School News
Club Showcase - EmpowerHer
Minahil Nasir
Minahil Nasir
From our young and bright journalists comes their take on the world and our school!
Issues regarding women's rights have been ignored time and time again. We have watched atrocities be committed against women over the years but at the end who steps up is the actual question. Many believe that women's rights are an issue concerning only women but that is not right. Women's rights are basic human rights; the only reason they are called womens rights is because we have been denied them over and over again.
Gloria Wen and Vesna Spasojevic run a club in our very own school called Empowerher. They saw an opportunity to unite young women, to hear their voices and emphasize them and they took that opportunity. I talked to Gloria Wen on November 14th, 2024 regarding the club she co-runs. I too am in the club but I was curious about what prompted them to form this club. As I talked to Gloria, she told me that she thought the girls in our school needed support and that they needed to feel like someone was there for them in the school to hear their issues. She wanted to empower young women to consider going down paths that are not dominated by women and to speak up about issues in the school.
Some of the issues she saw in our school were issues regarding sexual assault that were not addressed. Girls who have been victims of sexual assault say that when they went to teachers, they were ignored or brushed off. This is 2024 yet we still face the same issue that we would have in the 1900s which to me is absolutely mind blowing. There is also an issue of sexual assault on the bus to and from schools and when the victims came out to the teachers they were told that this was not an OCDSB issue. This is an important issue and it should be addressed. The longer we ignore it the more it will grow.
Another issue that was noticed by Gloria was that the menstrual pads and tampon dispensers are almost always empty; they are there but they're not filled so it almost defeats the entire purpose. There is a difference between saying you're standing for women's rights issues and not taking any action and actually taking action when you say you stand for women's rights issues which seems to be a common theme I see here. The school says it will provide free menstrual pads yet the dispensers are empty, the school says they stand with sexual assault victims yet when the victims actually come out they get ignored. There is a long road to travel when it comes to women’s rights but that's why this club was formed, to address these issues and deal with them.
For anyone reading this article that has an idea of an issue that should be addressed, send me an email. I will hear you out and send your ideas to Gloria and Vesna, we will tackle it together. If this article inspired you to join the club send me an email and I will send you where and when to meet for club meetings.
That's it for this month Ravens, thank you for reading!