Villanova's Gender & Women's Studies Program

🌟TOMORROW 🌟 2:30 PM, ZOOM

Villanova GWS & Romance Languages and Literatures Present:

Deconstructing Coloniality through Visual Arts with Visiting Artist Kukuli Velarde.

Kukuli Velarde, a Peruvian-born Philadelphia artist, uses art to examine how we construct ideas of female beauty from colonization to the local barrio, to expose connections between beauty and violence, and to critique the systems of power that marginalize women of color.

Registration link in bio! See you there!

[ID: image of Kukuli Velarde's visual art piece entitled "Daddy Likee?," from 2018. Made with oil, ink, and graphite on Amazonian canvas.]

As the semester ends, we are celebrating our graduating seniors who majored or minored in Gender and Women's Studies at Villanova. They make our program what it is!

Today we're spotlighting Jordan McMeans

"My time as a GWS Major has given me the necessary skills to comprehend and critically assess complex social issues. I'm grateful to the program for expanding my worldview, and improving my ability to understand the gender experiences of myself and those around me."

Congratulations Jordan! We're so delighted that you have been part of GWS and we can't wait to see what comes next for you!

As the semester ends, we are celebrating our graduating seniors who majored or minored in Gender and Women's Studies at Villanova. They make our program what it is!

Today's spotlight is on Sweta Sheth

"I am incredibly happy about my decision to expand my education beyond my traditional VSB curriculum to include a GWS minor. The classes I’ve taken, and the professors I’ve had a chance to interact with, have educated and empowered me to make a social justice impact in the corporate environment that I will be entering after graduation. I encourage everyone to do a minor outside of their traditional area of study!"

Congrats Sweta!! We are so lucky you are a GWS alum and can't wait to hear about what comes next!

As the semester ends, we want to celebrate our graduating seniors who majored or minored in Gender and Women's Studies at Villanova. They make our program what it is!

Today, we're spotlighting Amanda Atkinson. Amanda wrote about her time with GWS:

"My GWS courses have allowed me to most directly engage with current events and social issues. While every discipline in my liberal arts education has played an important part in helping me prepare for life beyond college, GWS has made me feel most prepared to have difficult but essential conversations and enact genuine change."

Congratulations, Amanda! We are so thrilled that you will be an alumnus of GWS, keep us posted on all your endeavors!

We Need Your Help! LINK IN BIO

Graduate student workers and teachers at Villanova *do not* receive any healthcare, most do not receive any sort of healthcare support at all. We sign a no-compete clause saying we will not accept other jobs outside of our assistantships, yet without additional income, we are living within a tight margin and unable to afford the very expensive healthcare offered by the university.
Some of us are thousands of dollars in debt because of chronic health conditions and the COVID pandemic has not made this any easier.

It's time that shows up for the grad student community. What happened to ?

Today is the last day to sign.

Please sign and share our petition! We need support from within and outside Villanova.

You are in good company as we have over 1000 folks so far. signed, will you?

GWS supports grad student workers and all worker struggles worldwide! Everyone deserves healthcare!!!!!



[ID: Poster in navy blue with peach and white graphics: circles, squares and a feather pen in a jar. Text in white reads: Villanova University Doctoral Student Council, Sign our Petition for affordable, comprehensive healthcare. Link in bio. Sign at end of document. Non-Villanovans Welcome]

Happy !

GWS' last event of the semester is happening on Monday at 5PM - registration link in bio. All are welcome!

This term the GWS Feminist Book Club read Pleasure Activism by adrienne maree brown.

From the introduction:

What is Pleasure Activism?

Pleasure if a feeling of happy satisfaction and enjoyment. Activism consists of efforts to promote, impede, or direct social, political, economic, or environmental reform or stasis with the desire to make improvements in society. Pleasure activism is the work we do to reclaim our whole, happy, satisfiable selves from the impacts, delusions, and limitations of oppression and/or supremacy.

Pleasure activism asserts that we all need and deserve pleasure , and that our social structures must reflect this. In this moment, we must prioritize the pleasure of those most impacted by oppression.

What. do you think of pleasure activism?



[ID: the book Pleasure Activism on a wooden desk. There is a black and white mug in the background as well as a row of books out of focus.]

Happy . Have you read 's ?

[ID: white background with black text. In upper left corner it reads Claudia Rankine, Citizen, IV, then the text of the prose poem reads:
To live through the days sometimes you moan like deer.
Sometimes you sigh. The world says stop that. Another sigh. Another stop that. Moaning elicits laughter, sighing upsets. perhaps each sigh is drawn into existence to pull
in, pull under, who knows; truth be told, you could no
more control those sighs than that which brings the sighs about.]

TODAY! Intersectional, Interdisciplinary Book Club:

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Date: Wednesday April 7, 2021
Time: 6-7:30 pm
Email for zoom link
Contact: [email protected]

[image description: pale pink background with orange, maroon, blue and green text, squiggles and striped circles. Text reads information above. Two books are pictured—Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters and Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.]

