GENDER.ED - EUSA 2025 Undergraduate Feminist Trailblazer Awards: Honourable Mention
2025 was the fourth year of the GENDER.ED-EUSA Undergraduate Feminist Trailblazer Awards. The awards celebrate outstanding contributions to feminist scholarship and activism within the University of Edinburgh community. Emmi Wilkinson received an Honourable Mention. We asked them to reflect on their feminist work, and what motivates them.
Feminism has many forms, for me it entails restructuring the world so that there no longer exist expectations or differential opportunities depending one’s positionality, so that in effect gender becomes meaningless for theorizing or understanding your experiences of the world. Many institutional decisions are premised on a practice of thoughtlessness for how a given decision will affect people based on marginalized identities or material realities. Drawing attention to this lack of recognition or foresight is one part of my feminist project, in order to encourage institutions to actively consider gender in their decisions or abolish them if their existence is antithetical to the equality of people. Second, while feminism is a critical project, it has also been influential in offering new ways of knowledge making and organizing society via its thoughtful criticism, offering imaginative post-abolition possibilities. Since, in order for our current unjust society to change we need to think of new ways of existing and organizing which act with justice.
I have previously written about how and why I started Plurality, in GENDER.ED’s ‘undergraduates encounters with feminism’ series, and it was thinking with these goals in mind that I wanted to give a platform to the undergraduate work happening in Edinburgh and beyond. Since many undergraduate students are researching with this critical praxis in mind and practice. The journal functions as both a history of thought and table to play and stretch current theories in novel ways.
When creating the journal, I also thought about how can the publication question and tweak the traditional method of academic publishing to make the process more accessible to those new to it. Having a joint-commitment between author and editor to spend time and energy in developing the author’s writing, helps the author to contribute meaningful work while also giving voice to an often-unheard group within academia. Being an open-access journal is also every important to the aims of the publication. In an age of misinformation about what gender studies or critical race theory even is, people being able to read what students are thinking about is key in maintaining democratic access to the knowledge being produced at institutions.
What motivates me in my feminist work is the understanding that oppression is human-created and reiterated by the social structures we live in, meaning that change is possible since society is mutable. Additionally, what gives me hope is the continued questioning and unrelenting push for change that activists continue to work with. For other feminists and students wanting to get involved in the academic side of feminism at the University, I would say to continue to ask the critical questions and build community. I am very thankful and honored for having received an honorable mention for the Feminist Trailblazer Award and will carry this work with me in my future endeavors.
Author biog:
Emmi Wilkinson studied philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. They are the Founder and former Lead Editor of Plurality. Now they are reading for an MPhil in gender studies at the University of Cambridge with a particular interest in trans theory, social epistemology and feminist legal studies. In their spare time, Emmi enjoys making zines and practicing karate.