<strong>Prescott</strong> <strong>College</strong>Combats Genderand SexualDisempowermentBy Lucy McNichols On-campus Undergraduate program ’15Women’s Empowerment Breakthrough, 200712<strong>Transitions</strong> <strong>Fall</strong> 2014
PC women see need for gender and sexualempowerment, create community solutions<strong>Prescott</strong> <strong>College</strong> student Rosalie Whatley ’15 is working tofacilitate a dialogue between those who identify as women.She created an Independent Study and then a workshop onmenstruation, which featured a lesson in anatomy and physiology.Equally important to Whatley was the space for discussion to talkabout what feels like, for many, a taboo topic.“As women we are not educated about what is actually goingon with our bodies,” said Whatley. “I don’t know anyone who cansay they had an empowering sex ed class. There is a combination ofmisunderstanding and fear.”As part of her continuing efforts, Whatley helped bring IsadoraLeidenfrost, a documentary filmmaker and spiritual activist, to<strong>Prescott</strong> <strong>College</strong> with a screening of her film Things We Don’t TalkAbout — Women’s Stories from the Red Tent. Although the Red Tentmovement sprang from a practice of women spending time togetherwhile they menstruate, Whatley hopes to make this space inclusiveto more identities than just those designatedfemale at birth. “It is important we begin tocelebrate qualities associated with femininitythat have been devalued in Western culture,”said Whatley. “This movement, as I’ve readabout it, talks a lot about this desire to beinclusive and create a space for whoever wantsthat, and whoever desires that.”Another woman who is working to breakdown patriarchal structures is Zoe Caras ’15.Caras is working with the Queer StudentUnion and the Launch Pad, a new local, inclusiveteen center. She is doing this work becauseshe sees an urgent need in the community forsafe spaces and support networks for teens. Thecity of <strong>Prescott</strong> used to have a Pride Center,which supported the lesbian, gay, bisexual, andtransgender community, but it lacked financesand shut down in 2012.“My senior project will be a support groupfor teens who experience gender- and sexualitybasedoppression,” said Caras. “In additionI’m going to start going into Gay-Straight Alliancesin high schools and do ‘know-your-rights’ typetrainings, because there have been a lot ofcontroversial politics lately in Arizona, especiallyfor transgendered students, and there are a lot ofplaces where they are marginalized.”Some of the legislation that marginalizesWEB, 2007transgender students includes only allowing a change to one’sgender assigned at birth after a sex reassignment surgery. Thisincludes affecting the gender listed on one’s driver’s license. Also,gender identity is not included in hate crime legislation in Arizona,and lawmakers continue to propose discriminating legislation thattargets LGBTQ people on a state level.Women’s Empowerment Breakthrough (WEB) is anothernonprofit in <strong>Prescott</strong>. WEB works to help teen girls reach theirgoals in a supportive environment. Started a decade go as her SeniorProject and led by Courtney Osterfelt ’06, M.A. ’11 (also founderof The Launch Pad teen center), WEB seeks to create female solidarityand make up for the lack of comprehensive sexuality healtheducation that existed at the time. “To make women feel valued,heard, and wanted in their community not only empowers thembut creates solidarity through recognizing shared experience and byraising one’s own self-worth,” Osterfelt said. “I could have benefittedfrom something like this as a teen. Not that a bunch of academicinformation would have saved me from my troubles, butunderstanding that my experience was part of a broader systemwould have been liberating. It would have meant that I wasn’t crazyfor feeling the way I felt, that I wasn’t alone.”WEB hosts a three-day retreat at Mingus Mountain that bringsbetween 40 and 70 girls each year. This retreat creates a space ofsupport for young women to gain empowerment in solidarity witheach other. The retreat brings the girls together to “learn aboutthings like positive body image, comprehensive sex ed, leadership,female solidarity, the media, youth activism, self-expression throughart and movement, and lighter things like how to make chocolate,nutrition, how to change a tire on your car, women and theoutdoors, circus arts, this list could go on and on,” said Osterfelt.Amber Harrington ’14 got into Women’s EmpowermentBreakthrough in 2012 to support WEB’s mission. Harrington hasgiven workshops at two of the retreats in songwriting and comedyimprovisational theater. “I think its important for young people tohave role models and have outlets and have people evenjust listen,” she said. “Women need to be proud forbeing women.”Harrington also performed a reading at <strong>Prescott</strong>’sVagina Monologues event this spring. The Rev.Jacqueline Ziegler, interim minister at Granite PeakUnitarian Universalist Congregation, helped create thisevent and also hosted a screening of a film about JudyChicago’s art installation, The Dinner Party, a celebrationof the Sacred Feminine and representation of 999forgotten women in history. Both of these events werehosted in honor of Women’s History Month duringMarch. Ziegler hopes The Vagina Monologues, a livereading of stories of womanhood written by Eve Ensler,will spread thebelief that womenhave inherentworth. “That’ssomething lackingin our world,”Zeigler said.“We shouldremember thesetraditions associatedwith womenand femininity.”Amber Harrington with WEB teens at theGrand CanyonThis story was originally written for andprinted in The Raven Review, a studentpublication of the Newspaper JournalismPracticum course at <strong>Prescott</strong> <strong>College</strong>. Lucyserved as the editor of Raven Review andis at <strong>Prescott</strong> <strong>College</strong> studying Social andEnvironmental Resiliency. She loves hearingstories and interviewing people but lovesbacon and her red fur coat much, much more.Lucy McNichols<strong>Transitions</strong> <strong>Fall</strong> 2014 13
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