We spend a lot of time focusing on gender equality issues (gender discrimination, equal pay, and sexual harassment, to name a few), but in honor of Women’s History Month, spend some time looking back at our local and national history and reflect on how women of the past paved the way for future generations of female change-makers.

Women’s History Month at the B&O
March 1-31. Throughout Women’s History Month, visit this downtown museum to learn about the history of women’s involvement in the railroad industry and how they helped to construct the B&O Railroad. B&O Railroad Museum, 901 W. Pratt St. Mon.-Sat. 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Sun. 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Free.

Conjure Woman: Faith Healers, Hoodoo, and Spirituality
March 2. Spend the afternoon exploring the history of conjure women in the black community, featuring a discussion and lecture about the roots of the mystical tradition. The Reginald F. Lewis Museum, 830 E. Pratt St. 1 p.m. Free-$8.

Celebrating Lillie May Carroll Jackson
March 7. In a partnership with the Walters Art Museum and Morgan State University, ceramic works by Robert Lugo featuring portraits of prominent Baltimore civil rights leader Lillie May Carroll Jackson and her daughter Juanita Jackson Mitchell will be on display at 1 West Mount Vernon Place. Attend this special talk to hear from experts at the Walters about the life and legacy of these two women. Lillie May Carroll Jackson Museum, 1320 Eutaw Pl. 6:30-7:15 p.m. Free.

Women Artists in Antiquity
March 10. Hear Patrick Crowley, assistant professor of art history at the University of Chicago, give a thought-provoking lecture about contributions from female artists of antiquity. The Walters Art Museum, 600 N. Charles St. 2-3:30 p.m. Free.

Maryland Women Through History
March 15. Presented by the Maryland Historical Society, this afternoon program examines the lives of historical local women from colonial times through the 20th century, with a special emphasis on Baltimore socialite Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte. Enoch Pratt Free Library, 1303 Orleans St. 1 p.m. Free.

Women of the Wine World
March 28. Learn about how the centuries-old world of wine was shaped by women, and take notes on prominent female winemakers who continue to produce some of the most sought-after bottles of reds and whites. Bin 604, 604 S. Exeter St. 6-8 p.m. $10.

Women in Maryland
March 31. From spies and detectives to suffragists, local author Lauren Silberman will share her research on some of the Old Line State’s most noteworthy women. B&O Ellicott City Station Museum, 3711 Maryland Ave., Ellicott City. 3 p.m. $12.

President Donald Trump nominated judge Brett Kavanaugh to replace Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy following his retirement at the end of the month. Kavanaugh, an appellate courts judge in Washington, D.C., who worked in George W. Bush’s White House, will be Trump’s second Supreme Court nominee since taking office.

“In keeping with President Reagan’s legacy, I do not ask about a nominee’s personal opinions,” Trump said in the announcement. “What matters is not a judge’s political views but whether they can set aside those views to do what the law and the Constitution require. I am pleased to say that I have found, without doubt, such a person.”

While many may not have heard of him until yesterday, here is some background on the latest Supreme Court Justice nominee, who is a native of Bethesda:

Kavanaugh has decades of experience as a federal judge.
After graduating from Yale Law School, he was plunged into politics when he was charged with investigating President Bill Clinton’s deputy counsel Vincent Foster. He also later laid the groundwork for impeaching Clinton following the president’s affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

In December 2000, with the presidential race between Al Gore and George W. Bush undecided, Kavanaugh joined the Republican legal team that won the fight to stop the ballot recount in Florida. He was then nominated in 2003 by President George W. Bush to the appeals court and was confirmed in 2006. Since then, he has written nearly 300 opinions and has taken stances on several Obama-era environmental regulations including efforts to limit greenhouse gases and hazardous air pollutants.

He describes his judicial philosophy as “straightforward.”
Kavanaugh has said in the past that he does not believe that there is a such thing as Democratic or Republican judges. He believes that there is only one kind of judge under the constitution.

“A judge must be independent and must interpret the law, not make the law,” Kavanaugh said. “A judge must interpret statutes as written. And a judge must interpret the Constitution as written, informed by history and tradition and precedent.”

He portrays himself as an advocate for women.
The judge spoke at length about his wife and two daughters, even mentioning that it was his mother who first introduced him to law. These comments are particularly examined because his nomination is expected to center around his views on abortion and access to contraception.

