Meike Lauggas

Meike Lauggas, teacher at several universities, academic organizational consultant and coach, freelance researcher and gender trainer, University of Vienna

I offer my manifold experiences of mediating gender studies and teaching gender knowledge to different audiences and among different social spheres. 

As a student I was women’s speaker of the Austrian students’ parliament and contributed to the first initiatives of founding coordination centers for women’s studies and equal opportunities for women. For many years I have been in touch with non-academic feminist women’s organizations as well as with academic organizations. Mediating between these two spheres has always been an important concern of my work. The ability to mediate between different institutional languages, to understand and translate them, has also a biographical background: growing up as member of the German speaking minority in Northern Italy with bi-national and bilingual parents (German and Danish) meant to be in touch with different European cultural spaces that are formed by very different traditions in gender policy. 

During my studies at the university I started to be interested in the transfer of feminist theories, completed trainings for being a group trainer and organized groups for female students. To integrate personal experience into the teaching of gender theories has always been an important foundation of my approach. After completing my PhD I concentrated on mediating gender theories to a larger audience in my work at the women’s department of the City Administration of Vienna: I designed and organized events, lectured at schools and companies, took care of delegations from all over the world and commented on legislation and political action. In this position, I concentrated on projects dealing with the labor market and the salary of women as well as gender roles and gender competence.

Since 2012 I have been working as a freelance Gender Trainer, university teacher and consultant.