Thursday 11th June 2026
Blog Page 871

SU priorities have to change

Honor Brocklebank-Fowler
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SU priorities have to change

The news that Oxford University has spent over £300,000 on renovation of offices of the Oxford SU, previously OUSU, will come as no surprise to many given the recent overhaul of the Oxford SU brand.

The student union controversially spent almost £17,500 last year on a digital rebrand carried out by a London digital marketing agency, with Oxford SU Communications Coordinator Megan Mary Thomas telling Cherwell at the time that the decision to overhaul its logo and website was made as a response “to student feedback that the SU was not successfully representing its members interest.”

This highlights the real nub of the issue. In 2016 the newly branded Oxford SU held a dismal satisfaction rating of 34 per cent, the lowest in the country, although it’s worth observing that Cambridge’s equivalent, the CUSU, did not fare much better, with a mere 37 per cent of students expressing satisfaction with their union.

The Oxford SU has long stood as a byword within the University for inactivity and remoteness, only vaguely relevant to the day to day lives of students at the University.

The benefits of delegation of student union representation to individual college JCRs have been manifold: JCRs facilitate close-knit college communities, with committee members acting at a grassroots level to represent JCR members directly to staff.

The local scale of these organisations also allows for difference in method and constitution depending on the environment and personality of the college, which often varies considerably within the University. However, the inevitable trade-off has been what can be described as at best ambivalence, and at worst scornful scepticism directed towards the Oxford SU institution which seems so immutably detached from the vast majority of students.

We cannot blame the organisation for attempting to change this woeful situation. But I must question whether a revamped social media presence and move to stylish new headquarters at 4 Worcester Street, complete with £26,000 worth of new furniture, and recording equipment for online radio station Oxide, is the correct way to go about enacting real repair to the Oxford SU’s negligible relationship with the Oxford student body.

An Oxford SU spokesperson told Cherwell earlier this month: “The new space has increased the opportunity for students to use space that Oxford SU provides with more student meetings, campaigns and socials happening in the building over the last term”.

I am sceptical as to whether Oxford students feel the need for an additional meeting space, given the plethora of grazing ground we are offered by facilities such as college JCRs, the Radcliffe Camera, the Oxford Union, faculty libraries, and countless cafes throughout the city.

What is more positive, however, is that the same spokesman also informed Cherwell that the renovation will “increase space for the University’s Student Welfare and Support Services, which includes the counselling and disability advisory services.” One of the most valued commodities offered by Oxford SU is the University-wide counselling service, which has long been cripplingly oversubscribed and under-facilitated.

Any efforts which can be made to reduce the lamentably lengthy waiting list, and alleviate pressure off local NHS mental health services, will not be in vain. However, it is hard to view such seemingly unrestrained expenditure on interior decoration and a logo which former president of Oxford University Liberal Democrats, Harry Samuels, remarked in the summer “could have [been] done in five minutes on any decent graphics software”, as anything more than an outrageous vanity project.

The Oxford SU must devote more time and money to staff, in particular recruitment and training of valuable counsellors to alleviate the grievous mental health amongst students, as only through regular interaction and dialogue can the SU begin to make amends to the stagnated relationship with its students.

John review – ‘remarkably and unashamedly real’

Harry Langham
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John review – ‘remarkably and unashamedly real’

‘The tragedy of bed and breakfast’ – those are the words used by Elias (Tom Mothersdale) to describe the setting of Annie Baker’s bizarre, but brilliant play, John. The play, which ran previously at New York’s Signature Theatre, and now occupies the Dorfman at the National tells the story of the suitably unlikable Elias and his sweet, yet passive-aggressive, complicated and unfaithful girlfriend Jenny (Anneika Rose), a Brooklyn couple very much on-the-rocks, and their stay at a twee, bric-a-brac B&B in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, run by the enchanting, grandmotherly and somewhat dotty Mertis, a role inhabited with exquisite conviction by Marylouise Burke. During their stay, the couple, played with commendable chemistry (or perhaps anti-chemistry) by Mothersdale and Rose, meet Genevieve (June Watson), Mertis’s blind, and knowingly insane best friend. On ground haunted by the ghosts of thousands of civil war dead, the ghosts of Elias and Jenny’s relationship are rarely far beneath the surface.

