York University's refusal to recognise feminist society
7th May 2013
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Societies are a celebrated feature of university life; alongside academic pursuits they offer a vital means of expression and inclusion. From the weird and wacky, such as Durham’s curiously named Assassins Society, to the politically motivated, societies provide a welcome opportunity to construct communities based on common interests.
Consequently, York University’s recent refusal to ratify a feminist society has left many students feeling frustrated, disappointed and most importantly, excluded.
FemSoc, which describes itself as a political group that aims to encourage discussion about “feminism and feminist issues in a welcoming, informal and inclusive group", have been told that they have yet again been unsuccessful in their calls for recognition as a society. The reason behind the refusal? An apparent failure to display "a unique need to become an exclusive society."
The union rejected FemSoc’s proposal amid fears of a "duplication of efforts" due to the existence of the already-established Women's Committee - a welfare committee and a branch of the union. However as argued by Helena Horton, a writer for York's student magazine The Yorker, these concerns are somewhat negated by the presence of both a LGBTQ Liberation and Welfare Committee and a LGBTQ social society. Yet according to the union (YUSU) these societies apparently posed no threat of duplicating interests, neither in fact did the two separate university newspapers, which cover “the same stories” according to Horton.
Moreover, a male student voiced reservations about the union’s suggestion to amalgamate the Women’s Committee and Femsoc, citing the exclusivity of the Women’s Committee whose very name seemingly restricts the gender of its membership, asking “where does that leave male feminists who want to support the movement?”

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