From left to right: Hailey Jukes, Abby Chapman, Danielle Mitchell, Farzona Tukhtaeva, Stella Dipieri Pollock, Elena Montanaro,Ruchi Pathak, Maria Gutierrez Delgado, Susie Toe, Iris Lin, Duong Thao Vy.
Last month, the Women’s Empowerment Club hosted the second annual Women’s Empowerment Day. The team worked diligently for months to develop and refine a day full of educational activities and personal stories to shine a light on the female experience.
This work grew out of a college-wide programmatic focus on women’s empowerment in 2019/20, where a team of five young women and one mentor championed and sustained this discourse on campus. This core group of students organized an event called “Girl’s Talk”, that aimed to make a space for female voices to present issues from around the world, express themselves and talk about their own individual experiences.
This year, the team has grown so much — becoming its very own club at Pearson College UWC with the goal to uplift females and start conversations around inequalities that affect non-men. With now over 15 members, the club decided to push Girl’s Talk into an all-day event to properly highlight the issues that needed to be addressed. The objective of the event was to educate the entire Pearson community, and express feminism through many different lenses.
The day opened with a ceremony, held by the community’s beloved Rose Henry (affectionately referred to as Grandma Rose), a Tla’amin First Nation Elder and highly revered social justice advocate. This was followed by numerous student-led workshops to engage and enlighten the student body. These included discussions around sexuality, men’s role in feminism, intersectionality, rape culture, fashion, and body image.
From left to right: Rose Henry, Marija Uzunova Dang, Duong Thao Vy, Abby Chapman, Iris Lin, Maria Gutierrez Delgado, Danielle Mitchell, Farzona Tukhtaeva, Susie Toe.
The night was completed with HER, a show directly inspired by “Girl’s Talk”. The show was a collection of feminist acts and snapshots of what it means to be a female in society. They ranged from spoken words to traditional dances, songs, and performance art, as well as a solemn fashion show debunking the stigma around clothing “causing” sexual assault/harassment.
The day went to great lengths to inspire female Pearson students to freely express themselves and encouraged the whole community to stand with their non-male peers. Along with the UWC values, we believe that people influenced by this day will continue to carry their mission when they spread out to the world.
I feel really lucky to have been a part of the incredible team that made Women’s Empowerment Day as special as it was. The turnout at events and overall response from the community was amazing, I’m really excited to see where we can take the day next year!
It was inspirational, educational, and undoubtedly an amazing effort to express non-male voices. The HER show, through its creative approaches to important topics such as gender, sexuality, and identity, successfully engaged the whole Pearson community and raised awareness of gender parity and feminism.
It was a great experience, it was really an eye opener. I learned a lot of new things and was reminded of some other ones that are important as well. The most memorable experience was the show, it was really impactful for me — I can still remember almost every act. It was well-organized and educational.
As a female-identifying student, it was profoundly inspirational to have a day where the struggles, the beauty of being a woman and the essence of female nature is acknowledged, appreciated and understood.
Thank you to all the members of the club: Ruchi Pathak, Danielle Mithell, Farzona Tukhtaeva, Hailey Jukes, Claire Meng, Iris Lin, Stella Dipieri, Aylén Martinez, Cristina Panaguta, Feng Zi Yue (Leo), Abby Chapman, Duong Thao Vy, Maria Gutierrez Delgado and Susie Toe.
Special thanks to Marija Uzunova Dang and Grandma Rose.
– The Women’s Empowerment Club