A special mention ought firstly to be made of the set. Designed by Chloe Lamford, the room in which we spend the entirety of the play is a captivating jumble of knick knacks, a ragbag assembly of dolls, statues, souvenirs, models and the like. And though the audience stays in this room the entire time, the action does not. The play seems to make few concessions for the most elementary ‘requirements’ of staging, something that is ostensibly clear in the opening moments, as the new guests are shown to their rooms, upstairs and off-stage.

Muffled conversation continues as the couple and their host become acquainted, and we, the audience, are left staring at a stage full of dolls, which are in turn staring back at us, and wondering whether the actors will come back. Moments such as these, in combination with the life-like, meandering pace of the play, orchestrated beautifully by director James Macdonald, and full of pauses and half-expressed thoughts, seem to be set up in deliberate opposition to ideas of pretence and deception, the result of which is something that feels remarkably and unashamedly real. This sense of authenticity, of realness is particularly surprising given how much of the play concerns itself with what is not discernably real: a ghoulish blurred photograph of a haunted bedroom, a rustling noise which only Genevieve can hear, and perhaps most obviously the unseen, and yet apparently ever-present husband, and co-owner of the B&B, George.

For all its sensitivity and its spookiness, it should not be forgotten that the play is also a rollicking laugh. Though one felt in the first act that Baker was perhaps trying too hard, and moving somewhat too close to the realms of laugh-tracked American sitcom, once the characters were fully developed and differentiated, the laughs come more naturally, and the cogs of the comedy machine begin to turn more smoothly, with much greater reward. Indeed the comedy was undoubtedly at its most potent when it was trying less hard, and we were allowed to simply enjoy the set-up of the play itself as a sort of comic set-piece, involving the coming together of opposite worlds.

It is because of this that despite the overwhelming sadness and frustration of the central plot, John is, in a strange sense, very much life-affirming. In a room full of dolls of various description, and of course a packed house of audience members, Mertis asks her young guest, ‘Do you ever feel like you’re being watched, Jenny?’ The question is dealt with by all the play’s characters in some way, all of whom attest to having felt some kind of domineering presence watching them throughout their lives. Indeed it is only in her blindness that Genevieve has escaped the sense of being watched.

In a truly memorable speech, which takes place between the second and third acts, and in front of the curtain, Genevieve offers a soliloquy on madness and blindness, in which she claims her blindness has brought her to the centre of the universe. We spend much of the time trying to work out if Genevieve is mad, or prophetic, the answer is, I think, some delicious cocktail of the two, testament to Watson’s captivating performance. Regardless, she serves in many senses, as a portal in the play; a portal to the divine, the mystic, the other-worldly. She lifts the play out of its domesticity, and allows it to speak to the universe.

In John, Baker introduces more mysteries than she resolves, but such is the charm of the play. She is not interested in tying up loose ends or validating the audience’s suspicions, but rather in creating a world of unending possibility. It is in recounting the story of when she met her husband George, whose existence is questioned a number of times in the play, both by us and by Elias and Jenny, that Mertis claims she felt as though ‘anything’s possible’. If George is possible then anything’s possible, if we don’t have to see to believe, then the world, as presented in John, is something larger, more comforting and more exciting than anything we could imagine.

Hanna Review – ‘strikingly honest’

Meg Harris
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Hanna Review – ‘strikingly honest’

It is perhaps ironic that a play which seemingly revolves around a child who is accidentally swapped at birth is named after that child’s mother, but it’s clear that it is Hanna’s story that ultimately forms the centre of Off West End Award nominee Sam Potter’s portrayal of the unconventional family. Having expected a melée of familial chaos, the starkly lit stage – just a table and single chair at its centre – is both striking and far from the conventional image of bustling family life. Sophie Khan Levy’s almost casual entrance as Hanna, and effortless launch into the 70 minute monologue that makes up the play’s entirety is believably candid, with the accessibility of Potter’s writing creating a strong sense of intimacy.

Hanna’s story is at first almost too good to be true: despite unexpectedly falling pregnant and initial familial opposition, Hanna perseveres with her pregnancy, motherhood quickly becoming ‘the only thing [she] was ever any good at’, alongside the support of her boyfriend, Pete. However, it is not until much later, with a DNA test revealing a hospital mistake following the jaundice treatment given to newborn daughter Ellie, that Hanna realises that the child she has attentively raised for the past 3 years is not biologically hers.

