Women’s History Month events seek to educate

This month is about more than spring break and St. Patrick’s day. March is Women’s History Month and USD is holding several events to engage and educate students on women’s issues.

Dr. Sara Lampert, director of the women, gender and sexuality studies program, said this month is a time to reevaluate how much attention is paid to women’s issues.

“Women’s History Month is always an opportunity to kind of take stock and say, ‘you know, how much are we all committing ourselves to focusing on women and highlighting women’s voices’?” Lampert said.

The month mainly focuses on bringing in speakers to discuss different aspects of the women’s movement.

On Wednesday there will two events happening: a Native American Studies Lunch and Learn and a research forum on South Dakota women’s suffrage.

The Native American Studies Lunch and Learn will focus on indigenous healthcare by Wičánhpi Iyótan Win Autumn Cavender-Wilson, a Dakota from Minnesota. Cavendar-Wilson is a Certified Professional Midwife (CPM) and will present about healthcare in indigenous communities. This will take place in Lee Medicine 107 at noon.

The research forum “Press Fearlessly On: Episodes in South Dakota Woman Suffrage” will also be held in the Muenster University Center on Wednesday.

This forum will concentrate on Dr. Molly Rozum’s research on the women’s suffrage movement in the state. Rozum recently just published her co-edited work Equality at the Ballot Box: Votes for Women on the Northern Great Plains, the first study of women’s suffrage in South Dakota.

“One of the things we’ve been trying to do year-round is just host events that feature really different and less well-known aspects of women’s history and just in different organizations on campus,” Lampert said.

Later in the month will be Histories and Politics of Reproduction: “Making the Personal Political: How Abortion Reshaped the Interior West” on March 26.

The event “American Experience The Vote: A Screening and Conversation on Woman Suffrage” in the MUC Pit will be the final event to end Women’s History Month on March. 31.

Lampert said it’s important to keep having conversations on women’s issues even after the month ends and it’s a conversation that needs to be inclusive.

“It’s an ongoing project that people who have privilege need to engage in, in a meaningful, sustained way,” Lampert said.