(Courtesy graphic)
The CU Women’s Resource Center is hosting it’s first feminism challenge this week.
In order to participate, students must sign up at the WRC headquarters, located in the UMC room 416. The challenge began on the 14th and ends on the 18th. Once students sign up and take feminism challenge pledge, they were able to attend any events from this week-long series entitled, “Sugar Free Feminism: Women’s Herstory Edition.”
According to the Women’s Resource Center website, the idea is to get students to start thinking about feminism.
“The goal of the challenge is not to convert you into a feminist, but for you to view everyday life through a feminist lens,” according to the website.
Hannah Wilks, office manager for the WRC, said the event is aimed at raising awareness.
“The idea of the challenge is enable ourselves to be more aware of how we treat each other and view this through a feminist lens,” Wilks said. “We should be more aware of the feminist pronouns we use to put each other down, even if it’s a joke. It’s damaging.”
The “Sugar Free Feminism” series hosted an event each night at various locations on campus to promote this challenge. These challenges included trivia, a feminist movie screening, a feminist lecture co-hosted by Planned Parenthood and NARAL, and a feminist play.
Emily Shipley, a 20-year-old integrative physiology major and co-coordinator of the event, attended the trivia night and said it was informative.
“The trivia event taught people a lot of information that they didn’t know,” Shipley said. “For example, only 17 percent of the congress are women.”
Evy Valencia, a 22-year-old double major in ethnic studies and women and gender studies, co-coordinated with Shipley to make the challenge happen.
“My goal for this challenge was not to convert anyone, but to hopefully educate people on what a feminist critical consciousness is,” Valencia said. “This is looking at everyday events, conversations, but being able to recognize the sexism, racism, ableism, and heterosexism in them and being able to do something about it.”
After students attend an event, they are encouraged to fill out a survey and turn it into the WRC in order to provide constructive criticism about the challenge. The WRC plans to use those surveys when planning next year’s challenge.
Valencia and Shipley both said that they are hopeful for this challenge to become an annual event at CU.
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Jillian Phillips at Jillian.phillips@colorado.edu.
