On Friday I attended an NUS training day on ‘Understanding and Supporting Liberation’. The day focussed on what a liberation campaign is and how we can develop them in our unions. The four NUS liberation campaigns are the Black Students’ Campaign, Disabled Students’ Campaign, LGBT Campaign and Women’s Campaign. These groups exist because Liberation from discrimination is something that millions of students across Britain are still fighting for.

Today I want to talk about the Women’s Campaign (but do come chat to me about any of the other campaigns and how you can get involved!). At the start of the training, Olivia Bailey (NUS National Women’s Officer), asked who in the room would call themselves a feminist? In a room of around 18 officers (both men and women) only myself and one other raised their hand. The reasons given by those who didn’t included: “I’m a man so I didn’t think I could call myself a feminist”, “I don’t understand the term enough to use it” and “people think of feminists as a certain type of person – scary, brash, militant, anti-men etc.” When you hear the term ‘feminist’ is this what you think too?

The reason given by those of us who did raise our hands was simple “I believe in equality, and when it comes to gender we aren’t there yet!”

Women have come pretty far, in fact so far that some argue that feminism is dead because it’s achieved its goals! But consider the following…

• On average, women are paid 17% less than men in full time work, and 38% less in part time work
• At the current rate it will take 200 years before there is gender equality in Parliament
• 42% of women homicide victims (compared to 4% of men) were killed by a current or former male partner in 2001 (many more interesting facts can be found in the NUS document ‘101 reasons for liberation’)

You probably are a feminist. The term is just too loaded and scary for most people. We need to claim it back! We need to get past the “I’m not a feminist, but…” stuff.

I probably don’t fit the ‘feminist’ stereotype you are picturing – I wear make-up, heels, I'm a cheerleader, I enjoy romcoms, I have a boyfriend (I don’t hate men!), I don’t wear doc martins and I shave my legs. (I do fit one stereotype – I’m pro-choice).

I know that we have more to do to ensure equality for women and that is why I call myself a feminist and why I am prepared to stand-up for women’s rights.

In the context of my role at Kent Union I will be supporting the growth of women’s forum, alongside our Women’s Officer Laura King, into a proper liberation campaign and helping pave the way for autonomous voting. I’m really excited to see how all the liberation campaigns develop at Kent and that is up to you!