Harvard College Women’s Center Hosts 17th Annual Women’s Week

The Harvard College Women’s Center organized a series of events, titled “Embodied,” last week to celebrate its 17th annual Women’s Week.

The events, planned by the Women’s Center and various Harvard student organizations, focused on the role of women within society and included film screenings, career chats, discussion panels, and even dance classes to highlight women’s history and presence in the world.

Women’s Week has occurred annually since the establishment of Harvard College Women’s Center in 2007. The programming seeks to include a diverse set of panels focusing on personhood, women’s presence in STEM, the Latina experience, and South Asian motherhood in addition to many other topics.

According to Alejandra Rincon, assistant director of the Women’s Center, the aim of the program is to increase awareness of the importance of gender equity, celebrate the accomplishments of women and gender-expansive people and create spaces for Harvard affiliates to share their “varied and intersectional experiences.”

Karen Choi ’25, who co-organized Women’s Week with Jenna N. Cohn ’22-’23, said the Women’s Center works to amplify a diverse array of voices on campus in all of its efforts. Choi said this year’s theme for Women’s Week was inspired by recent movements for bodily autonomy, hence the name “Embodied.”

“I think it’s all about curating a safe space for people on campus,” she said.

Among the events planned were “Mental Health Spotlight: The Intersection of Gender and Wellness,” “Tropes of Bodily Femininity in Asian Women,” and “Dismantling Rape Culture.”

Alice Wu ’25, who moderated a panel on women in statistics and data science hosted by the Group for Undergraduates in Statistics at Harvard College, said the goal of the event was to “provide an open forum to let women in these generally male-dominated fields share their experience with students.”

“I’m in Stat 171 right now, and I think that class is probably something along the lines of like 80 percent men,” she said.

Rincon wrote to The Crimson that the week’s events gave students the opportunity to have important conversations surrounding women’s issues.

“Dialogue is so important for our goal to challenge, motivate, and inspire students and communities to pursue gender equity in all its intersectional manifestations,” she wrote.

“We also would love to remind students that gender equity is for all and we welcome people of all genders to join us for our programming,” Rincon added.

—Staff writer Hana Rostami can be reached at hana.rostami@thecrimson.com.