Women on Wednesday fall 2015 series starts Sept. 16

The Women on Wednesday fall 2015 season “Global Women: Perspectives, Challenges, Solutions” focuses on the needs and priorities of women throughout the world and indigenous women in the United States.

The noon-hour lecture series put on by the St. Cloud State University Women’s Center brings diverse women and programming to St. Cloud State to cover political, social, legal and economic issues affecting women’s lives. Lectures are held on select Wednesday at noon in the Atwood Theatre in the Atwood Memorial Center. Admission is free and open to the public.

While inequality, sexism, homophobia, racism and gender violence affect women in the United States, privilege often obscures the diversity and complexity of issues affecting women globally. Menstruation as a barrier to accessing education, differing effects of natural disaster based on gender and the risk of being publicly out about gender identity and sexuality are just a few of the issues faced by women globally.

The seven lectures in the fall 2015 series will explore these issues and more, starting with a look at higher education in South Africa during the first Women on Wednesday at noon Sept. 16.

“Pushing the Boundaries: Engendering Gender Studies/Women’s Studies in the Transformational Discourse of Higher Education in South Africa” looks at how gender disparity and inequality in post-apartheid South Africa offer opportunities for students, faculty and staff in higher education to create new models to address gender problems such as rape, sex discrimination and inequalities in education.

Presenter Mumbi Mwangi, St. Cloud State associate professor of Ethnic and Women’s Studies, will speak about her efforts to create innovated partnerships and collaborations to transform academic spaces she was involved with during her recent appointment as a Carnegie African Diaspora fellow at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Mwangi holds a Ph.D. from Iowa State University and her master’s and bachelor’s degrees from Kenyatta University in Kenya.