Democrats on Capitol Hill are prepared to rally in defense of Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion rights decision. They also fear that LGBTQ rights and same-sex marriage could be overturned by the court with Kavanaugh’s nomination. But, it is unclear how soon those decisions will be made.

Kavanaugh once worked for his predecessor.
He clerked for Kennedy on the Supreme Court in the early 1990s alongside Justice Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s first Supreme Court pick. Although Kavanaugh is a protégé of Kennedy, he is more conservative and may not share his views on cases regarding civil and women’s rights.

His history in D.C. will provide the opposition with ammunition to deny his appointment. Last fall, Kavanaugh ruled against an immigrant teenager in federal custody who sought to terminate her pregnancy. But he did not go as far as another D.C. Circuit judge who said the teen had no constitutional right to an elective abortion.

He values family, church, and basketball.
Kavanaugh grew up in Bethesda and attended Georgetown Preparatory School, the same Jesuit high school as Gorsuch. He is an observant Catholic, regularly attending church at the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Northwest D.C.

He met his wife, Ashley, while they were both working at the White House under President Bush. The couple has two daughters together and Kavanaugh has coached their basketball teams for the past seven years. Following President Trump’s announcement, Kavanaugh event cracked a joke about Duke’s men basketball coach Mike Kryzyzewski.

“I have two spirited daughters,” he said. “Margaret loves sports and she loves to read. Liza loves sports and she loves to talk . . . The girls on the [basketball] team call me Coach K.”

Last Saturday, Notre Dame of Maryland University hosted the second iteration of the Women of the World (WOW) Festival, a one-day event that featured a full schedule of panels, performances, workshops, and activities addressing the challenges and accomplishments of women and girls today. As a panelist, I had the opportunity to attend the event, hear from incredible activists, and reflect on the conversations and sessions throughout the day.

Since its launch in 2010 by Southbank Centre artist director Jude Kelly, the WOW Festival has become a visionary movement fighting for gender equality across the globe. It has reached nearly two million people in countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, India, and Pakistan, to name a few. And while it’s only been two years since the festival was first held in Baltimore, it’s been a huge success, bringing in famed speakers and attracting large crowds.

Maricka Oglesby, WOW Baltimore curator and producer, explains that Kelly thought the university was the perfect place to host the event, especially as the last standing all-women’s college in Maryland. “We have similar missions of transforming the world, and this is how it comes about—through sharing ideas, concepts, and experiences,” Oglesby says.

The festival kicked things off on Saturday morning with just that. In the opening keynote speech, Tarana Burke, the founder of the #MeToo movement, touched on topics like the misconceptions surrounding the campaign and the importance of listening to sexual assault survivors’ stories. But what was most inspiring—and necessary—is how the movement has created a space for women of color to come forward and share their own stories of abuse. “People from different identities have to take ownership of this movement and stand up,” Burke explains. “That’s how we grow.”

In fact, this theme of inclusivity and intersectionality was evident throughout the entire festival. The program was refreshingly diverse, offering sessions led by or involving minority women.

One such was called “Self-Care for Women of Color,” a workshop that focused on the barriers preventing women of color from utilizing self-care practices. In a small mock café space, a large group of minority women of all ages shared their thoughts on what self-care looks like—from getting mani-pedis to taking mental breaks—and what prohibits them from successfully integrating these practices in their daily lives—from generational stress to the exhaustion of navigating through a predominantly white workplace. Across the room, a young woman raised her hand and boldly chimed in the conversation, summing up the experience that many women of color go through. “We assume we’re good, but that doesn’t always mean we are,” she says. “There’s a lot of expectation for us to work 10 times harder to prove ourselves to the rest of society.”

In another session, the conversation about intersectionality materialized into a board game. Natalie Gillard, assistant vice president of Multicultural Experience at Stevenson University, facilitated a 90-minute crash course about structural inequality through Factuality, a board game she created. Participants played a Monopoly-style game where each person selected a character with intersecting identities such as race, gender, sexual orientation, and class. The players moved across the board with a series of fact-based advantages and limitations based on these intersections.

“The groups were clearly affected by the statistics and directives,” Gillard reflects. “I saw people who were playing on the more privileged side—like those who played rich, white, male, heterosexual characters—act more jovial, while those on the opposite side felt increasingly frustrated.”

Structural inequalities were not only discussed on a domestic level, but also an international one. In the panel “Activism Beyond Borders,” I joined three women activists who used their privilege and knowledge to assist women oppressed in their societies through the lack of education and proper healthcare.

