Members of the Feminism Club are diverse, the club welcoming all groups and genders, including allies that are interested about learning about historical women. This goes beyond surface-level concepts often taught in classes. The Feminism Club’s goal is to educate students on women’s history and be an accessible place of knowledge to anyone who wants to be exposed to new outlooks that they may not be familiar with.
One of the club’s presidents, junior Meara Fay helped take on the responsibility of still keeping the club alive after the previous Feminist Club’s president, Zelia Lerch graduated. With all the potential being in charge of this club, Fay wants to add more purpose to it.
“We educate members on feminist history, like important women, anything from authors to scientists to reformers. We’re focusing on educating students about important women in history and how they impact the world that we live in today, and what we can learn from them and all celebrating the great women, and what they have done in the past”, Fay said.
The club’s ambitions may not appeal to everyone, and people often join the club without taking it seriously, according to Fay. This may come as a challenge, but Fay has a different approach, “People may come to the club’s meetings as a ‘joke’ but when they leave, they leave with a new perspective and outlook on women, recognizing how much of an impact they have on our society,” Fay said.
The Co-club president, junior Celeste Ernau, highlights her goal of adding more depth to the club, “We make sure to highlight the importance of just making sure that these feminist like women authors are still being portrayed in a good light. We’re still able to highlight them in the works and those doors are going unnoticed because for a lot of people more like a deeper insight. People need to see different types of topics, especially on feminism where people are kind of on the fence about it just because of prior things. You should still come and see what these women have done. It’s important, and I think [people]would learn a lot from it,” Ernau says.
Ernau emphasizes the limited information that is taught in classrooms about women’s history, “We spread knowledge on feminism. Feminist-like knowledge is limited, especially for what we read in class. It’s mostly male authors. So many authors are completely passed over and aren’t acknowledged”, Erau says.
The classroom where the Feminist Club’s meetings are held belongs to the honors English teacher, Angie Yi, who is the advisor of the club,oversees the processes of the growing club. “The club is about bringing in like-minded folks to learn more about feminism and the history of feminism. Recently they taught the class about American poet and activist, Sylvia Plath. They also discuss how feminism impacts everybody, not just women. It shouldn’t be like a women-only club, it should have men in it too,”Yi said.
Yi guides the club with advice on how they can reach their desired goal, “I would love for the club to be more discussion orientated on discussing the current issues that are facing women that are facing all women. Through all intersections and for them to give space for questions for them to provide resources for women, either to find solidarity or just to have a space where they feel safe,” Yi said, “I think that a lot of women, especially teenage girls, might not necessarily feel safe, even on campus, and how we can provide that space for people within this club.”
