As you might know, Women’s History Month started this March, a month meant to remember and celebrate all of the many accomplishments made by women throughout history and a way to uplift an often marginalized identity. I interviewed the president of WEAAU (Women’s Empowerment Association of Andrews), Kyra Wirsz (senior, Behavior sciences). She shared her plans for the club and the events coming up for this month as well as her reasons for advocating for different feminist issues through WEAAU.
What made you decide to run for President?
Well, I was an officer last year during second semester. I really enjoyed the community of working with the other girls and I wanted to take a bigger role. And then last year Caryn Cruz (senior, political science) asked if I would be interested in being president, and I was absolutely terrified. It's a big responsibility obviously, but I did want to be more involved, and this is definitely more involved. It was scary but it's been a really good experience to work together with everybody in a team.
What are the events that you guys have planned for Women’s History Month? Is there a specific theme for this year?
We went with the theme ‘Phenomenal Woman’ based on the poem by Maya Angelou because we really wanted to highlight a lot of phenomenal women throughout history. We also have a co-curricular series this month. For the co-curriculars, it’s going to be every Tuesday in March and we'll have a different female faculty member speaking about different points in the history of the women's movement and feminist movements—so first wave, second wave and third wave to current. So yeah, those are the big things we have planned this month for our co-curricular series.
What would you say are the most important takeaways for you in celebrating Women’s History Month?
I think it's a really great opportunity to highlight the achievements of women throughout history and to kind of take that as a stepping-off point to continue progressing into the future and empowering women of today—just thinking about all the progress we've made throughout history and how much more there is to be done as we’re going forward.
How can we as students best honor Women’s History Month?
It’s great to have times of the year for specific marginalized groups and bring attention to those! But I think when we have themed months, we tend to overlook these ideas when the month is over. It's important to continue that all the time, like all year round. So I think one of the most important things about Women's History Month is to take the educational opportunities and learn about women's empowerment and all of those kinds of things, and not stop it on March 31, but instead use that to continue throughout the year and just be contributors to progress.
Were there any events or a point in your life that particularly inspired you to get more involved with women’s empowerment movements?
Yeah, for sure. I played a lot of sports growing up. And as a girl playing sports, nobody cares to even show up to games. So we'd have games or practices, and just seeing the level of disrespect to our set practice times compared to the boys was disappointing. I remember being in middle school and wanting to play basketball and stuff, but the other guys in the gym wouldn't let the girls play with them sometimes, or they'd only let the pretty girls play with them. Just seeing the discrepancies in how people are treated and things like that growing up was a big factor.
Sports is definitely still a huge issue that I think about a lot, and I know that on our social media right now we're posting every single day about different women’s media. And our social media coordinator, Maya, has posted that there's a podcast of three women who are all professional athletes, discussing their experiences in sports. I think that's so interesting.
How do you think students can kind of get involved just every day in terms of just doing small things to learn more about feminism and combating stereotypes?
I think going out with a lot of intention, since I think just being intentional and being aware of the things happening around you and not just letting those things brush off. People make comments or trends centered around negative stereotypes of women that can cause real damage to people. So calling out the little things [is important]—it might seem stupid and insignificant in that moment, but those things build up over time. And a lot of times, little comments like that are rooted in much deeper issues, and thoughts about women in general.
Who is a woman either in your life or a celebrity that inspires you?
Aidy Bryant! She's so funny and a really powerful fat woman. That's really inspiring for me; it's good to see representation in media of that side of things. I think a lot of times, when we think of powerful women in the media, they have to be essentially very conventionally attractive—so usually very thin. So she has a show called “Shrill” about her experiences as a fat woman living in LA and being in the public eye, which I love.
What does feminism and Women's History Month mean to you personally?
Growing up as a woman, you learn really quickly what the world is like for women and how people are going to treat you and expect you to behave. [It’s important] to have a month to bring attention to specific things like intersectionality in the feminist movement and trans inclusion and all of those kinds of things. I want us to be a very inclusive space, and that's really important to me within the movement as well.
What are some of your goals for the club for this year?
Yeah, I definitely want it to be a community where anyone can come and feel safe—not just cisgender and heterosexual people, but women of all shapes and sizes and backgrounds. We even have tons of male members too, so just everyone. I know it's called the Women's Empowerment Club, which sometimes turns people away, because they're like, “Oh, I'm not a woman” or “I don't I don't identify with this,” but I think it has potential to be so much more than that, and that's what I want for the club.
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