With a grant from a state program for equal opportunity, the Equal Opportunity Office supports projects that support families, strengthen our anti-discrimination work, sensitize members of the university all issues in the areas of gender and equal opportunity and overall contribute to improving the equality of opportunity at Folkwang.
Der Girls' Day ist ein bundesweites Projekt zur Berufs- und Studienorientierung von Mädchen. Am alljährlichen Aktionstag lernen Schülerinnen Berufe oder Studienfächer kennen, in denen der Frauenanteil unter 40 Prozent liegt. Angesprochen sind Mädchen ab der Klasse 5. Unternehmen, Betriebe und Hochschulen in ganz Deutschland öffnen am Girls'Day ihre Türen für Schülerinnen, um ihnen Ausbildungsberufe und Studiengänge in IT, Handwerk, Naturwissenschaften und Technik vorzustellen. Oder sie begegnen weiblichen Vorbildern in Führungspositionen aus Wirtschaft und Politik. (https://www.girls-day.de/)
The book Linguhacks / Typohacks provides an introduction to the topic of gender-sensitive language for designers and people interested in current discourses in the field of design. It is a typographical reference work with suggestions and ideas for the microtypographical handling of non-binary language forms in the German language. The book was created as a thesis by communication design student and Folkwang Prize winner Hannah Witte. It also represents a synthesis of her preoccupation with the topics of gender and design during her studies at Folkwang.
Following the restructuring of the Gender & Diversity bureau to become the Anti-Discrimination & Equal Opportunity services, the website also needed to be redesigned. For better and more intuitive readability and navigation, the Folkwang communication design student Louisa Kron was commissioned to create banners and icons for the main- and subpages. In an interview Louisa talks about her work, her preoccupation with the topic of gender and her studies at Folkwang.
The PENG collective consists of seven women musicians, all of whom are successful graduates and students of the Folkwang University of the Arts. Founded in 2016, the collective has set itself the goal of promoting the greater presence and acceptance of women in jazz and of jazz in society. The PENG Festival, which has been taking place regularly since 2016 and is partly funded by the Anti-Discrimination & Equal Opportunities department, plays an essential role in realising this goal.
"Künstlerinnen" ("Women Artists") was an interdisciplinary series of workshops, initiated by the Equal Opportunity Office in cooperation with the faculties at Folkwang. In the context of lectures, discussions or workshops the speakers reported on their careers and everyday work or opened up about a job-related topic to the students. This way, the students were given the opportunity to directly engage with artists in fields that are considered to be atypical for their gender by societal standards.