IN DEPTH
WINspiration: Feminism for libraries and librarians
CILIP Scotland has been holding regular events to celebrate women and leadership in the profession. Kirsten MacQuarrie, CILIPS Membership Offi cer, developed and launched WINSpiration, and here she looks back at the last 18 months of events.
“THE only rewarding thing for me is to bring to light information that no one knows. What’s the point of rehashing the same old thing?” The words of library decolonisation pio- neer Dorothy Porter (1905–95), refl ecting on her impactful, if still poorly acknowl- edged, contribution to our profession, can just as eff ectively capture the spirit of WIN- spiration – CILIP Scotland’s programme of events, collaborative activities, recommended readings and more to champion feminist values across the library and information sector (
www.cilips.org.uk/feminism). Supported by the amazing allyship of Head of CILIPS Sean McNamara, it has been a pleasure and a privilege for me to see WINspiration evolve throughout the past 18 months, with a range of further feminist opportunities planned.
As a person and a professional, feminist values inform every aspect of my life: maximising my skills as best I can to help create a world where women are respected, empowered and celebrated. CILIP’s Chang- ing Lives Action Plan (
www.cilip.org.uk/chang- inglives) likewise includes commitments to tackling sexism through measures such as understanding and taking collective action on the sector’s gender pay gap. As CILIPS Membership Offi cer, I know that women are a signifi cant majority – 72 per cent – of CILIPS members, yet our presence is not
24 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL
Kirsten MacQuarrie (
kirsten.macquarrie@
cilips.org.uk) is CILIPS Membership Offi cer.
evenly spread across all levels of senior- ity. Seventy-seven per cent of members in ‘junior’ roles are women but only 63 per cent in ‘senior’ and just 51 per cent of Chief Executives, with women also constituting 76 per cent of CILIPS members not currently working.
Despite being a female-majority sector, it seems that problems linger within LIS in either empowering women to achieve library leadership roles or ensuring that the nature of library leadership itself – whether in working hours compared with caring responsibilities, childcare availability and/ or menopause support – suits the reality of our lives. Questions of what leadership is, the values that inform it, and what it can (and should) mean for our sector, were key
March 2023
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