Women’s Media Studies Network
Overview
WMSN seminar – Women in Public Life
The most recent Network seminar was organised by committee
members Heather Nunn and Anita Biressi and held in June at
University of Surrey, Roehampton. The event aimed to attract
interest from colleagues in the Network and to attract women
in areas such as politics, sociology and communications who
may not have heard of MeCCSA. To this end it was successful
as we had numerous queries from women about the event and
about the Network and MeCCSA and have expanded our mailing
list.
The event entitled ‘Women in Public Life’ was
well attended. Speakers reflected a fresh perspective on
the subject of politics and gender and provoked lively debates.
Sylvia Shaw, Middlesex University, spoke on “Language
and gender in the House of Commons” and showed revealing
clips of parliamentary debates. Carol Smith, King Alfred’s
College, analysed the media representation of Hillary Clinton
in her talk “The alice band as political weapon”.
And in her talk ‘Co-existence of foreign bodies’,
Nirmal Puwar, University College Northampton, discussed the
discursive matrix of space, gender and political life refracted
through ethnicity. Following a break for networking, tea
and chocolate cake Laura Turquett, Policy Officer from the
Fawcett Society, spoke about recent research into access
for women into political life and the public sphere.
A WMSN meeting in which forthcoming seminar events were
discussed followed the event. We are pleased to confirm future
events at Cardiff University and the University of the West
of England, Bristol. Further details will follow shortly.
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