Johnian to be key speaker at Women of the World Festival

Natasha Walter will be participating in the Women of the World Cambridge event on 8 March to celebrate International Women’s Day.

Natasha Walter, English graduate of St John’s College, and Humanitas Visiting Professor in Women's Rights 2014-15, will be a key speaker at the Women of the World Cambridge (WOW) event on Sunday 8 March.

At the panel discussion entitled Making Waves, Natasha will talk about trends in social media and feminist activism and will debate how to create change in today’s world, from online campaigning to street protests. The discussion will be chaired by Professor Andrew Webber, University of Cambridge.

“At the Cambridge WOW event I'll be joined by a couple of women for whom I have enormous respect: Lucy-Anne Holmes of No More Page 3 and Rehab Jameel of the London Refugee Women's Forum.” Natasha said. “We'll be chatting about how to stand up to sexism and objectification, and also how to build links across borders. We'll also be talking about how to use humour and creativity in the movement; this can't just be about dry polemic, this has to be about harnessing energy and spirit to move forwards.”

The Women of the World (WOW) Festival is taking place across the globe to encourage the sharing of ideas on the challenges affecting women today and to put a spotlight on the incredible things that women do. The WOW Cambridge event for International Women’s Day will take place at the Cambridge Junction, and will celebrate the achievements of women with a full day of workshops, poetry, music, performances, family activities, and debates. Sessions will cover topics such as women and sport, violence against women, women in science, and men and feminism. There will also be speed mentoring and speed networking events.

Natasha is the author of two books, The New Feminism (1998), and Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism (2010), both of which can be found in St John’s College Library. She is a passionate campaigner for the rights of women and children seeking asylum in the UK, and is the founder of the charity Women for Refugee Women, which campaigns to end the detention of women who seek asylum in the UK. Natasha has co-written two reports on the experiences of refugee women in this country.

The talk on 8 March is the culmination of a three-part series of CRASSH Humanitas talks by Natasha, with the first two lectures being part of the WOW Cambridge fringe events. The first talk, From Sexism to Solidarity, was held on 3 March, and the second, entitled From Reform to Revolution, will take place on 5 March in Mill Lane Lecture Room 9.

“I'm delighted to be doing these events in Cambridge and see them as a chance to have an honest discussion about where feminism is now and what still needs to be done.” Natasha said. “It's great to see so much more discussion of feminism in the mainstream at the moment, but I want to look at how we can build solidarity despite our differences and actually try to create change.”

Making Waves will take place at Junction 2 at 4-5.30pm. The full programme of events for WOW Cambridge for International Women’s Day 2015 can be found here.