The public talk by author, broadcaster and campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez, and a lecture showcasing the pioneering women of Edinburgh Medical School, are among University events marking this year’s International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month.
Invisible Women
Criado-Perez will address an audience at Edinburgh Futures Institute on Saturday 7 March to bring her own perspectives on gender bias and inequality.
Perez is widely recognised for her best-selling book, Invisible Women, which brings together a range of stories and research highlighting the ways women are routinely ‘forgotten’ in data.
From medical research to workplaces and even crash test dummies, Criado-Perez’ work reveals how the lack of gender-specific data has inadvertently created a world designed around men.
Named an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2015, Caroline has also received the Liberty Human Rights Campaigner of the Year award and Finland’s HÄN award for promoting equality.
International Women's Day Annual Lecture with Caroline Criado-Perez
Medical pioneers
Earlier in the week, a lecture on Tuesday 3 March will spotlight some of the women featured in Edinburgh Medical School’s 300 Faces project.
The project celebrates some of the people who have helped shape 300 years of Edinburgh Medical School, thought to be the oldest in the English-speaking world.
Professor Lorna Marson, Professor of Transplantation, Edinburgh alumna Lesley Dawson, Consultant in Medical Oncology, and final year medical student Heen Shamaz, will share the stories of inspirational individuals who have made the Medical School such a remarkable community.
The public talk will be held in the Usha Kasera Lecture Theatre in Old College, a venue historically used for medical teaching and from which women were excluded for the entirety of its time it was part of the Medical School.
The women of Edinburgh Medical School
Higgs Lecture
Continuing the celebration of remarkable women, on Monday 23 March, Fabiola Gianotti, the former Director-General of CERN, will deliver the University’s annual Higgs Lecture.
Over its 70-year history, CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics based in Geneva, has achieved ground-breaking discoveries, notably the Higgs boson in 2012.
Renowned physicist Professor Peter Higgs was working at the University of Edinburgh when he predicted the particle now known as the Higgs-Boson. Many years later experiments at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator finally confirmed its existence.
Gianotti will discuss the importance of the Higgs boson discovery and its impact on society, as well as CERN’s missions in scientific research, development of innovative technologies, education and training, and collaboration across borders.
'The Higgs boson and our life' - Higgs Lecture
Political movements
On Thursday 19 March, Dr Hannah Proctor, a Research Fellow in History at the University of Strathclyde, will deliver a talk on ‘Unconsciousness raising: feminist burnout and psychoanalysis, 1968–1980’.
Dr Proctor will explore why some activists became interested in psychoanalysis, the study of the unconscious mind developed by Freud, after the political upheavals of 1968, a period marked by the growth of left-wing movements, anti-war protests and civil rights campaigns.
International observation
Observed annually on March 8, International Women’s Day serves as both a celebration of women’s achievements and an opportunity to address the inequalities that limit opportunities for women and girls worldwide.
This year’s theme, ‘Rights. Justice. Action. For ALL Women and Girls”, will raise questions and address structural barriers to gender equality, alongside the harmful practices and social norms that erode women’s rights.
Related links
International Women's Day | United Nations
Events calendar | The University of Edinburgh
300 years of medicine | College of Medicine and Vet Medicine
Higgs Centre for Theoretical Physics
Image credit for photo of Caroline Criado Perez: Rachel Louise Brown