Coffee and Book table

Coffee and Book table take place in the conference foyer.

Lunch

A lunch sandwich is provided in the conference foyer in return for a lunch ticket which you will receive upon registration. 

Conference Summary

NorWiP future - actions

Pysics/Gender Network?

Conference Chair and NorWiP Board Members

Dancing equations: the embodiment of physics

“We all are and we all have a body and therefore it is the best tool to think with.”1
In western culture, boys and men are encouraged to play with their physical power, and girls and women are encouraged to be docile.  Feminine body comportment is expected to be “restricted, inhibited and confined”2, whereas boys are encouraged to be “physical”.  Boys therefore have the opportunity through play to develop a visceral understanding of force, power, speed and acceleration – definitional concepts in physics.  It is possible that without a physical relationship to physical concepts, girls engage with physics only at a cognitive level. If girls are given the opportunity to ‘embody’ physical concepts, will this aid their understanding?
When teaching first year engineering physics labs, I wondered whether a dance-based explanation of electromagnetic waves would help my male and female students understand the concepts around light polarization necessary to complete the designed experiments.  I wanted the students to use their bodies to understand equations describing linear and circular polarization of light.  By tracking the vertical component of the equation below (where θ = 0) with their left arm and the horizontal component with their right, the students were able to describe the two perpendicular waves and feel how the sum of their components add to linearly polarized light. 
 
Then I asked them to dance the result of adding a quarter (θ = π/2) or half-wave (θ = π) phase shift in y.  It was incredible how quickly all students caught onto the concepts once they experienced them in their bodies.   When they added quarter and half-wave plates in front of their lasers during the lab, their questions to me were more sophisticated than I had anticipated.  At times, I had to scribble down equations to make sense of their questions because I had not yet embodied the concepts.
Girls and women are more likely to dance than engage in other sports3,4.  Rather than relying on sport awareness to teach physical concepts, we might find greater success in dance as a vehicle to learning.  Teaching physics through movement may open up more opportunities for girls and women to “get” physics at a visceral level.

1. Mauss, M. (2007). Techniques of the Body (excerpt). In M. Lock & J. Farquhar (Eds.), Beyond the Body Proper: Reading the Anthropology of Material Life (pp. 50-68). Durham: Duke University Press. (Original work published 1973 [1935]).
2. Young, Iris Marion (1990). Throwing Like a Girl and Other Essays in Feminist Philosophy and Social Theory. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
3. Children's Participation in Cultural and Leisure Activities, Australia, Apr 2006
4. http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/sgr/pdf/chap5.pdf

Applying Physics at our Service: Climate Change: Why Gender Matters

Mainstreaming Gender into the International Climate Change Negotiations

Ulrike Röhr, Head of genanet – focal point gender, environment, sustainability, Berlin

Unlike most of the United Nations conventions in the last decade, the Framework Convention on Climate Change has failed to adopt a gender-sensitive strategy, nor is it addressing women as stakeholders or persons affected. Same applies to the Kyoto Protocol, a specific agreement to the convention, which was developed to create concrete targets, policies and monitoring mechanisms. The missing link to gender equality in the decisions hampers to call attention to gender impacts of climate change policy, in particular because social aspects in general are marginalized in the UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol. This failure of integrating gender results in shortcomings in the efficiency and effectiveness of climate related measures and instruments.

Due to this situation, women’s organizations involvement in the annual Conferences of the Parties (COP) to the UNFCCC was poor in recent years, although there was a promising start during the first COP 1995 in Berlin. After a period of low participation, women’s groups have picked up the strands again since 2002, holding side events, distributing statements, hosting exhibition booths, discussing gender issues with delegations, and convening Women’s Caucuses.

After some years of persistence and competing for attention, at COP13 in Bali (2007), from a gender perspective a significant breakthrough was achieved. For the first time in UNFCCC history, a world wide network of women, gendercc – women for climate justice, was established. The group published several position papers articulating the women and gender perspectives on the most pressing issues under negotiation. The papers are addressing the Post-Kyoto-Negotiations, financing climate change adaptation and mitigation, prevention of deforestation, agrofuels or nuclear energy from a gender perspective. They are criticizing the uni-dimensional and exclusive focus of the climate change debates to technical and market based solutions to mitigate climate change which don’t apply to sustainable development, and demand of the integration gender analysis in the review and further development of the mechanisms as well as for strong criteria to ensure women’s benefits from funds set up to support adaptation to climate change in developing countries.

A range of activities on women’s and gender issues was organized during COP13 by various organizations and institutions. And they met with interest, increasing awareness, and increased expression of commitment to gender justice from a number of stakeholders.

In the future, similar efforts must be undertaken related to the process and institutional arrangements. Continuous representation of women and the gendercc network will be crucial. On the other hand, in order to prepare substantial input into the meetings, it is necessary to link discussions at local levels to those at the international level – feeding local realities and experiences into the general and abstract discussions at the global level, as well as ‘translating’ global changes and international policies so as to communicate what these will, or may, mean for local communities. Providing capacity development opportunities for women and gender activities who are prepared to raise their voices in the international policy arena will be key, so that they can become effective advocates on policy and effective communicators to communities and networks around the world.

The activities in Bali paved the way for implementing gender mainstreaming into the Post-Kyoto-Negotiations, which are planned to be finalized at COP15 in Copenhagen in December 2009. An intermediate step will be undertaken at the next conference to be held in Poznan in December 2008: the network is planning for a parallel conference aiming to discuss concrete demands and recommendations for the negotiation texts.