Women’s History Calendar at SJSU 2020.
This March, San Jose State is recognizing Women’s History Month with a series of lectures and activities in collaboration with SJSU’s Gender Equity Center, the PRIDE Center, the MOSAIC Cross Cultural Center, the Division of Student Affairs, the Cesar Chavez Community Action Center, Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, the African-American/Black Student Success Center, and Sociology and Interdisciplinary Social Sciences.
Upcoming Events
“100 Years of Women’s Suffrage in the South Bay,” an exhibit in Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library’s Special Collections, is on display through December 2020.
100 Years of Women’s Suffrage in the South Bay
Available through December 15
SJSU Special Collections and Archives
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library, fifth floor
This exhibit showcases archival materials related to the local origins of women’s suffrage and traces these roots through to the present day. It features materials from former mayors Janet Gray Hayes and Dianne McKenna, ’77 MA Urban and Regional Planning, former council member Blanca Alvarado, Kate Kennedy, a member of the first graduating class of the Normal School who became known for her campaigning for equal pay for women and organizations such as the National Women’s Political Caucus, the National Organization for Women and the League of Women Voters.
Open Mic: Trans Visibility
Thursday, March 5
Diaz Compean Student Union Starbucks Lounge, 6–8 p.m.
Hosted in collaboration with SJSU’s MOSAIC Cross Cultural Center, this open mic will highlight transgender womxn.
Keynote and Booksigning: Sonya Renee Taylor
POSTPONED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
Sonya Renee Taylor is an artist, activist, founder and radical executive officer of The Body is Not an Apology, a digital media and education company with content reaching half a million people worldwide each month. Named one of 99 Dream Keepers and a 2015 Outstanding Partner Award by Planned Parenthood, Taylor was one of 12 “women who paved the way for body positivity” by Bustle magazine in 2015 and honored as one of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ 100 artists. In addition to offering poetry and performance workshops, she has spoken on body empowerment, radical self-love as a transformative action and intersectional social justice.
Bettina Apethker: Celebrating Woman Suffrage (1920 – 2020) and the Ongoing Campaign for Voting Rights
POSTPONED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library 225
Bettina Apethker, ’76 MA Mass Communications, is a distinguished professor emerita of feminist studies at UC Santa Cruz and holder of the Peggy and Jack Baskin UC Presidential Chair for Feminist Studies. A political activist since the 1960s, Apethker is the author of several books, including Woman’s Legacy: Essays on Race, Sex and Class in American History (1982), The Morning Breaks: The Trial of Angela Davis (1976; 1999) and Intimate Politics: How I Grew Up Red, Fought for Free Speech and Became a Feminist Rebel (2006). She is currently working on a book, Queering the History of the Communist Left in the United States. Apethker was a women’s studies and African American studies lecturer at SJSU before entering the history of consciousness program at UCSC, where she received her doctorate.
Spartan Speaker Series: Ibtihaj Muhammad
POSTPONED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
Wednesday, March 11
Student Union Ballroom, 7 p.m.
Join the Spartan Speaker Series to hear Ibtihaj Muhammad, the first female Muslim-American athlete to medal at the Olympics. A 2016 Olympic bronze medalist, 5-time Senior World medalist and World Champion, Muhammad is the first American woman to compete in the Olympics in hijab and a sports ambassador with the U.S. Department of State’s Empowering Women and Girls through Sport Initiative.
Mujer Divina: Divine Feminine
POSTPONED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
Thursday, March 12
Chicanx/Latinx Student Success Center, 5–7 p.m.
The Cesar Chavez Community Action Center, in collaboration with The Chicanx/Latinx Student Success Center, presents: a dialogue-based workshop about womxn empowerment and how to combat stereotypes within the Latinx community. This workshop is based on the themes of womxn issues within the Latinx community, but ALL are welcome no matter how you identify. To attend, fill out the Mujer Divina (The Divine Feminine) RSVP form.
