Category Archives: History

IDAHOBIT 2022

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17 May is the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOBiT). Every year UoR marks this occasion and in May 2022 we were able to do so in-person.

The main event took place on the Whiteknights campus on Tuesday 17 May at lunchtime. The event was open to all colleagues and students. The aims of IDAHOBIT day are to engage with staff and students about LGBT+ issues and inspire LGBT+ allyship amongst our staff and students. We flew the rainbow flag on our campus flag pole and had some speeches from both staff and student representatives.

Pride flag flying on Whiteknights Campus.

 

Dr Ruvi Ziegler (he/him), Chair of the LGBT+ staff network

Ruvi, Chair of the LGBT+ Staff Network standing in front of the flying Pride flag on Whiteknights Campus.

The official site for IDAHOBiT explains that the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia was created in 2004 to draw the attention to the violence and discrimination experienced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex people and all other people with diverse sexual orientations, gender identities or expressions, and sex characteristics. May the 17th was chosen to commemorate the World Health Organization’s decision in 1990 to declassify homosexuality as a mental disorder.

What does Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia mean today?

While we have witnessed significant legal advances in LGBT+ equality in parts of the world, there remain many places where LGBT+ persons are not free to live, thrive, and be partnered to whomever they wish. LGBT+ persons’ experiences are shaped globally by criminal sanctions and oppression, social barriers, intolerance, and unwillingness to accept and recognise them for they are.

Of 194 countries surveyed by International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex association, over 2 billion people live in 70 countries where consensual same-sex sexual acts between adults are illegal. In 11 of those countries, it carries the death penalty.

On the other side of the recognition/protection scale, only 68 countries offer broad legal protection against discrimination based on sexual orientation. And, of those, only 29 enshrine marriage equality in their laws.

Some of those seeking refuge from persecution on grounds of sexual orientation come to our shores. As the recently enacted Nationality and Borders Act makes it harder for LGBT+ asylum-seekers to ‘prove’ who they are, and as the Memorandum of Understanding with Rwanda puts them at risk of being sent to harm’s way, I am proud that the university, jointly with Reading city of sanctuary and the Reading Refugee Support Group, offers a sanctuary scholarship scheme at all study levels designed to enable 12 students who are asylum-seekers or who have received a protection status in the UK to come to study here. I hope some of the recipients will be LGBT+.

BUT, lest we forget, our society is hardly in a position to rest on its laurels. Last year’s Yougov survey suggested that 26% of UK adults would be ashamed to have an LGBT+ child.  Jack Daniels’ coming out this week as the first active male professional footballer to do so made major headlines. In a fully accepting and inclusive society, it would not.

Home Office figures show that hate crimes against people based on their sexual orientation have risen every year in England and Wales from 2016/17 to 2020/21. In 2016/17, there were 8,569 such crimes recorded by the police, rising to 17,135 in 2020/21. My husband and I have experienced homophobic verbal abuse twice during lockdown for daring to hold hands in Oxford. Like probably many others, we have not filed a complaint, so this scary figure is based on under-reporting.

Hate crimes against trans people have risen more than twofold, from 1,195 to 2,630 in the same period, no doubt fuelled by a toxic and often hostile public discourse.

Therefore, IDAHOBIT is fundamentally important wherever you are, as it is a day that gives the LGBT+ community and its allies the world over the opportunity to celebrate the social and political advancements in LGBT+ equality but also to reflect on the work that remains to be done to make our communities truly inclusive.

It is, also a great opportunity for employers like ours to help raise awareness about tackling LGBT+ discrimination and show support by being visible allies. At Reading, some members of our community have recently questioned whether this campus is a safe and welcoming space for them: this cannot stand. Our continuing mission must be to make this university as inclusive a space as it can be.

As Chair of the LGBT plus staff network, I would like to invite all our Staff and PGR students who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans, asexual, intersex, non-binary or any other sexual and gender identities– as well as LGBT+ people with multiple identities, and indeed everyone else who sees themselves as an ally – to join us. We are stronger together.

 

 

 

Thank you to all our speakers and to all our staff and students who came along!

