On the third floor, there’s a big pink poster on the beige hallway walls that is relatively new and has been there for a few months. Each day students walk past it, some may glance, others may stare, and some just ignore it. But the poster still remains there.
What does the poster say?
The poster is an advertisement for Women in Politics Club: a club that meets every Tuesday from 3:40 to 4:40 in room 361. Women in Politics Club was founded by Greta Blaugh, Gabby Guryan, and Samantha Kirr because they wanted a place for women to have political conversations, especially after all of the events in U.S. politics this year.
“After the presidential election this year, we were all feeling like we needed a place to kind of talk about it, and it’s not always a topic to talk about with your friends,” Kirr said. “And so, we kind of felt like we were missing something that we needed, and [we needed] a place to discuss politics and how we felt in it.”
And, in New Trier classrooms, females were having trouble speaking up and voicing their opinions as well.
“In our school, sometimes I’ve heard stories and even had personal experiences with being a girl in a classroom and talking about something political that is maybe targeted more towards women,” Guryan said. “And it’s kind of uncomfortable. It almost feels like maybe when you’re talking sometimes you don’t have totally the freedom to say whatever you want because you feel like the other people around you are going to judge.”
At New Trier, the only political club option before Women in Politics was the New Trier Political Journal. However, Women in Politics Club offers females a safe space to discuss politics at New Trier. The club fosters a female community for learning and discussing politics.
“There are a lot of issues that pertain to the demographic of women and maybe don’t pertain to other demographics as much. And so it’s important for there to be a safe space for people who identify as girls, as women [or] as people who want to speak to those topics, and want to feel that their voices are validated and that they’re okay to speak up,” club sponsor and civics teacher Chloe Brim said.
Members do weekly activities such as a question of the day to foster community, a current event of the week to stay informed, and an activity relating to a theme of the month. Besides their weekly activities, the rest of the club time has varied from members doing policy debates to build perspective to exploring important female political figures.
“We always want to make sure that every person has an opportunity to dive into both sides, and that we’re not always talking about one side because that could lead to bias[ed] opinions,” Guryan said. “We don’t want to force a specific opinion on anyone. We want to give them the information there so that they can create their own opinions about things.”
The co-heads also put time into their research for planning each activity to prevent presenting a one-sided view.
“When we’re creating presentations, we have to look at multiple different sources on the current event to make sure that we’re not showing a biased opinion, and we have to do a bunch of background knowledge to be able to present what we’re talking about,” Blaugh said.
After each club meeting, the co-heads send a survey out to their club members in order to ensure that members are satisfied with the club activities. Through their members, the co-heads have received positive feedback, which helps them plan activities for the upcoming club meetings.
“[Women in Politics] is a space for the members, so we want them to get the most out of it, and so we want to listen to their perspectives to figure out what we might need to alter to make that happen. Especially, because we’re a new club, we want to make sure that we create what people want,” Kirr said.
As the year has progressed, the leadership has seen an increase in females contributing to the conversation.
“I have seen the confidence of a lot of the girls who started in that club start to soar at least within that space,” Brim said. “Kids who didn’t necessarily speak up before are speaking up in our club and it’s cool to see not only their own ideologies coming to life, but also seeing that that self-esteem in them be boosted.”
This also has made for better political discussions during club meetings.
“As we’ve progressed on, so many more girls are volunteering and they’re even leading their own discussions that we’re not even starting,” Guryan said. “People are asking questions that I wouldn’t even think of. Everyone is so much more involved.”
In the future, Guryan and Kirrhope to continue their goals and to leave the club to underclassmen who will continue to run Women in Politics as a safe place for anyone to discuss politics.
“I hope that when we leave it gets carried on and that it’s still going to be ran as well or even better,” Blaugh said.