University plays leading role in Dundee Women’s Festival 2023

The Festival returns for 2023 around the theme of ‘women emerging stronger’, and runs at locations in and around the city and online from Saturday 4 to Sunday 19 March. The programme includes events taking place on International Women’s Day (8 March).

DWF Chair Prue Watson said, “Dundee Women’s Festival is emerging stronger than ever this year with an even wider range of events for you to enjoy, savour and take part in.

“I am delighted that we will be able to come together in venues across Dundee and beyond to renew friendships, learn new skills and find out more about our amazing city and the strong women whose legacy lives on giving us, today’s women, opportunities they could only ever dream of.

“Our theme for 2023, ‘Women Emerging Stronger’, seemed appropriate after the locked down Covid years when women had to adapt to the ‘new’ normal of home schooling, elder care, working from home whilst juggling shopping and general household chores. There were also more women than men in essential jobs some of which offered great challenges and required abnormal psychological strength.”

The links between the University and DWF have strengthened in recent years, enabling organisers to put on a wider range of events educating and enabling both adults and children. 

The events led by the University community are:

• Saturday 4 March
  • Electrons are Free: Drawing with Science
  • Herbarium Creative Writing Workshop
• Tuesday 7 March
  • Women Returning to Work
• Wednesday 8 March
  • Tackling Imposter Syndrome: A Talk by Dr Julie Seymour
  • The Campaign for Pardoning Witchcraft
• Thursday 9 March
  • Nature Poetry in the Museum
  • Some Women Other Women and all the Bittermen – Screening and Discussion
• Friday 10 March
  • Stories of unpaid care: creative writing and story crafting workshop
• Saturday 11 March
  • Family Fun with Women in STEM
  • Science Crafternoon
• Sunday 12 March
  • Bones and Balance
• Wednesday 15 March
  • Turbulence, Scandal and Controversy: The life & work of Catherine Carswell
• Thursday 16 March
  • Recognising Resilience in Art
• Friday 17 March
  • Christian Bisset – Celebrating a Pioneer
• Saturday 18 March
  • Women and Girls in STEM – Anatomy and Forensic Anthropology
• Throughout the Festival
  • Uncertain Territories: Women & Nature Exhibit

The programme for this year’s Festival was designed and illustrated by Rachel Middelton, a student at the University’s Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design.

She said, “I enjoyed every part of the process – every draft, every new event, every illustration that was created here."

“The joy I felt seeing the final brochures and posters for the first time was overwhelming. They looked amazing, were readable and colourful. I hope to see them around Dundee and for people to enjoy the events we have in store.”

Funding for the Festival comes from, among other sources, a Wellcome Institutional Strategic Support Fund grant awarded to the University. 

The full programme of events can be seen at www.dundeewomensfestival.org.uk.