My name is Hermione Taylor, and I’m Women’s Welfare Officer of Queens’ – a new role on the JCR this year. I’m always on hand to talk about any problems you are having, and have a solid supply of pregnancy tests, condoms, information leaflets and tea! You can contact me at any time by leaving a note in my pigeon hole, or coming round to G3.

My role is a political one too – women are still under-represented in Cambridge, and its my job to make sure that I deal with the issues that mean the most to us! I attend CUSU women’s forum, and run events throughout the year in line with university wide campaigns. I am also going to arrange a women’s dinner and women’s formal this year – women have made a fantastic contribution to Queens’, and its time we celebrated this!

My first Women’s forum is on November 19th, and if there are any university-wide concerns you want raising, come and have a chat! CUSUs work includes a huge range of things, from pushing for changes to tackle the academic gap between men and women at Cambridge (unlike at most other top universities, 27% of men get Firsts here, as opposed to 17.5% of women), to campaigning nationally to maintain our current abortion rights, to raising awareness about other inequalities that exist – from the expectations and judgements about how women dress, to the 15.5% pay gap. Check out www.womens.cusu.cam.ac.uk/council to get more information about how CUSU is campaigning.

In Michaelmas term, CUSU and the other colleges are putting on a few interesting events, which I will publicise in college nearer the time – take a look!

Wednesday 12th October: ‘Smash Sexism’ – CUSU’s Women’s Campaign squash, where different local groups and societies talk about what they’re doing to campaign for gender equality, and we all get to meet each other. Food provided. 7 – 9pm, Latimer Room, Clare College.

- Saturday 15th October: first FREE self-defence class (course of eight sessions over Michaelmas and Lent), 10am in the Blue Room at the Union.

- Wednesday 2nd November: Women’s Health Forum, Robinson College

Finally, for some lively and engaging feminist debate, http://jezebel.com/ and http://bitchmagazine.org/ never fail!