From mothers, sisters, grandmothers, wives, and daughters, to mentors, teachers, professors, and friends, everyone has at least one important woman in their lives. Even though these women are usually appreciated year round, the month of March has been designated as Women’s History Month, a nearly forty-five year old tradition to recognize women and their impact in the United States.
This time of celebration, originating in Santa Rosa, California first started around 1978 as one week in March, organized by the Education Task Force of the Sonoma County (California) Commission on the Status of Women. Now, through lobbying by many women’s groups and historians, this time of honor has been extended nationally to the entire month of March.
To express their appreciation of women in their lives, some are choosing to learn more about women’s rights, supporting female authors and small business owners, and planning events that celebrate women. Here on Bethel College Campus, some clubs and organizations are doing just that!
“To Femcore, women’s history month means empowering ALL women. In our organization, a main principle of ours is intersectionality, meaning we want to give platforms to women of color, trans women, indigenous women, and women within the LGBTQ+ community.” Emil Benavides, Femcore president in training and first year from Stockton KS said.
In the past, though there has been a small lull in activity through COVID, Femcore has been active on campus working to empower women in as many ways as possible. This Spring, Femcore made personal hygiene kits to plant in bathrooms all over campus. For March, the time when they are usually the most active, Femcore has included another event to empower the women of Bethel College.
“So far, all we have done is host a build your own bag event, where we offered contraceptives, pregnancy tests, and Femcore swag to the student population. We talked about doing other things, but March has been a hectic month for all of us.” Benavides said.
Diversity council has also been working to celebrate Women’s History Month. Earlier in the month, DivCo worked with the library to create a women's history display and distributed empowerment kits to the student body during lunch. These Empowerment kits, containing wet wipes (a campus necessity some have discovered), chapstick, pens, stickers, keychains, miniature screwdrivers, and other things, have been distributed to do just as their name suggests, empower!
“We as Diversity Council want to make a way of highlighting women's history month by creating an environment to empower women and spotlight the women in our lives,” Sam Wilson, senior from Minneapolis MN said.
To continue to celebrate Women’s History Month, Sam Wilson and Eli Regier, sophomore from Newton KS, hosted a bonfire on March 24 at 7:30 pm. They planned to have music written by women, performed by women paired with hot chocolate and s’mores.
People were invited to write, reflect, and share about the important women in their lives around a roaring fire.
As the month of March concludes, there may be more opportunities on campus for students to honor the important and impactful women in their lives.
