When designing Beyond Suffrage, our objective was to build bridges between the experience of women and girls today with past generations. Students created art and audio storytelling pieces around questions of female representation and experience. We designed each session to expand our students’ understanding of the complexity of the women’s movement since the days of the Suffragettes, to increase their exposure to issues of female discrimination, to embed discussions of societal norms around gender, and to provide them with opportunities for conversations with women in their own communities as well as in various professional domains.
As students interviewed their peers asking them about their realities they gained insight into the ongoing struggles women face. Paloma, a Y9 student who wanted to learn more about her Puerto Rican grandmother, discovered that her grandmother was one of the first women from the island to build a successful career in microbiology. This inspired Paloma to research the history of women in the field, which led her to discover Alice Catherine Evans, who, in the early 1900s, was one of the only female microbiologists to work for the Department of Agriculture. Paloma created a collage in homage to the two pioneering women, complete with microscopes and lab coats to celebrate women in science.
The art component allowed students to think about how to communicate these complex notions visually. To represent struggle or progress through a piece that is telling the story both personally and also on a societal level.