As a young adult, Karen Click did not know much about what it meant to be a woman. When her mother passed away when she was 21 years old, she felt as if her one example was gone.
“In defining myself as a feminist, the memories of my mom are sort of a ‘good book’ I go back to, and I try to remember every message she gave me,” Click said.
Laughter erupted in the small group gathered in the Hughes-Trigg Ballroom Monday night as Women’s Center Director Karen Click shared the story of her mother, the “feminist whisperer,” who subtly instilled feminist values in her daughter as she washed her hair in the bathtub.
The student organization known as the Women’s Interest Network (WIN) hosted writer, organizer and community builder Mia Mingus in celebration of Feminist Coming Out Day.
Mingus, a self-proclaimed queer, physically disabled, woman of color, spoke to the students and faculty about what it means to be a feminist while also offering information about child sexual abuse, reproductive justice and disability justice.
“What I think that disability justice, and sexual violence … have in common as well as feminism is that all three of those things have moved us to not just focus on our fights in the streets and in the courthouses and in the political arenas but also to talk the fights that are going to be necessary in our homes,” Mingus said.
Raised in a feminist community on the island of St. Croix, Mingus realized that although coalitions and non-profit organizations were helpful to victims of abuse and injustice, those organizations did not look to the root causes of the problems in order to provide a real solution.
Mingus wanted to be a part of making the violence stop; she knew there had to be a way to respond to violence in a way that lessens the trauma.
“You create what you need. We need to be the people we wish we had seen when we were coming of age in political consciousness,” Mingus said.
After Mingus finished speaking, there was an emotional outpouring of members’ personal stories or experiences in feminism.
SMU Professor Nina Schwartz described her first insight into the world of feminism and how it came when she was only 10 years old.
Schwartz told of how her psychiatrist father sat her down and told her, “I don’t care if, when you grow up, you get married and have children. You just have to have jobs and make money and never depend on a man to take care of you.”
At first, Schwartz was confused by the conversation with her father. Now she realizes that her father had been trying to teach her that she did not have to be bound by societal gender roles.
