gender – Arts Matter

Reel Change: Using Historical Film to Inform Gender Activism in Ghana

Posted on October 31, 2023October 31, 2023 by George Thomas

By Professor Kate Skinner, Professor of African History, School of Humanities

Professor Kate Skinner tells us about a collaborative project which uses historical film to challenge misrepresentation of gender activism in Ghana. Given the under-representation of Ghanaian women in national and local politics, this research is an important intervention. Kate and her collaborators recently received an AHRC Impact Acceleration Account award, which they are using to demonstrate the positive influence of humanities research on democratic participation.

The Background

Under the 1992 constitution, Ghana has become a ‘consolidated democracy’ (meaning that there have been multiple peaceful handovers of power resulting from free and fair elections). Civil society organisations have flourished, and since 2004 a broad-based non-partisan Women’s Manifesto Coalition has set out the steps that governments should have been taking towards gender-equitable development. Yet women’s democratic participation is still severely constrained.

Fewer than 20% of Ghana’s parliamentarians are women. In local government, fewer than 10% of district assembly members are women. Three key pieces of legislation that were promised by successive governments in their periodic reports to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) have been stalled. How can historical research help us to explain and close the gap between the vibrancy of non-governmental organisations of women in Ghana, and the persistent under-representation of women in elected national and local government?

The research

Between 2018 and 2022, Prof Kate Skinner and Prof Akosua Adomako Ampofo co-led a British Academy-funded project titled An Archive of Activism: gender and public history in postcolonial Ghana, to which they recruited a postdoctoral researcher, Dr Jovia Salifu. The archival and oral history research that they carried out showed how negative and delegitimising misrepresentations of gender activism have constrained women’s participation in public life in particular ways. Gender activism has been repeatedly depicted as a recent ‘foreign import’ to Ghana, meaning that when women organise collectively to raise difficult issues, they can be dismissed as ‘westernised’, elitist, or out-of-touch with the supposed mass of ‘typical’ Ghanaian women.

When Women Speak (2022). Directed by Aseye Tamakloe. Produced by Akosua Adomako Ampofo and Kate Skinner. Funded by the British Academy’s Sustainable Development Programme.

In order to challenge the myth that gender activism is a recent ‘foreign import’, the project generated a documentary film, When Women Speak, which revealed the long and rich history of women’s mobilisations in Ghana. Directed by Aseye Tamakloe, and shot entirely in Ghana by a Ghanaian crew, this film was screened at multiple international film festivals. It is now available free-to-view at https://whenwomenspeakfilm.com/.

Impact of the film

Initial screenings of the film in Ghana suggested many ways in which it could be utilised, both in university and senior-secondary school settings, and by people working outside of the formal education sector. Through a collaboration with Dr Rose Mensah-Kutin – Executive Director of Abantu-for-Development, one of Ghana’s leading women’s organisations – the project team were able to further explore potential uses of the film among three particular groups:

District assemblywomen – who contest elections at the local government level and play key roles in local development.
Journalists – who play a key role in enhancing public understanding of gender issues.
Ministry of Gender, Children, and Social Protection (MoGCSP) – which has a broad policy oversight, presents draft bills for cabinet approval, and runs a range of sensitisation programmes.

District assemblywomen and aspiring candidates gathered at the August 2023 workshop

In August 2023, funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Impact Acceleration Account enabled workshops to be held with representatives of these three groups. With the help of expert facilitators, we identified pertinent themes which could be excerpted from the film, and ways of integrating these excepts with discussion questions and additional materials, in short and flexible training packages. We also identified the specific settings in which these training packages might be used, and potential obstacles – for example, the relatively high cost of mobile data packages relative to average incomes, and constraints on organisations’ internal resources for continuing professional development and public sensitisation programmes.

Professor Kate Skinner (centre) talks with Dr Sika Jacobs-Quarshie (right) and Dr Rose Mensah-Kutin (left)

Evaluations

In their evaluations of the workshop, district assemblywomen and aspiring candidates highlighted the well-documented issues of verbal abuse and unpleasant gossip that risk deterring women in election campaigns and undermining them once they are elected. Participants commented that seeing the struggles and achievements of earlier generations of Ghanaian women in the film was important for the motivation and confidence of candidates and serving assemblywomen:

‘It will be an everyday reminder to them [women candidates] that the road is rough but determination will take them there.’
‘It will build their capacity to know how far they can go if they want to become leaders.’
‘…it gives you courageousness to move ahead and not feel intimidated.’

