Name: Cecilia Monge
Age: 20
Year: Junior
Major: Retail Entrepreneurship
Ever wonder who plans all the women marches you attend in Tallahassee? Or who helps fight for women’s rights here on campus? Cecilia aka Ceci is just exactly that woman. As President of the Women’s March Youth Empower, Ceci does a lot of activist work for our campus and the greater Tallahassee area. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Ceci go from a wide-eyed freshman to a truly trailblazing woman, so as you probably know it was a pleasure of mine to have the opportunity to interview her now.
Her Campus (HC): When did you first realize your passion for women’s rights?
Ceci Monge (CM): I think it was when my sister started her NOW, National Organization for Women, the chapter at her university. As a high schooler when I first saw that I was like, “Woah this is very empowering for women.” In college, I realized women’s rights are so important because we live in a male-dominated society. Inequality in the workplace along with the lack of a victim’s advocacy in rape cases made me realize my passion for women’s rights. I figured it was time for a Latina to take charge and have a say on these issues.
HC: How did you first become involved in Women’s March?
CM: Women’s March Youth Empower is the student chapter of Women’s March National, who marches in D.C. They give us a lot more leniency with the things we can talk about at meetings. A lot of organizations don’t focus on transwomen or women of color, which Women’s March does. We can have conversations ranging from intersectionality within feminism or more political things like the upcoming elections and how that affects women.
HC: What does Women’s March do on campus?
CM: We hold bi-weekly GBMs talking about different topics that might interest women on a college campus. The main way to get involved is to participate in discussions we hold. We hold these discussions to talk about topics that women often don’t talk about. For example, our last meeting was on birth control methods, the side effects people have and why people chose specific ones. We also have a donation drive for hygiene products that we’re doing for Refuge House, our main project for the semester. We also hold marches whenever we see fit like during Kavanagh’s case and International Women’s Day. People really love marches. The marches help us get our name out there and keep people involved in the work we’re doing.
HC: How do you feel surrounding the culture on college campuses in regard to women’s rights?
CM: I think one of the functions that we have as an organization is to either educate on rape culture and the stigmas against women coming forward but to also speak up when we see things happen on campus. A lot of the things we do are on the survivor’s side of things. We helped plan and lead the march for Take Back the Night in conjunction with CHAW and kNOw More. Our goal is to support survivors through their healing process, which survivors might never heal from but them knowing that they have a supportive community really helps. This helps a lot when you have conversations about rape culture because it acknowledges that it happened. Specifically, colleges help hide things in their favor, which makes survivors not want to come out with their stories.
HC: Do you feel that the political climate affects your organization since it’s in the capital?
CM: Being in the capital definitely comes with its challenges. I don’t know if you heard last year when the anti-choice people had body cameras on where they were instigating literal arguments and video-taping it. The whole body camera was interesting because our organization along with Planned Parenthood Generation Action, which is the student chapter of Planned Parenthood, were tabling with them counter-protesting what anti-choice people were saying. While we were doing that, they were coming up to us and saying offensive slurs to us. The university’s response was to give out free speech brochures to show that they’re bipartisan. Apart from the free speech, they were also filming students without their consent, which is illegal in the state of Florida since we’re a two-party consent state. I think in that case the polarizing climate definitely plays a role in how situations are dealt. Women are afraid to take up space on top of that the political climate makes it even harder for women to want to take up that space.
HC: Any final words?
CM: The whole point of being a feminist is having a choice as opposed to having someone make a choice for you.
All Photos Courtesy of Cecilia Monge.
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