Last night marked the start of this year’s Women’s Week — a seven-day celebration dedicated to highlighting the various issues facing women at Penn and the world.
Women’s week got underway Monday night at the Women’s Week Kick-off Coffeehouse, in Houston Hall, hosted by the Penn Consortium of Undergraduate Women and the Panhellenic Council. The Coffeehouse featured a variety of speakers and performers, as well as coffee, tea and pasteries.
This year the theme was “What does a feminist look like,” as PCUW, along with the various other groups supporting this year’s Women’s Week, are attempting to debunk offensive and outdated views of feminism.
The aim of the event was to explore different views of feminism while touching on the intersectionality between race, gender, faith and sexuality, according to College senior and event organizer Tori Searl.
“We hoped that those attending would be able to form their own definition of what a feminist looks like through inspiration from the readings and performances at the event,” Searl wrote in an e-mail.
Despite the sizable turnout, the focus of the event remained on the performances and speakers.
The performances included students who presented their own material on an open mic, a cappella groups — including Penny Loafers and Off the Beat — the Excelano project, which performed a variety of poems on the topic of women, and members of the Bloomers band.
“We all felt that this event was a huge success …This event was able to bring together male and female students from a variety of different groups on campus to address the theme of creating one’s own definition of feminism,” Searl wrote.
Women’s Week will be ongoing throughout the week with a host of events including films, talks, seminars and the Vagina Monologues. The highlight of the week comes on Thursday when leading modern feminist Rebecca Walker gives a keynote speech in Cohen Hall.