Several sessions also offered safe spaces to talk about topics like sex and transgender identities. In the Sex Café, attendees debunked myths about sex, love, and relationships with Vanessa Geffrard, founder of VagEsteem. Meanwhile, in “Transgender Activism: On Our Own Terms,” Monica Stevens, founding member of the Baltimore Transgender Alliance, explored how transgender and non-binary people interact with societal definitions of womanhood.

“The festival was engaging,” describes Chinwendu Nwokeabia, a junior Notre Dame student. “I had the chance to talk about aspects of womanhood that I don’t get talk about often. I appreciate the inclusivity and diversity, and some of these individuals have left a lasting impression on me.”

At the end of the day, attendees shuffled back to the main auditorium to hear Roxane Gay, acclaimed writer and cultural critic, discuss timely topics with Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom. The relaxed conversation covered matters including the pressures on black and brown creators, Bill Cosby’s conviction, and even Kanye West’s tweets. The two brought everything full circle, reiterating the power of women’s voices, the existence of oppression, and the importance of supporting and mentoring other marginalized people.

As a young woman of color, I left the event empowered and inspired to continue the conversation about gender equality. I realized that representation does matter. Seeing and hearing from courageous minority activists made me believe that I, too, can make a difference in this fight for solidarity.

While marches in January 2017 were motivated by the inauguration of President Trump, the upcoming women’s march is focused on a different election—the 2018 midterms.

This Saturday’s theme, Power to the Polls, is meant to encourage voting in the upcoming primary and general elections. The emphasis is to launch a national voter registration drive to increase voter turnout by at least 40 percent.

“Our leaders need to be aware and held accountable for what they are elected to do,” said Baltimore Women’s March organizer Sarah Mogol. “There are so many pieces of legislation this year that affect women’s rights—childcare, family sick leave, Planned Parenthood—and the leaders need to hear our voices.” 

The second annual Baltimore Women’s March-March Forward, will take place at 11 a.m. at the War Memorial Plaza downtown to promote social and political change. Following the rally, participants will march to McKeldin Square at the Inner Harbor.

The Baltimore Women’s March last year joined other marches around the country, including the Women’s March in Washington D.C., which drew about 500,000 people to the city. Mogol hopes that this year’s event will bring a similar crowd as last year, if not more.

“This is so important because it’s an opportunity for everybody to get back together,” she said. “Last year’s marches really created such a strong voice and inspired so many people. We saw that when we came to one space and we had our voices together we were able to actually make some really big changes in the world.”

During the rally, Baltimore City health commissioner Dr. Leana Wen, Mayor Catherine Pugh, Senator Ben Cardin, and state’s attorney Marilyn Mosby are among the list of city leaders expected to speak. Mogol stressed that this year’s event is about participation and support for one another—including elected officials—to show that everyone can make a difference, no matter how small the gesture.

A little further south, Brittany T. Oliver, director of local nonprofit Not Without Black Women, which we featured in our January issue, will be speaking at the Women’s March on Washington 2018.

Although it is called the Women’s March, the march is striving to be more inclusive. Mogol says that this march is for “all women and their allies,” and is a safe place for everyone to share their stories in an effort to promote change.

“Democracy demands participation—from everyone,” Mogol said. “It’s about numbers, and support, and showing that we were a collective voice that needs to be heard. It’s also really about action. We need action.”

A sea of peace signs shot into the air at 1 p.m. on an overcast day last January. More than 4,000 people at the intersection of N. Charles and E. 33rd streets gathered during a moment of silence, which was observed at similar events around the world. It was a rare, quiet moment from the passionate crowd of demonstrators who converged near The Johns Hopkins University for the Women’s March in Baltimore, one of hundreds of events held in solidarity with the Women’s March on Washington on January 21, 2017. “It turned out to be a pretty wonderful day, despite our huge disappointment in the election,” recalls Donna Martin, a 74-year-old former pastor and retired hospice worker who organized the Baltimore event, which, like its sister events, was pointedly planned for the day after President Donald Trump’s inauguration. Wearing a brick-colored baseball cap and a camera around her neck, Martin spent the day energizing the demonstrators. “We are the ones who make change happen!” she yelled into a megaphone. “We are here to say we are not going back!”

Now, just 10 months later, sitting at a desk in her Northeast Baltimore home after spending the morning gardening, Martin—a petite woman with silver hair cropped closely around her face and a confident and vivacious personality prone to laughter—reflects on the march’s impact in the time since it took place. “Women are not going to forget that march,” she says firmly. “In the long run, women have learned that they have a voice, and they do have power.”

