Here are some dates for your diary of woman-centric events going on around the UK this week.

Bristol:

1 March: Rights and Reasons: International Women’s Rights Conference at Broadmead Baptist Church and Conference Centre, Union Street, Bristol from 9.30 – 4pm.

To mark International Women’s Day, African Initiatives is holding its annual International Women’s Rights Conference.

They have organised a series of inspirational workshops and talks to discuss issues such as sex work, forced marriage, women’s political representation and the fashion industry. For programme and full workshop summaries click here.

To be launched by the Mayor of Bristol, George Ferguson. Key note speaker: José Sluijs-Doyle, Chief Executive of African Initiatives; Guest speaker: Maanda Ngoitiko, African Initiatives’ partner in Tanzanian

Maanda is a Maasai woman and founder and director of the Pastoral Women’s Council, an entirely female-led charity working with Maasai women and girls in northern Tanzania.

With representatives from around 20 different charities, the conference brings diverse organisations together under one roof and is a fantastic opportunity to meet, to network and to share experiences.

Suggested donation is £10. No one will be turned away due to lack of funds; please contact African Initiatives for free or subsidised tickets or phone 0117 915 0001. Refreshments and buffet lunch included.

The venue is fully accessible for wheelchair users.

Coventry:

1 March: Reclaim the Night Coventry meeting at Coventry City Council House, Earls Street, Coventry, from 6pm.

Reclaim the Night is a women-led event fighting for the right of all women to be out on the street and in public spaces without fear or threat of violence.

On 1 March there will be a women-only* march around the centre of Coventry. We will meet just outside the Coventry Council House, march around the city centre and end on the Cathedral steps where there will be a short women-only* rally.

*Reclaim the Night Coventry is open to all who self-define as women, including (if they wish) those with complex gender identities which include ‘woman’, and those who experience oppression as women. This explicitly includes trans* women.

Leeds:

25 February: Ladyfest Bake Sale at Leeds Met Students’ Union, Woodhouse Building, City Campus, Calverley Street, Leeds, from 2.30pm.

Ladyfest Leeds are holding their first bake sale of the year  in aid of Support After Rape and Sexual Violence Leeds (SARSVL) and Shantona. Please go along, buy some cake and have a chat about up and coming Ladyfest events.

1 March: Cake My Day III at Heart Centre, Bennett Road, Headingley, Leeds, from 1pm-4pm.

Following the huge success of Leeds Roller Dolls previous cupcake contest fundraiser, ‘Cake My Day’ is back for a third time. There’ll be cakes to judge and cakes to buy and some great prizes to be won if you fancy trying your hand at entering the cupcake competition.

To register to bake, please email Skatewell Tart.

If your baking skills aren’t up to scratch and your enthusiasm for cupcakes lies more in the eating of sweet delights provided by others, then fear not. For a small on-the-day fee of £3, you can be one of our all-important judges.

All proceeds for this event will go to Leeds Roller Dolls. We thank you in advance for your support. And for your cake.

London:

25 February: ICA Quickfire with Carolee Schneeman at Cinema 1, ICA, The Mall, London SW1Y, from 6.45pm.

American artist and filmmaker Carolee Schneemann first performed at the ICA in 1968. This Quickfire talk sees the seminal feminist artist discuss her work with Alison Green, an academic who has written at length on Schneemann’s work, which is characterised by research into archaic visual traditions, pleasure wrested from suppressive taboos, and the dynamic relationship between the human and the social body.

Carloee Schneeman (born in 1939, in Philadelphia) lives and works in New York. Her painting, photography, performance art and installation works have been shown at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; and the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York. Film and video retrospectives have taken place at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Film Theatre, London; Whitney Museum, NY; San Francisco Cinematheque; and Anthology Film Archives, New York.

Her solo exhibition ‘Water Light / Water Needle’ in the Hales Gallery, London, runs 28 February – 12 April 2014.

Followed by a screening of ‘Breaking the Frame‘, a documentary portrait of Carolee Schneemann.

Tickets £7/£8.

27 February: Binteen Min Masr followed by discussion with Shereen El-Feki at the Coronet Cinema, Notting Hill, London, from 7pm.

This screening of Binteen Min Masr is presented by Basira, a non-profit human rights organisation that promotes women’s rights in the Arab world, as well as mutual understanding between Arabs and the Western world.

This edition of Basira Presents will show and discuss the film Binteen Min Masr, with keynote speaker Shereen El Feki. Shereen (@shereenelfeki) is the author of ‘Sex and the Citadel: Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World’ (Random House, 2013), shortlisted for The Guardian First Book Award. Shereen started her career in medical science, with a doctorate in immunology from the University of Cambridge, before going on to become an award-winning healthcare correspondent with The Economist and a presenter with Al Jazeera English. She is the former vice-chair of the UN’s Global Commission on HIV and the Law, as well as a TED Global Fellow.

Shereen sits on the board of a number of civil society groups working in the Arab region, among them Meedan and the Arab Forum for Freedoms and Equality. She also contributes to a number of publications, including The Huffington Post, International Affairs, and The Independent, and has written and spoken widely on women, sexuality and HIV in the Arab region. With roots in Egypt and Wales, Shereen grew up in Canada; she now divides her time between London and Cairo.

Until 27 February: UCL Equalities at various locations around UCL campus, London.

