Caltech
celebrates women’s history
Women’s
History Month has begun at Caltech, and with it come events that celebrate
and honor the history, achievements, and lives of women everywhere.
The month’s
activities were kicked off on March 2 with a visit and talk by biologist
and author Rita Arditti. In her book Searching for Life, Dr.
Arditti writes eloquently of the courageously resolute Argentinean women
known as the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. Having lost sons and daughters
during the “dirty war” waged by the military dictatorships
on students and dissidents, the women worked tirelessly as detectives
to find their grandchildren. An estimated 500 of these children were either
kidnapped or born in detention centers and then “adopted”
by friends of the regimes. The women’s work culminated in the establishment
of the first Argentinean genetic databank and the recovery of 57 children
from an estimated pool of 500 missing.
Lunchtime
visitors to the Women’s Center on March 8 joined in a day celebrated
around the world as International Women’s Day. For the event “The
Status of Women Globally,” visitors heard college students and postdocs
from around the world—China, Ghana, Greece, and Venezuela—discuss
both improvements in the status of women as well as the challenges that
they still face.
Later on
March 8, the Caltech International Film Club hosted a screening of Rosa
Luxemburg, a film about the life of a left-wing social democrat who
rose to lead pre–World War I socialists in Germany and then, after
the war, in Poland, her birth country. Luxemburg was eventually assassinated
for her pacifist beliefs and her stance against colonialism.
It was a
homecoming of sorts on March 9 for France Córdova, PhD ’79,
the chancellor of UC Riverside, during her visit and presentation of a
Caltech Presidential Lecture on Achieving Diversity in Science, Math,
and Engineering. As a graduate student at Caltech, Córdova studied
astrophysics, and on her visit she presented a lecture fittingly titled
“Stars in Her Eyes: From Poet to Rocket Scientist to Chancellor.”
On March
10, the Caltech community will be treated to a screening of Tupperware!,
a PBS documentary that reveals the secret behind one of the most successful
food storage systems. The secret was the freedom and financial wherewithal
that the containers that burp afforded women, who could sell these items
from home. The film is scheduled for March 10 at noon, on the second floor
of the Center for Student Services. A free pizza lunch will be provided.
“What’s
a Girl Got to Be Angry About?” is the title to Lela Lee’s
Voices of Vision talk, which will be presented on March 31 in Beckman
Auditorium. The answer: plenty, as demonstrated in Angry Little Asian
Girl, a comic strip into which Lee channels her anger and personal
experiences with a good dose of humor.
Throughout
the month, the International Women of Hope Poster Series, a display of
posters depicting the courage, compassion, and triumphs of women around
the world, will be on display in the lobby of the Center for Student Services.
Take a minute to learn the inspiring stories of people like Ella Bhatt,
a social worker who founded India’s first women’s cooperative
bank and the Self-Employed Women’s Association; Peace Bikunda, the
woman who founded the Clinic of Hope to treat survivors of the 1994 massacres
in Rwanda; and Mary Robinson, Ireland’s first female president and
a champion of human rights.
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