Publication by Jennifer Askey in Feminists Among Us: Resistance and Advocacy in Library Leadership

Dr. Jennifer Askey co-authored an essay in the award-winning volume Feminists Among Us: Resistance and Advocacy in Library Leadership (Eds. Shirley Lew and Baharak Yousefi, 2017). The essay, titled “One Library, Two Cultures,” is available here. Even though the article speaks directly to library experience, the lessons around leadership and culture are applicable to just most academic working environments. The article asks what kind of unit/department/institution would be the place that attracts a diverse workforce, engaged in diverse work?

Dr. Askey is Advisor for Leadership Development at the University of Alberta and presented on a fabulous panel on feminist mentorship practices at our last conference.

WiG Webinar, 2018: Teaching and Working for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in our Classrooms and at our Institutions.

Monday, November 26, 8pm-10pm EST  (Note Date Change!) 

Presenters: Nicole Coleman, Lisabeth Hock, Amy Young

Women in German members know from our work as scholars, teachers, providers of countless hours of service work, and activists, that forms of structural inequality disadvantage target groups while granting advantages and privileges to members of non-target groups. These forms of inequality include, but are not limited to: ableism, ageism, colorism, the elitism of the tenure system, heterosexism, racism, and sexism. They support often-invisible systems of power, privilege, and oppression that work at personal, interpersonal, institutional, and cultural levels to limit diversity, equity and inclusion in our classrooms and at our institutions. 

Through our research and through curricular changes, WiG members have worked to make once invisible power systems visible, especially within the contexts of German culture and our colleges and universities. This WiG Webinar will focus on broader concepts and strategies related both to destabilizing the foundations of personal, interpersonal and institutional oppression and to supporting equity and inclusion for our students and colleagues. The Webinar will have two parts. Our theoretical section will address privilege and unconscious bias, allyship and its discontents, stereotype threat, inclusive classrooms, and diversifying faculty with intentionality. Our praxis section will address strategies for creating an inclusive classroom.

Participation limited to 100. Please Register at: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_zRjpKqaTSp-dpS6t6tPSRQ

Related materials available in: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ZQI0pwLumJ6Z_SZ_rjkTGatVZ4MkGHGK

 Questions to:

Women in German Statement on Antisemitic, Racist, and Transphobic Language and Violence

  • In recognition of the intertwined histories and present manifestations of antisemitism, anti-Black racism, xenophobia, heteropatriarchy and white supremacy –
  • And as feminist scholars within German studies committed to intersectional understandings of social justice –

We condemn the violence that has again come to a head in the last week. We are sorrowed by the murders of 11 people at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, and the murders of two African Americans in a Kentucky grocery store, all at the hands of white supremacists. We denounce the symbolic violence that has taken place through the circulation of misinformation about trans people and transphobic language, through antisemitic and racist speech posted in social media and in the physical public, and the ongoing rhetorical attacks targeting immigrants and refugees.

As feminists, it is important to speak out in moments of oppression. We know that this violence is not new, but the convergence of these violences over the last week makes painfully visible the ways in which white supremacy and heteropatriarchy continue to wield power in our society. We have marched and protested, and we will continue to march and protest and speak out. We recognize that silence becomes complicity.

As a feminist organization, we are committed to scholarship that challenges interlocking systems of oppression and power. We recognize that feminist goals must include the end of racism and white supremacy. We recognize that systems that promote and rely on racism; sexism; homophobia; transphobia; ableism; colonialism; and other forms of exploitation, hatred and exclusion are interlinked, and often support one another. We express our solidarity with all groups who stand against these systems of oppression.

This continues to be a painful time for our members, students, and colleagues who are targeted directly, often daily, by racist, antisemitic, xenophobic and transphobic violence – whether as physical threat or verbal aggression. We stand with all of you.

Individual acts respond to a social context, one in which hate speech enables and promotes violent actions. We call on our members, as teachers, scholars, and leaders, to name and challenge white supremacy and heteropatriarchy wherever it is manifest, whether in everyday speech, social media, political discourse, or elsewhere. We cannot allow violent speech to seem “normal.” We cannot allow an atmosphere that enables such horrific violence to continue.

– Women in German (WiG) Steering Committee