Office of Institutional Safety & Equity (OISE) |
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Women’s History celebrated in March by U.S. Presidential proclamation
March was designated as Women’s History Month by a U.S. Presidential proclamation to honor women’s contributions to American history. In February 1980, President Jimmy Carter issued the first Presidential Proclamation declaring the Week of March 8, 1980 as National Women’s History Week, and in 1987, Congress expanded it to an entire month.
This year’s Women’s History Month theme is “Valiant Women of the Vote: Refusing to Be Silenced.”
Did You Know...
Women's History Month is an ideal time to celebrate the talented women who have influenced PAFA’s history, and the important role women have played in shaping the PAFA community. The exhibition catalog, “The Female Gaze: Women Artists Making Their World,” composed entirely of works from the Linda Lee Alter Collection of Art by Women, touts PAFA as an international leader in fine arts education for women. In 1810, women artists were invited to PAFA’s first annual exhibition. The art school charter from the same year included admission for men and women. While the first women students enrolled in 1840, Sarah Miriam Peale (a portrait and still-life painter) and Anna Claypoole Peale (a portrait painter) were the first women academicians. Cecilia Beaux joined PAFA’s faculty in 1895 and became the first women professor at a coeducational art school. Two women of color earned “firsts” at PAFA:
- May Howard Jackson—first African American woman to earn a full-tuition scholarship to attend PAFA (1895).
- Laura Wheeler Waring—first African American woman to win the William Emlen Cresson Travel Scholarship, still our most prestigious student award (1914).
Hats off to the women that paved the way in the early days of PAFA’s history!
March 8 is celebrated as International Womxn’s Day
Beginning as part of a socialist movement for greater women's rights, this day was first celebrated on the last Sunday in February by the Conference of Socialist Women in Copenhagen in 1910. It was later changed to March 8 to honor the role of women in the Russian Revolution. In the 1960s, the resurgence of feminism served to renew interest in International Women’s Day as a day to celebrate women’s lives and work.
The International Women’s Day theme for 2021 is #ChooseToChallenge: "We can all choose to challenge and call out gender bias and inequality."
Show Support for the Womxn at PAFA
Please raise your hand, strike the Choose To Challenge pose, and show that you're committed to calling out inequality. Share your photo on the OISE Community Board using #ChooseToChallenge #IWD2021.
Learn more about the International Women's Day challenge on IWD's website.
-- Dr. Lisa Biagas
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Mark Your Calendars for WOMXNSCAPE |
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Hear perspectives from women artists, leaders, and trailblazers in our community. |
We invite you to join us on Saturday, March 27, 2021 from 10am-12:30pm on ZOOM for WOMXNSCAPE, a women-centric half-day workshop for PAFA staff, faculty & students.
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WOMXNSCAPE is a space for us to check in on each other and talk about issues that particularly affect us as women.
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Last week, Prof. Raél Jero Salley lead a conversation with our PAFA community on "Creating Black Futures". Prof. Salley has extended an invitation to our PAFA community to join "The Space" as it welcomes academic and arts writer,
Lisa Brock for its Womxn's History Month program.
Friday, March 5, 2021
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Expanding Our Commitment to Include ALL Womxn |
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"As we honor many influential and powerful womxn during Women’s History Month for their strength and achievements, we are also taking our own steps forward with a rebrand that upholds those same ideals of equality and inclusivity.[...]
Making meaningful shifts often starts by becoming more intentional around language. It made sense, then, to choose a name for the ERG that reflected a broader and more inclusive scope of the community it represented."
-- Suzanne McGovern
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Ways You Can Celebrate
Women's History Month
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Support Women-Owned Businesses!
Together, we can create a great future for every woman.
When you support women-owned businesses, you are investing in women's economic empowerment, gender parity in commerce, vibrant communities, and the growth of the economy overall. Buying women-owned is both socially conscious and economically sound.
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This month OISE encourages you to support and purchase products from Philly based womxn-owned businesses. |
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"PAFA’s Linda Lee Alter Collection of Art by Women spans the 1910s to the first decade of the 21st century. All media are represented, including ceramics, photography, painting, sculpture, assemblage, as well as works on paper. More than 150 artists are represented—from the well-known to the underappreciated—including works by artists not previously in PAFA’s collection such as Louise Bourgeois, Kiki Smith, Joan Brown, Viola Frey, Ana Mendieta, Christina Ramberg, and Beatrice Wood (among others), as well as complementary works by artists already in PAFA’s collection such as Alice Neel, Louise Nevelson, Gertrude Abercrombie, Edna Andrade, Sue Coe, Janet Fish, Sarah McEneaney, Gladys Nilsson, Elizabeth Osborne, Betye Saar, and Nancy Spero." |
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LINDA LEE ALTER COLLECTION OF ART BY WOMEN |
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We challenge you to check PAFA’s Diversity Awareness Calendar monthly and attend monthly OISE sponsored events. OISE will send out an email with more information about the calendar.
Being an ally for a S.A.F.E. Community at PAFA
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