Women’s rights group promotes gender equality

The Association for the Advancement of Women’s Rights is a club at USD trying to address women’s issues and bring awareness to gender inequality on campus.

The club has been active off and on for many years. Emily Grode, club president and senior, said the club was even around in the 1970s.

Today, the club meets every Friday at 5 p.m. in the Center for Diversity & Community.

AAWR touches on various topics at their meetings. Group members lead discussions and discuss any activities AAWR is planning.

Senior Minji Gim said a particular topic AAWR covers is sexual assault, since it is a prominent issue on college campuses.

“I think that’s totally important, especially because we are an on-campus university organization,” Gim said.

The club met Nov. 13, and featured a guest speaker, Jean Behr, from Planned Parenthood.

President elect and junior Kyle Hallberg said the speaker was of great importance to the club.

“We had a lot of questions, especially with Planned Parenthood being in the media so much,” Hallberg said. “And we wanted to see how a group like us on campus can help and also, too, how a big, national debate like it is affects South Dakota and how it affects women like us in our group.”

AAWR tries to bring in speakers frequently, whether they are from out of town such as Behr, or even faculty at USD.

AAWR is part of the Center for Diversity & Community, which Grode said helps with their promoting the club and bringing more recognition to the group.

“They really help us get our group’s events out there and help raise awareness about our group, and we are so thankful for them because they help us out a lot,” Grode said.

Grode said the importance of the group also stems from the lack of awareness of gender inequality. AAWR hopes to change that, and the members feel it can be influential in bringing these topics to a college setting.

“Unfortunately, sexism is still alive and well in this country, and you see it happening on a campus level,” Grode said. “And I think it’s really important to have a safe space for not just women, but anyone who wants to come and talk about issues of gender inequality to come, too.”

Hallberg said that while AAWR is important on campus, its members need to understand the issues of gender inequality and political issues.

“Being the main women’s group on campus, it’s really important for us to be educated,” Hallberg said.

Grode said the group is also “taking away stigmas” of what people see as feminists and they want to promote the idea that “it’s OK to be a feminist.”

Some events AAWR have done this semester include getting students to sign up for Title IX training, walking in the D-Days parade for promotion, bringing awareness for domestic violence and sexual assault, visiting the women’s shelter in Vermillion and showing a video with Tiospaye on missing indigenous women and children of Canada and the United States.

New members are joining the club, which is an exciting part about the awareness the club tries to promote, Hallberg said.

“It’s really interesting to see … not only freshman, (but) people that have been on campus that have never heard of us,” Hallberg said. “And you just see how easy it is to get people aware of your group.”

The experiences the group members have and the different opinions is what Gim enjoys the most about the club.

“Our group is pretty diverse,” Gim said. “I think just being exposed to new things and hearing what everyone has to say about what we’re talking about is really cool.”

Grode said she knows the group’s importance is not going unnoticed, and feels it is imperative to address gender inequality issues at a university.

“It’s not equal yet,” Grode said. “There’s a lot of obstacles that women still face and there’s a lot of diversity within women and different struggles that each woman has that it’s important to bring about. … I love the group because it’s an avenue for change.”