Reflecting on the workshop, a journalist participant observed that training packages based on the film would be ‘a valuable addition to existing training programmes for media professionals. They can help raise awareness about gender stereotypes, promote inclusivity, and encourage more accurate and diverse representation in media.’

Next steps

The Public Affairs officer of the Ghana Journalists’ Association concluded: ‘The story about women’s rights in Ghana must continue to be told. Generations down the line ought to understand where it all started, how it’s going and the way forward.’

The training packages are now in development. Watch this space!

Professor Kate Skinner is Professor of African History and Research Director for the School of Humanities. To find out more about Kate’s research, the When Women Speak film, and the training packages in development, please email kate.skinner@bristol.ac.uk.

Women, Walking and Performance

Posted on September 29, 2023October 3, 2023 by George Thomas

By Dr Eleanor Rycroft, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Theatre, School of Arts

Dr Eleanor Rycroft tells us about her project which explored attitudes to women walking, from the Renaissance period to the present day. The workshops piloted during the project aimed to collect women’s contemporary experiences of walking, especially by night. The project recently received an AHRC Impact Acceleration Account award and is yet another example of how arts and humanities research can address societal challenges.

‘Women, Walking and Performance’ was an Impact Acceleration project which explores gender and pedestrianism using theatre methodologies. The project was based on my historical research into walking and performance, particularly my insight that a fundamental shift occurs during the early modern period (c.1500-1700), at which point discourses of walking begin to exclude certain groups and individuals from the activity. The importance of this argument concerns the ongoing reverberation of these exclusions, especially how inequalities of class, race and gender of walking in the past continue to inform the unequal distribution of the health and social benefits of walking today. Given that walking is a free and effective form of both transport and exercise – theoretically accessible to all able-bodied individuals – it is important to discover the historical roots of attitudes which mean that not all individuals feel free to walk.

This seems most particularly to be the case with women: the growing social and sexual control of women during the Renaissance continues to impact women walkers today. The tragic deaths of Sarah Everard, Zara Aleena, Sabina Nessa and Ashling Murphy are just the most recent in a long line of women who have been murdered whilst going on–foot.

Alongside Co-Investigator, Dr. Jess McCormack, we hope to explore these gender inequalities through a verbatim play as an element of a larger research bid. This play will tell the walking stories of women, to be staged or read in educational settings and beyond. The IAA funding enabled us to pilot a workshop format for collecting these stories. Facilitated by Breathing Fire theatre company, we used playback theatre techniques to test the practical and ethical scope for collating the experiences of walking women. Playback theatre encourages people to share their life stories which are then ‘played back’ to them via theatrical means. These workshops provided a safe space for the women to speak back against the prohibitions placed upon their movement through the world. By using playback theatre we honoured and affirmed women’s experiences of walking, as well as identified and investigated the barriers which preclude women from walking feely today.

“The IAA funding has provided an invaluable means to collect women’s stories together, with the aim of helping to spread this message”

The first workshop was produced as part of International Women’s Day in March 2023. Many of the stories which emerged concerned walking at night, and what was most telling from the IWD workshop was the common set of experiences that solo women walkers shared. Women spoke of insisting their daughters get taxis, forking out for taxis themselves, walking with keys between their fingers, adjusting their routes around men on the street, re-tracing known journeys, searching for exits and escape routes, as well as a number of other modifications they made to their behaviour simply to get from A to B.

Women spoke of feeling ‘on edge’ when walking at night, and spoke of feeling angry about the sexual attacks that women (primarily) suffer. They spoke of changing their gait: “I have a night walk” said one. Many women do, and given that victims have been shown to be selected on the basis of how they walk, this is not a frivolous idea (Book et al 2013, Gunns et al 2002). The reality of (primarily) mens’ attacks on women excludes half the population from a whole realm of sensory and physical experience. As one participant lyrically put it, “As a girl on a moonlit night with fireflies, I loved walking with my mother and sister and seeing Jupiter.” As a woman she felt unable to enjoy such freedom. Another said, “I like the idea of walking in the dark in theory. If there were no men on the planet.” Another added, “I feel that we are owed much more safety at night.”

