Madi Welty and Miraj Dattani by Minnie Turner's blue plaque
Sarah Osborn by the former Royal York Hotel where Anne Lister once stayed
Abbie O'Connell, Sophie Mcclellan and Jennifer Emelife outside Virginia Woolf's former cottage, Monk's House
Meena Zaveri by the Twelve Women of Academia exhibition on campus
Paula García Vilches by the blue plaque in North Laine
For International Women’s Day (Sunday 8 March), the University of Sussex celebrated the lives and achievements of some incredible women with connections to the local area.
We photographed some of our current students in local spots which have links to women who have been a part of the #EachforEqual movement. The photos were shared on social media over the weekend, but did you recognize each location?
Here are the answers to our IWD quiz, along with some extra information about why each spot was chosen and its significance to the gender equality campaign.
- Kensington Gardens – Dame Anita Roddick
International Relations undergraduate Paula García Vilches stands in front of the blue plaque dedicated to The Body Shop founder Anita Roddick. Born in Littlehampton, Dame Anita Roddick opened her first store in Brighton and was an ambitious entrepreneur and businesswoman as well as a passionate human rights activist and environmental campaigner. She made The Body Shop one of the first to prohibit the use of ingredients tested on animals in some of its products and it was also one of the first to promote fair trade with developing countries. - Victoria Road – Minnie Turner
English Literature & Art History student Madi Welty and Mechanical Engineering student Miraj Dattani are currently resident in the property once known as Sea View boarding house, run by Brighton suffragette Minnie Turner. Minnie was Honorary Secretary of a branch of the Brighton Women's Liberal Association for 12 years and, in 1908, joined the WSPU after frustration at the government's refusal to grant women the vote. She expressed pride that more of the suffragette leaders and speakers had stayed with her more than in any other home, with Sea View guests including Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst, Ada Wright and Emily Wilding Davison. - Royal York Hotel – Anne Lister
Sarah Osborn, Women’s Officer at the Students' Union, stands outside the former Royal York Hotel – now home to the YHA. Anne Lister, also known as Gentleman Jack, was a wealthy independent landowner and diarist who wrote some of her entries (mainly those detailing her passionate love affairs with other women) in a secret code. Known now as the ‘first modern lesbian’, Anne stayed at Royal York Hotel in 1820 for three days with her then partner Marianna while waiting for a package ship to take them to France. In her diaries she suggests that she would "like it exceedingly if we lived for a while at Brighton". - Monk’s House – Virginia Woolf
As tutors for Sussex Writes, it seemed fitting to photograph English Literature & Art History student Abbie O’Connell, English Literature student Sophie Mcclellan and International Education & Development MA Jennifer Chinenye Emelife, outside Monk’s House – the 16th-century cottage once owned by Virginia Woolf and her husband Leonard. The couple bought Monk’s House in Rodmell, just outside Lewes, in 1919 as somewhere quiet to write, far from the constant interruptions of London. Best known for her novels Mrs Dalloway and To The Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf had a huge influence on novel writing, thanks to her nonlinear approaches to narrative. She also wrote pioneering essays on literary history, the politics of power and women’s writing, with A Room of One’s Own pointing to centuries of prejudice and financial and educational disadvantages as inhibiting for women’s creativity. - University of Sussex Library – Twelve women of academia
Recently appointed BAME Awarding Gap Researcher, Meena Zaveri stood in front of an exhibition found right here on campus which celebrates women working in higher education. The portraits feature twelve academics from across the disciplines who were photographed with an object that either represented an aspect of their work or had some personal significance in their career. Captured by fine art photographer, and former Sussex student, Miss Aniela, the exhibition was displayed for a week in the Upper Waiting Hall within the Houses of Parliament for a week before being given a permanent home on the first floor of the University of Sussex library.