BY Houston Carr
Staff Reporter
The CWU Feminist club’s goal this year is to get re-organized and become more recognized as a campus organization. With the old president stepping down and Ellisa Griffin taking her place after just being a member for one quarter, there is a lot to do.
“I’d been something I was interested in and just found out about it over the summer,” Griffin said. “We want to get organized so it isn’t so hard to figure out how to address issues. We want to be approachable and try to get taken seriously.”
Recently, the club took part in Rock Against Rape, giving out pamphlets about their club and running a hangman game using derogatory terms. Their next event will be the Slut Walk, and they might collaborate with EQuAl, who is putting on the Dyke March.
Pamela Mcmullin-Messier, the Feminist Club’s advisor, believes that the Slut Walk was one of their most successful events last year. According to her, the walk had a great turnout last year and she hopes that joining with EQuAl will bring in an even bigger crowd.
The club’s main purpose is focusing on gender equality. They want to bring as much awareness about gender inequality to both campus and the Ellensburg community as possible. They are also focusing on sexual assault awareness this year because it has become a big issue nationwide
“In the future, I can see there being more equal pay and work for men and women,” Mcmullin-Messier said. “I believe that there is a lot of big goals in the feminist movement.”
The Slut Walk is their way of educating participants about sexual assault awareness. At the end of the walk there will be speakers and performers who talk about a variety of issues that are affecting our generation.
The walk is an international event, which started in Toronto in 2011 after a police officer claimed that women can avoid sexual assault if they avoided “dressing like sluts.”
The club also took part in Sexaplooza last week. Members made posters with a range of different feminism-related topics on them. They also played a matching game as well, with quotes from famous people.
It was the club’s way of getting people to start asking questions about whether these quotes were okay to say, and whether the statements were too abrasive.
Griffin joined the club last year because of her interest in women’s rights. She was really happy there was a club for it on campus.
Griffin described the Feminist Club as a “great way to communicate and raise awareness,” and added that “It gives people platforms they wouldn’t normally be able to have … It’s a great chance to meet people with similar ideas.”
According to Griffin, the future the feminist movement will take new form. She said it is starting to include transgender and colored women as well. It’s opening up more and becoming more modern.
There may be more women than men as current members but that didn’t stop Jared Jones, senior French major, from joining. The CWU Feminist club aims to appeal to more than just women. Any identity can be a part of the club.
“It’ll open your mind to what people think, even if you don’t agree,” Jones said. “People still don’t really understand what feminism is and in the future I think they will.”
In addition to reorganizing, the CWU Feminist Club wants to fight the stereotypes of feminist culture. They want more people to see the club for what it really is. It is encompassing so many more groups than people can imagine and the club wants to get the word out.
The club is “not just about women,” Jones said, “it applies to any identity.”
Every Thursday the club has a movie night where all the members get together and discuss the movie they pick out that week. They talk about the positive and negative aspects of the movie, what the problem is with the movie and how they should’ve dealt with issues better in the movie. It’s not just movies with strong female actresses or only revolving around women. They’ve watched Fight Club and soon will be watching Don Jon.
