To support women's history month, the photo campaign "I need feminism because..." will be exhibited in the Women's Center for the first time ever starting Tuesday.
Brought to campus by sophomore Maya Arcilla, the campaign is composed of a collection of photographs of females on campus, both students and faculty, that are symbolic of why each of these photographed women need feminism and womanism.
"Overall, both feminism and womanism have been given a negative stigma," Arcilla said. "I wanted to bring this campaign to DePauw to shed a more positive light."
A distinction Arcilla feels that is important to note is the difference between feminism and womanism. While feminism started as a suffragist movement, it was centered around white middle class women.
"Even though women of color were involved in the movement, they were put down," Arcilla said. "Womanism started up in retaliation of that."
Senior Liz Weingartner took a picture because she wanted to spark healthy conversation about the topic.
"A lot of times the discussion ends up being a gender war," Weingartner said. "If we just play the blame game we won't get anywhere. That's why it's important."
Freshman Sarah Dela Cruz, a participant in the photo campaign, knows Arcilla through the Asian American Pacific Islander Initiative.
"She mentioned she was starting a project for the Women's Center, and I was immediately interested," Dela Cruz said.
Arcilla talked to both Sarah Ryan, the director of the Women's Center, as well as her supervisor at the conference center, Valerie Rudolph, about different ways to promote women's history month. Rudolph suggested that Arcilla take on this specific photo campaign as a personal project that gives positive attention to women.
According to Arcilla, "I need feminism because..." started as a global-wide Internet-based photo campaign. Sites like Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter and personal blogs displayed pictures of women holding signs stating why they need believe that they need feminism or womanism.
With the motivation from Rudolph and Ryan, Arcilla took the idea and ran with it. By enlisting information about the campaign through DePauw sites like e-services, moodle, the Code Teal Facebook page and the DePauw homepage as well as posting ads in the Feminista Conference Center, women on campus started responding immediately to participate. All together, Arcilla recruited 24 women on campus to have their picture taken holding a poster stating why they needed feminism.
From the time Arcilla started promoting the event to the time her photographs were completed, the process took about two weeks. Arcilla asked the women participating to choose their favorite spot on campus to be the setting of their image.
"I wanted each of them to choose a unique place special to them," Arcilla said. "I thought that this would help show the diversity of the student body, and therefore give our campus community more of an overview of how DePauw views feminism."
For Dela Cruz, participating in the campaign was something personal.
"A lot of people don't see me as a feminist," Dela Cruz said. "Being a part of this photo campaign allows me to show my interests and what I believe in."
Each woman photographed has a reason for participating in the campaign. That reason is communicated through the location of the picture and the message written on her board. Dela Cruz's message focused on around the unfair treatment of women, more specifically, the stigmas or implications that too often attach themselves to female victims of a crime.
"People always ask what the female was wearing if she was a victim of a crime," Dela Cruz said. "Honestly, that shouldn't matter if she was attacked. The truth of the matter is that all women are at risk to get raped or kidnapped no matter how they dress."
Arcilla hopes that this photo campaign spreads knowledge about the truth behind the feminist movement to the campus community.
"I hope that it brings more understanding of different oppressions in society," Arcilla said. "I want the campus to understand that feminism isn't just about gender inequality, it's about intersecting identities and empowering people of any dividing group."