 media access. I'm your host Emily Ritten and today joining me is president of the DHS Feminism Club, Willa Moffett. Thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for having me. I'm so glad you're here to talk about your club and what you guys are doing around campus right now. So why don't you first introduce yourself, talk about when you got involved in Feminism Club and what your role is and what you guys do. So I first joined Feminism Club last year with my friend Anna Gao. We're kind of young sophomores. Most of the people in the club are seniors so we're kind of nervous but we felt like we heard about it I think on the bulletin at the high school and thought it was something we kind of just wanted to do together. So we went to like every meeting last year but not a lot happened. We didn't really do that many events and then as the year progressed and the seniors left, the club kind of fell apart. So this year I kind of in the beginning of the year when you can start opening up new clubs I decided to fill out the paperwork to make Feminism Club happen again because last year they never filled out a continuing club application so I did that and then kind of made myself the president because there was really no one else. Yeah so what did you notice about Feminism Club last year that you kind of took note of and wanted to change about it this year? Well I noticed is that we spent a lot of time talking about things which is fine but also that nothing ever really happened. So by talking about things do you mean talking about issues or talking about planning things and then never actually executing them? Both. We began there with like a lot larger club membership base. I don't even know maybe had like 20 people would come to a meeting and some different people different times but that soon quickly kind of fell apart and we I remember one time when the Emma Watson Heat for She UN thing happened we did a discussion that didn't really go anywhere because only a couple people would talk which is fine because they were just experimenting I think but then we would talk about doing a movie night and then getting the funding for the movie night and then that just never happened and then it became May and then June and then school ended so how's that changed this year? I'd say it hasn't completely changed we're still kind of I think the problem is is for a lot of people we have had maintained a kind of the same number of members this year which is really nice to see but it's kind of hard for people to stop just talking and start doing things. Yeah well what are you doing right now you guys are doing something right now right well so yeah then we're doing the supply drive from Power Yellow which is a domestic violence shelter in the area I think they began in Davis I think not exactly sure there's a center in Woodland and now I think they're actually opening a smaller center in Davis awesome so that one I think was good that we did it and it wasn't even that hard to do we just had to take initiative and make something happen awesome so what do you have to do so how what kind of things are people fundraising like what how can you help is it money is it food what is it yeah well so you can donate money you can go on their site and they have some donate buttons but because it's hard to ask high school students to just give money to things we are doing the supply drive for like household goods and just supplies like things to help clean the bathroom or like feminine products kind of towels things like that that are easy for a high school kid to just say hey mom can you guys at the grocery store and it's things you have in your house and things you would normally buy so you just pick up an extra item and then drop it off in a box yeah great so there is there any incentive for the high school kids to donate did you how are you guys getting people to donate well there's the incentive of doing something good yes but we also got into touch with the one of the service clubs CSF on campus and had asked them if they would make it one of their projects and if they make it a CSF event then if kids donate they will count them as volunteer hours and that's always something that kids are looking for so I think that's really helped this year and that's something we didn't do last year and when there was actually a supply drive last year but no one on campus donated they had boxes at Lake the library and a lot of members of the community did which we haven't done this year because we have gotten donations at the high school but so I think it does show it that the CSF I think made a difference awesome so do you have any other plans or hopes for the club in the future I'm hoping next year I think I'll probably be present still unless someone else decides they want to tell you know how that system works but I feel like everyone's pretty happy at this point I think next year with the experience that I had this year I'll be able to like figure out okay we need to start doing things earlier and planning ahead and maybe setting up some different projects lined up in the beginning year that'll happen at the end so for this year I think we're just gonna continue being more of a social club where people girls can just come and talk and share things because I think that's important too is it's not that we're just eating lunch together we are talking about issues and things that affect us in the classroom and other things are going on in social media and things like and stuff like that so that's great like a totally that's the whole point of Featherna's Club is kind of coming together and talking about all the things that need to be changed and stuff so how have you gotten so at the beginning of the year how did you get people to join did you just tell your friends did what did you do yeah well I think I I began with just telling friends that I knew and part of the Club application process is you have to have 15 kind of student sponsors in a way just like writing down names of people that would potentially be in your club so that the ASB knows that there are people who actually want this to be a club on campus and so I think a lot of those most they're all girls I think actually but I think they all I thought would want and most of them came from there and then from there I told other friends of mine and their friends told their friends I think we put an announcement in the bulletin which got some girls to come on their own awesome so how do the girls kind of stay together through like social media