The Women’s Center will be hosting “Changing the Face of Power: Empowering Young Women to Create Lasting Change on Campus & Beyond” to empower marginalized people to get their voices heard.
The voices of young women often get silenced, especially those from marginalized groups, such as women of color and LGBT women, according to M. Geneva Murray, the director of the Women’s Center.
“Even within marginalized communities, there is a kind of silence on the gendered issues that are going on,” Murray said, citing the recent #SayHerName event that discussed the importance of recognizing women of color in police brutality cases.
To help those marginalized voices, the Women’s Center will be holding “Changing the Face of Power: Empowering Young Women to Create Lasting Change on Campus & Beyond” program in the Living Learning Center 130 on Wednesday at 4:30 p.m.
The interactive workshop will be hosted by Rebecca Thompson, a visiting speaker from the American Association of University Women, which is the nation’s leading voice in promoting equity and education for women, according to its website.
“The workshop will essentially focus on the ways that women have not been included in leadership roles in the past and strategies that can be used to get ourselves into those leadership roles,” Sarah Jenkins, the program coordinator of the Women’s Center, said.
Murray said she was glad to invite Rebecca Thompson as the host of the event as the Women’s Center planned to focus on developing student leadership in a non-partisan way.
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“Programs like (Changing The Face of Power) are helpful for everyone, whether you’re a part of a marginalized community, a woman, a person of color or part of the LGBTQ community,” Murray said. “It’s especially good for those who might need some extra support figuring out how their voices are being heard.”
Topics such as the Black Lives Matter movement, combating rape culture and cases of successful student activism will also be discussed during the workshop.
“Specifically, (Thompson) is going to be working with our students to figure out how they can be better student leaders, and how they can create sustainable change on campus and in their communities,” Murray said.
Attending the “Changing The Face of Power” event will also count toward a leadership program that the Women’s Center offers called “She Leads Ohio.”
Hosted by the Women’s Center in conjunction with the Career and Leadership Development Center, “She Leads Ohio” is a professional development and leadership program to ensure people are provided with opportunities to look at gendered issues in leadership development, Murray said.
Both Murray and Jenkins said they encourage people to attend the event with other members of their student organizations.
“It’s not just one person that is going to make sure that there is sustainable change forever,” Murray said. “It really does require us all working together.”
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