Written by Kit Taylor, class of 2018, and Jocie Kopfman, Commons Educator:

March 8th marks the date of International Women’s Day. The idea and creation of International Women’s day is to commend the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women around the world. The Harley community is filled and surrounded by amazing, strong, and empowered women who have given inspiration and empowerment to each other.  Although the community has flourished because of these women, we have never taken the opportunity on International Women’s Day, to my knowledge, to commend and acknowledge the achievements and strength of the women who teach and learn in the Harley community.

Kit Taylor, in speaking with Jocie Kopfman, realized that an awareness for this day was necessary in this community, but wondered how to go about raising it.  In Digital Media Class, freshman Erin Allen did a project on women in the Harley community breaking stereotypes imposed on them. For this project, she took photos of women holding handwritten signs of what they had personally done to break stereotypes. After bringing this idea back to the Feminist Club, everyone agreed that they should change the question/basis of the project to include all genders, but still keep the topic surrounding the empowerment of women. Led by Kit Taylor, the Feminist Club decided to go with two questions, “What empowers you as a women?” and “How do you empower women?”. With the help of faculty and the amazing girls in the Feminist Club, they were able to take photos of various middle school students, high school students, and faculty.  After weeks of editing and photo taking, the results were displayed on a board in the Gallery. The project board was up for four days, and the support and praise for this project was amazing.  According to Kit, “we succeeded in accomplishing the goal we had hoped to achieve. The project taught us all that one of the greatest gifts as women to give to one another is empowerment and strength, and with that comes amazing things.”