On Sunday, April 27, the Anderson Pavilion was brought to life with colorful decorations, bright attitudes and community as the first ever Augustana for Reproductive Justice (A4RJ) gathering took place.    

A4RJ came about from a student group who decided to host an event celebrating and discussing reproductive justice as part of a social activism project for Jane Simonsen’s Feminist Theory course. The event featured local Quad Cities reproductive justice groups, HeyJane(y) and Co., Condom Fairy, a panel of speakers, food and raffle baskets.

Senior Janey Locander, one of the founding members of A4RJ and the founder of HeyJane(y) and Co., said the event stemmed from an idea she and fellow advocate Keela Sawyer had during the fall semester.   

“We originally wanted to put on the Turnaway play since it’s about women across the United States that have been denied abortions,” Locander said. “However, it was kind of hard to try and get that together in just a few months. But we really wanted to keep the theme of reproductive justice, which led us to A4RJ.”   

Instead of featuring the Turnaway play, students performed the Vagina Monologues, a series of stories about women’s reproductive organs and their sexual health. These monologues were read aloud and encompassed the goal of the event: to discuss reproductive justice, health and rights. 

Not only did the group push to bring back the Vagina Monologues, a once annual reading on the campus, but they worked to address reproductive care access on Augustana’s campus. The group went to different leaders around campus to discuss how Augustana’s reproductive care can be improved and how the campus as a whole can improve on having and promoting sexual health resources for students.

Mak Winkiel, another of the event’s organizers, said that one of the biggest parts of this event was to let the Augustana community know what resources are available to them and how they can access them.

“We all know about the condom boxes in residence halls and the products in the bathrooms,” Winkiel said. “Those are supposed to be filled regularly by school staff. They are only being filled by students right now.

A4RJ is just one of the many projects students have launched over the past few months. Other groups advocating for justice include Students Supporting WGSS (SSWGSS), who are pushing for the WGSS program to become a full department; Students Supporting Survivors (SSS), who are organizing a clothing drive to raise funds for survivors of domestic abuse; and Augie for World Relief, who are rallying against cuts to refugee programs.

Jane Simonsen, a professor of history and educator in the WGSS program, said she wanted to create an opportunity for her students to apply what they had learned in the classroom to their communities. 

“Theory, in this case feminist theory, has always come out of people’s experiences of inequality and oppression,” Simonsen said. “But it’s also applied to those problems in order to help solve them. I didn’t want theory to be something abstract, but something that comes out of action. So I think it’s important that students both understand that thinking about inequality, thinking about gender equality and thinking about activism is useful because it gets stuff done.”

The students of Feminist Theories continue to advocate for changes that deeply impact our communities. Their efforts showcase what the Augustana community is capable of. 

“There are people out there that are willing to help you access these resources,” Winkiel said. “There are people out there that are fighting for your right to access them, because just ignoring these issues don’t make them go away.”