A year after that group of women took to the streets—many donning pink knitted “pussy hats” and brandishing signs that read “the future is female”—women in Baltimore are channeling the same passion and energy into new organizations aiming to create change in the city.

“The march has really made a huge difference, in terms of the lives of women,” Martin says. “It has caused big cultural shifts for us in our country.”

In a small classroom at Maryland Institute College of Art, a half-dozen people have gathered on a Saturday afternoon for a workshop titled “Listen to Black Women,” where men and women ranging in age from 18 to 60 discuss dismantling institutionalized sexism in men’s lives, and how they can do a better job at supporting women in society.

The free class, led by Brittany Oliver, a 29-year-old Baltimore activist and founder of Not Without Black Women, is part of the grassroots program North Avenue Knowledge Exchange. During the class, Volandia, a pregnant woman staying in Baltimore after Hurricane Irma forced her to leave the Virgin Islands, voices concerns about raising her son in a culture that doesn’t treat men and women equally. DeBora Ricks, a local author and attorney, brings up how sexism is often considered a taboo or divisive topic in the black community, even among women. As a point of linguistic proof, Ricks mistakenly says “institutionalized racism” rather than “sexism” several times before correcting herself, noting, “See—we’re not even used to saying those words.” Men, including 18-year-old Louis Williams, who graduated from Baltimore City College, and Charles Jackson, a program coordinator at Morgan State University, discussed strategies for shutting down sexism witnessed in their own lives.

Like other leaders of women’s groups that sprung up over the past year, Oliver, whose background includes stints at the ACLU of Maryland and anti-street harassment nonprofit Hollaback! Baltimore, says the creation of Not Without Black Women was influenced by the Women’s March on Washington, but for another reason: “I was one of the people who came out against the Women’s March,” she explains. “I intentionally didn’t go.”

Her protest stemmed from what she describes as an erasure of women of color by the event’s white founders—down to the name used in its original Facebook event, the Million Woman March. Several well-known black marches throughout history, from a 1997 march of the same name that drew hundreds of thousands of black women to Philadelphia, to the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom that famously culminated with Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, have used similar titles.

“Why not look at history and contact people who have been doing the work before?” she asks. “Black and brown communities are going to be hit the hardest. Their voices are the ones that need to be at the center of any type of march.” March organizers responded to the criticism by renaming the event, bringing in veteran nonwhite activists, and releasing a statement on diversity.

“We need to uplift women, and we need to start saying what we feel. Sometimes you need a support system to do that.”

Still, tired of black women’s experiences being sidelined, Oliver, a self-described introvert, reached out to other black women in Baltimore by hosting a social gathering at Harbor East café Teavolve in July. She called it Not Without Black Women: An Evening of Dialogue and Sisterhood.

“I thought that this was going to be something where 10 women come, it’s informal, let’s talk and get to know each other,” Oliver recalls. “It turned out 40 women showed up at this event, just from word-of-mouth on social media. We talked about politics, dating, relationships. We talked about our everyday lives.”

Since that first meeting, Not Without Black Women has convened for monthly gatherings attracting a multigenerational crowd.

“We’re bringing black women together to support things that may have limited us at one point,” explains Kalila Daniel, who regularly attends Not Without Black Women events and started a mentorship program called Young Queens back in 2009. “But we’re coming together to overcome those different barriers and take our place in the community as we help uplift each other.”

Wearing earrings in the shape of black power fists, Daniel says women of color are often missing from the conversation about political change. “There’s not enough representation of black women of all ages, of different economic backgrounds,” she says. “What’s really happening in the communities, what’s really happening with us every day, is not really addressed. With a group like Not Without Black Women, we can bring a face and a name to those different people, and bring it to the forefront.”

As much as Not Without Black Women aims to be a political force—the group’s leadership team was in the process of crafting its political agenda based on input from members in late 2017—it’s also a social space. “We’re conditioned to not talk about our pain,” Oliver says. “We need to uplift women, and we need to start saying what we feel. Sometimes you need a support system to do that.”

Another such support system exists in the Society of Excellent Women, which was born from a desire to deepen connections between women in Baltimore. “My friend that I used to work with was having a problem where she felt like she wasn’t able to make connections outside of her friend group,” recalls the group’s founder, Brittany Wight. “She was having dinner parties and she would invite three or four friends, and each friend would invite another friend who didn’t know anybody else.”