What follows is a narrative that remains utterly honest, a far cry from Wildean tales of babies left in handbags and found in train stations, with Potter’s self professed ‘character driven’ play matching Hanna’s growing confusion with an enduring sense of humour, prolonging the audience’s familiarity with her, and retaining an integral notion of humanity.

From Hanna’s dilemma, Potter creates an opportunity to explore various issues, most notably relating to class, race, and the family, which become more prevalent as Hanna establishes contact with her biological daughter, and the woman who has raised her. Hanna’s naive disbelief at the financial disparity between the two families; ‘I had no idea people had so much more than we had’, and the use of both class and racial stereotypes – which are at times uncomfortable – serve to highlight a seemingly insurmountable cultural and circumstantial divide between both mothers and their respective birth children.

Such contrasts are reminiscent of the ambiguous relationship between nature and nurture, and the role in which family plays in an individual’s identity. Certainly, Potter’s depiction of Hanna’s growing panic as she realises the integrity of her family is challenged; ‘if someone else is Ellie’s mother then who the f*** am I?’, and Levy’s portrayal of her character’s constant search for certainty, restless in her chair, becomes both captivating and illustrative of the significance of familial relationships. Further confounding Hanna’s situation is the lack of terminology surrounding it: ‘the only words are to do with adoption, but that’s not what happened to us’, with the failure of language to articulate or bring sense to her dilemma, working only to mark it as overtly ‘other’, and through constant allusion to Hanna’s inherent guilt; ‘in many ways [her daughter] was quite lucky to be taken away from me’, her growing isolation is realised. Potter, however, never allows pessimism to take over the narrative, Hanna’s investment in the relationship between the two daughters, and Levy’s ability to easily coax laughter from the audience lifts the piece, keeping Hanna’s perhaps naive wonder at the fore.

Towards the play’s culmination, Hanna’s more conversational presentation of her story subsides almost into a stream of consciousness, as any lights in the audience gradually fade out. With Hanna’s voice remaining the sole point of focus, viewers continue to be drawn in as the character leads towards a conclusion. Unfortunately, due to Levy’s fast-paced speech throughout the play’s entirety, any increase in tempo to convey her character’s panic is somewhat lost, despite the occasional pause.

Whilst Potter creates an affecting portrayal of the bittersweet job of raising a child, made all the more difficult by an unconventional familial situation, her assertion that she wanted to ‘focus on the story of the mother’ is perhaps too apparent. Hanna’s frequent digressions may make her more tangible – and, by extension, a more sympathetic character –  but they also work to confound the narrative. ‘Hanna’ is perhaps slow to start, with a prolonged premise culminating in a hurried ending that feels, ultimately, formulaic. However, it is not the pacing, but Hanna’s optimism that makes this piece, as she asserts with new confidence that ‘families are not fixed’, and Potter leaves the audience with an affirming conclusion which fits neatly back with the beginning.

Hanna is on tour with Papatango Theatre Company from the 3rd of January to the 22nd of February 2018.

Beginning review – ‘comfortable, emotionally-streamlined and ideologically safe’

John Livesey
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Beginning review – ‘comfortable, emotionally-streamlined and ideologically safe’

Girl meets Boy: a narrative so hackneyed it’s earned its very own idiomatic cliché. We’ve heard this story so often – have it plummed into us more times a day than we are likely to actually experience the real thing in our lifetimes- and yet that fateful first interaction still seems to be an object of fascination that never loses its artistic appeal. Indeed, this is the story David Eldridge has decided to take up with his new play Beginning, now showing at the Ambassador’s Theatre, London, after a transfer from the National.

Beginning centres around Laura and Danny, two single twenty or thirty-somethings who meet at a party in Laura’s flat. When the play starts, the party is over. Danny has decided not to get a Taxi and it’s clear that Laura wants him to make a move. They’re both drunk but something stops them from getting it on. Instead they end up talking: for 90 minutes to be specific. Only at the very end do we see their desire manifested in a more physical way. This show is a slow-burner, its thrill relying not on erotic rush but on the constant deferral of consummation.

Beginning opens with the image of its lead actress and actor standing quiet and alone, locked in eachother’s gaze. It is not a tableau. Albeit still, it is an image alive with feeling. This is the meet-cute, the glance of love-at-first-sight, the eponymous ‘Beginning’. With their light swaying and heavy breathing, we get a sense of the prospective couple’s drunken awkwardness, their inability to speak their feelings, their lurking sense of where the night is headed. With barely any movement, this picture neatly summarises all of the action to follow. It is clever and affecting. However, one can’t help feeling that its intelligence, its ability to capture so much, brings us back to a fundamental, and somewhat worrying question. What is the point of all this? If girl meets boy can be summed up in one moment, why is there anything more to say?

