Appleton North students recently created a club to inform its students on the impact gender roles and inequality have on our society and even our day to day life. This is the second year of Gender Equality Club and members are hard at work to accomplish as much as they can during the school year in progress towards gender equality.

Gender Equality Club was started last year by, graduate, Ella Janson, and senior, Molly Biskupic. The club is advised by Mrs. Lee and is currently led by senior, Molly Biskupic, senior, Jacie Jones, and sophomore, Amara Neitzke. Gender Equality Club meets the first Thursday of every month. With sixty students attending the first meeting, turnouts for future meetings are expected to be large. The meetings are usually held in the LGI, under Mrs. J. Lee during IE.

Gender Equality Club tries to cover a new subject every month. For the first meeting, they covered gender norms and gender roles. Next month, in November, they plan on talking about the history of gender equality. Later on in the year they hope to cover religion, rape culture, and general objectification. Molly Biskupic said that the club is, “education based so we just do whatever people feel like they need to know more about. Educating yourself on the issues is important… the biggest weapon is knowledge.”

The club leaders have many goals to accomplish by the end of the year. Leader Amara Neitzke said, “it’s really important that we educate people. I think there’s a lot of misconceptions about feminism and about our movement.” Jacie Jones added, “and spreading the knowledge that we still need gender equality, we’re not there yet. Not here, not anywhere else in the world, and it’s an ongoing issue.”

The club also has events that they plan on organizing throughout the the year. They plan to take a trip outside of school to see a movie about the British women’s movement for voting rights. They also plan to have a speaker with majors in women’s and gender studies to come and speak to the club some time during second semester.

The Gender Equality Club at North is a place where students can not only learn about gender equality but take part in the spread of gender equality. Because after all, as Jones said, “almost all gender equality issues stem from ignorance, so the best way to combat ignorance is to educate people and make them aware.”