Ohio State’s Multicultural Center’s International Women’s Day Summit will bring together women from Ohio State and the Columbus community on March 8 with a collection of workshops and discussions about women’s issues and activism. Credit: Courtesy of Madison Eagle
From medieval feminism to Taylor Swift, the Ohio State Multicultural Center will take a deep dive into women and society at its first International Women’s Day Summit Monday.
The virtual summit will bring together women from Ohio State and the Columbus community from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. with a collection of workshops and discussions about women’s issues and activism. Madison Eagle, intercultural specialist for Women Student Initiatives and organizer of the summit, said women across campus are hosting events that cover a wide range of topics and provide women a place to celebrate. She said they plan for the summit to become an annual event.
“What’s most important to me is creating connections across OSU,” Eagle said. “This is a really great illustration of various programs, various departments coming together to highlight and celebrate women.”
The 27th annual Women Coming Together conference will address the disparities and triumphs of women amid the pandemic, according to the event’s Facebook page. “Women In Leadership: Achieving an Equal Future in a COVID-19 World” features Donna Ford, a distinguished professor in the Department of Educational Studies and leading expert in special education and education disparities.
In addition to university-affiliated organizations, such as the Wexner Medical Center at Ohio State and the Women of Color Employee Resource Group, local organizations such as the Ohio Asian American Health Coalition and the central Ohio chapter of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Inc. are hosting events.
Eagle said Swifties will be happy to hear that Phoebe Hughes, a doctoral candidate in musicology at Ohio State, will host “Taylor Swift Becomes Pop: Claiming Adulthood, Leveraging Whiteness” at 4 p.m. According to the School of Music website, the lecture will discuss Swift’s shift into adulthood through pop music and the ways white feminism supports white women in the music industry.
At 3:30 p.m, the Global Art and Humanities Discovery Theme’s Society of Fellows, a cross-disciplinary group of Ohio State faculty, will host “Cultural Heritage, Colonialism and Human Rights.” The event is the fifth installment in the group’s Digital Dialogues series about Human Rights, according to the The Global Art and Humanities Discovery Theme website.
The website states the event will cover “the impact of colonialism on human rights in the context of indigenous jurisprudence, cultural heritage and representation.”
Mia Cariello, a Global Art and Humanities Discovery Theme undergraduate fellow and student assistant for the Women Student Initiatives, said she hopes people will recognize the group’s universitywide collaboration and push their understanding of what they consider to be a “women’s issue.”
“I think that ensuring students are aware and have access to the incredible scholars and dialogues GAHDT brings in and fosters is invaluable,” Cariello, a fourth-year in women’s, gender and sexuality studies, said in an email. “I think Women Student Initiatives attempts to work off a similar model by prioritizing interdisciplinary programming.”
“Medieval Women’s Rights: Setting the Stage for Today” will begin at noon and is hosted by Sara Butler, professor and King George III Chair in British History in the Department of History at Ohio State. The lecture will explore the “feminist rumblings of discontent” among women in medieval times and the ways women in past resemble women of the present, according to the department’s website.
“Self Care and Activism” at 10:30 a.m. will discuss balancing the two topics sustainably, Eryka Harper, a fourth-year in public management, leadership and policy, African American and African studies and history and student assistant for Women Student Initiatives, said.
“I want to highlight this event because throughout my time at Ohio State, especially in the past year, student activists, specifically student activists from [Black, Indigenous and People of Color] & LGBTQIA+ communities have been forced to forfeit self-care in the fight for equity and justice,” Harper said in an email.
Eagle said she will host a few events throughout the day, such as the final event at 7:30 p.m., “Music and Ask Me Anything with Madison Eagle,” where participants can ask questions about her history with women’s activism and women’s organization while adding to a collaborative Spotify playlist.
“We wanted to do something fun and not really talk at people,” Eagle said. “Just kind of like a fun hangout session to cap off the day.”
Eagle also said she doesn’t expect people to participate in the entire 12-hour summit but rather come and go as their schedules allow. All events will be recorded and available for registered participants to watch after the summit..
The International Women’s Day Summit falls at the beginning of Women’s History Month, which will be celebrated with additional events throughout the March, Eagle said. Other events during the month include Eagle’s presentations on feminism and a networking event for female-centered student organizations on March 22.
Eagle said she created the summit to bring the many events and celebrations at the university and in Columbus together into one space for people to access.
Anyone interested in attending the summit can register on the Multicultural Center website. Registration is required to receive event links, Eagle said.