Despite charismatic and wonderfully real performances from Justine Mitchell and Sam Troughton, this is my central problem with this play. The set is beautifully detailed, with party streamers, empty bottles, forgotten coats and an ambient lighting that perfectly recreates the mood of the after-party. In its favor, the writing is also witty and cleverly observed. However, despite all this dressing, you come away with a sense that you’ve gained very little: this production lacks any meaningful substance.

Of course, one could point to the interesting gender politics for counter-argument. Danny seems to be a man caught in the problems of modern masculinity, at once defending a sexist friend but also unwilling to initiate a sexual encounter, embarrassed by Laura having to ask him for a kiss. Laura, meanwhile, is a modern woman – sexually forward, aware of what she wants, unafraid of telling an unknown man exactly how she feels. In addition, there is some attempt to discuss class. Danny lives at home with his mum and his Nan whilst Laura can afford a 500k Crouch-End apartment. But even then the socio-economic differences between the two are too thin to allow for any really incisive commentary. There are lazy references to being Labour voters and to Owen Jones’ twitter (ironically, Jones himself was sat a few rows in front of me and chortled loudly at this) but ultimately, there isn’t much to distinguish the play from any other #relatable modern romance.

Under Rufus Norris tenure, the National has put on multiple shows involved in pushing the possibilities of form and content. Whilst this play is perfectly nice, it does neither of these things. Nor does it ever manage to whip up much intrigue to add to such a predictable plotline. Overall, we are left with a comfortable, emotionally-streamlined and ideologically safe show about a heterosexual, white, middle-class, London-based couple. Whoopdidoo! I’d much rather see the ‘beginning’ of something new but for now it seems Girl meets Boy is here to stay.

The Corridor review – ‘a serious spectacle of operatic drama’

Isaac Pockney
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The Corridor review – ‘a serious spectacle of operatic drama’

In an echoey chapel, on creaky pews, you could hear if anyone in the audience moved a muscle during the moments of silence which punctuate this operatic drama. Not a single person did. Such is the quality of this production of The Corridor. The cast, the crew and the musical players keep the audience absolutely riveted from the outset and throughout.

In Greek mythology, after Eurydice is bitten by a snake on the day she is wedded to Orpheus, he goes to Hades to bring her back from the dead. He is allowed to do so on the sole condition that at no point on the return he turns back to look at his bride. The Corridor captures the scene where, near the end of their homecoming, Orpheus turns and looks.

Traditionally the telling of this myth focuses on the Orpheus’ grief and despair at losing his beloved for a second time. Sean Kelly’s self-professed feminist reading of this narrative however grants Eurydice the license to demand better of her husband. The emphasis placed on Eurydice’s discontent in this production is striking; far from inducing a shared despair, Orpheus’ failure elicits an abject scorn that makes for intriguing drama.

You cannot help but notice the shift in tone upon entering New College chapel before taking your seats for The Corridor. The musicians wandering as shades of Hades, the Greek underworld, the rear wall of shadowy angels and the lone harp at the end of the nave give the distinct impression that what you’re about to see is a serious spectacle of operatic drama.

Hannah McDemott’s performance as Eurydice is genuinely outstanding. From the opening note she commands the audiences attention and delivers some stunning arias throughout. Truly hair-raising on a number of occasions, she thrives in her ambitious role. Her spoken parts are no less gripping, embodying the anger with which her character is filled with heart-felt acting and delivery.

Likewise, Harry O’Neil’s delivery of Orpheus was very good. Hearing his sorrowful tenor resonate in the vast space, he is not too hard to believe when he professes to have ventured to the gates of Hades and ‘unlocked the place with song.’ Overall both performers carried the show brilliantly, an extraordinary feat given that it was just those two singing for nearly an hour.

Using the nave of New College chapel as the physical stage for the corridor between Hades and earth was a masterstroke. For such a huge, high-ceilinged space it was mesmerisingly intimate. Every movement, every emotion in the players’ faces was immediately visible, literally touching distance away from the front row. What’s more Seb Dows-Miller and Sarah Wallace’s lighting setup fully realised the dramatic potential of the chapel. The back wall of angelic statues washed blue and scored with deep shadows set a domineering, ghostly backdrop for the production. At the foot of this great wall, a solo harpist (Aoife Miralles) divides the land of the living and the underworld, plucking up tension and stirring the action throughout.

