by Olivia Barrett ’16

Fortunately, the rain didn’t scare too many people away from our first Lean In Circle of the semester. We had a good turnout and were able to generate great discussion around our topic of the week: Feminism. When we first started the Circle we asked all in attendance to write their definition from their perspective of the word feminism. Here are a few of the responses that were generated:

“Support of women’s rights and culture >> ‘Feminist’”
“Not equal, men over powering women”
“Strong, girl power, and equal”
“Strong, equal, determined, standing for what is right”
“The belief that women should be considered equal to men”

Anonymously, we took turns reading each other’s definitions of feminism. Hearing what the other women thought about the word was truly eye opening. We followed this activity up by watching the TED Talk: “Confession of a Bad Feminist.” This movie raised a lot of very interesting points. One of the women in attendance had a very different view of the word than everyone else; after watching the TED Talk, she then changed her definition.

“Feminist” is not a bad word for a woman to associate herself with. It is not only important to identify as a feminist, but to act as one as well in all aspects of life. Women need to stand up and make a change to the grey areas—areas that are continuously putting women down and generating a glass ceiling.

Lean In Circles are held the first Wednesday of every month. We hope to see you at our next Circle! If you have any questions or suggestions for topics, email iwl@nichols.edu or stop by the office (Academic Building 206).