This past Saturday, “dozens” took to Stanford University’s White Plaza to protest “rape culture” on campus, as well as to bring attention to “global womxn’s issues.”
If you’re wondering what the heck “womxn” means, according to the protesters’ petition, “by removing the a or e in the word ‘woman/women,’ the patriarchal relationship to men is removed from a word that describes one’s identity.”
In addition,
the x allows space for individuals who identify as genderfluid, genderqueer, gender non-conforming, or non-binary and is part of an effort to correct the mistakes that trans-exclusionary feminists have made with the term “womyn” which is “a term often tied to the vein of feminism that does not view trans women as women because they were not born with female genitalia.”
Now that that’s settled, The Stanford Daily reports that prior to the march, event organizers Stanford Womxn in Law circulated the petition which demands that “action and policy measures” be put in place to help stop said rape culture.
“We are tired of watching the community disproportionately mistreat womxn*, non-binary, and trans students and faculty,” the petition reads. “We want action now from Stanford University administration to ensure that there are effective measures enacted to combat the systematic oppression and violence that are rampant on this campus. When Stanford takes action, the world listens.”
The womxn issued five demands (and, like Professor Barbay’s final exam, some had multiple parts!), including more (and mandatory) sexual assault and harassment training, a “a permanent Sexual Harassment and Assault Education and Prevention Student Advisory Board,” and “significant increases” in funding for “effective” sexual harassment / assault education and “LGBTQIA” resources.
“The primary goal of this march … is to create a space that pushes the feminist conversation to be more inclusive and intersectional,” said SWIL co-founder Chloe Stoddard ’21, who has organized the annual Stanford Womxn’s March since its inception in 2018. “I hope the march and petition, which received over 800 signatures and was endorsed by ASSU and the Graduate Student Council, sends the message that as a community, we are tired of having our safety and wellbeing be put on the back burner.” …
Arianna Togelang ’22, one of the march’s organizers, said that it was powerful to see the Stanford community join in chants and songs and hear from student speakers.
“People chanting and singing songs and the way the speakers built on each other, those were definitely highlights,” she said.
Indeed, the SWIL points out its event is separate from the national Women’s March because the latter has a “lack of intersectionality.”
Read the article and petition.
MORE: ‘Womxn,’ ‘womyn’: Campus feminist groups opt for alternative spelling
MORE: ‘Womxn’ of Color Conference: ‘World tries to shame, erase our existence’
IMAGE: Tero Vesalainen / Shutterstock.com
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