I could not recommend this performance more highly. The setting makes it different from any other production you are likely to see. Furthermore, the vocal and musical talent of the players and cast make this show one not to be missed

Bumps drama makes the early starts worthwhile

Thomas Murphy
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Bumps drama makes the early starts worthwhile

The attraction of bumps racing lies in its unpredictability, and indeed success is often predicated on a hefty amount of luck. A fair argument can be made that this takes away from the sport but having been on the receiving end of some undeserved success, I think it adds to the occasion. For those of you who were eagerly following the bumps charts last summer, you might have noticed some strange behaviour from the Merton M2 crew. The first three days passed normally, if not particularly well.

Row over on the Wednesday, followed by being bumped on Thursday and Friday. On the Saturday we were being chased by the Regents Park M1 boat. By catching us they would have gained blades and a confirmed spot in Division Four for the next year. Safe to say they were eager, and after bump-ing three days in a row were probably fairly confident.

When the cannon fired, it became clear that we were evenly matched. We saw the crews in front of us bump out, and the pair in front of them did the same; with the chances of bumping ourselves basically zero, we just had to hold out until the end.

As Regents closed to half a length but couldn’t reel us in, thoughts of pushes and race plans disappeared from both crews. I had to be 100 per cent the entire way. When we finally collapsed over the finish line, the Merton crew were ecstatic. It was our best row of the week, and we were rather pleased with ourselves.

This was deserved success. What made the day even sweeter however, was the news that we got when we landed. It emerged that Brasenose M2, five boats ahead us, had somehow managed to crash in the gut. As the boats between us had bumped out, the next racing crew to pass them was us, frantically pushing off Regents. We hadn’t noticed them of course; boats sitting stationary by the bank are perfectly normal.

What this meant however was that rather than a row over, what we’d achieved was to bump up five bunglines in one day, quite an achievement! It also meant that our do or die race to the line with Regents was moot: even if they’d caught us, we’d already bumped out when we passed Brasenose.

This is the sort of unpredictable chaos that makes the lower divisions of bumps racing so much fun. Undeserved success may be a sweet surprise, yet I know for a fact that we would have been just as happy with that row -over. Nothing beats the euphoric satisfaction of just escaping defeat through sheer hard graft.

Come down to the river for Torpids in seventh week and you can see similar such carnage unfold for yourself.

Tennis Blues ease relegation worries with win

Fran Benson
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Tennis Blues ease relegation worries with win

Oxford’s Women eased their relegation worries with a hard-fought victory over Cardiff Met last week.

Sitting fourth in their league, only one place above relegation, the Blues went into the fixture with Cardiff just a place below them.

And from the outset, it looked as though it would be a close encounter: the last clash between the two teams had resulted in a draw, so the Blues were keen to make amends and bag all the points this time around.

Bucs tennis matches have a team of four, and each player plays a singles and doubles match against their corresponding number. In the first round, the first doubles pair, and the third and fourth singles players competed.

Cardiff Met’s team was the same as had been at the away fixture: the only difference between the two match ups was the debut of first-year Lucy Denly playing fourth for Oxford.

The first round saw a comfortable 6-1, 6-3 singles win for Sarah Cen, Oxford’s third player. Cen used her experience to wear down her opponent by remaining consistent and making a higher percentage of shots back into court.

Unfortunately though, Oxford’s first doubles pair had a tough loss 6-2, 6-3, as they failed to get into a rhythm in the face of hard-hitting, aggressive opposition. With the score even, all eyes turned to the fourth singles player.

At this point, Denly was 6-2 4-3 down, hence her opponent only needed two more games to win. But, Denly managed to turn the set around, fighting hard to take it 7-5.

This left it to a ten point championship tiebreak to decide the outcome. In spite of hustling back some truly incredible retrievals, on this occasion, Denly’s serve failed her, and she lost the match on a double fault, meaning that the score stood at 2-1 to Cardiff.

While losing out so narrowly was agonising, Oxford’s women were not deterred. In fact, up to this point, the results were identical to their last meeting with Cardiff. However, this now meant that Oxford needed to win two of the final three matches to draw, and all three to win: a big task.

