By: Kimi Danaei/ Theme Editor, Karli Wallace/ Executive Theme Editor, Natalee Park/ Illustrator
The 2020 Women’s March started in Pershing Square, downtown Los Angeles on Jan. 18 and led people to the Los Angeles City Hall to march on behalf of women’s rights and equality.
Emiliana Guereca founded The Women’s March in 2016, and it has occurred annually in downtown Los Angeles. Over 350,000 people attended this year’s event. This year’s theme was “Women Rising,” inspired by the record-breaking 103 women elected and re-elected into Congress in the 2018 mid-term elections, and a significant rise in female leadership and accomplishment in the workforce, according to Executive Director of Women’s March Foundation Elaine Patel. After the theme was decided, a team of people assembled to supervise duties such as communicating with volunteers and supporters of the march and logistics concerning the march and merchandising. Then advertising and campaigning for the march through different social media platforms followed.
“Women’s March is very powerful; this is a huge movement, and we are still going extremely strong,” Patel said. “We’ve moved from Women’s March LA to Women’s March Foundation because we are now hitting national levels and communicating with people all over the nation, so we’ve grown a lot and hope to continue to grow.”
Senior Ali Williams is one of the many Costa students that attended the Women’s March. She has attended the Women’s March since 2017 and plans on continuing to support the non-profit organization.
“I think it is really important for all of us to remember that our involvement matters, and that any action, no matter how small, can make a difference,” Williams said. “In the last few years, we have seen a massive reckoning for women’s rights across the country, and we should continue to speak out against inequality.”
Costa clubs and organizations such as the Associated Student Body, Drama and MUN are led by female students on the Costa campus, which include leadership positions like those of the Editors-in-Chief of Hoofprints, ASB President and Secretary-General of MUN. Costa also has women’s empowerment clubs such as GALS Club and Girls Only Coding Club, as well as a senior seminar English class dedicated to the study of female authors in literature, gender roles and strong female protagonists.
“Feminism is not a monolith, meaning that it’s not a unified set of policies and practices that everyone uniformly believes,” Women’s Literature and English teacher Nicole Wachell said. “That’s the beauty of the class. Feminism in Women’s Lit does talk about a lot of issues concerning feminism but also gives students a chance to fully understand the idea of feminism in its truest form.”
Costa’s Associated Body is led by senior and ASB President Kate Condren. Condren’s duties include leading ASB meetings and giving final approval on dances and ASB-hosted events. According to ASB School Board Representative and senior Mary Clare Powell, 35 of the 50 members of ASB are females alongside Condren and Powell.
“In my four years on ASB, I’ve constantly been surrounded by a dynamic of the boys in ASB supporting the girls, and vice versa,” said Powell. “It’s really comforting to know that my peers within the program are respectful of each other’s ambitions and dreams, regardless of our gender.”
Costa’s yearbook program, also known as Hoofprints, is run by female Editors-in-Chief, senior Jillian Durand and junior Natalie Collicutt. Out of the 33 students on the staff, approximately two to three of those are males, Durand said. According to Durand, males on campus seem to be discouraged from joining creative extracurricular programs because of a majority of female participants.
“I think every female has been in a situation where she’s been discriminated against,” Durand said. “It’s very intimidating because there are a lot of leadership positions that people aren’t used to seeing females in. That’s what, I believe, ultimately holds us back the most.”
Model United Nations is led by Secretary Generals and seniors Kenna Horgan and Andrew Cormack. As secretary generals, they are responsible for planning MUN’s annual conference, LAIMUN. According to Horgan, she has experienced discrimination at conferences as she has been overlooked and disregarded by men who only addressed her male partner.
“In Model UN there is definitely a lot of discreet misogyny, not in the Costa program per se, but at outside conferences. A lot of times boys have the upper hand with who gets to speak in open discussions,” Horgan said. “Females have to work even harder to not come across as overly aggressive, because a lot of times when a woman is assertive, powerful and intelligent, that threatens their male counterparts. That’s an obstacle I’ve experienced, but it’s also rewarding when we do well because I know that I have succeeded in the face of that.”
Senior Natalie Rebenkoff is the Drama Club President and also heads the Drama and Tech Department Board. After spending all four of her years in Costa’s Drama program, Rebenkoff was elected the Secretary of the Drama Club last year.
“You find in middle school and high school that theater is a very female-driven activity, and I think this comes from being fearless,” Rebenkoff said. “The women that I’m surrounded by in Drama are all extremely talented, super close and united as well. We have pre-show rituals and traditions that are for the girls only, and we have such an amazing bond.”
Senior Rachel Clinton is currently the president of the National Honors Society. As president, she is responsible for conducting meetings with the leadership board, approving individual service projects and conducting full chapter meetings. Clinton is also the orchestra president and has involved herself in various clubs, STEM summer programs, and extracurricular activities. According to Clinton, she has felt intimidated and self-conscious in such programs because they are heavily male-dominated.
“I think my biggest accomplishment is my ability to not allow the fact that I am a woman or the fact that I am black hinder me from taking advantage of opportunities both on and off-campus,” Clinton said. “In many STEM summer programs and math classes I have taken at El Camino Community College, I have been one of the only females which can be intimidating and can make me self-conscious about making a mistake. I overcome these scenarios by reclaiming my voice and realizing that there is power in defying traditional gender roles by being a girl who does not back down to men in STEM or any field I partake in.”
Senior Em-J Krigsman is currently the President of the Soroptimist Club. The Soroptimist Club, also known as S-Club, is a chapter that’s part of the global volunteer organization Soroptimist International of the Americas. Within the club on campus, Krigsman connects underclassmen of S-Club to community service projects that serve women, she said. She is also a sudent representative for the Women’s Voters League on the Costa campus. Seniors Arielle Hershkowitz, Collete Tibbetts and Megan Yeh are also student representatives for the League alongside Krigsman. As a representative, they aided students in pre-registering to vote in national and regional elections in early November.
“By law, women definitely have equality, so to speak. But I think in social and more traditional roles that there’s significant room for improvement. And through the march, women can take that stance to push for more,” Krigsman said.
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