and stuff because I know that plays a huge role in everyone's life and that can also be kind of a tool for raising awareness for the club and raising awareness for other issues yeah so we I created an email at dhsfeminismclub at gmail.com just as kind of a way we can get in touch with things like empower yolo or when we bought our t-shirts and that kind of has some of our just on the Google Drive we keep some sort of supplies and lists of names and then we created an iMessage on the Apple iPhones to keep in contact and then I can text that and say oh there's a meeting or do this or then some other girls sometimes be like oh there's this thing that just happened this is something we should talk about and then to kind of reach to a group larger than just the members of the club I made an Instagram account so and then we have followers who are mostly in the club but there's also a lot of other kids who just go to the high school or there's met some of the followers were in the club last year before there was an Instagram and it's kind of a way to keep everyone connected. Awesome so have you posted about the drive on the Instagram? I have not but I just gave you that awesome idea. You gotta post about it. So when does this drive end at the high school? It ends March 30th technically I mean if anyone ran up to me with donations in April I'm sure I'd be willing to take them but we kind of just made it March the time frame because it's women's history month and it's good to have just a general start and end date for things like this. So it's women's history month this is like the perfect month for your club what kind of other things are you doing other than this drive? Yeah so kind of women's history month I think we decided like oh we should really do stuff so we've been doing kind of everything we've done this year has actually happened kind of in March because on International Women's Day which was March 8th we sort of got this sort of luncheon actually it was on March 9th but that's okay this sort of potluck luncheon thing where we just had a bunch of different people brought food and we sort of hung out kind of to celebrate and then one of the girls in the club who's the vice president she made these posters that had information about different famous women in history and the other day we put those up around campus and then we're planning on putting some announcements in the bulletin to kind of promote the club but also just kind of promote women and feminism in general. That's awesome so these wonderful shirts are so cool and someone from the club made them right? Yeah so Sophie Agax she's been really helpful with everything because she's really into art and stuff so she helped design the shirt she helped me contact Ink Monkey and order them and then she also helped me design these different like pins that we everyone has on their backpacks. That's so great. What kind of pins what do they say? Okay so there's one that has a picture of Barack Obama wearing like a Versace shirt and holding a slurpee I think it's Photoshopped but it says not a feminist berries judging and then there's a picture of Malala Yusofsai and says girl power and then the last one is of Hermione Granger and says smart girls are feminists I think yeah. That's awesome. Just kind of a fun thing and you can see people in the hallways wearing it on their backpack and you're like hey that supports our club. Yeah and so the goal is to get people to come and then hopefully promote a bigger cause like empower yellow. Do you know about any other organizations that you might want to be in touch with in the future? I don't actually I think the to me the obvious one was empower yellow but I mean if there are others. Yeah totally I think we could all kind of work together and try to find some ways to promote women's rights and help women all over because there are so many different ways that we can do that. Yeah well I think it's great. Yeah I think that was the biggest goal of the club that school isn't necessarily to have everyone join feminism club but that to have people understand the feminist message and that it's kind of all-inclusive it doesn't have to be a dirty word because I think there's a lot of misconceptions even in a pretty liberal town like Davis. Yeah. About what being a feminist means. Definitely and so like on your posters around campus those are the kinds of things you want to promote right is because the people who are in the club are the ones that already know the true message of feminism so what kind of things do you hope to promote about the idea of feminism? Just that it's not it's not it's can be complicated at times depend but in general it's just about equality and understanding and that it doesn't have to be a conflict between men and women or different types of women and that you just everyone kind of a general female focused message of equality. Definitely. So and like coming together like this it's not just about your opinions of things it's also about you know we can raise money or raise items for women who are suffering and you know who are experiencing domestic abuse or other issues and that's wonderful that you are able to help out in some way with that so I'm so glad that you were able to be here and talk about it. Well thank you. Yeah thank you so much for being here today if you want to know more about feminism club they do have an Instagram page what's that Instagram? DHS Feminism Club and if you want to donate to empower YOLO you can go to the drive you can find a little box if you go to DHS or if you are in the Davis area and you would like to donate you can go to Davis High School campus and find a box is there anyway like do you know any classrooms that have the box? Yes room L28 which is upstairs in the library and P20 I'm pretty sure which is an English classroom. Awesome. Yeah and if you're in CSF you'll get CSF hours for that but if not it would be great for you to donate anyway and if you cannot make that time frame you can donate any time to empower YOLO or find Willa at school or come to Feminism Club what is it? Wednesdays at lunch. Yeah come to Feminism Club it'll be an awesome time so you can also go to empower YOLO.org to find out more about what empower YOLO does and hopefully Feminism Club will reach out to some other organizations and we'll be able to help a little bit more. So thanks so much for being here today I'm your host Emily Merton if you want to know more about Davis Media Access you can go to DCTV.Davismedia.org thanks so much for watching.