Wednesday 11-03-2026 - 11:45

 

 

Sunday the 8^th of March was International Women’s Day 2026, and there was plenty of student-led activity over the weekend to celebrate it!

 

 

What were our student leaders up to this year?

Friday 6^th March saw two International Women’s Day Socials take Lancaster by storm! Polish Society, in collaboration with Lancsbees, Ukrainian Society, Irish Society, and French Society, started their ‘Dress in Pink’ themed social in Trevor on campus. Feminist Society also ran their Women’s Day social on the same night, heading into the city with their members dressed up in purple to celebrate!

On Saturday 7^th March, County College hosted an event in collaboration with Lonsdale and Grad in support of Defying Dementia. As part of their celebrations, they provided charcuterie boards (shout out to all my savoury girls out there!) and soft drinks, and the event included a quiz and an opportunity to donate to Defying Dementia.

Sunday 8^th March was a biggie! Bowland College ran an International Women’s Day netball tournament. Open to all genders, abilities, and colleges, it was a fantastic way to celebrate by bringing our student community together to have some fun! The winners of the tournament were *drumroll*

Furness Open Rec!! I’m led to believe that they were, quite ironically, an all-male team…maybe they should’ve tried their luck at Fashion Society’s Performative Male contest!

Last but certainly not least, Careers Advancement Network hosted their International Women’s Day Conference in collaboration with Feminist Society and FemTech on Monday 9^th March. The conference invited women from across industries to speak about their experiences to inspire women+ students at Lancaster, celebrate their achievements, and establish cross-discipline connections.  

 

Women’s+ Network Campaign Conference

Sunday 8^th March also saw the first Women’s+ Network event of 2026 hosted in a venue that matched its grand relaunch – Lancaster Castle!

We had some incredible discussions – some of the topics we covered were:

• Inequalities in the healthcare system
  • How many women find it difficult to be taken seriously by male practitioners and how this experience is exacerbated for women of colour
  • The frustrations around having serious health problems reduced to our menstrual cycle
  • How women’s health is taught in health and medicine at Lancaster – it was agreed that the network would be interested in taking on a project in collaboration with students and staff within the Faculty of Health and Medicine to see how we can comprehensively embed women’s health into the curriculum.
• Online objectification and fetishisation of women by anonymous confession pages
  • How to incentivise students to complete training on sexual misconduct and including in-person sessions in departmental induction lectures
  • The pyramid of rape culture and how normalisation of misogynistic online content can escalate to sexual violence
  • Encouraging active allyship among men+ students and raising awareness on how to spot ‘low level’ misogyny and intervene
• Sexual misconduct at Lancaster
  • How to hold the university to account on taking action beyond just legal compliance
  • Resources and training for student leaders on how to spot and deal with a spiking incident, especially during freshers week
  • Improving signposting to support and streamlining the reporting process

We also discussed a campaign being led by one of the students in attendance at the conference regarding access to reusable period products and destigmatising menstruation. They shared their work securing a small amount of menstrual cups and their plans to give them out to students for free alongside some Q+A materials on how to use them and the financial and environmental benefits of reusable period products.

 

Women’s+ Officer elections

To round off the weekend, I’m pleased to announce that we have opened nominations for the role of Women’s+ Officer!!

If you are interested in the role, all you need to do is send an email to su.womenofficer@lancaster.ac.uk just letting us know that you’d like to nominate yourself for the position – no need for any further info just yet!

The deadline for nominations is Friday 20^th March, and only self-defining women+ students may nominate themselves.