Capping off a week’s worth of activities for International Women’s Week, Bruin Feminists for Equality is hosting a fair in Bruin Plaza today to celebrate women and inform students about women’s issues.
Though International Women’s Day is actually March 8, Bruin Feminists decided to plan a week of events because the holiday is on a Saturday. The fair, which will last from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., will include cultural performances and spoken word by feminist Pam Ward. Other student groups that deal with women’s issues will have information tables, including the American Medical Student Association, Queer Alliance, and the Clothesline Project.
There will also be information about causes that affect the lives of women, such as March of Dimes and the campaign to get 1 million signatures for the liberation of women in Iran.
These causes are vital to the improvement of lives everywhere, said Cailin Crockett, events chair for Bruin Feminists.
The group is also working to fight the Global Gag Rule, which prevents U.S. family planning aid from being given to foreign nongovernmental organizations that offer abortions or counseling for abortions.
“Promoting the rights of women promotes the rights of everyone,” Crockett said.
There will also be information about the contributions of women all over the world and about feminists throughout history.
“(The event) is about celebrating women and their contributions,” said Ashley Tucker, president of Bruin Feminists. “In other countries, International Women’s Day is as big as Mother’s Day, but here we rarely celebrate the gender itself.”
The Center for Women and Men and the Arthur Ashe Student Health and Wellness Center will also be in Bruin Plaza to give students information about sexual health, and there will be a poster for students to sign to acknowledge they are feminists, as well as a large world map where students can add pins to where the women in their family came from.
Members of the club also hope students will see what feminism really is.
“Feminism is often portrayed as negative, antimen, antifamily, but this is a positive event, showing that feminism is just about equality,” Crockett said.
Tucker said she agreed students are not as informed about women’s issues as they might think they are.
“There is a lot of ignorance about the boundaries of gender in other areas,” Tucker said. “Africa may not be as bad, and the U.S. is not as progressive as we may think.”
The first National Women’s Day was held in 1909, and the event became international when Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland began celebrating it in 1911. Now it is an official holiday in 13 countries, including many Eastern European and Middle Eastern countries, and celebrated worldwide.
Other events that Bruin Feminists held this week included an open mic night in Kerckhoff Coffee House on Tuesday and a screening of “North Country,” a film centered around a sexual harassment lawsuit, on Wednesday. A discussion followed the film.
There will be an art gallery opening on Saturday, titled “Virgin, Mother, Slut < Woman,” that will remain open until March 14.
Sara Mengesha, a member of Bruin Feminists, said she hopes that many people take advantage of the events going on throughout today.
“It is important we go out and celebrate,” Mengesha said. “It is open to anyone, anyone who has an interest in human rights.”