March 8th is International Women's Day, and to celebrate the Gender Equity Caucus at Murray State University is holding events on Friday, March 7th in Waterfield Library for everyone to take part in.
We spoke with Dr. Laura Sullivan-Beckers and Mary Tripp Reed about the event and what International Women's Day means.
According to the World Economic Forum, none of us will see gender parity in our lifetime. The International Women's Day website says it will take as many as 5 generations from now before men and women have equal economic status.
"Accelerating Action: Holding Space for Women's Bodies in America" is the theme of the events planned for Friday, with a collective art project at 10 a.m., donations of menstrual products and bras for the MSU Women's Center, and several speakers across disciplines throughout the afternoon.
Mary Tripp Reed is an senior lecture of economics who has been teaching for more than 30 years at Murray State. She'll be talking about agency for both men and women - and people's sense of control over their own lives. This can vary across countries - for instance, if you own a goat, who controls what happens to the goat's milk or its kids?
Dr. Laura Sullivan-Beckers is an associate professor of biology and will be talking about sexual differentiation in the animal kingdom - challenging what we know about how the sexes are formed.
"When we first get started as human beings, you know, you're one cell large, the male and female bodies are essentially identical, and we go through this very complicated process where some switches are turned on, some switches are turned off, some are turned up, some are turned down... it's just a much messier process than most people know and there's a lot more variation involved than I think most people realize."
Sullivan-Beckers says attendees might be in for some surprises and fun facts about biology. For instance, all clownfish are born male. But over time, if environmental and social cues are just so, it can trigger a sex change for a clownfish to become female.
It's not just women that the event is speaking to, Mary Tripp Reed says the festivities are for all, "This is for everyone for sure. Men have a lot of women in their lives. And men have agency themselves. And what kind of agency, what kind of decisions are they making, what are they taking into account. And just understanding that across the world."
International Women's Day activities at Waterfield Library begin at 10 a.m. on Friday.
