As students file out of Anderson Commons daily after mealtimes, they pass a bulletin board where many student groups hang posters and post announcements. Usually, posters are left alone until they’re taken down by staff after two weeks of promotion.
But a week in advance of one advertised event, the annual Where are the Women? (WATW) Conference, the poster promoting the event was vandalized. The unknown passerby removed two W’s and an O to spell, “Here are the men.” Two years ago, the same letters were removed from the group’s poster.
Mary Kim, a director of WATW and a senior majoring in urban studies, discussed the cabinet’s reaction to hearing about and seeing the vandalism.
“It’s sexism, is what it is — the feeling that it’s okay and funny to vandalize posters that have to do with women,” she said. “We were very frustrated, especially because we were anticipating something like this would happen, but we were trying to calm our nerves and our anger and have faith in the people on campus.”
The WATW Conference has been held in the spring each year since 2019, organized by the WATW cabinet, a club that often partners with other departments and offices to highlight female experiences at the college. This year, the conference took place Mar. 20-22, and the theme was “Hearth,” focusing on the idea of belonging. According to the website, WATW seeks to address the need for support among female faculty and students, citing that only 36 percent of faculty are women and only 13 percent are women of color.
On March 15, Paul Chelsen, vice president for student development, sent an email to the student body asking the responsible party to come forward.
“The reason for this email is because it is not the first time publicity from this conference has been vandalized,” he wrote in the email. “Unfortunately, it has become a pattern that is hurtful and disappointing. The vandalism is unacceptable and must stop. We encourage the community to hold one another accountable as well as to embody a spirit of honor and respect.”
Chelsen referred to both incidents involving the group, and instructed students to express their disagreement in a more “constructive way,” including submitting opinion pieces to the Record. The vandelizer’s identity is still unknown.
Emma Patel, the WATW chaplain and a sophomore English writing major, said she hopes that people will be more sensitive to the need for these events moving forward.
“I hope that students gain a better sense of empathy for the different groups on campus,” she said. “The poster took Janet Kondo, our PR director, a long time to plan, and I hope this incident will give people a greater understanding of the work that goes into things like this — and that we don’t find it funny.”
The WATW conference was the last of a series of three unrelated gender-based conferences held on campus this winter. On Feb. 2 and 3, the “Embodied Faith: Navigating Womanhood in a Post-Modern World” conference, the first of its kind, was sponsored by Wheaton College’s pro-life advocacy group, Voice for Life. “Embodied Faith” featured a self-proclaimed conservative blogger, Amy Davison, as keynote speaker and focused on the idea of biblical womanhood. The annual men’s conference was held on Jan. 19 and 20 and discussed biblical manhood. There was one report of vandalism on a sign promoting the “Embodied Faith” women’s conference. No vandalism was reported related to the men’s conference.
From March 20 to 22, the WATW conference consisted of six events, two each night. Diverging from the topics of biblical manhood and womanhood discussed at the earlier conferences, the WATW cabinet hosted speakers and panel discussions on Christian hospitality and other facets of identity, including race, sexual orientation and gender orientation, among others. During the first night, Sarah Johnson spoke about the kingdom of God and discussed the theology of belonging and hospitality. This was followed by a panel discussion featuring students Akofa Dimado, Alani Oyola and Imani Coleman, who discussed the intersectionality of race and gender and answered questions from the audience regarding identity.
Kim said this panel topic fit into the themes of belonging and invitation.
“These current students are talking about various facets of their identity, not just race and gender,” she said. “But we saw that it fit into the invitation and belonging theme because the panel worked to provide a space for women to talk about their experiences.”
During the second night of the conference, WATW and Refuge, a student-led group that exists to provide community for students who identify as LGBTQ, collaborated and showed a short film. Videographer Cadence Hubing, a senior, captured the experiences of Refuge students and other LGBTQ students on campus. Kim and Mack Ibrahim, a junior English major and the president of Refuge, led a panel to answer questions about the film. The screening was the most highly-attended event of the conference.
“I think so many people came because, on our campus, it’s more of a hot topic and pushes the limits of what we normally talk about,” Kim said.
Patel said the collaboration with Refuge was an essential part of the conference.
“I think that often, we as Christians have a desire to uplift and draw attention to different people or groups of people,” she said. “But sometimes, our passion for that can be misplaced, and we can end up silencing their voices on their own topic. So that’s why I believe it was really important that we collaborated with Refuge.”
To end the night, Karen Hurula, director of the counseling center, spoke about the importance of storytelling and led a workshop. She explained that it is important to learn how to listen intentionally, especially when trying to connect with people with different experiences or, specifically, who may identify as LGBTQ.
“If we do not know who we are, we will often be blindsided by our own biases and assumptions,” she said during her talk. “We, therefore, lose the opportunity to truly hear that other person well when they are telling their story.”
On March 22, Beth Maas, director of equity and Title IX coordinator, spoke about healthy relationships. She emphasized the importance of developing friendships and romantic relationships that honor God.
To end the conference, three students majoring in biblical and theological studies, Addison Ream, Fiona Balfe and Isis Toldson, led a conversation about God’s invitation to women to contribute to all kinds of work. After sharing their viewpoints and experiences, they also answered questions from the audience.
Patel said she hopes everyone who attended could take something away from the conference.
“It was really important to us that we invite everyone, especially those who don’t feel particularly invited and served on this campus, and that the space of belonging we created is for everyone.”