 

 

Further Resources:

IDAHOBIT: https://may17.org/

Get Involved with D&I work: https://www.reading.ac.uk/diversity/getting-involved

Join the LGBT+ Staff Network as a member or ally: https://www.reading.ac.uk/diversity/getting-involved/networks#LGBTPlusNetwork

RUSU LGBQ+ Officer: https://www.rusu.co.uk/representation/student-reps/part-time-officers/lgbq-plus-officer/

RUSU Trans Student Officer: https://www.rusu.co.uk/representation/student-reps/part-time-officers/trans-students-officer/

RUSU LGBT+ Student Society: https://www.rusu.co.uk/organisation/11536/

 

If you have any queries, please get in touch with diversity@reading.ac.uk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Introducing… Mary Turner Wolstenholme

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During Women’s History Month we often focus on great women and women pioneers. But for Women’s History Month 2022, here at the Department of History, we are privileged to be able to concentrate on one of our own, Mary Turner Wolstenholme. Mary represents so many women who might have considered themselves ordinary but whose achievements tell us so much about women’s lives and opportunities.  With the kind permission her daughters Gilly Pinner and Julie Wolstenholme and through their generous donation of their mother’s documents and photographs from her time at Reading we present:  Mary Turner Wolstenholme.

Mary Turner completed a BA Hons in Geography and graduated on 1st July 1948. She graduated in the same year that the eminent historian Doris Stenton received her doctorate in History. 1948 was also an auspicious year that saw the founding of the NHS. After graduating from Reading in 1948 with a BA Hons in Geography, Mary (known as Molly) went on to complete her teacher’s diploma at Manchester Victoria University. She subsequently became a teacher at a local high school in the Rossendale Valley, Lancashire, known as Whitewell Bottom. She married Robert Wolstenholme in 1952 and her daughter Gilly was born in 1956 and Julie in 1959. Mary retuned to teaching when her own daughters started school, as a primary school teacher, first at Stubbins County Primary then Edenfield CofE Primary. She continued teaching at Edenfield, later becoming Deputy Head, until taking early retirement in the 1980s. Through the kind gift of Mary’s personal papers we can see her journey to becoming an educator herself though her time at Reading.

 

An image of female staff and students posed together outside a university building in Reading.

Female undergraduates and academic staff at Reading, 1947

 

Rag Week 12th March 1947

Rag week is almost a lost tradition, it was a designated week when the university and the town came together; students organised fayres and a procession of floats to raise money for local charities.

An image of a horse drawn carriage and people surrounding it An image of people marching in the streets. An image of a float going down a busy street. An image of people driving a car.

An image of Kimber, Bill Ashton, The Mayor, Brian Robinson, Roger Williams in the Berkshire Records Office.

Kimber, Bill Ashton, The Mayor, Brian Robinson, Roger Williams
Students attempt to kidnap Phoebe Cusden, first female mayor of Reading and eminent peace campaigner. Read more about Phoebe Cusden at the Berkshire Records Office where her papers are held The Berkshire Record Office

 

Final Examinations

BA Geography examinations consisted of eight 3-hour papers.  How would you have done?

An image of a scanned geography final exam paper from June 1948

Other papers included: Human and Historical Geography, Geography (PRACTICAL), Physical Geography, Regional Geography (EUROPE), Regional Geography (BRITISH ISLES AND FRANCE), Economic Geography, Cartography

 

Graduands for presentation

When Mary graduated there were a surprising number of women gaining a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Faculty of Letters.  For the Bachelor of Science degrees however the number of women dwindles hugely!

An image of a scanned graduands for presentation document.

Doris Mary Stenton (Lady Stenton), was awarded her doctoral degree D. Litt. from the Faculty of Letters at the same presentation.

An image of a scanned graduates document.

An image of graduates in 1948

Graduation, July 1st, 1948 (Geography Group):
Mike Banyon, Shirley Jones, Frank Pierce
Isobel Ayers, Sheila Knight, Mary Turner, Ron Waters
Ron Stone, Margaret Lawes, Mags Johnson, Frances Pilling

 

 

Reference in application for Education Methods (modern PGCE)

What Mary made of her reference from Professor Austen Miller in 1949 we do not know but it is eye-wateringly misogynistic by C21st standards! While Mary was of a ‘frank, cheerful and warm-hearted disposition’, she might not make ‘a great scholar’. In fact

‘The qualities that recommend her are the more

 personal ones of appearance and presence…’

 

An image of a scanned letter dates 1949

In 1878, the University of London was the first to award degrees to women. Both Oxbridge universities were among the last to grant women degrees on the same terms as men: Oxford in 1920 but not until 1948 at Cambridge, the same year that Mary Turner graduated from Reading. The granting of degrees by Cambridge caused a huge amount of unrest with male undergraduates burning effigies of women students and throwing fireworks at the windows of women’s colleges. Even then, the university was allowed to limit the numbers of female students relative to men and continued to exercise that power to the full. The University of Reading awarded degrees to women on the same terms as men from its inception in 1926.

 

Mary Turner, BA Geography, 1st July 1948

An image of Mary Turner, BA Geography on 01 July 1948