Upcoming
PastWomen’s Week is an annual, weeklong event focused on gendered issues and challenges faced in today’s socioeconomic and political climate, intersectionality, and cultural movements. All are welcome to get involved and participate!
Save the Dates: Women’s Week 2024
March 18 – 22, 2024
Details will be shared on EDI’s website, email lists, and social media (@uofuedi on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter) as they become available. Women’s Week is planned by a volunteer committee of students, faculty, trainees, and staff collaborating across the university. If you’d like to join our committee, share any ideas, sponsor events, or volunteer for Women’s Week, contact us at edi-events@utah.edu.
2023
Making Public Policy Personal
A recent spate of events—unfolding in national headlines and in sites of political power—have demonstrated both the ways women can shape societal change and the impact policy can have on women’s personal lives. During Women’s Week 2023, a series of events investigated when public policy becomes personal, and explore what this means for us as individuals, citizens, and participants in a diverse democracy. Now, as legislative and judicial acts feel increasingly personal, it is important that we all consider how to best support each other and work together—thoughtfully, strategically, and with clear purpose—to affect meaningful change.
2022
Shift. Strive. Thrive.
Grappling with remote work or essential conditions; managing extra duties at home; combining children, chores, and school; coping with isolation; and fighting racial injustice have resulted in an overall lack of self-care, manifesting in mental and physical health concerns we have all dealt with over the last two years. We need a space to find help, heal, and grow. The 2022 Women’s Week validated and acknowledged the struggles from the past two years and explored the ways we’re shifting, striving, and thriving to become stronger as we emerge to a new future.
2021
Inspiring a Movement
“Inspiring a Movement” reflected on the history of women’s political leadership, celebrated women’s contributions to our communities, honored those who have come before us, endeavored to create community and belonging, and facilitated a collective call to action to make the changes that are needed to enact an equitable future.
2020
Allies in Activism
While acknowledging colonialism and continued efforts to disenfranchise Indigenous women and their communities, this year’s events celebrated Indigenous knowledge and power. Women who are unapologetic in their activism and building of institutions and cultural spaces where people might flourish shared concrete examples of successful activism in the arenas of self-determination, politics and the law.
2019
Redefine
This year’s Women’s Week theme “Redefine” explored what it means to be powerful or to be radically creative. Keynote Gabby Rivera explored the definition of these traits and how to incorporate them into work, communities, and daily lives.
2018
Resilience: We are powerful because we have survived.
Resilience is the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or significant sources of stress. For social justice movements, the term has also come to reflect attention to resilience through individuals and group actions. People are engaging in politics, activism and the arts to improve their personal situations, but also move society as a whole. This year’s theme highlighted the lived experiences of women with events focused on the power of resilience that women, and especially women of color, have shown, and continue to demonstrate, in the face of increasingly repressive policies.
2017
In recent years, scholars and activists have pointed out society’s desensitization to rape. Because sexual violence and rape happen often, and rarely go punished, we operate under the assumption that rape is an inevitable fact of life. This normalization of rape has led people to internalize beliefs and attitudes that condone and even encourage gendered sexual aggression and violence. The events of this year’s Womens Week promoted ways in which everyone can take steps to disrupt the current status.
2016
The Political Body
How we approach women’s health — as individuals, communities and as a country — is tied up in broad issues of political personhood and women’s rights. This year’s theme, “The Political Body” focused on the political implications of legislated regulation of women’s bodies. Topics included adoption as a form of reproductive access, campus rape culture, and local access to health care for marginalized communities. Former Texas state Senator Wendy Davis delivered a keynote address on the implications of removing access to reproductive health care.
2015
Consider it Handled
Women’s Week offers a forum for students, faculty and the community at large to have an open dialogue on issues around gender inequality, sexual identity, women in leadership, mentorship and empowerment. This year’s theme guided workshops and dialogues on advocacy and allyship within leadership, money management, networking, and community building.
2014
What Matters
The University of Utah has a strong commitment to helping women succeed. The university has programs in place to support women year-round, and taking a week to celebrate women elevates those programs. This year aimed to allow women to connect with each other, identify goals and passions and learn skills to confront challenges that inhibit their progress. This included a dialogue on how to support parents in the workplace, collaborative workshops, and exploring social barriers that prevent success.
2013
Learning through Giving: Mentoring Young Women
Keynote Dr. Edith “Winx” Lawrence presented her thoughts on the benefits of mentoring to both adolescent and college women in the areas of self-esteem and finding one’s passions and meaningful careers that can make a difference in critical issues young women face today.