Advocating feminism on UMDs campus

Students opinions on whether they are aware about feminist organizations on campus

By Evie Monroe
As students walk around campus, there are a multitude of posters promoting
athletic events, philanthropic events, free food flyers, career fairs, awareness talks and
anything else that seem to pertain to the lives of college aged students. Members of
groups advocating social issues are prevalent on college campuses, but an issue that
seems to get overlooked is the discussion around feminism.
The University of Maryland consists of roughly 38,000 undergraduates and of
those students, half are women. Womens rights is a movement that has been ongoing
since 1848, yet in 2016 on most college campuses, the knowledge surrounding feminism
is very slim.
I cant think of any specific ones off the top of my head, but Ive seen a
campaign or two. I remember seeing sex week being promoted. Lamar Johnson, a
sophomore journalism major at the University of Maryland, said, Not really just women
but I guess sex education for both sexes plays into feminism as well.
Amanda Azmi, a sophomore biology major at the university, said that sexual
assault awareness was one of the few campaigns for female empowerment she has seen
here on campus.
The clothesline project is an example of feminism because of a lot of the shirts
were written by women who were responding truthfully and demanding that their voices

be heard and that they be treated equally to their male counterparts who harassed them,
Azmi said.
Within certain fields of study, the demographic of women are low. In the Robert
H. Smith School of Business, 39 percent of undergraduates are women.
As a business major there are not many women in my classes but I have seen a
women affirming women campaign going on in the business school recently,
Sophomore finance major, Chineme Obiefune said, They also had a conference for
women in business a while back.
In other departments, the discussion around feminism is a constant, but since
these departments are so small, other students are not able to be informed.
I am currently a LGBT Studies minor, and throughout my coursework, I have
learned a lot about womens rights and LGBT rights, but on campus, I can not really
think of anything I have seen that promotes feminism, Sophomore biology major Tania
Mamdouhi said. Being a Biology major, feminism is not a topic we discuss often so it is
really nice to be able to learn in class about these issues.
Students do believe that awareness about feminism occurs on campus. I heard
about the UMD Feminists club mentioned in my scholars class one day, Sophomore
criminology major Brandon Hemans said, and the Step Up presentations held before
Greek Week have been really informative for me and my fraternity brothers surrounding
topics about sexual assault and respecting young women.
Though these strides seem to be small, it is a crucial first step in the spreading of
awareness about feminist topics to the student body at the University of Maryland.