Student union women’s officer Alexandra Bentley is working towards women’s rights this year and has proved her stance through a number of events that she has held.
One successful night that was held was the Reclaim the Night march that was put forward by the women’s officer when she was elected.
The march originally part of Alexandra Bentley’s manifesto during the election to be the women’s officer as she believed it was an important campaign to run for the women’s group.
Harassment of women in Lincoln has increased this year and has been spoken about a lot on social media. Just last month a student from the University of Lincoln created a Facebook page named ‘Lincoln Girl Gang’ the page aimed to help girls who experienced dangerous situations when walking home alone at night. The creation of the group showed that the issue of harassment is a prevalent issue experienced on university campus and the march was needed to help people become more aware about the issue of the increase of cases of harassment taking place.
The event created by the University of Lincoln’s women’s group aimed to also support the Lincoln Girl Gang group to highlight that everyone has the right to walk the streets freely and without fear of sexual violence and harassment.
Alexandra Bentley said: “The Lincoln Girl Gang Facebook group was set up which has completely demonstrated the necessity for this event and the support and response we’ve had from it has been phenomenal.”
She said: “We aren’t marching against sexual assault at the university specifically, we are marching against sexual assault in Lincoln as a city and that it’s not acceptable from anyone.”
Reclaim the Night marches have notably always been female only, however as the women’s officer for the university she believed that it was important to make people aware that the march would include men In it as well. This was a big part of the march as they wanted to make it known that they were fighting against sexual assault against everyone, as women are not the sole subjects of sexual assault and harassment.
She said: “I would love to think that this could carry on being an annual march and I think it is so important to make an impact.”
A new event that has been created by the women’s group is that they are also collecting donations of sanitary products as part of a campaign led by the YMCA to help homeless women in Lincoln.
They will be accepting donations at the student union for the rest of the week.