Chapter 20: The Gender Equity Club

In the winter of 2014, two high school sophomores came up to me and said, “Bordwell, can we talk to you?” When students come up to you with a certain tone asking that question, you know something is bothering them. We stood in the entryway of my classroom and they told me that our school needed to have a gender equality club. I asked them why they wanted the club and they told me a long list of concerns including: the persistent wage gap, misogynistic comments by teachers and students, and the lack of women included in curricula. They were right and on our own the three of us could commiserate and make micro changes, but we were not in a position to change systems or disrupt the status quo. I challenged them to think about what they would want this club to do and a week later we met, decided that we wanted to do advocacy work, and the Gender Equity Club, or GEC, was formed. (We had a discussion if we wanted to use equality or equity and the latter term seemed to be more appropriate.)