Girl Scouts. Radical Monarchs. Lumberjanes. Pawnee Goddess.
And now… Women’s Center Scouts!

Time and time again, Women’s Center staff get the question, “How do you join the Women’s Center?”

Our response is “Easy! Come and hang out in our lounge! Come to events. You don’t have to join.”

To which we get an “Oh. Okay.”

We get it. Being a part of something is special. Showing your loyalty and commitment to a cause is empowering. Finding home and belonging in a space that means something to you, means something to us.

So, now, you can “join” the Women’s Center by being one of our fearless and loyal Scouts!

Here’s the deal. To become a Women’s Center Scout, first start by joining the Women’s Center myUMBC page and following at least one of our social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram). If you’re already a member and following one of our pages, great! You’re one step closer.

Next, it’s time to save the dates! Each Scout must meet the challenge of attending at least 3 different Women’s Center events throughout the fall semester. The 3 different events must meet the following criteria:

• 1 Discussion-Based event
  This includes Knowledge Exchanges, Pop-Culture Pop-Ups, and any identity-based discussion groups
• 1 Skill-Based workshop/event
  This includes workshops like Supporting Survivors of Sexual Violence, Women + Leadership events hosted by the Women’s Center, or events like Trans and College
• 1 Critical Social Justice: Ignite event
  So many events throughout the week of October 22-26th! Visit the CSJ website for details.

From the above challenges, your duty as a Women’s Center Scout is to ensure that you attend 1 event during first 8 weeks of the semester and attend 1 event during second 8 weeks of semester. This will require planning and strategy, Scouts!

Okay…. you don’t need to keep swiping, but do keep reading! 

Over the course of the semester, we may also announce bonus Scout challenges to enhance the experience so do stay tuned to our social media pages!

Any UMBC community member who completes the challenge by December 1st gets a Women’s Center T-shirt and a shout-out on our social media pages (any maybe some badges – we’re still working on those details).

This is the front of the cool Women’s Center shirt you’ll get after you complete your Scout Challenges!

All UMBC students, faculty, and staff are welcome to participate!

For questions, stop by the Women’s Center or email us at womenscenter@umbc.edu.

July, 2018: Dr. Ian Anson’s article on democratic support in America in The Conversation

Plan Ahead! 

A single light can’t illuminate a city or a nation, but it can ignite a movement that changes the world. This fall, Critical Social Justice: Ignite will explore how a burning commitment to create a better future can inspire activism among individuals and communities.

This is the UMBC Women’s Center’s 6th Critical Social Justice (CSJ) initiative. CSJ has always been an opportunity to bring our campus community together to spark innovative ideas, inspire creative inquiry, and begin new collaborations. This year, in addition to exploring what unites us, we want to create space to look at what separates us and how we can bridge those expanses.

We hope to continue to grow the inclusivity of CSJ by helping more people feel welcome and comfortable engaging in challenging conversations about equity and justice, across all racial and ethnic identities, genders, sexualities, political ideologies, academic fields, and life experiences. From dancers to coders, from seasoned activists to those looking for ways to begin impacting change around their passions, CSJ can be for all of us.

Throughout CSJ week, October 22-26, 2018, participants will explore how to harness partnership to achieve things that may be out of our reach as individuals. How can we use our strengths, and learn from our challenges, to become the community we want to be — one that truly exemplifies inclusive excellence?

Deanna Zandt; photo by Vu Gandin Le

We are pleased to announce that this year’s Critical Social Justice: Ignite keynote speaker will be Deanna Zandt, a media and technology expert who collaborates with leaders in social change work to create clear and persuasive strategies. In addition to her work in media strategy, Zandt is an expert on women in technology, hosts a podcast on mental health and emotional wellness, and writes and illustrates graphic stories and comics.

Follow the CSJ blog and Women’s Center Facebook and Twitter (#csjignite) for updates on scheduled events and other news. The full calendar of events for the week can be found here.  If you’re organizing a related event that week that might be included on the CSJ calendar, or for more information, please email womenscenter@umbc.edu.

Critical Social Justice is made possible through partnerships across UMBC, this year including special collaborations with Residential Life and the Center for Women in Technology. Please see our co-sponsor page for more information. 

Helpful Links:

The full calendar of CSJ: Ingite events

The What You Need to Know about CSJ Ignite series

Be sure to sign up for the CSJ Walking Tour by 10/24! RSVP here.

