Every Thursday morning at 11:30 a.m. in the Lennox Dining Hall, a group of students and faculty meet to discuss issues regarding gender and women’s rights issues. This group, Students for Gender Equality, is a new addition to the Houghton community. The discussion for the group started last fall with junior, Jessica Vaughn, and, Sarah Derck, assistant professor of Old Testament.
That discussion, Vaughn said, generated the idea for the group and the need for it’s presence on campus, “Dr. Derck and I were talking about how Houghton is not always friendly when it comes to gender issues, and how there might be a need for a place for women who felt like the atmosphere was hurting them to go and meet.”
According to Vaughn, from there the idea of the group snowballed. After leaving campus for a semester, Vaughn reconvened in this fall with the group, who, in her absence, had done a mentoring program, formed a name, and now had a sense of direction. The group of students and faculty, originally known as Deborah’s Daughters, included Vaughn; Houghton professor, Kristina Lacelle-Peterson; 2011 alumni, Rebecca Rowley; VOCA director, Kim Pool; junior, Carly Congilosi; senior, Megan Miles; and senior, Hope Schwartz.
The group then began meeting in peoples’ homes and discussing their options for the current academic year. From these meetings came the idea of a lunch discussion open to students and faculty, including both men and women alike. According to Vaughn, the idea of lunch discussions combined both the idea of talking about gender related justice issues, “along with the idea that we might be able to bring the conversation to a more public sphere” outside of the lunch conversations.
Since then the group has met almost every Thursday this semester, has discussed a variety of topics, and even took a trip to Seneca Falls, the location of the first women’s rights convention. According to junior, Emma Brittain, some of the topics talked about during lunches have included “using gender neutral language for God, the negative impacts of certain gender related expectations on society and the church, and basically how we as the church can improve how we handle issues like this.”
While the original intent of the group was an open discussion for both men and women, junior, Stacia Gehman, said one thing the group is lacking is a male presence. “It makes me sad that they don’t feel comfortable enough to come,” Gehman said. “I feel like a lot of them feel like a lot of them feel like it’s just going to be this feminist hate fest, and we’re all going to be like ‘you suck’ and that’s really not how it is.”
Brittain describes Students for Gender Equality as “a discussion group on campus that hopes to be men and women uniting in Christ to fight injustices related to gender issues.” Vaughn said her goal for the group would a ultimately to be a consistent group that is affiliated with SGA which continues on a yearly basis and is not contingent based on the amount participation the group experiences in each given year. The group has already begun the paperwork to gain unofficial club status within the SGA, which will hopefully lead to the establishment of Students for Gender Equality as an official student club on campus. In addition to attempting to gain club status, the group is also hoping to have an active role in the planning of Take Back the Night, a world-wide event that promotes the safety of women and the hope that one day woman will be able to walk in the dark without fear.