Middle School boys kicked off Women’s History Month in March with a visit from two speakers from YWCA Greenwich.
Leslie Coplin, prevention and outreach coordinator, and Eric Crosby, director of women’s empowerment and racial justice, spoke to boys in a Zoom assembly on Wednesday, March 9.
The two briefly named and celebrated two of their own personal heroes in women’s achievement, and then led the boys through a game called Crazy Things Women Couldn’t Do.
Women, the two told students, could not attend Ivy League colleges until well into the 20th century. Princeton started admitting women in 1969; Harvard began “gender-blind” admissions in 1977.
Likewise, until 1978, women could be denied jobs and could be fired from jobs if they became pregnant.
And, until the mid 1970s, women were not able to get credit cards without the signature of their husbands.
Coplin and Crosby asked students to think about the impact these obstacles had on women and girls, but also what they meant for men and boys; students offered all sorts of thoughtful reactions around stereotypes.
“With stereotypes, another way to think of them is scripts,” Crosby said. “We want you to think about the scripts you have been given. Are there scripts you want to rewrite?”