To think about how feminism exists in our own community, we should acknowledge the various definitions and facets that it offers.
That is the message that the WLU Womenโs Centre aims to spread on campus through its new campaign which launched last week.
On Thursday, Jan. 14, the Womenโs Centre held an exhibit called โFind Your Feminismโ to promote this campaign at the Hall of Fame. Various staff and students from the university are able to answer the broad question: โWhatโs your feminism?โ
By gathering perspectives on what feminism means to various individuals, the event strives to expose the conceptโs diverse nature. Answers were adapted to individual posters placed on campus.
Womenโs Centre co-ordinator Kate Klein said that โ[the exhibit] is about feminism at Laurier and what we are trying to do here is show that feminism isnโt dead. Itโs thriving on this campus in places that you wouldnโt necessarily expect.โ
This project began in December when the Womenโs Centre began its search for peopleโs โfeminisms.โ
Klein further explained that they asked to know the feminisms of those who represent the Laurier community and of those whose faces would be recognizable, as well as general people in the community.
The exhibit featured campus figures such as psychology professor emeritus Don Morgenson and Wilfrid Laurier University Studentsโ Union president Laura Sheridan.
โI was surprised by how many people said yes [to participating],โ said Klein.
Klein acknowledged that perhaps not all the people in the posters would actually use the word โfeministโ to describe themselves, but because they were allowed to say what feminism means to them personally, they were given freedom.
The reasoning behind this, according to Klein, is that โthere are as many kinds of feminisms as there are feminists โ itโs not some dogmatic sort of rules you have to follow, itโs something based on who you are, what youโre interested in, where you come from and what your experiences have been.โ