Our research suggests that one way to tackle this societal issue is through education. One participant spoke about how angry she got with men walking behind her at night, saying that they “should KNOW not to do that.” But do boys and men know not to do that? And how can that message and knowledge be effectively communicated if not? The IAA funding has provided an invaluable means to collect women’s stories together, with the aim of helping to spread this message. My co-researchers and I believe that a verbatim play weaving together women’s common experiences across time will show the extent to which they have had to alter their behaviours because of the threat that some men pose to walking women – and will encourage both knowledge transmission and discussion about how boys and men can help other genders in their quest to feel safe when they walk.

Dr Eleanor Rycroft is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Theatre and is involved in the Early Modern Studies Research Group, which consists of scholars from the Arts, Humanities and Modern Languages, active in the Renaissance and early modern periods. To find out more about Eleanor’s research, please email e.rycroft@bristol.ac.uk.

Girls on the Pitch: Making Change Happen for Women’s Football in Brazil

Posted on May 26, 2023June 18, 2024 by George Thomas

By Dr Mark Biram, Teaching Associate in the Department of Hispanic, Portuguese and Latin American Studies, School of Modern Languages

Dr Mark Biram tells us about his project to empower young girls in Brazil through participation in football. Mark is working closely with Brazilian NGO Meninas em Campo (Girls on the Pitch), as well as leading academic on women’s sport in Brazil, Silvana Goellner, to achieve this aim. The project has recently received an AHRC Impact Acceleration Account award, aligns with the University’s efforts to achieve social justice both at home and abroad, and is yet another example of how arts and humanities research can influence change for the better.

Meninas Em Campo, translates as Girls on the Pitch in Portuguese

With help from the AHRC Impact Acceleration Account, in collaboration with a Brazilian NGO Meninas em Campo and leading academic on women’s sport in Brazil, Silvana Goellner, we are designing a project aimed at the empowerment of young girls through participation in football from a young age. Our project will raise awareness of crucial social, economic and logistical barriers which currently discourage or prevent girls from participating in football, providing practitioners with a blueprint to replicate the work of Meninas Em Campo (Girls on the Pitch), a project which uses football as a vehicle for the empowerment of girls and to help them negotiate the difficulties of adolescence.

Meninas Em Campo has proved itself to be a highly successful proactive example of promoting gender equality through both discourse and practice. It is a non-profit organisation located in Butantã, São Paulo which offers a space for 9-17 year old girls to develop as footballers. The project is financed by Colégio Santa Cruz and supported by the University of São Paulo. Meninas Em Campo is the largest grassroots socially motivated girls football project, outside of those of the big clubs.

Why is this research important?

Whilst carrying out ethnographic research with Santos FC Women in 2018 & 2019 I became aware of the lack of formalised spaces for girls to play the game from an early age. At present, all major Brazilian clubs have a women’s team, in order to comply with national and international regulations. However, there is still a lacuna in provision for younger girls. Projects like Meninas em Campo provide a blueprint which can be replicated elsewhere.

What does the research project involve?

The project involves producing and disseminating materials which practitioners can use to attract girls to playing the game in the first instance, and to engage them with the wider issues attached to gender and other inequalities through the lens of sport. The project intends to engage with secondary schools across Brazil showcasing the best practices of Meninas em Campo and providing the schools with a range of materials which they can use to develop their own provision for girls’ football.

What are the next steps for Girls on the Pitch?

After the initial scoping trip in January, we have already applied for a further round of funding with a view to producing a guide for practitioners on how best to optimise opportunities to raise issues of gender inequality, problems faced by girls during adolescence and how best to engage the public and private sector into investing in the women’s game. This guide is led by the findings of Dr. Mark Biram’s PhD thesis Women’s Club Football in Brazil and Colombia: A Critical Analysis of Players, Media and Institutions and by the work of Hispanic, Portuguese & Latin American Studies PhD candidate Júlia Belas Trindade, who has published a series of Guardian articles on the growth of the women’s game.

We wish Mark every success with Girls on the Pitch and look forward to seeing how the research project develops.

Dr Mark Biram is an early career researcher and teaching associate in the Department of Hispanic, Portuguese and Latin American Studies. To find out more about Mark’s research, please email mark.biram@bristol.ac.uk.