Feminist Majority

We're an organization that promotes a re-evaluation of gender roles both in the University community and nationally. We provide a safe space for everyone to talk about sex and gender issues.

Contacts: Sarah Bouchat

Listhost: femmaj@listhost.uchicago.edu

Website: Under construction!

Meetings: Tuesdays, 8 PM, South Lounge

Goals: Act as advocates for feminist political causes both on and off campus. Produce events with safe, supportive, and woman-positive environments for students on campus. Work with both political advocacy and social service organizations to guarantee a woman's right to a safe and legal abortion and to end sexual and domestic violence. Serve as a discussion forum for issues of gender, sexuality, and equality among students.

Regular Projects

-     Every year, we celebrate Roe v. Wade day with a showing of the movie “Jane” (Jan 22), V-Day with a reading of the Vagina Monologues and activism to raise money for violence against women (Feb 14) and Masturbation Day with a speaker (May 15).

Past Projects

- Emergency Contraception Action Week (05/01/05)

- Discussion with Melissa Harris-Lacewell about "for coloured girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf (05/01/05)     

- Faculty panel on Women in Academia with Martha Nussbaum, Leora Auslander and Eugenia Cheng. Before that, we screened the movie “A Voice for Choice” about the March for Women’s Lives in Washington DC last spring. We are planning to hold an event (possibly cosponsored with ACLU?) on the effect of upcoming judge nominations on women’s rights sometime next quarter. (11/19/04)

Dream Projects (11/19/04):

-     An administrative panel with women from admin jobs throughout the University discussing their particular views

-     Getting a big name, expensive speaker for Masturbation Day

-     A marriage panel

-      Sponsor a class on Feminism

-     More interesting, big-name speakers in general (lEllie Smeal, Susie Bright, etc.)

-     We would like to be able to train more of our membership (and more students in general) as Rape Violence Advocates, but training is far away and hard to get to. We’d like to bring training to campus, or at least the South Side.

-     A Feminist library that does not exist in one group member’s apartment per year

-     An office so we don’t have to run around so much and could be more organized (why do so few social justice RSO’s have offices?)

Resources Needed (11/19/04):

            FOR CURRENT PROJECTS

-     We would like to get a speaker for Roe v. Wade day—we’d need money and contacts, same with Masturbation Day speaker and judge nomination panel. For V-Day we basically need better advertising and more excitement so more people will agree to read monologues and give money. We also need better ways to raise money—raffles, etc. 

FOR DREAM PROJECTS

• More money and better contacts! Enough interest and money and support from the University to arrange RVA training on campus. Space for an office. Basically, we need more money and more University support. Better advertising is also a must.

Stuff we like:

www.feministcampus.org