Inspired by that dinner, Wight—along with Rosemary Kourdoglow and Emma Hagan—organized a “Slushie Social” happy hour at Wet City the night before the presidential election. Using the name Society of Excellent Women, they spread the word via social media.

Despite steadily growing RSVPs, when more than 200 women showed up at the Mt. Vernon beer bar, Wight was shocked. “It was really inspiring. It made me feel like we were doing the right thing,” recalls the Baltimore City Retirement Systems employee and owner of Wight Tea Co. She greeted each guest at the door and asked her to talk to someone she didn’t already know. Glasses clinked and connections were made long after the happy hour’s scheduled conclusion at 8 p.m. “Women come to our other events with women that they met at our first event. It makes me feel warm inside.”

The outpouring of interest in the organization, which Wight says attracts mostly millennials, points to a shared desire among women to connect with their community on a personal level. “Everyone calls Baltimore ‘Smalltimore,’ but we end up in these very closed-off groups,” Wight says. “Baltimore has lots of different communities, but they don’t seem to mix. I think everyone wants to be able to mix, but it’s not necessarily easy to figure out on your own.”

Since the first meeting, Society of Excellent Women has hosted events designed to represent the diverse interests of its members. Attendance has remained steady, with about 200 coming out for larger events, and 50 or 60 for happy hours and smaller meetups.

Often, Wight partners with other women-focused groups in Baltimore, like a clothing swap hosted with A Workshop of Our Own, a collaborative space for women and gender-nonconforming makers, and lifestyle blog The Stylette. At Zine Queens, a panel and workshop held at Open Works, the society gathered leaders of Beast Grrl, Nasty Press, and The Bush Zine to talk about women and zines before attendees collaborated on their own creations.

“The election results definitely started the fire, but the Women’s March set the whole forest aglow,” says Nasty Press co-founder Zoey Duong. “The feeling of that many people in one place who were there to resist Trump and support and uplift each other at the same time became all the momentum that was needed. When I came back from the march, I brought everyone together and what would be the first Nasty Press meeting was held.”

Founded by Duong, Xochi Davila, and Em Jones, Nasty Press launched its first zine last April and is currently working on its second issue with the overarching goal of sharing art by a diverse group, particularly those in the LGBTQ community.

For its part, the Society of Excellent Women is also trying to cast a wider, more diverse net. About halfway through the group’s first year, Wight brought together a group to address inclusivity and the organization’s goals for the future. “I am a straight, white female, and I feel like I am not able to represent all of Baltimore,” Wight says. “I put together a panel of women from all over the city who wanted to be a part of it and had different viewpoints. I asked what they wanted, and we formulated a new, more inclusive mission statement.”

One specific change, thanks to feedback from members, was using a “Y” rather than an “A” in the spelling of womyn in the organization’s messaging, “because not every woman identifies as a w-o-m-a-n,” Wight says. The society also updated its mission to “create safe, inclusive spaces and events in which womyn in Baltimore can find each other for friendship.”

While the initial motive behind the organization was friendship, not politics, Wight says there was a time when she wondered whether or not the society should be politically vocal, or if taking a public stance would alienate some women. “Ultimately, any women’s group at this point has to be vocal,” she says. “It was kind of decided for us.”

Gender politics has always been a calling for Martin, who became one of a small number of women ordained as members of the Methodist clergy in the 1960s. “That wasn’t looked on particularly fondly by the patriarchy,” she recalls. “I’ve always been very social-justice oriented, and I always lead my congregation in that direction.”

Since retiring, Martin—who became aware that she was gay in mid-life—has served on the board of directors for Equality Maryland, pushing for the same-sex marriage referendum in 2012. These days, her focus is on educational equality.

When reflecting on the events of the past year, she remains hopeful about the march’s impact. “It doesn’t make an immediate change,” she says, “but I think it makes a big difference for visibility, and also in the minds and hearts of the people participating.”

Martin points to an increased number of women running for office—especially the historic wins for transgender candidates—and the #MeToo movement calling out sexual abusers on social media as evidence that women are marching on in their own ways. She is especially heartened to see what is happening right in her backyard.

“I’m so proud of these young women in Baltimore taking the reins,” says Martin. “We are cheerleaders for the next generation of activists, and it is particularly poignant when I realize I can no longer do all the things I used to. Passing the torch is not only possible, but necessary.”