Throughout this week, the Carolina Women’s Center will host its 16th Gender Week — a series of events designed to help promote awareness around gender equity issues on campus and in the community.
This year’s theme is titled “Mapping the Margins,” which will focus on how gender intersects with race, class and sexuality to affect people’s lives.
Christi Hurt, director of the women’s center, said she thinks Gender Week helps show ways in which the campus can become more equitable.
“We want to make sure we’re looking at issues that are relevant to staff, faculty and students across the campus and looking at how folks’ backgrounds inform how their gender is or is not a barrier for them on campus,” she said.
Carol Tresolini, vice provost for academic initiatives, said this year’s theme will help people examine their assumptions on gender issues and how different identities intersect with one another.
“Each of the sessions this week looks at this from a different perspective. I think taken together it’s a nice set of opportunities to explore some of these issues,” she said.
Senior Amanda Copeland, an intern for the women’s center, was in charge of organizing events throughout the week and coming up with the theme.
“The Carolina Women’s Center is changing now, and we don’t want to be seen as something that only serves white middle-class women, or just women for that matter,” she said.
“We want people to start being aware of how gender, race and sexuality affect people’s lives, and we want to do it in a way that causes people to be aware of their surroundings and other people.”
