On May 8, the GSRF co-organised the 8th annual event for the Language, Gender and Sexuality Special Interest Group of the British Association of Applied Linguistics (BAAL). The event was hosted at City University and chaired by Lia Litosseliti and Rosalind Gill. It was a fantastic day with a diverse line-up of speakers engaged with various academic disciplines, the women’s sector, and feminist activism.

The event was titled “Deconstructing sexism: What can we learn from different approaches and disciplines?”, guided by the general interest in building bridges – both theoretically and methodologically speaking – between gender and language studies, and feminist cultural studies, sociology and social psychology, while also considering activism in this area. A key aim was to explore how we might learn from each other to better deconstruct, comprehend and resist contemporary gender ideologies and permutations of sexism.

The event also aimed to open discussion about how we might advance innovative interdisciplinary approaches to the complex workings of power and ideology in discourse and reinvigorate intersectional feminist politics. Speakers addressed these questions at all three levels of theory, empirical research and feminist practice/activism. There was plenty of lively discussion throughout the day and on Twitter via the hashtag #galsig8

That's a bit harsh isn't it?! "@ShivGates: #feminaziforlife #galsig8 pic.twitter.com/A0kP3zC51O"

— Hui Zhao (@annettezhao) May 8, 2015

Stephanie Davies-Arai of @NoMorePage3: whoever controls media images controls culture and shapes society #galsig8 pic.twitter.com/zOBXMBqSaH

— Shivonne Gates (@ShivGates) May 8, 2015

See below for the full list of speakers. You can also click here for the full event programme and abstracts