With feminism becoming a more common ideal talked about within the community, there is finally a place at WA for students to meet and converse about women’s rights and equality.

Junior Alice Yun, welcomes the NOW club to the WA community this year. The feminism-focused club meets every other Tuesday in room 247 with advisors Laine Winokur and Kyle Kucaj.

“The main reason is because I’ve noticed for a long time now that there’s been a lot of stigma towards feminism. I really wanted to stop that because I felt like it wasn’t doing justice to what the cause was standing for. It was harmful to the people who identified as feminists,” Yun said.

She was also inspired by people in her life who drove her to create the club.

“A person who inspired me would be my mom because she’s been a very strong example of a working mom. She’s very confident in her abilities,” Yun said.

Every meeting includes a new “woman of the week”, where a club member is able to present a woman who’s significantly impacted society in her life. A couple past women have been Rosalind Franklin, who had contributions to biology and Ada Lovelace, a mathematician and writer.

Members also discuss modern issues such as traditional roles of women in the family versus the roles now. 

One topic of discussion was also domestic violence. The club members were able to attend and volunteer “Light Up The Night”, which is an annual event dedicated to raise awareness for domestic violence.

The club is also planning on holding a drive this December for Bridges, a women’s shelter in Nashua, NH. The shelter’s website includes a list of items that the women need so the club’s goal is to see if anyone is willing to donate supplies such as money and clothes.

Along with the shelter drive, NOW is in the process to see if they can organize a tampon/pad drive for the girls of WA. This way, the sanitary items would be available for free in the bathrooms.

The NOW club is open to all members of the WA community because everyone has something to contribute.

Other members of the club are juniors Prachi Jhawar and Robin Miller who helped Yun in creating the club.

“I think that the club is so important because in society, it is looked down upon to believe in feminism. Our club’s main goal is to break these stigmas and allow other women and men to learn how to confront this sexism and stop it,” Jhawar said.