Women’s History Month may no longer be recognized by the Trump administration, but in Gainesville, the celebration of women and minorities continues.
Members of the UF Women’s Student Association celebrated Women’s History Month with multiple unique events, club collaborations and a successful donation drive. This year’s WHM theme is breaking barriers and rewriting narratives.
“We celebrate and empower gender minorities,” said Zeina Benton, the co-president of WSA.
WSA is a student-run organization at UF where anyone is welcome, regardless of gender. It aims to educate on sexual health and bodily autonomy. It creates community and leadership opportunities for gender minorities at UF.
Many students within the club are women’s studies majors or minors, so they work closely with the Department of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies. Benton said this is especially important now with women’s studies courses being removed from UF’s general education catalog.
“Sometimes we’ll have the undergraduate coordinator come and promote the department and classes,” Benton said.
One of the WHM events WSA held on March 26 was a UF Campus Walking Tour detailing the history of women at UF.
WSA extends its impact to outside UF and does service events and drives to help those in need in the community. On March 11, they had a service event at St. Francis House where they did arts and crafts with the children at the shelter.
For the entire month of March, they held a donation drive in collaboration with Peaceful Paths. Peaceful Paths is a domestic abuse network that serves domestic violence victims in Gainesville and neighboring counties.
Isabella Guenzler is WSA’s internal vice president, but she is also an intern at Peaceful Paths. She is a Microbiology and Cell Science and Women’s Studies Double Major, and she found out about Peaceful Paths through her involvement with WSA in her freshman year. She is passionate about her work there.
“I would highly recommend,” Guenzler said.
WSA collaborated with Alpha Chi Omega on March 4 to kick off the WHM celebrations. It also collaborated with F.E.M. Films on March 25 for an event about breaking ceilings in film and collaborated with the UF Pride Student Union on March 27 for a discussion about sexual liberation.
“We are open to collab with all other feminists or other femme empowering orgs,” Benton said.
All their events can be found on the WSA Instagram account, @ufwsa, where the digital media team posts a monthly event calendar, event reminders and even educational infographics.
It is run by the “biggest little team in WSA,” Guenzler said.
The infographics are a collaboration between the advocacy team and the marketing team to bring awareness to current events that could impact students. Benton hopes that they are a less stressful way to consume information when media outlets can feel overwhelming.
The club holds executive board elections every spring, but there are dozens of leadership opportunities in WSA.
“Literally show up to anything, and we will embrace you,” Benton said.