After months of preparation, the Women’s Leadership Network introduced their annual conference, titled this time as “Back to Her Future”. The conference, which took place on Nov. 16 in the West Forum, featured several NYU Abu Dhabi professors and around 50 participants, including staff and students. The wide range of panelists included professors May Al-Dabbagh, Jaime Lyn Napier, Serene Richards and Henriette Mueller. Experts in their respective fields, each professor offered their insights on past and present feminist movements and the future of intersectionality.

The conference began with each professor leading discussions about feminism in relation to her academic discipline. While Al-Dabbagh approached the topic from a post-colonial lens, focussing on public policy, Napier explored the psychological antecedents and consequences of inequality, questioning why many people, especially women, continue to support unequal gender systems.

“[This type of conference] will allow students or the younger generation in particular to see the constant negotiation it takes for people to understand the feminist movement internally, individually and how they relate to other people,” expressed Nkem Chukwumerije, moderator and NYUAD Associate Instructor of Writing. “It spans academic, personal, social [and] all these [types of] different areas; so, it’s really all-encompassing.”

The participants of the conference then split into four “unconferences” (smaller student-led discussion groups) that each tackling different approaches to feminism in a variety of academic fields. The panels included “Making Our Voices Heard”, which investigated the gendered nature of politics and women as symbols of national and social movements. “Can We Remake Industry?” encouraged dialogue around the portrayal of women in the film industry, while “Health(care)?” focused on the inclusion and visibility of women in STEM. Finally, “None of Our Business?” focused on corporate culture’s effect on women’s participation in business and law.

Ines Santos, President of the Women’s Leadership Network and Class of 2022, delved into the challenges the conference committee faced, when multiple posters advertising the event were taken down by an unidentified individual or group.

“I think that so often, we take discussions on gender equality and feminism for granted,” she shared. “A lot of people here are very different but we share a lot of opinions and common values, so I think to be faced with the fact that even something as valuable as a core concept like feminism and gender equality […] that some people might not be willing to have that conversation, it was a shock for me personally. But, I think it served as a motivation for us.”

Ana Blatnik, the Conference Chair and Class of 2022, echoed these sentiments.

“[It was a] sobering moment in the whole planning process [and made us] even more focused on making this [conference] work, and promoting it and getting the word out, because you see that there is so much need, even on this campus, to have this conversation,” she shared.

Among the several participants, a large portion were female-identifying members of the community. Andres Ancona Velasco, Class of 2022 and one of the few male-identifying participants, expressed his motivation for attending and including men in the discourse surrounding feminism, so they can be better allies.

“There are so many things I don’t know and so many things that I can’t say because I’m not a woman and haven’t been in that position. So, I will never be able to understand completely,” he said. “But, having this conference gives us a better understanding of what women think about the movement.”