Throughout February, an exciting programme of events has been organised by UCL Equalities to celebrate diversity and examine the ongoing and evolving challenges some groups face in education, work and the wider society. This year’s theme is time, history and generation. The events will look at the historical context of equalities and diversity and the way different experiences of diversity are found within and between generations.

A full programme, which includes events that do not require registration, can be found here.  Events going on this week, include:

“You don’t look old!” – The stigma attached to old age is so great that most people are unwilling to even admit they are old. Yet, surveying the difference ageing makes matters, as well as noting the strength and insidiousness of all the forces of ageism. Professor Lynne Segal will argue that it is crucial to find ways of resisting the prejudices and discrimination against the elderly, including tackling our own fears of ageing (whatever our age), at the same time as unpacking all the ways in which we are disparaged culturally as soon as we are seen as old.

Having A Gay Old Time: voices of LGBT history – Documentary film-maker and UCL Communications multimedia producer Rob Eagle will present a selection of excerpts from documentaries on LGBT history. Clips will include both historic, seminal LGBT history documentaries, including Before Stonewall and Word is Out, and from recent films with older LGBT people, including Rob’s own ongoing documentary project, Having a Gay Old Time.

Buddhas of Suburbia: faith, migration and suburban change in London – Suburbs are conventionally imagined as monotonous, monocultural, materialist and secular, but recent research in West London contradicts this, suggesting that suburbs are shaped by dynamic multicultural connections. Dr Claire Dwyer will argue that creativity and modernity are important elements in the changing geographies of religious architecture in the suburbs.

Until 22 March: The Mistress Contract by Abi Morgan at Jerwood Theatre downstairs, Royal Court Theatre, Sloane Square, SW1W

She and He are the pseudonyms of a real-life couple who live in separate houses in the same city on the west coast of America. She is 88. He is 93.

For 30 years he has provided her with a home and an income, while she provides ‘mistress services’ – ‘All sexual acts as requested, with suspension of historical, emotional, psychological disclaimers.’

They first met at university and then lost touch. When they met again twenty years later, they began an affair when She – a highly educated, intelligent woman with a history of involvement in the feminist movement – asked her wealthy lover to sign the remarkable document that outlines their unconventional lifestyle: The Mistress Contract.

Was her suggestion a betrayal of all that she and the women of her generation had fought for? Or was it brave, honest, and radical?

Then — on a small recorder that fit in her purse — this extraordinary couple began to tape their conversations about their relationship, conversations that took place while travelling, over dinner at home and in restaurants, on the phone, even in bed.

Based on reams of tape recordings made over their 30 year relationship, The Mistress Contract is a remarkable document of this unconventional couple, and the contract that kept them bound together to this day.

The Mistress Contract is Abi Morgan’s Royal Court Theatre debut. Her theatre credits include most recently 27 for National Theatre of Scotland and Frantic Assembly’s Lovesong. Her previous plays for the stage include Skinned, Splendour and Tiny Dynamite. A BAFTA award-winning writer; on film, she wrote the screenplay for The Iron Lady starring Meryl Streep and Shame, directed by Steve McQueen and starring Michael Fassbender and on television, her credits include The Hour, Birdsong, White Girl and Sex Traffic.

Tickets £32, £22, £16, £12.

Until 23 March: Hannah Höch exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery, 77-82 Whitechapel High Street, London, E1

Hannah Höch was an artistic and cultural pioneer. A member of Berlin’s Dada movement in the 1920s, she was a driving force in the development of 20th century collage. Splicing together images taken from fashion magazines and illustrated journals, she created a humorous and moving commentary on society during a time of tremendous social change. Höch was admired by contemporaries such as George Grosz, Theo van Doesburg and Kurt Schwitters, yet was often overlooked by traditional art history. As the first major exhibition of her work in Britain, the show puts this inspiring figure in the spotlight.

A determined believer in artistic freedom, Höch questioned conventional concepts of relationships, beauty and the making of art. Höch’s collages explore the concept of the ‘New Woman’ in Germany following World War I and capture the style of the 1920s avant-garde theatre. The important series ‘From an Ethnographic Museum’ combines images of female bodies with traditional masks and objects, questioning traditional gender and racial stereotypes.

Astute and funny, this exhibition reveals how Höch established collage as a key medium for satire whilst being a master of its poetic beauty.

Tickets £9.95/ £7.95.

Manchester:

27 February: Reclaim the Night Manchester meeting at Owens Park, Wilmslow Road, Manchester, from 7pm.

Sexual violence against women is an epidemic. Together, we have the power to fight back: on 27 February, we Reclaim the Night. We will light up the city of Manchester, amplify our voices and take to the streets.

This creative, inspiring event is open to the whole community and will be full of colour, light and noise: this year’s theme is ‘sound,’ so we’ll be raising our voices and uniting our energies to stand up to street harassment and sexual violence.

Starting at Owens’ Park, Wilmslow Road, Fallowfield at 7pm, a neon parade will head down Wilmslow Road towards Manchester Students’ Union.

The march will be led by a women’s-only block, open to all self-defining women, and followed by a mixed march open to all genders.

The evening continues with the Reclaim the Night After Party, a festival of the finest women talent, with live comedy and music, arts and crafts, fun activities, community stalls and awesome DJs till late – at Manchester Students’ Union from 9pm.

This year is going to be bigger, brighter and louder than ever. Bring your glow sticks, bring your friends and bring your voices.