It’s time to introduce Cambridge to Beyond Equality

CN: Mentions of sexism, sexual violence and discrimination

“Beyond what?” – Reve Kgrabe, Sidney Sussex

If you’re not on a sports team or a student at St John’s you may not have heard of the organisation that’s taking the reins in Cambridge to rethink masculinity, disrupt pressures to fit in and reflect on campus cultures, ‘Beyond Equality.’

Originally founded as ‘The Good Lad Initiative’, Beyond Equality is a national organisation that works with schools, universities, workplaces and sports teams to spark meaningful conversation and encourage healthier attitudes and practices. Whereas before, they solely focused on dissecting difficult or challenging social issues faced by young men, they now also offer mixed gender workshops that allow women to have a say too in how they are impacted.

I think we can all agree that an organisation that utilises student volunteers – many of whom are active members of our sports teams who have had incredibly positive and reformative experiences through these workshops – is very welcome. In an age where we are finally having open and honest conversations about how the patriarchy can negatively affect all of us, creating a safe space where students can talk amongst themselves about attitudes that normalise sexism, sexual violence and discrimination, and help them see their role in prevention is what makes Beyond Equality so relevant.

In addition, the workshops encourage conversations about the particular coding of masculinity that affects the way men interact, whether they engage in self-care and looking after their mental health, and how these affect how they treat people of other genders.

The Tab spoke with Leah Mclaine, a first-year Trinity student and Hugo Lloyd-Williams, a third-year Johnian and Beyond Equality Cambridge Coordinator. Additionally, we heard from Angus, another Cambridge Coordinator and James, a former student and experienced facilitator and member of the leadership team.

After speaking with current students, and rugby players who had the workshops and found them so beneficial they went on to become facilitators themselves, it’s evident that these workshops are hugely worthwhile and would be welcomed by many students.

(Image Credits : Beyond Equality Cambridge)

What’s a workshop like?

The first time I came across the organisation was actually during fresher’s week. It was a timetabled workshop one afternoon; I had no idea what awaited me and upon entering the room I sat in a circle with around 20 new faces that I’d been slowly familiarising myself with over the past few days. What started off as a slightly awkward, slightly funny prospect of the college trying to get us to do some weird ‘kumbaya’ style circle time, ended as one of the best parts of my fresher’s week. I left having made connections with people I hadn’t yet spoken to. We were vulnerable with each other. We learnt about each other’s biggest fears and when we’d felt most proud of our identities. In all, we walked away from it having more of a shared agreement of wanting to hold everyone in our year group to account, creating inclusive spaces and overall, just not creating toxic environments in college.

Hugo also emphasised that they “had amazing feedback from [my] year, it was really good. So, the main thing is getting colleges to know how good it is.”

He went on to say, “I think it’s really important for freshers,” and therefore the delivery of the workshops needs to be “targeted” or what can happen is that colleges will “take a passive role.” He described an example of when they tried to do a workshop at Fitzwilliam, stating “they just put it in the Facebook group chat and across all three years only eight people turned up. The problem with making it optional instead of compulsory, is that a lot of the people who would benefit the most from going, aren’t going to go. You get some really interesting conversations, but it’s because the people coming have already thought about these things prior to the workshop and would want to have these discussions.”

St John’s students participating in a workshop! (Image Credits: Hugo Lloyd-Williams)

A student’s perspective on who could benefit from these workshops…

As well as the general student population advantaging from the workshops, in Leah’s opinion, there are particular people who could suffer if her college weren’t to introduce the freshers’ workshops and it appears that female students are having to emotionally overexert themselves to make up for the lack of dialogue between male students.

“I am the replacement for the workshops,” says Leah, as she proceeds to discuss “the amount of boys who have come in here and don’t know how to discuss emotions” and instead are “seeking nurture and guidance from female students because they can’t find it in their male friendship circles.” While Leah makes it clear that they’re not a burden, it’s saddening that they feel like they have to seek her for emotional support because amongst their male friends, talking about feelings isn’t the done thing.

“They just don’t really know how to help each other emotionally, and I don’t know how to teach people to be emotional.” For her, the workshops would be beneficial because “it’s no longer just ‘I have a problem and I’m going to my female friend,’ it’ll be ‘me and my mates can go and chat this out because we all know that there’s something wrong.'”

It’s clear that male students would benefit from an environment to explore mental health and wellbeing in a way that they haven’t been given the opportunity to before as she states that “it’s bazaar some of the things that they don’t know how to deal with naturally, like someone will open up to them and it’ll send them West.”

“There’s a lot of worrying comments from the boys in general that will be like ‘yeah, I have an alcohol dependency’, ‘I’ve never seen a man cry before’ or that ‘they don’t cry at private school, and they won’t know how to navigate sexual harassment in clubs.'”

Leah believes that “these guys are all going to have emotions, whether or not they show them, and they’re all going to manifest, whether or not you have the workshops.” But, if they’re introduced to a new way of thinking or talking about these things “such a weight can be lifted from them.”  It would be the most meaningful in her eyes if this happened not between her and them one-on-one but between them and their peers, including other men.

She concludes, “the people that need to be having these conversations are all of y’all… together… in a workshop!”

Leah Mclaine, Trinity 1st Year student (Image Credits: Leah Mclaine)

Do colleges not want the workshops or do they just not know they exist?

Maybe in slightly simpler words, you may be thinking about how, as James, a Beyond Equality Lead, put it, “there are systemic structures within college dynamics that can perpetuate negative behaviours around sex, peer pressure and discrimination, etc” and wondering why they still haven’t been more inclined to hold these workshops during Freshers Week.

One of the reasons Hugo puts it down to is the much larger impact word of mouth has amongst sports team members compared to colleges, making it easier to get the workshops to happen, emphasising “I think probably around 60% of our male facilitators are rugby players. Because we’re all sports people, we talk to other sports people.” More recently, the hiring of new female facilitators and appointing of female coordinators, is certainly creating an opportunity to widen the reach in regard to expanding beyond the sports sphere.

Amongst all colleges, the organisation will also be looking for ambassadors soon who don’t have to commit to being facilitators but can advocate for the workshops to happen in their colleges or other societies – we love a low-commitment role that helps a good initiative!

Additional reasons Hugo gave included the fact that “the sports service pays for it which makes in so much easier. There’s no reason for sports teams not to do it because it’s free for them.” As well as this, “sports teams have more of a stigma so they know they need it” and that in regard to colleges, “it’s about having someone that advocates for it.” That can be difficult if no one in the college actually knows what the organisation does; as he adds, “going to other colleges is difficult because we have to get the JCRs on board and if they don’t know what it is, it’s difficult.”

Leah also has a few ideas up her sleeve. “I have a few conspiracies about why Trinity (officers) could be hesitant… They probably have one of the most prolific sports teams culture and they don’t want all of that to come out in the workshop.” As well as this, she also puts it down to “a general negligence” indicated by the fact that ‘they never hire people from the outside to do anything on the inside. There’s no group situations like [beyond equality workshops.]”

‘As the richest college – the 4^th largest landowner in the UK – it’s not on, what’s £150 + VAT for a workshop?’

Sound like something you’d get behind?

If this is something that you can see your college benefitting from, it could be a great idea to get in touch with your JCR. James questions whether “students themselves see a need for this work?” He tells us that “it all comes down to our organisation’s belief in compassionate and challenging conversation as a catalyst for social change” and to me, that’s something I can imagine many of you resonating with on some level or another.

You can check out the work that the organisation does here.

Trinity College Welfare Officers have been contacted for comment.

Feature Image Credits: Beyond Equality Cambridge

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