Womens Office

Women's Office and Women's Officer

The Women's Officer

Hello I'm Sylvia Barnett and I'm your Women's Officer for the next year.

The Women's Officer is one of the 14 members of the Union Executive. The executive is the body within the Students' Union who represent and act on behalf of the student body.

The Women's Officer role is one of 8 full time positions on the executive, meaning they take a sabbatical year to do the role. According to the Union constitution the responsibilities of the Women's Officer are:

• organising general campaigns which relate to students
• organising specific campaigns which relate to women students
• promoting the interests of all women students within the University and the Union at all levels
• offering confidential advice and information on all matters to women Union members
• ensuring that policy pays full regard to the equality of the genders and for ensuring that the rights of women are protected in all policy formulation and implementation

Why do we have a Women's Officer?

• Co-ordinating the women's campaign is a full time job as women have to strive against oppression in every single sphere of life.
• Women are under-represented even though they are the majority of students. Most union and university committees are not gender balanced so women's voices are often not heard.
• There are some crimes that happen mainly to women. Victims of such crimes often feel uncomfortable taking about them to non-women. For example, 97% of reported rapes happen to women. Therefore it is important there is always at least one woman guaranteed to be around on executive.

Contact the Women's Officer: womens@umsu.manchester.ac.uk or 07787 422 509, or come and find her in the Exec office in the Students' Union!