Pling!

The women’s minibus

On Thursday, I tabled a motion at Union Council for opening up the Union’s night minibus for women to all students – maintaining priority for women so as they will not lose out. We debated this, but support for it was low and the motion fell – maintaining the status quo.

For those not on council, or attending the meeting, I thought I’d lay out my reasoning for introducing the motion in the first place.

The driving reason behind me introducing the motion was that it strikes me as odd that the Union would only provide such a service for half of their student body – men (particularly those travelling alone) are also at risk of assault, although assaults on women are disproportionately of the sexual nature as opposed to men, which I hoped my proposal of giving women priority aimed to account for.

There were a number of arguments against – a compelling one is that the minibus is currently perceived as a women only safe-zone, that the introduction of men to this space would eliminate this and put some of the most vulnerable women off using the minibus, however I still believed that this will be minimal, and outweighed by the significant increase in welfare to vulnerable men who choose the use the service (and who currently have no equivalent service).

Another argument related to the viability of the idea – anecdotal evidence was presented that men would somehow result in the minibus need cleaning more, or are more likely to vomit than women. To me, this argument was less compelling – and is exactly the kind of negative stereotype the Union should be battling against, rather than reinforcing.

Union democracy worked and it was decided that the status quo should be maintained, and although this motion itself has failed, it has brought attention to the issue of a disparity between male and female welfare provision travelling home from the Union at night – hopefully constructive discussions and ideas will arise from this.

As student, we’re a progressive bunch, and obviously a way to do this is to question the status quo, and I have absolutely no regrets about bringing this issue up.

As always, if you want to contact me and discuss with me my role as Union councillor, or you want me to bring something up to council, drop me a line to my Union e-mail address: computersciencecouncillor@sheffield.ac.uk.

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Constitutional Committee

As I’ve mentioned previously, I also sit on Sheffield’s constitutional committee, who are responsible for making recommendations to Council for changes to the constitution, which are then referred to March’s referendum. The meeting went fairly smoothly and there were no particular controversies. Many of the things discussed were routine amendments (an accidental reference to a non-existent committee, or an out-of-date by-law number, and branding updates – referring to the sabbatical officers consistently as Student Officers, and SU Council as Students’ Council).

We also tackled a number of issues regarding trans representation – updating the definition of women to include self-defining women (there are no reference to men in the constitution, so no corresponding definition for men have been added), to formally include transphobia in the ethical policy and a change to election regulations so students can use preferred names (subject to officer scrutiny to avoid people taking advantage), which also benefits international students who use adopt a western name, etc.

Another issue we discussed was that of splitting the modern languages councillor into 2, which we will be recommending council reject (the rationale behind the split seems fairly weak, and last year’s proposal to introduce more councillors for larger departments failed, and modern languages isn’t a particular large school anyway.

The final issue brought up was for reducing the majority required for constitutional reform from 2/3rds to simple majority which we are also recommending to reject for a number of reasons – it’s out of line with standard student union practice, and an event where over one third of the student body reject a constitutional change, it would be hard to claim that the union is representative of the entire student body considering such a high level of controversy with such a fundamental document.

Thursday sees the next Council meeting, which I have submitted a number of proposals – one asked of me by people I’m living with regarding summer accomodation in Endcliffe for postgraduates, and one I’ve raised regarding opening up the women’s minibus to be a safety minibus for all students (priority being given to women students) to better utilise the resources available, which looks like it might be a controversial debate.

As usual, I’ll blog after that meeting to let you all know the outcome, and as always, you can contact me at computersciencecouncillor@sheffield.ac.uk to let me know your (dis)satisfaction with how I’m representing you.

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Union Council, the second

Earlier today, I attended my second Union Council meeting. We actually finished on time, surprisingly and the whole thing was a lot more streamlined and people seem to be more familiar with the format.

There were a number of procedural things regarding guillotining the length of meetings, which I was opposed to but passed (fortunately with the caveat with the possibility to vote to extend meetings in the meeting, but I am concerned about the process getting dogged with bureaucracy and procedural motions) as well as for a speech from the PVC for External Affairs to be given next meeting about International Strategy.

We also discussed a constitutional change to change the membership criteria for Women’s Committee from women to self-defining women (in line with the active “This Union is Gay and Trans Friendly” policy). I also mandated Constitutional Committee (i.e., myself) to review the constitution to make sure any other references to women (e.g., Women’s Officer, etc) are updated. Trans issues are one in particular I care about as it is often an under-represented area as a friend from my undergraduate degree made me aware of.

Another issue discussed was that of Officer Blogs, so you should shortly see this blog being replicated on the Union website

The main issue that I felt very strongly about in the meeting was that of the Union Policy. Every 3 years, Union Policy has to be renewed, and come March 2010, 4 policies had to be renewed. At Sheffield, Union Council can renew policy without consultation, however I deem this to be almost undemocratic, and that after 3 years, especially for controversial issues, an almost entirely new Union should have their say on it. However, SEC (Student Executive Committee – aka, the sabbatical officers) make recommendations on which action it believes Council should take and it recommended that the following 3 policies should just be renewed for 3 years by council, without referring it to the student body and without modification:

• End Israeli Occupation
• Companies Involved in Animal Testing
• University Relations with Arms Companies

And for a further policy: Safe Affordable Housing to be modified (and therefore require ratification by referendum in March). The full text of the policies are on the Union website.

Obviously these are controversial policies (my own personal views on them aside – that I don’t believe the Union should get involved in international politics) and I strongly believed that it was only appropriate for Council to send them for referenda to let a new student body have its say on them. The fact that Council voted with over a 2/3rds majority to renew them for 3 years without wider consultation shocked me and I believe for the whole decision to be undemocratic, imo we’re on council to represent the students, and not make controversial decisions for them, especially when there’s a mechanism in place . Sheffield doesn’t have much in the way of policy (compare YUSU’s list of active policy for a Union that has policy, and a direct student voice for pretty much everything).

Other than this, the remaining of Council was fairly routine, although a number of issues were brought up with regards to the Union’s alcohol retail policy and also the relationship with external promotional companies (including Carnage) and Alex Swatton is putting together a motion to be tabled at the next meeting for this.

After the meeting I talked about the Women’s Minibus with Amy Sutherland (the Women’s Officer) with a view to tabling a motion to open up the minibus for all students (with priority being given to female students) as there is apparently often spare capacity – and it seems a waste not to use it.

As always, get in touch if you want to talk to me about my role as councillor.

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