Roll Roll Roll Your Eyes

The Team of the Gender Equality and Diversity unit, University of Vienna: Lisa Appiano, Nina Krebs, Waltraud Schlögl, Claudia Spitzl-Reisenbichler, Kerstin Tiefenbacher, Lena Lisa Vogelmann

Lyrics

2.

Roll roll roll your eyes,

Show them if you can.

If they roll their eyes at you,

Roll yours back at them.

3.

Roll roll roll your eyes,

You’re the one annoyed.

You’ve been fighting a long time.

Injustice, be destroyed!

4.

Roll roll roll your eyes,

Give them all a clue.

If you want equality,

There’s lots you can do.

5.

Roll roll roll your eyes,

Sighing all the time.

Feminist feminist feminist feminist,

Give them all a sign.

Protesting Together

Sara Ahmed speaks of rolling eyes that feminists often face in their anti-discriminatory activism as “an expression of collective exasperation because you are a feminist” (Ahmed, 2017, p. 38). (Feminist) Activists are confronted with irritation at their insistence that things are not as they should be and their desire to do something about it. This irritation forces them into a defensive position. Considering that social injustices continue despite decades and centuries of work against them, it is feminists who are irritated, though. Irritated that their enthusiasm is met with derision. Irritated that their knowledge is discarded. Irritated that they have to fight the same fights over and over again. On the occasion of the 20^th anniversary of the Gender Equality and Diversity unit of the University of Vienna, we have decided to reclaim the eyeroll for feminists, for ourselves¹. It is not only a possibility to vent, but also to find humour in the face of an often demoralizing fight. Finally, by turning the well-known nursery rhyme Row Row Row Your Boat into a protest song, it is an opportunity to find solidarity in a communal activity like singing a canon that allows different voices to come together.

The team of the Gender Equality and Diversity unit from the University of Vienna, Austria from left to right (Photo by derknopfdruecker.com):

Claudia Spitzl-Reisenbichler is an economist and has work experience in various branches and multiple countries. She joined the Gender Equality and Diversity unit in November 2019 and is responsible for office administration and organizational matters.

Lisa Appiano is a philosopher specialized in philosophy of language and politics. She was University Assistant at the Philosophy Department (University of Klagenfurt) and researcher at the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis. She has been part of the Gender Equality and Diversity unit since 2017, where she is responsible for antidiscrimination concepts, diversity issues and trainings for staff and students. Beside her university work, she is becoming a psychotherapist. 

Nina Krebs is a gender studies graduate and part of the Gender Equality and Diversity team since 2019. Within the unit, she is responsible for diversity issues and developing a broad work-life-balance approach. In addition, she holds feminist empowerment trainings for girls and young women.

Waltraud Schlögl is a social and cultural anthropologist and has been a member of the Gender Equality and Diversity unit for 20 years. She is currently involved in gender monitoring and in the development of a new work-life-balance approach.

Lena Lisa Vogelmann is a sociologist specialized in film sociology, gender and statistics. She was key researcher for the first Austrian Film Gender Report. She joined the Gender Equality and Diversity unit in 2018 where she is responsible for public relations and gender monitoring. In addition, she teaches at the Department of Sociology at the University of Vienna and is on her way to become a psychotherapist.

Kerstin Tiefenbacher is a social and cultural anthropologist by training with a specialization on gender. She has been part of the Gender Equality and Diversity unit since 2013 where she is in charge of the career development measures or female academics, including the coordination of mentoring programs.