Oxford’s women were well up to the challenge though. Nanami Yamaguchi, Oxford’s top singles player took a comfortable 6-2, 6-3 win. This was a match that balanced hard-hitting with intelligent play, and in this way Yamaguchi managed to outmanoeuvre and frustrate her dogged opponent.

The other two matches were tighter. An hour and a half later, Denly entered into her second third set of the day with Cen in the doubles, and Oxford’s second singles player Fran Benson leading 6-2 2-2 in a long endurance match.

Not to repeat her earlier mistake, Denly served to victory, interspersing acute angles with direct pace to set up some easy volley put-aways for Cen at the net.

This win gave Benson, who at that point was tied in the second set a big morale boost. With the knowledge that a win was so close, Benson regrouped. Playing aggressively, moving her opponent around, and finishing the points off efficiently, Benson was able to then close out the match 6-2 in the second set.

Oxford’s women won four rounds to two, moving them up to third in the league.

It was a busy day for the Oxford’s tennis players, with the seconds playing Cambridge.

However, the dark Blues fell to an 8-4 defeat, which left them rooted to bottom of the Midlands 1A league.

A Letter To: My tute partner

Daaniel Isaac Chaudhry
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A Letter To: My tute partner

Dear tute partner,

To be honest, we all know you think you’re smarter than me, simply because you have your life together, play a Blues sport, hand your essays in on time, do extra reading, and make online flashcards for collections which you then confidently share on the group chat so we all know we’re failing. But guess what mate – that does not mean that you are better than me.

Okay, so perhaps in academic terms you are, but for the sake of my already tenuous sanity, can we please acknowledge that my awful essays at least prompt some discussions? The fact that I somehow manage to balance academic essays with extra-curricular commitments and weekly outings to Park End Wednesdays and Bridge Thursdays is a feat in itself – so the quality of my aforementioned essays need not be criticised so severely. Besides, without my essays, our conversations would be unbearable. Your debates with the tutor might as well be in a foreign language, because I barely understand the words you say. I nod along to mask my confusion, but in reality, sitting in an Italian tutorial would honestly be more bearable, and frankly, I would learn more.

Could you also stop pointing out all the flaws in my essays please? Okay, you were tasked with reading through them before the tutorial, but the fact that I don’t use the right ‘too’ (or is it ‘to’?) in the appropriate context doesn’t mean the content of my essay is wrong. And frankly, when I’m running the UN, I will have a secretary to write my communications, and she/he will know the difference.

Also, stock-piling the notes of second and third years, whilst you embark on weekly trips to London, just isn’t fair. You skip all the irrelevant reading and write your essay ten times faster than the rest of us, whilst we slog through pages of incomprehensible academic garbage only to find out that it’s not even relevant. Sleeping your way to the top isn’t meant to be a thing, but sleeping your way to notes almost certainly isn’t.

I suppose it’s some consolation that you promise to ‘look out for me’ in the tutorial, as I’ve done none of the reading and the tutor lost my handwritten essay (I slid it under his door – it’s not my fault if he lost it). But then, when the tutorial arrives, it’s suddenly very different… the promises of three minutes ago are forgotten, and in front of the tutor, you begin to systematically destroy every aspect of my being. By the end, I feel not only is my essay being questioned, but my character and integrity too.

Outside of tutorials, you are a genuinely lovely and wholesome person, but when we step into that room you transform like Voldemort did in the rst Harry Potter lm. The wand chooses the wizard, but I most certainly didn’t choose you.

All my love,

Daanial

Somerville u-turns on gender neutral toilets

Eve Webster
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Somerville u-turns on gender neutral toilets

Somerville JCR has voted to introduce gender neutral toilets, after they rejected a similar proposal last term.

College officials will be asked to replace signs in the college bar which currently say ‘male’ and ‘female’. These will now read ‘gender neutral toilets with cubicles’ or ‘gender neutral toilets with urinals’.

Almost 80 per cent of the JCR voted in favour of the motion in a secret ballot on Sunday.

The changes will be implemented in other public areas of the college, including in the dining room, the Flora Anderson Hall, and the Vaughan building, a first year accommodation block.

The vote is a change in direction for the College after a similar motion failed last term following concerns that the removal of binary toilets could create opportunities for harassment against cisgender women.

Eilidh Wilson, Somerville’s LGBTQ Officer who proposed the motion, said: “For many people going to the bathroom is a thoughtless task, however, for trans, gender nonconforming and non-binary students fulfilling this basic need can be daunting, distressing, and potentially dangerous due to the potential for harassment and violence.