A reflection from student staff member, Sheila, about the work that creates empathy.

As a social work major, I spend a lot of time thinking about empathy. Social work is a profession centered around the idea of empathy when working with individuals in need. Social workers are encouraged to find the strengths of a person and empower them to use them, while being understanding of their life experiences and point of view.

The concept of empathy is often gendered as a feminine trait, and perhaps that’s why the field is dominated by women. According to Wendy Chin-Taner, a writer for Cultural Weekly, “Empathy hinges on emotional labor. To have empathy, we have to be able to practice active listening, be reflexive, self-critical, and be able to act on constructive criticism. In our culture, women are more readily expected to practice these skills and are socialized to do more emotional labor, which is why intersectional feminism is at the forefront of social justice allyship.”

Personally, I agree with Wendy, I believe that the amount of women in social work has to do with the history of women being socialized and encouraged to be the caregivers and show intense emotions, like empathy. There have been countless passionate and driven women throughout the history of civil rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and social justice movements. What sets apart these women, though, is their use of radical empathy, a topic I’ll discuss later.

Empathy & Emotional Labor

According to Suzannah Weiss from Everyday Feminism emotional labor is defined as the “exertion of energy for the purpose of addressing people’s feelings, making people comfortable, or living up to social expectations.” While, social workers are not the only ones that have to use emotional labor in their profession, they do understand the drain that comes from emotional labor and it is discussed frequently in classes and professional development.

As someone who works in the food industry, I know the necessity there is for servers or those working in retail need to have extreme control over their emotions when working with guests, in order to make sure the guest feel welcomed and taken care of during their time at the restaurant especially when they have a concern or complaint. Having empathy for another person (especially during a busy night at a restaurant!) can be challenging because you have to connect with someone else’s feelings and experiences, causing yourself  to have deeper understanding of your own feelings. It’s important to note that societal and gendered expectations often place a greater burden on women to do the work of emotional labor. As FEM author, Anya Bayerle states, “Women are also frequently expected to appear empathetic and concerned for others while simultaneously suppressing any emotion that could be used to dismiss them as irrational or hormonal.” Often the emotional labor I practice at work is not just an industry survival skill but one that is expected of me because of my gender.

But, I want to move beyond just expectations and that’s what brings me to radical empathy.

Radical Empathy

While emotional labor is something that people often already have experience with, managing emotions in a classroom, workplace, or family setting; a newer concept is radical empathy. The first time I heard about “radical empathy,” I was confused, and oh so curious.

In recent years, I have lived my life following one tweet… yes you read that right. A tweet! I know what you are thinking… “but Sheila you don’t even have a Twitter!” ( it’s a confusing story about tumblr and screenshots, that’s not the point).

This tweet, by this person I don’t know, changed my life.  “Don’t become who hurt you.” Based on some of my personal experience, I would have liked to become a hardened person, but I decided I wanted to be the person to lift up others. My hurt and pain does not need to become someone else’s trauma. It took a lot of emotional labor out of me to remember that in moments where I feel like I am being attacked or hurt personally, that the person doing whatever is making me feel uncomfortable might not be doing it knowingly harming me.

That they might be a person, just like me, who has dealt with trauma, has things about themselves they do not like, and has never had someone ask them “what is wrong?” instead of “what is wrong with you?”

Radical empathy is tough to define. At Stomping Ground, a summer camp that focuses on radical empathy, they define it as “actively striving to better understand and share the feelings of others. To fundamentally change our perspectives from judgmental to accepting, in an attempt to more authentically connect with ourselves and others.” There are a few Ted Talks (see the links below) about what empathy is and how it impacts our ability to make connections with other human beings.

Radical empathy has had a huge impact on my life, shifted how I view the world, and how I interact with others. In the future, when I am a social worker, I believe it will allow me to better connect with my clients. It is not so much about putting yourself in the shoes of another person because you will never truly understand that person’s life. Radical empathy is more about striving to be with a person while they feel the feels, making sure that we understand our own judgement and challenging them so that we might accept everyone, actually where they are.

The real point is… Do you care?

Additional Resources for Learning about Radical Empathy:

Peter Laughter’s – Radical Empathy Ted Talk Video

Paul Parkin’s – Reimaging Empathy Ted Talk Video

Brene Brown’s Empathy Bear – Empathy Video