The International Women’s Day Festival took place Sunday highlighting performances, educational displays and vendors.
Despite living in the southern part of Ohio, Miki Crawford drove two hours to Athens to participate in this year’s International Women’s Day festival.
“It’s well worth the time to be here today,” Crawford, a professor of communication studies at the Southern Campus of Ohio University, said.
To celebrate Women’s History Month, OU's Women’s Center held its 8th Annual International Women’s Day festival in Baker Center Ballroom.
Roughly 600 people attended the event, crowding the vendors and informational booths that lined the hallway of the Baker Ballroom and watching the 28 performances by OU students and Athens community members.
“The goal for the day is really to get people thinking about the diverse experiences of women around the world and the ways we can relate to each other,” Sarah Jenkins, the program coordinator of the Women’s Center, said.
In her opening speech, M. Geneva Murray, the director of the Women’s Center, spoke about several problems regarding gender equity, such as the lack of female representation in the media and the gender wage gap, encouraging attendees to help lead in making a change.
“This festival is a call to action,” Murray said in her opening speech. “A call to think and not be complacent and a call for us to re-energize ourselves as we continue to fight inequality in our society and in our world.”
Chloe Smith, a sophomore studying women and gender studies and political science, said despite this being her first time attending the event, her experience has “been awesome so far.”
“I like that (the event) is putting a lot of (importance on) diversity and making sure that it is supporting all types of women and not strictly a certain type of woman,” Smith said.
Murray said watching the performances was not only a chance for attendees to appreciate the cultural diversity and different skills from the Bobcat community, but also to “take the energy from today to really ignite and inspire action for future changes.”
“(The performances are) really important as a way to keep our spirits up as we are fighting for things that are really important like gender equity,” Murray said.
{{tncms-asset app="editorial" id="a22a0bf0-e957-11e5-ad10-87c8e1b6e58e"}}
Diana Chaidez, a junior studying psychology, was one of the performers of the day, performing a traditional dance from Veracruz, a region in Mexico, with members of the Hispanic and Latino Student Union.
Chaidez said many of performances that featured different women during the event may help people who “don’t feel like they’re the correct version of what a woman should be.”
“Having all these different performances sort of show that a woman can be anything and can come from anywhere,” Chaidez said. “There’s not just one idea of what a woman can or cannot be.”
@summerinmae
my389715@ohio.edu
