AACC will host a spoken word event, a Wikipedia Edit-a-thon and more to celebrate Women’s History Month in March.
The national Women’s History Month theme, “Women Who Advocate for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion,” recognizes women who speak up on behalf of those who are traditionally underrepresented or silenced, according to Women’s History Month co-coordinator Shelley DeBlasis.
“The 12 [AACC] events that will be happening will really, I guess, kind of support the national theme,” DeBlasis, an English professor, said. “There’s a lot of diversity there. So we wanted to be inclusive.”
The college will continue its annual tradition of hosting Soapbox Sisters, an event where students of any gender can perform a poem, speech or passage by an influential woman on March 26 in Humanities 112. Female speakers may recite their original works.
“I love to see the kinds of poems or literary pieces or the original pieces that people write,” DeBlasis said. “I love to encourage my students to get involved, and it’s just a wonderful event that showcases often-overlooked works by women but also the words of women.”
Sophie Reverdy, a Women’s History Month co-coordinator, said she wants to represent a wide array of experiences.
“So we want to acknowledge that, you know, when we talk about women, we’re not talking about a monolith,” Reverdy, a distance learning librarian, said. “We’re talking about a spectrum of experiences, representing, you know, different social identities as well as the experience of being older.”
Students said they are looking forward to Women’s History Month.
“I think it’s a good thing that women have a history month,” Charlie Smith, a second-year transfer studies student, said. “We don’t really learn too much about women’s history as a part of, like, standard curriculums.”
Julissa Mendoza Robles, a first-year creative writing student, agreed.
“It’s an important month that can celebrate the accomplishments of women,” Mendoza Robles said. “It’s also good that it’s diverse because we can recognize all kinds of women, like women of