Club

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Join some of the many events taking place this month:

[ID: Aqua and White poster with the following dates and information:

APRIL 29

APRIL 1-MAY 3
The One Love Student Organization Presents
YARDS FOR YEARDLEY WALK| REGISTER AT HTTPS://WWW.JOINONELOVE.ORG/YARDS-FOR-YEARDLEY | FOR MORE INFO, EMAIL [email protected]

APRIL 8
SGA|SARC Team |The McNulty Institute |Gender and Women's Studies
LISTENING CIRCLE ON RECENT EVENTS| 4PM REGISTER AT https://forms.gle/bkNLrMHn2weh5w4d8

APRIL 11
The Office of Health Promotion Presents
TRAUMA-INFORMED YOGA | 4PM
REGISTER AT BIT.LY/THRIVE365SPRING2021

APRIL 14
POWER Presents
WHERE IS THE LOVE? WEDNESDAY PAINTING WITH POWER AND PEOPLE DEDICATED TO SEXUAL VIOLENCE PREVENTION AND RESPONSE| 6 PM
REGISTER AT BIT.LY/THRIVE365SPRING2021

APRIL 21
The Office of Health Promotion Presents
ONE LOVE ESCALATION WORKSHOP | 7PM HTTPS://VILLANOVA.ZOOM.US/J/96315040864

APRIL 22
Villanova's Public Safety Department Presents
THE CLOTHESLINE PROJECT AT THE ELLIPSE ALL DAY EVENT

APRIL 23
SGA|SARC Team |The McNulty Institute |Gender and Women's Studies
LISTENING CIRCLE ON RECENT EVENTS| 11AM https://forms.gle/bkNLrMHn2weh5w4d8

APRIL 26-29
SIGMA PSI ZETA'S SPEAK WEEK

APRIL 26
Title IX, in partnership with Sigma Psi Zeta and Health Promotion, Presents
BYSTANDER MOMENT FILM SCREENING AND DISCUSSION | 7PM HTTPS://VILLANOVA.ZOOM.US/J/92581553399

APRIL 28
Sigma Psi Zeta Presents
SELF-DEFENSE CLASS | 4:30PM | HTTPS://VILLANOVA.ZOOM.US/J/93466913251
INTERCOLLEGIATE VIRTUAL TAKE BACK THE NIGHT CANDLELIGHT VIGIL | 6-9 PM | REGISTER HERE: HTTPS://FORMS.GLE/JYRWDCSF99TCYG5T6

APRIL 29
INTERCOLLEGIATE VIRTUAL TAKE BACK THE NIGHT CANDLELIGHT VIGIL | 6-9 PM | REGISTER HERE: HTTPS://FORMS.GLE/JYRWDCSF99TCYG5T6]

Happy and belated

This week we're celebrating Miss Major, aka Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, foremother of the trans liberation movement, trans and q***r elder, and lifelong activist!

From her giving circle fundraiser:

As a Black, formerly incarcerated transgender elder, mother, and grandmother, Miss Major has paved the way for us to be who and where we are today. She is a veteran of the historic Stonewall Rebellion and a survivor of Attica State Prison, a former s*x worker, a human rights activist, and simply “Mama” to many in her community. At the center of her activism from the 1960’s to today is her fierce advocacy for her girls, trans women of color who have survived police brutality and incarceration.

Miss Major was executive director of the San Francisco-based Transgender Gender-Variant Inters*x Justice Project (TGIJP), and has brought her message to Pride marches, United Nations hearings, activist conferences, and community meetings. She has received numerous awards for more than 50 years of visionary activism, and is the subject of the award-winning 2015 documentary feature film “MAJOR!”

Miss Major recently relocated from Oakland, California to Little Rock, Arkansas, where she is embarking on the next chapter of her work: building House of GG, the Griffin-Gracy Educational Retreat and Historical Center, an oasis for transgender people to come, feel safe, and be part of a growing network and united family of Southern trans people working for social justice.

As a member of Miss Major's monthly giving circle, the opportunity to contribute what I can monthly to Miss Major's thriving activism is a complete gift. You can join, too! Link in bio: https://fundly.com/missmajor


#

Happy April!

Reposted from

Angelina Weld Grimké
At April

Toss your gay heads,
Brown Girl trees;
Toss your gay lovely heads;
Shake your downy russet curls
All about your brown faces;
Stretch your brown slim bodies;
Stretch your brown slim arms;
Stretch your brown slim toes.
Who knows better than we,
With the dark, dark bodies,
What it means
When April comes a-laughing and a-weeping
Once again
At our hearts?

[ID: photograph of poem, black font on white background. Text is as reads above.]

Tomorrow GWS' own Programming Director, Dr. Melissa Hodges is giving a talk at NOON. Come join and spread the word!

Gender and Women's Studies Presents
Equal Pay Day 2021
Featuring Dr. Melissa Hodges
"Beyond the Average: How Parenthood, Women's Employment and Occupational Segregation Shape the Gender Pay Gap"
Wednesday March 31st at NOON
Register (link in bio): tinyurl.com/gwsspring2021

[ID: Poster with the above information written in light and dark green font. There is a green border around the sides and the bottom border is 4 green illustration images of stacks of money and coins.]