OU's Women's Center the place to go Thursdays for lunch
By Samantha Pirc, Campus Life writer
May 2, 2007 | 12:31 p.m.
Ohio University’s Women’s Center has only been open for three months, but it has already established itself as an amazing resource for women on campus by offering excellent programming and opportunities to the community.
One of the many events that go on at the Women’s Center is an informal, weekly "brown bag lunch" style discussion of issues concerning women, feminism and the world today.
Held every Thursday at noon and with a different topic and moderator each week, the discussions are open to anyone interested – women and men, young and old, students and faculty, community members and whoever who can make their way to the Baker Center at that time.
Brittany Buxton, Women’s Affairs Commissioner for Graduate Student Senate and the moderate of the April 26 discussion, "Can Men be Feminists Too?", has attended all but one of the discussions this quarter and believes they are very beneficial for the people who attend.
"These are issues a lot of women think about," Buxton said. "It is nice to have an outlet to discuss."
Past topics have covered everything from women in the workplace to Don Imus. This past Thursday’s topic drew a crowd of about 20, including four men who actively took part in deciding whether or not there is such a thing as a male feminist.
Participants found that they themselves struggled to find a true definition for the word feminist, which made it hard to say whether men could be one or not.
The conversation touched on a number of issues including politics, family values and inequality in the work place – of course focusing on the role of men in all of these areas. A topic brought up was the fact that there are some men who want to be feminists, but there are women out there who do not want to include them, which can perpetuate the problem of sexism.
One participant stated that men are not taking on big enough leadership roles when tackling women’s rights issues, while another argued that there is only so far men in feminism can go before they start to impede on what is perceived as "women only" space.
Another participant pointed out that even when men say they are feminist, they are not standing up to other men and confronting them when they hear a degrading joke or see some form of abuse.
Overall, the discussion was very low key and non-confrontational, making it obvious that these lunch time meetings are a place where anyone should feel able to voice his or her opinions.
Lois Wealey, a community member and recent OU graduate with a master's degree in social science, has been to three of the brown bag lunches and enjoys the lively discussions despite a hearing problem which sometimes prevents her from understanding exactly what was said.
Drew Pusateri, a graduate student working on his master's in political science, came to the discussion because he recognized it as a good opportunity to learn more about a topic he was interested in but didn’t know much about.
"To some extent I think the title of feminist is less important than what you are doing and what you think about gender issues," Pusateri said.
In regards to the disproportionate male to female ratio, Pusateri pointed out that "not many men go into situations where they are the minority."
The next brown bag lunch will be at noon, this Thursday, May 3. Participants will discuss the topic “Do You Feel Safe at OU?”, which will be narrated by Kristin Delo.