ECU Professor leads the way in challenging sexism at Australian Universities

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ECU Professor leads the way in challenging sexism at Australian Universities

Tuesday, 11 May 2021

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Professor Mindy Blaise, Director for ECU’s Centre for People, Place and Planet, challenges the status quo in a recent creative research output on the impact of COVID-19 on women researchers across Australian universities. As a key member of the feminist collective group #FEAS Feminist Educators Against Sexism, Mindy and her colleagues premiered a satirical short featurette to kick-start the Social Responsibility within Changing Contexts Conference for the Comparative & International Education Society. The event took place virtually from 25 April to 2 May 2021 and brought together a diverse range of researchers, students, practitioners and policymakers from around the world.

Committed to interrupting and challenging sexism in the academy and other educational spaces, #FEAS is a group geared towards developing arts-based interventions. Forming in 2016, it is currently co-led by Mindy, Post-Doctoral Fellow Dr Jo Pollitt (also from ECU) and Senior Lecturer, Dr Emily Gray from RMIT University. Utilising their interdisciplinary skillset, the team have conducted sociological research across various platforms in the arts and higher education sector.

The featurette entitled, the #FEAS Report 2021, explores thoughts on social responsibility within the higher education sector, specifically centring in on the impacts of COVID 19 for women in both professional and domestic capacities. Flagging the disproportionate and negative effects on research productivity for women during the pandemic, the featurette, written and performed by the #FEAS trio, and filmed by ECU PhD candidate Emma Fishwick, discussed the devaluing of women’s contributions in the home, often at the expense of their career progression. With competing demands between work and home as well as many virtual collaboration opportunities during COVID 19 accessible only in conflicting time zones around the world, career setbacks are highlighted to illustrate the everyday injustices that continue to shape working lives.

The #FEAS collective continues to challenge sexism through its humoristic approach, showing up the day-to-day inequalities that many women face. Co-leading the charge, Mindy is no stranger to challenging behaviours and recently received an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant 2021 - 2024 - ‘Understanding and Addressing Everyday Sexisms in Australian Universities’.

Also, as a Vice-Chancellor’s Professorial Research Fellow at ECU, Mindy’s research focuses on gender equality in educational settings and she supports the University’s commitment to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5: Gender Equality, through both mentorship (building capacity) and collaborative research on feminist ethics that value diversity, inclusivity and the different ways of being a woman (and a woman leader).

To learn more about Mindy’s Story supporting the United Nations SDG 5: Gender Equality at ECU view this video.

Visit the #FEAS website or watch the featurette.

For more information about ECU’s commitment to gender equality, visit the ECU Gender Equality website or contact athenaswanaustralia@ecu.edu.au.

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