Welcome Back, Golden Rams!
 

It is my absolute pleasure to welcome you to the very first Center for Women & Gender Equity monthly newsletter of the 2022-2023 academic year. If you are just joining this newsletter for the first time, allow us to introduce ourselves: We are the Center for Women & Gender Equity.

The Center for Women and Gender Equity provides education, resources, and advocacy in partnership with the students, faculty, and staff of the West Chester University community. We facilitate exploration of gender identities and their relationship to other categories and experiences of social difference. Since our founding in 1974, we have worked to disrupt gender-based oppression in the multitude of ways it intersects with other forms of oppression. We are grounded in a vision of joy, liberation and justice for everyone, but intentionally center those who have historically faced systemic barriers to living out the fullness of that vision.   

The Center offers opportunities to engage with a wide variety of gender justice topics through facilitated workshops, sustained dialogue, and curated social media content.  Want to engage more critically in conversation around gender and justice this semester? Consider joining us for Exploring Gender Justice, a program that facilitates dialogue about gender justice and recognizes the multitude of ways that gender-based oppression intersects with other forms of oppression. Or you can participate in our new CWGE Community Chats, where you can submit questions to be answered by our team of peer educators (see more below)!

The Center for Women & Gender Equity also regularly offers health and well-being-oriented programs. These are focused on strategies to develop healthy and fulfilling friendships, relationships and connection to others in ways that maintain a campus environment that is safe and respectful for every member of the community. Consider joining us for Ram Step Up, Sexy Bingo, or listen in to our peer educator created podcast, Exploring Entanglements, about what it means to be a Sexual Citizen.

We also invite you to join us for a virtual program with The HEAL Project called Sexual Liberation: Living at the Intersections.  This program will dissect the concept of sexual liberation, freedom, and privilege— specifically how it interacts with race, class, and gender. What does sexual liberation look like when we often witness a predominantly white, heterosexual, male-dominated, anti-trans culture? How do queers, poor people, trans folks, people of color, and women get access to the privilege of desire and exploration? 

In future newsletters, you can continue to expect to find content that celebrates the accomplishments of WCU students, practical skill building tips for preventing and mitigating harm through bystander intervention, inclusive and evidence-based sex education materials, practical information regarding the state of reproductive rights and abortion access in the U.S. currently, tools to aid in advocacy work, and, of course, all of the upcoming programs and events that the Center for Women & Gender Equity and our campus and community partners will be offering. 

Our space is dedicated to facilitating the exploration of gender identities and their relationship to other categories and experiences of social difference. We hope this newsletter will continue to provide meaningful strategies for developing healthy and fulfilling friendships, relationships, and connections to others, in ways that maintain a campus environment that is safe and respectful for every member of our community.

We encourage active engagement from all of our readers and partners across campus. Is there content you would like to see in future newsletters? Please feel free to contact Tess Benser (tbenser@wcupa.edu) with your suggestions or participate in CWGE Community Chats!

If at any time you find that this monthly communication is not meeting your needs, or is simply not something you wish to see in your inbox, please feel free to click the unsubscribe option at the bottom of this email. In our work, establishing and honoring boundaries is paramount, and we hope you will feel encouraged to assert your own boundaries about the emails you receive.

We are located in Lawrence 214 and hope you will stop by! You can also feel free to call the Center at 610.436.2135, email the department account at cwge@wcupa, follow us on Instagram @wcu_cwge, or like us on Facebook @wcuCWGE.  

Take good care and be well this semester! We look forward to connecting with you!

Best, 

Tess Benser
(they/them/theirs)
Assistant Director of Outreach & Engagement
Center for Women & Gender Equity

Table Of Contents

1. Upcoming Events
2. Advocacy in Action: Art As Activism
3. Introducing CWGE Community Chats!
4. Sex Education: Navigating the United States Post-Roe Overturn

Events

Art and Activism; a Symbiotic Relationship

Hannah Zartman 

Art and activism have often been seen as separate entities in society, sometimes overlapping in things like street art or performance pieces, but they are rarely viewed as intertwined or even symbiotic. I’d like to challenge the notion that art can only be viewed in a gallery with the purpose of being critiqued by art scholars or elites. Rather, art is conversation, art is change, art is activism. “Artistic Activism is a dynamic practice combining the creative power of the arts to move us emotionally with the strategic planning of activism necessary to bring about social change”(Duncombe and Lambert). In order to better understand artistic activism, we must first investigate activism and art’s purposes and goals.

Furthermore, art tends to be less goal-oriented and more focused on creating conversation, new ways of thinking, or even confusion. While we may not be able to grasp the intent or purpose of an artwork fully, we are still often left moved by the piece. Rather than effect, art more often affects the viewer.

Instead of viewing the goals of art and activism through a binary lens, it is essential to reframe these two concepts as complementary and a part of a symbiotic relationship. A symbiotic relationship refers to a relationship between two or more things that benefit all parties. To explain, in order for activism to occur and change to be made, people must be moved, spurred, or convicted, showing the direct relationship between how art and activism intersect. In addition, much art is made in conversation with what is occurring in society and how people are responding. Therefore, we can see that art is also informed by activism and the labor of activists; art and activism not only inform one another, but they are part of a cyclical relationship of change, movement, and response. 

Moving through this semester, we will highlight specific artists who use their art as activism and/or activists who use art in their work. We will look at and discuss the ways art fits into discussions of social change and the ways in which it has been used throughout history to disrupt systemic oppressions and societal norms. My hope for these spotlights is to bring awareness to the often overlooked ways that the arts impact society in ways outside of galleries and museums, and the impact art can have on our evolving world. 

https://c4aa.org/2018/04/why-artistic-activism#:~:text=Artistic%20Activism%20is%20a%20dynamic%20practice%20combining%20the,the%20activity%20of%20challenging%20and%20changing%20power%20relations.

Introducing CWGE Community Chats!

Jocelyn Brown (she/her)

This year, we would like our newsletter to be more interactive and responsive to the needs of the West Chester campus community. That is why we are starting a new section called CWGE Community Chats! As part of our chats, students and faculty will be able to submit questions for our peer educators in an ask-me-anything style advice column. The peer educators answering each month will change, so we get a wide variety of experiences. Also, we may ask readers to submit responses to a different prompt each month and weigh in with their opinions!

Questions can be submitted now and will be answered in the October newsletter. We are also asking people to submit someone or something they're grateful for. We're hoping these shoutouts will create good vibes at the beginning of the semester and inspire everyone to examine the support networks that exist on campus!

Questions and submissions can be made through our form on RamConnect, which is anonymous, or by DMing us on Instagram at @wcu_cwge.

We can't wait to hear from you! 

Navigating the United States Post-Roe Overturn
Edition 1: Contraceptive Access
Dana Pratt (She/They)