MUNCIE, Ind.--- Last year in March, Women’s Week was conducted all virtually due to Covid-19 restrictions. However, this year things are beginning to go back to normal.

Betsy Kiel, graduate assistant for the Women’s and Gender Studies Program, has been the lead coordinator for Women’s Week for three years, but this year will be her first time lead-coordinating an in-person week full of events.

“This year we wanted to make sure that it was mostly virtual,” Kiel said in 2021.

Now, with Covid-19 restrictions changing, the WGS program is able to safely hold in-person events again.

Kiel said now WGS can hold safe in-person events and reestablish connections that have been made prior to Covid-19.

Even though physical changes were made, Kiel believes the purpose of Women’s Week stayed the same.

“Women’s Week has strived to kind of create feminist programming on campus and help cultivate feminist community, so I think that that’s something that has stayed the same pretty much forever,” Kiel said.

WGS defines feminism after the ideas of Bell Hooks, a feminist theorist, who said feminism is a movement to end sexism. Kiel said WGS strives to create a space where students feel safe and included.

In 2021, Kiel said that women’s contributions of other marginalized individuals should be celebrated all the time, every day. Now in 2022, Kiel says that people can come in with almost no experience or expertise and just come in to try to educate themselves and grow.

Women’s Week will be held Monday, March 21 through Friday, March 25.

For questions or comments, contact the author at klsehgal@bsu.edu.

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