Credit Entitlement Changes
From 15 May 2019, new changes will be introduced which will require couples where one partner has reached state pension age and one has not (‘mixed age couples’) to claim universal credit (UC) instead of Pension Credit.
Engender Parliamentary Briefing: Condemnation of Misogyny, Racism, Harassment and Sexism
Engender welcomes this Scottish Parliament Debate on Condemnation of Misogyny, Racism, Harassment and Sexism and the opportunity to raise awareness of the ways in which women in Scotland’s inequality contributes to gender-based violence.
Gender Matters in Social Security: Individual Payments of Universal Credit
A paper calling on the Scottish Government to automatically split payments of Universal Credit between couples, once this power is devolved to the Scottish Parliament.
Gender Matters Manifesto: Twenty for 2016
This manifesto sets out measures that, with political will, can be taken over the next parliamentary term in pursuit of these goals.
Scottish NGO Briefing for UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women
Joint briefing paper for the UN Rapporteur on Violence Against Women.
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