Feminism at large at gender conference

The Indiana Memorial Union served as a meeting place for women, many of whom were professors from universities across the nation, as they discussed citizenship and the role of feminism in politics and academia.

The topics came from around the globe during this weekend’s 14th-annual Cultural Studies Gender and Citizenship conference.

At Friday’s keynote speech, Srimati Basu, associate professor of gender and women’s studies at the University of Kentucky, spoke of the issues surrounding violence in marriage, rape and the role of marital citizenship.

Basu said rape has seen a steady rise in recent years, especially in India. Some of the main reasons are the view that rape cannot occur within a marriage and the flaws in the process for reporting a rape.

“There are always cases where race is used in gender as well as class, caste and political domination,” she argued. 

Basu added that when a woman in India is raped, she will often then be pressured into marrying her rapist, which would typically void her argument.

Members of the audience discussed ways in which feminists could overcome these issues, including debunking the idea that marriage should be used as a resolution to rape claims.

On Saturday, three different panels were available to conference attendees, which included both men and women.

One panel discussed issues of popular sovereignty and maternal citizenship and what they mean for Chinese and Taiwanese relations.

Sara Friedman, associate professor of anthropology and gender studies at IU, said current immigration laws allow women from China who have children to more easily immigrate into Taiwan.

As part of the final panel, the presenters discussed how feminism affected academia, particularly at IU. Panelist Maria Bucur, associate professor of history at IU, discussed the lack of sufficient roles for women at the University and pointed out that women currently compose only 32 percent of the faculty at IU.

“Women as a group have not arrived and we need to call tokenism for what it is,” she said. “Top administrators need to tend to and mentor other young women.”

She cited the slow promotion of women at IU as one of the reasons that more women are needed in higher positions, particularly in the boardroom where the decisions are being made. 

One of the coordinators of the event, Karma Lochrie, said the turnout had exceeded their expectations.

“I think it was great,” she said, “Here it is, it’s a Saturday in late February when nobody wants to leave their house because of the snow and the cold, and there were so many people here.”

Graduate student Zach Kelly said he attended the conference to gain more knowledge on the theoretical backgrounds in gender studies.

“These speakers did a wonderful job of sort of bringing it home for some who’s new to the whole area,” he said.