For the past 36 years, during the month of March, women worldwide have been recognized during Women’s History Month. Individuals take action during this month to raise awareness about historical instances where women faced adversity and moments when they rose to advocate for change. Currently, clubs and classes are also actively participating in commemorating the occasion.
One of these clubs is the Young Feminist Club, which is run by sophomore Lila Seath who joined last year as a freshman. She is trying to post every week on the Young Feminist Instagram page every week for Women’s History Month to highlight a woman in history. So far she has posted people like Rupi Kaur who is a poet, performer and author that talks about healing, and femininity, Florence Given who is a artist author and performer that advocates for sexuality, gender equality, and race, and Rayka Zehtabchi who is a director and filmmaker to advocate about abortion stigma.
This club focuses on talking about current and past feminine issues. They meet on Thursday’s at 2:25 p.m. in room E136. Currently a topic of discussion has been about all the award shows going on and how women are undermined by the men in the acting world.
“Even if you’re not like a major feminist like just like hang out and like discuss things,” Seath said.
Belle Chanter is one of the many choirs here, but the special thing about this class is that it’s an auditioned ensemble with 47 women made up of sophomores to seniors as members. They get to sing some songs talking about women’s rights. This year the choir sang a piece called “I’ll Never Study ” composed by Paul David Thomas and was composed to honor the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment being passed allowing women the right to vote. Another song the choir is planning on performing at the Spring Concert in May is “What Was I Made For?” by Billie Eilish and was originally performed in the Barbie movie, which was all about femininity in the world. The choir meets every school day during 3rd period with Director Katelyn Sawatzke.
“I think especially like in the performing arts world, I feel like for women, it’s very hard to like, get a lot of opportunities,” Belle Chanter President, Sonja Anderson said.
Sisterhood is a club which focuses on uniting all the black women at the high school. The club is run by senior Angela Taylor, senior Mikal Tekie and junior Melat Taddass as co-presidents. Sisterhood gives opportunities to students to be able to learn about new cultures, and topics they would never really think about outside of school.
“We want it to be a safe space for women at Stillwater High School, and we want it to feel like kinda like a family. We don’t want to feel like ‘Oh, I’m just going to just go’ we want them to just feel safe and like, feel like we don’t want people to feel obligated to go we want them to just go because they want to and like they have fun there,” junior and co-president Melat Taddass said.
Sisterhood meets every other Monday after school from 2:15-3:30 p.m.
These clubs and classes are able to give students a voice with clubs such as Young Feminists, Sisterhood, and so many others. They are able to make the school a better and more inclusive place for students of every culture, gender, or sexuality.