QCEA co-launch guide to gender and inclusivity
‘Equality, including equality between women and men, has been at the heart of Quaker leadership for almost 400 years.'
Quaker Council for European Affairs (QCEA) is to launch a guide and videos providing strategies to overcome resistance to gender and inclusivity work in an online event this month.
The ‘Gender and Inclusivity in Peace and Security’ event on 10 November is the culmination of long-standing work with Newcastle University which started from a roundtable discussion at Quaker House Brussels in November 2018.
According to Olivia Caeymaex, QCEA’s peace programme director, the 2018 workshop entitled: ‘Towards an Inclusive Peace and Security’ brought together ‘NATO, the EU, the UN, academics and civil society to discuss and reflect on where we are at in terms of gender equality’. It also led to ‘a renewed partnership between QCEA and Katharine Wright [Senior lecturer in International Politics at Newcastle University] to dig deeper into three aspects of gender issues in institutional and operational settings’.
‘Equality, including equality between women and men, has been at the heart of Quaker leadership for almost 400 years. Leadership was open to women from the very beginnings of the Quaker movement in the 1650s in stark contrast to the time. For many Quakers, both historical and contemporary, the inclusion of women is part of our testimony,’ said Olivia Caeymaex.
‘With the financial support of the Economic and Social Sciences Research Council (ESRC) Impact Acceleration Account, this project will produce guidance for individuals tasked with supporting gender in peace and security institutions and operations to navigate three obstacles: Why does gender matter? What does good leadership on gender look like in practice? [and] What strategies can contribute to overcoming resistance to gender?’
The online event on 10 November will be hosted by the Irish ambassador to Belgium, with other speakers including representatives of the EU, civil society and academia.
Katharine Wright tweeted: ‘It has been an absolute dream to work on this with @QCEA over the last year!’
