Events at LSBU celebrating Women
- Welcome an Inevitable Friend: Menopause – Wednesday 8 March, 2pm-3pm
- Enterprising Minds - Women Entrepreneurs panel – Wednesday 8 March, 5pm-6:30pm
- International Women's Day at LSBU with Diane Abbot – Friday 10 March, 1pm-2:30pm
- Women in STEM - Future Career - Wednesday 22 March, 4.15pm - 6pm
- Inaugural lecture: Women, Politics and Gender Equality – Wednesday 26 April, 6pm-8pm
International Women's Day is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. Activities take place worldwide to celebrate women's achievements or rally for women's equality.
Marked yearly on the 8th March, International Women's Day (IWD) is an important day of the year to:
Each year IWD focuses on a particular theme.
The theme this year is #EmbraceEquity
We can all call out bias, reject discrimination and challenge inequality. Check out the hashtag for more information and examples.
We can all truly embrace equity.
It's not just something we say. It's not just something we write about.
It's something we need to think about, know, value and embrace.
It's what we believe in, unconditionally. Equity means creating an inclusive world.
www.internationalwomensday.com
The first national women's day was celebrated in 1909 in accordance with a declaration by the Socialist Party of America, and was observed across the United States on the 28th February. Women continued to celebrate NWD on the last Sunday of February until 1913.
In 1911 International Women's Day was honoured the first time in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland on the 19th March. More than one million women and men attended IWD rallies campaigning for women's rights to work, vote, be trained, to hold public office and end discrimination.
On the eve of World War I campaigning for peace, Russian women observed their first International Women's Day on the 23rd February, the last Sunday in February. Following discussions, International Women's Day was agreed to be marked annually on the 8th of March that translated in the widely adopted Gregorian calendar from the 23rd February - and this day has remained the global date for International Women's Day ever since.
Find out more about IWD's history on the IWD website
Exploring Women's History in the LSBU ArchivesThe University Archives has lots of historic material that could tell you more about women's history. You could:
Find out more about what trades girls were encouraged into in 1909
And lots more, get in touch to ask!
The 2020/21 academic year saw the centenary year of London South Bank University first teaching women Engineering subjects. The University Archives pages have profiles of some of the inspirational women who studied and taught engineering at LSBU, including Madeleine Nobbs (pictured). Madeleine started taking courses at LSBU in 1938/39 and later became a consulting engineering and President of the Women's Engineering Society.
Read this blog about women students' war-time experiences and work, written by one of our students.
Lovingly remembered as Fakhr an-Nisa, or “The Pride of Womankind”, as well as “The Writer of Baghdad”, Al-Baghdadiyyah remains one of the most celebrated female lectures as well as calligraphers during her lifetime in the 12th century. Born in Iran, Al-Baghdadiyyah was the daughter of the famous scholar Abu Nasr Al-Dinawari, who helped nurture in her an incredible sense of intelligence and ability to memorize hadith.
Giving lectures in mosques and universities in Baghdad, she is strongly remembered for her transmission and explanation of hadith, and was held in high regard throughout the region as one of the most sought-after scholars. Her incredible skills in calligraphy were also well renowned, with her style of writing taken up and imitated generations after her death.
Al-Baghdadiyyah remains an inspiring example of the power of what one woman can do with simply a pen, as her lectures, writing, and calligraphy continue to empower and touch the hearts of Muslims across the world.
One of the most important and influential female scholars in Islamic history, Umm Al-Darda was reportedly a strong figure since her early childhood in the early 7th century. Refusing to conform to cultural gender norms, Umm Al-Darda is remembered for praying in the men’s rows at the mosques, as well as sitting amongst her male peers during Quran studies.
After becoming a jurist, Islamic scholar, and a teacher of hadith, Umm Al-Darda went on to lecture at the Damascus Mosque, teaching both men and women in the same room. One of her most famous students was none other than the Umayyad Caliph Abdul Malik Bin Marwan, as well as the famous scholar and judge Hasan Al-Basri.
Umm Al-Darda also reportedly stated:
I have sought worship in everything. I did not find anything more relieving to me than sitting with scholars and exchanging (knowledge) with them.”
Even issuing her own fatwa allowing the practice of men and women praying shoulder to shoulder, Umm Al-Darda continues to be remembered as one of the most ground-breaking and influential female scholars of Islamic history.
Find out more:
You can read a blog post for IWD 2020 and featuring LSBU's history here.
Books to read for Women's History Month
This list contains reading material found in our library catalogue that spans a broad range of topics relating to women's history.
Crossing Boundaries, Building Bridges by 
Enterprising Women by 
A History of Women in Men's Clothes by 
This Bridge Called My Back by 
Women in Twentieth-Century Britain by 
The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum join in commemorating and encouraging the study, observance and celebration of the vital role of women in American history.
