They’re bringing discourse about sexism back.
After a couple of relatively quiet years, groups advocating for women’s rights and gender equity have been making a comeback at Columbia this fall.
“This is something that a lot of people are talking about, something that affects a lot of people,” said Sherill-Marie Henriquez, CC ’13 and a board member of Radical C.U.N.T.S., or College Undergraduates Not Tolerating Sexism. “You can’t ignore that. I feel like we needed to take advantage of this moment.”
A new crop of advocacy and education groups, including Radical C.U.N.T.S., FemSex, Feminist Mystique, and the Columbia Women’s Organization, sprung up this year in the first month of school, joining older clubs like Sister Circle and Alma’s List.
“On the U.S. political scene, we saw a bunch of really conservative representatives get elected in the last electoral cycle and I think you’re really starting to see the results of their policy decisions,” Allison Grossman, BC ’12 and director of Alma’s List, said. “Women’s reproductive freedoms are getting limited and restricted bit by bit, and I think that’s caught people’s attention because they realize these are things they’ve taken for granted that are now in danger, and it makes people angry and it makes people want to get involved.”
Last weekend, over a thousand women converged in Union Square for SlutWalk, a rally that protested victim-blaming and “slut-shaming,” and has perhaps helped breathe new life into the feminist movement.
Borrowing a tactic from SlutWalk, Radical C.U.N.T.S, which defines itself as an “intersectional” space to discuss oppression, uses an attention-grabbing name.
“It’s in your face,” Heben Nigatu, CC ’13 and founder of Radical C.U.N.T.S. said. “I really want to challenge people to see why that is and why there’s so much discomfort around this word, and why this word that is slang for female anatomy is somehow the most reviled and disgusting thing in our society.”
Sarah Gitlin, CC ’13 and co-founder of a new magazine called the Feminist Mystique, said they are looking to engage the larger community.
“It’s an issue about equality. It’s not only for women, just as the gay rights movement is not only for LGBTQ and the Civil Rights Movement was not just for blacks,” Gitlin said.
Nigatu said her group is also looking to expand the definition and reach of feminism.
“The fact that I’m black, that I’m a woman, that I’m an immigrant, that I’m working class–all of our identities intersect and that forms the way we look at the world. For us that means we can’t talk about a feminist issue as if it’s removed from these identities.”
Although the resurgence of feminist groups at Columbia hasn’t been incident-driven, some of the members of these groups said they’ve experienced sexism first-hand on campus.
Debattama Sen, SEAS ’13 and a member of Feminist Mystique, said that last month, while she had her mouth covered with tape during a silent vigil for Troy Davis, a male student she did not know approached her and said ‘It’s really good to see you keeping your mouth shut.’
“He didn’t know what I was protesting, didn’t ask, just saw a woman with tape over her mouth and he said that,” she said. “It’s examples like this that show there’s so much more of this on campus than we realize.”
Gitlin said that even though there are more women’s groups on campus this fall, Columbia’s gender climate is far from perfect, which is why Feminist Mystique will include a campus sexism watch section.
Janine Balekdjian, CC ’13 and co-founder of Feminist Mystique, said she was happy to see so many campus groups unite over these issues at SlutWalk.
“Something that I’m really happy about this year is not only a lot feminist organizations, but collaboration between feminist organizations, and liberal organizations in general,” Balekdjian said.
Lauren Herold, CC ’12, said she hopes that this moment of empowerment is here to stay. Herold is a facilitator of FemSex, a new group of Columbia and Barnard students who meet weekly to discuss issues that range from defining sex to body image.
“I don’t want to say it’s a coincidence,” said Lauren Herold, CC ’12. “I’m hoping activism is becoming cool again.”
Nigatu said she agreed.
“I’m really really happy that there’s so many different new feminist groups on campus popping up this year all of a sudden,” she said.
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