This afternoon, graduate students and other members of the tri-campus community gathered on Library Lawn, advocating for women's issues to commemorate International Women's Day, which is celebrated annually on March 8.
Chants of “Hey hey, ho ho, the patriarchy has got to go” and “My body, my choice” echoed across South Quad as the group marched through the rain holding up their handmade signs with umbrellas in hand.
One of the event organizers, Tatiana Rosales, a fifth-year PhD candidate and diversity, equity and inclusion chair for graduate student government, said the event for International Women's Day was inspired by mobilizations across Latin America and in other countries like India, Burma and Pakistan.
She said a group of women approached her and asked if there was a similar event in the U.S: “‘What is the one day during Women's History Month that people will put on some kind of event or have some kind of commemoration of the feminist actions that have happened in the past?’”
The event's organizers said they felt there wasn't a large movement to commemorate International Women's Day at Notre Dame or in the U.S. like there is in other countries, so they wanted to organize this event to bring people on campus together.
“This group of women started to put together this campaign,” Rosales said. “They wanted it to be very open, so each individual's expression of what womanhood means to them, what feminism means to them.” Signs at the protest advocated for a plethora of issues, including Palestine.
Leading up to the event, the organizers posted videos on Instagram including interviews with graduate students speaking about their experiences on campus and focusing on specific issues like trans rights, black and intersectional feminism and what feminism means to them.
This morning the coalition led a workshop where they had painting and other types of crafts to honor “typically women-associated activities from history,” Rosales explained. At the workshop participants also painted signs for the march on campus.
“We had a lot of really good messages put out today, a lot of very diverse and intersectional topics,” Rosales said.
