Aaron Johnson – General Assignment Reporter
The Women’s Center on campus hosted the showing of the film ‘Straightlaced: How Genders Got Us All Tied Up,’ as a part of October being Gay and Lesbian month. Graduate student Freda Grant said that the purpose of the film was to
“We wanted to do something because October is Gay and Lesbian month and instead of showing a stereotypical film we wanted to find something that was a little bit different,” said Grant.
According to Newday.com, the 2009 documentary is described as an increasingly complex and challenging coming of age story. ‘Straightlaced’ offers both teens and adults a way out of anxiety, fear and violence and points the way toward a more inclusive, empowering culture. Grant said that she believes the showing of the film went over great. But she said she wishes that more students would have showed up for the event.
“I do think that the film went over well,” said Grant. “I just wish that we would have had a better turn out because of the information and it’s definitely just a conversation that needs to be had.”
The Women’s Center offers a variety of different programs and events throughout the year. The goal is to empower and educate the campus and local community on gender issues. Grant said that the door is always open in the Women’s Center.
“We’re here anytime. You know it’s hard to sometimes, because being in the Women’s Center a lot of students don’t really know that we’re here or what exactly it is that we do,” said Grant. “But definitely, we are always available to sponsor or facilitate a program.”
Along with fellow member of the Women’s Center, Julianne Wilson, Grant put together the event for the students to come and watch the film and try and get some valuable information. She said that despite the small number of people that turned out, the Women’s Center will still hold a similar event next semester at some time.
“I think one thing we will do is definitely reaching out to some of the professors in different departments,” said Grant. “We want to do that to see if they can let their students know about the program. I think that advertising can get tricky because even though we put things on the monitors and have flyers but after a while students kind of blur it out.”
Grant said that the most frustrating thing about low attendance numbers at functions like that is just that students are missing out on information that is important.
“It can get frustrating at times but just because it is a lot of useful information. I think that students may not know that. Getting students comfortable enough to come out or just getting the information out there is hard sometimes,” said Grant.
Despite the frustrations that may come with students not taking advantage of the information that is out there, Grant said the feeling throughout the Women’s Center is that what they are doing is something to be proud of and is something rewarding.
“It is definitely rewarding,” said Grant. “I’m a women’s studies major grad student and it’s nice to tie in why these issues that are important and what’s going on to fix it.”