“It is Somerville’s duty to put adequate provisions on place for the trans community to fulfil this basic need without fear or concern.”

Following the passage of the motion, she told Cherwell: “It is encouraging, though not that surprising, that the members of the Somerville JCR showed overwhelming support for this motion.

“I brought this issue back to the JCR so soon because I was confident that many of the concerns brought forward in the last meeting stemmed from unawareness of the experiences and needs of trans people.

“This is about so much more than signage, it is about recognising the detriment of gender binary spaces and the need for change.

“This is a victory for the LGBTQ community of Somerville and I hope that it will help pave the way for similar changes in other colleges.”

The motion is supported by senior college officials, including Somerville President Baroness Janet Royall.

Oxford University LGBTQ Society’s President, Katt Walton, attended last Sunday’s meeting. They said they were: “over the moon that the motion passed with such a huge margin.”

Walton noted: “Unfortunately last term this failed, I think a lot of this had to do with ignorant perceptions about the LGBTQ+ community.

“Students had brought up concerns of cisgendered women being in danger if toilets could be accessed by people of all genders.

“Although concerns about harassment are always valid, the association of these concerns with gender neutral toilets and the trans community is a toxic stereotype that harks back to dangerous perceptions of trans people being sexual predators.

“There is no evidence to suggest that the adoption of gender neutral toilets increases the risk of harassment or assault on cisgendered women.”

“It is a step that goes towards Somerville and Oxford University being more supportive of and inclusive of our trans community.”

The Flora Anderson Hall hosts college bops, and members’ concerns stemmed from the purported risk of harassment in gender neutral toilets as a result of excessive drinking.

One female JCR member said: “I think especially in bops and in Terrace [the college bar], I wouldn’t feel comfortable being in a toilet with a cis man.”

Somerville joins eleven other colleges, including Wadham, Balliol, St. Hugh’s, and St. John’s in changing their toilet policy. This aligns the College with the University of Oxford’s Transgender Guidance Policies.

More offers for women than men for first time

Libby Cherry
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More offers for women than men for first time

Oxford University has offered more places to women than men for the first time.
This year’s intake of freshers was made up of a total of 1,070 18-year-old women, compared to 1,025 men of the same age. Women not only gained a greater numbers of offers, but also applied in record numbers.

Catherine Canning, VP for Access and Academic Affairs at Oxford SU said: “It is important to recognise that Oxford has finally reached gender parity in its admissions for the first time in its 1000-year history.

“However, there are still significant disparities in admissions particularly around race and class.

“It is also important to recognise that access is more than an offer letter and Oxford University should be making sure all students feel welcome here.”

Colette Webber, Corpus Christi College’s women’s representative and first year student, said: “Considering that women weren’t even given degrees from Oxford until the 20s the active presence of women at the University is obviously an achievement that deserves to be celebrated – go on gals!

“But its also not an excuse in my opinion for anyone to pat themselves on the back and become complacent, we need to be looking at not only the male-female divide but who the women are that are being accepted.

“Other contextual information like class and ethnicity has to be as important and equally for the men.

“A statistic like that [more women than men] can be misleading in terms of diversity and development.”

The Polar 3 analysis, carried out by the Higher Education Funding Council, looked at the link between the socioeconomic status of an area and its residents’ participation in higher education.

The study found that students from the three wealthiest quintile areas were 10 times as likely to apply and almost 13 times as likely to be accepted at Oxford than those in the lowest quintile.

Jaycie Carter, the co-chair of Oxford’s SU’s Class Act Campaign told Cherwell: “Class Act believes that far more needs to be done by the University of Oxford and the government to reform systems and a culture that deter promising students from low socioeconomic backgrounds from applying and exacerbates these disparities in the application process.

“This should be done by improving education for those from the most deprived backgrounds to give a fair basis in which to start as well as top universities providing institutional support both in increased outreach work and ensuring these students are actually supported and at the university when they do get a place.”

Julia Paolitto, a spokesperson for the University, told Cherwell: “While more than ten times as many offers went to those in the highest quintile compared to the lowest, for those who did apply the offer rates were fairly similar.

“More importantly, once Ucas took into account the profiles of those applying from each group (including the subjects they applied for and the grades they achieved), students from the lowest quintile actually performed better than expected compared to those from higher quintiles.”

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