Girl Up Edinburgh Campus is running a campaign this year against Gender-Based Violence; encompassing a wide range of topics such as domestic abuse, female genital mutilation, honour-based violence and sexual assault. We will be running a wide variety of weekly sessions to fulfil our 4 campaign aims: 

1. Raising awareness of and stimulating discussion of GBV on campus and beyond 

2. Advocating for cultural and structural changes to our university and local community to help eliminate gender-based violence  

3. Raising funds for Edinburgh charities which help women affected by gender-based violence 

4. Facilitating a safe space in our Girl Up community for our members to learn more about and discuss the issue of gender-based violence  

We launched our campaign on 7th October with a panel discussion on gender-based violence featuring an Edinburgh Labour councillor Lezley Marion Cameron, Sarah McHaffie from Amina, Muslim women’s resource centre, Omolara Plang from Bright Choices, Rachel Jane Hendry from Sisters Uncut and Poppy Gerrard Abbott, a feminist activist and PhD student at the University of Edinburgh.  

Gender-based violence is a complex and multifaceted issue which stems from gender inequality and affects a huge number of people. One in three women experience physical or sexual abuse in her lifetime but abuse comes in many different forms. Economic, cyber and emotional abuse are equally in need of recognition for their negative impacts. This campaign aims to consider gender-based violence holistically, taking an intersectional approach to understand how it affects everyone uniquely, with people at varying degrees of risk due to their age, economic status, race or immigration status. Although gender-based violence can affect men as well as women, women and girls are disproportionately impacted with 1/3 of women experiencing physical or sexual abuse in her lifetime.  

We have chosen gender-based violence as the focus of this campaign because of its continued prevalence in society due to asymmetrical, gendered power relations and social norms which work to support forms of violence. Awareness and understanding of the widespread impact which gender-based violence creates, is necessary on campus and beyond to work towards its elimination. No one should experience acts of violence due to their gender. Everyone should have the capability and opportunity to access the resources and help required to prevent violence from occurring. Tackling these issues must therefore occur through many avenues, requiring government funding, systematic change of gender equality, knowledge of the services available and a community to create a sense of solidarity against these forms of violence.  

Girl Up Edinburgh Campus will run weekly sessions around gender-based violence to achieve our 4 aims. Coming up this semester we have an Open Mic night with LitSoc, we are opening submissions to a zine, we have a disability and gender-based violence workshop and many more exciting events. All the information on our events can be found on our Facebook page and we send out weekly newsletters with all the necessary information to our mailing list.  

Editor’s note: Mxogyny and Girl Up will be collaborating in January 2020 with a creativity-based community project, keep an eye out on both of our social media for information.