Art Exhibition: Gender Through Cultural Storytelling
CANCELED BUT IN THE PROCESS OF MOVING ONLINE
Monday, March 16
Diaz Compean Student Union Meeting Room 4, 10 a.m.–6:30 p.m.
The Gender Equity Center and MOSAIC Cross Cultural Center will host an art exhibition on the intersection of gender and culture, providing an opportunity for people to share their narratives of gender through cultural storytelling during an open mic from 5 – 6:30 p.m.
Latinas and Libros Book Club
CANCELED
Tuesday, March 17
Student Union, Room 3
Modern Latina presents Latinas and Libros, an evening to celebrate contributions of Latinas in literature in collaboration with SJSU’s Chicanx/Latinx Student Success Center. The free event will feature Latina authors sharing their stories and signing books while guests enjoy Mexican hot chocolate and pan dulce. To attend, fill out the Latinas & Libros RSVP form.
Reproductive Justice and Sexual Rights: Tanya Bakhru
OFFERED ONLINE THROUGH ZOOM sjsu.zoom.us/j/207076300 |
Wednesday, March 18
Hugh Gillis Hall 229, 4:30–6 p.m.
SJSU Professor of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies Tanya Bakhru will speak about her book, Reproductive Justice and Sexual Rights. The book takes an intersectional, interdisciplinary and transnational approach, presenting work that provides a nuanced and in-depth understanding of the role of globalization in the sexual and reproductive lives of gendered bodies in the 21st century.
Transgender Day of Visibility
Monday, March 23
7th St. Plaza, 9 a.m.–5 p.m.
Carol Mukhopadhyay Lecture Series
Carol Mukhopadhyay Lecture Series presents Larissa M. Mercado-Lopez: Shaping Feminist Futures Through Children’s Literature: Notes on Feminist Writing and Editorial Practices
Monday, March 23
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library 225, 1:30–2:40 p.m.
Larissa M. Mercado-Lopez is an associate professor of Women’s Studies at California State University, Fresno, where she teaches courses on women of color feminisms and Latina health. Additionally, she is senior advisor for the Public Scholar Institute through the National Center for Institutional Diversity at the University of Michigan. Mercado-Lopez will discuss her work as a children’s book writer and sensitivity reader for children’s literature. Drawing from Black and Chicana feminist thought on the power of children’s books, she will situate her work within the larger context of women of color feminism and Latinx children’s literary writing. Mercado-Lopez will issue a call to Women’s Studies students and scholars to consider their potential to transform their social world through work in the children’s book writing and publishing industries.
SJSU Professor Emerita of Anthropology Carol Mukhopadhyay sponsors this annual lecture series.
Zines for Queens
CANCELED
Tuesday, March 24
Student Union Room 4B, 1–2:30 p.m.
Wednesday, March 25
MOSAIC Cross Cultural Center, 3–5 p.m.
Celebrate women’s history month by learning the importance of writing our own history and contribute to a collective zine based on poetry by women of color. To attend, fill out the Zines for Queens RSVP form.
Film Screening: RBG
CANCELED BUT FILM IS AVAILABLE ON HULU
Wednesday, March 25
Student Wellness Center 122, 1:30–2:45 p.m.
RBG is an intimate portrait of an unlikely rock star, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. With unprecedented access, the filmmakers explore how early legal battles changed the world for women in the U.S.
Nuestra JENTE: Postcolonial Sexualities
Wednesday, March 25
SJSU PRIDE Center, 1–2:30 p.m.
Join us for a discussion on postcolonial gender variance and how it challenged sexuality.
Black Women’s Collective Meeting
CANCELED
Tuesday, March 25, Whine Down
The Black Women’s Collective is an organization whose purpose is to support Black women at San Jose State in social, academic and political spaces. For more information, visit Black Women’s Collective’s Instagram.
All events are wheelchair accessible. For accommodations, please call the Gender Equity Center at (408) 924-6500 or email sjsugenec@gmail.com.
For more information on these events, please visit The Gender Equity Center’s 2020 Event Schedule.