Women's History Month 2024
Dear Northwestern,
On March 8th 1908, women workers in the needle trades marched through New York City's Lower East Side to protest child labor, sweatshop working conditions, and demand women's suffrage. Subsequently, beginning in 1910, March 8th took on the title of International Women’s Day (IWD) and was eventually recognized by the U.N. as International Women’s Day in 1975.
The origin of the women’s history month is also directly connected to the International Women’s Day. Way back in 1978 in Santa Rosa, California, the Education Task Force of Sonoma Country Commission on the Status of Women planned a “Women's History Week” celebration during the week of March 8th to correspond with International Women's Day. And so it grew.
Today, in many countries, International Women’s Day is an official holiday and in others it is widely observed. Depending on where you are, celebrations range from the giving and receiving of gifts to political demonstrations and protests. For us at the Northwestern University Women’s Center, we feel we have found a way to mark the day that speaks both to the values of our work and the official 2024 IWD theme, INSPIRE INCLUSION.
On March 8th during the noon hour, we are inviting our entire campus community to join us on zoom as we welcome Ayda Ad Astra, the Head Creatrix at Unconventional Counseling, LLC–an all-virtual, private practice that supports Queer, Trans, Black, Indigenous and People of Color (QTBIPOC), gender-expansive, and non-monogamous folx towards their mental liberation. Ayda identifies as 1st-generation Ameri-Igbo, and resonates most with the vibrancy, the disruption, and the performance rooted in Igbo culture. They also resonate with the spiritual significance of names in Igbo culture and renamed themself, Ayda Ad Astra: ‘from the moon’ & ‘to the stars.’
It is the great privilege of our work that we get to be inspired on a regular basis by people who, even as they face gender-based and other forms of oppression, bring such brilliant light to the world. We are celebrating such a light on March 8th.
And we will be holding space for such a light too soon extinguished later this month. We were so happy to see in the recent Northwestern Now remembrance of Rhea Banks that her position on our advisory board warranted a mention. That responsibility meant a good deal to her, and she meant a great deal to us. We would so prefer to have her smile, energy, and intellect with us, but we are pleased to have a means to recognize a sliver of what Rhea meant to our center and to social justice on this campus by celebrating her with our annual Shujaa award this year. To that end, we invite those who knew Rhea to fill out the brief nomination form so that we might collect and make public all the ways she embodied the spirit of that honor—as a member of “Northwestern staff whose service to the work of gender justice demonstrates courage, tenacity, and an ethic of care.”
Before there were protests and parades and international days of recognition, there were just people, one by one making a difference in the daily lives of those who surround them. This March we invite you to celebrate Ayda, Rhea, Kelly and Miriam, all just people, all revolutionaries. This month and every month, we hope all those who are subject to gender oppression in our communities take time to recognize the light they bring to the spaces they occupy, and how that single light of compassion and resolve may serve as a beacon for a more just future.