Student AffairsBeyond Balance in Academic Life
An International Women's Week Panel
As part of International Women's Week, the Sexual Violence Prevention and Response Services team and Ban Righ Centre staff partnered to host a panel with experts from the Queen's community exploring the often unseen and unacknowledged labour of care in academic life. Our panelists shared important insights, and together we identified some next steps in this crucial conversation. Read more in our brief write-up about this event.
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Insights
As part of International Women 91制片厂 鈥檚 Week, the Sexual Violence Prevention and Response Services team and the Ban Righ Centre staff partnered to host a panel with experts from the Queen 91制片厂 鈥檚 community exploring often unseen and unacknowledged labour of care in academic life.
Panelists: Halima Wali, Meghan Mendelin, Rebecca Hall
Facilitator: Rebecca Rappeport
Date: March 11th, 2026
Location: Ban Righ Centre Lounge
Insights from the Panel
- The collision of academic work and care work often demands sacrifice
- A constant juggling of responsibilities and calculating what can be dropped to keep other things going
- Less time with kids and family and to take care of our own needs
- A constant juggling of responsibilities and calculating what can be dropped to keep other things going
- Capitalism makes balancing family, self, community care and work particularly difficult and does not impact us all in the same ways
- Women are more often expected to automatically assume care work both at home and on the job
- For racialized women, disabled women, and mothers the unequal division of labour is even more pronounced but less acknowledged
- Women are more often expected to automatically assume care work both at home and on the job
- Not recognizing care work as work maintains unequal divisions of labour
- The work of caring for students, fellow staff members and family members cannot be shared if it is not named as work
- Making a point of including the care work we do as part of our job can help lead to more acknowledgement and sharing of it
- The work of caring for students, fellow staff members and family members cannot be shared if it is not named as work
- We can stop performing emergencies when prioritizing care work and boundaries
- Part of naming the work of care is not making excuses when prioritizing it
- Stating boundaries and not over-emphasizing the burden of care work can help normalize making time for it
- Part of naming the work of care is not making excuses when prioritizing it
Feedback & Next Steps
The Ban Righ Centre and the Sexual Violence Prevention and Response Services team are working together to continue this conversation based on the feedback of the panel and event participants
- Identify and create more opportunities to have discussions like this
- Create online and hybrid discussion spaces for this topic
- Share and create practical resources for communicating about care work and balancing overlapping responsibilities
- Create a space to discuss care work specifically in the context of sexual violence and intimate relationships