Search

The use of local and nationwide lockdowns has been a necessary public health measure in the battle against the spread of COVID-19. Lockdowns have affected the higher education landscape by requiring university staff to shift their face-to-face teaching to either fully online, or blended, delivery modes. This shift to online delivery presents a pedagogical challenge for teachers of sensitive topics, such as sexual violence. Teaching about sexual violence safely requires a careful, considered and trauma-informed approach, usually established through building trust and rapport with students in the classroom. Building trust and rapport in the online environment, however, requires a redevelopment of traditional teaching approaches to ensure student safety. This reflexive commentary provides an overview of our experience when required to quickly teach an undergraduate criminology course about sexual violence in an online environment, brought about by a sudden lockdown due to COVID-19. We discuss the strategies and techniques we employed to safeguard and protect students completing our course in an online environment. These strategies may be of benefit to other university staff who are contemplating teaching sensitive topics online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'FeminEast' is a feminist club that was founded by students at Wellington East Girls' College in 2013. At the time of writing, the club's popularity is growing and has attracted attention from national media. This paper reports on a pilot study based on conversations with FeminEast co-founder Jess Dellabarca and analysis of media texts by and about the club. The author contextualises FeminEast in a neoliberal climate, focussing on the neoliberal discourse usually called 'postfeminism', the widespread belief that feminism is no longer needed because we have achieved gender equality. This paper foregrounds efforts by FeminEast's leaders to mobilise feminist anger and contend with contemporary gender norms and postfeminist discourse. These efforts are discussed particularly in relation to the 2013-2014 'Roast Busters' scandal. FeminEast members adeptly navigate postfeminist social dynamics; ultimately, they succeed in developing and disseminating their view that the Roast Busters are a product of persistent and pernicious rape culture, a key weapon of contemporary patriarchy. This paper shows that girls can and do engage activistic practices that are more worthy of scholarly attention than the dearth of recent research on girls' activism would suggest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing employee access to paid parental leave (PPL) is an important step to achieving gender equity in higher education. Although Aotearoa/New Zealand has recently increased PPL to the 26 weeks recommended by the World Health Organisation, the level of payment is capped at below minimum wage. For parents working or seeking to work at universities in Aotearoa/New Zealand, information about the PPL policies of these workplaces is essential for informed decision-making. This article reviews the PPL policies of the eight universities in Aotearoa/New Zealand, analysing these in terms of structural work-life support and cultural work-life support. The authors contribute autobiographical reflections to supplement the policy analysis with examples of real-life effects of the policies that are reviewed. The article finishes with a set of recommendations that would enhance employee wellbeing at universities in Aotearoa/New Zealand, including expanding access to leave and removing both gendered language and requirements to repay leave. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]