This weekend, 10 members of ETSU’s Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance group traveled to Washington, D.C., where they attended a feminist conference and learned about issues women today are facing. The conference, hosted by the Feminist Majority Foundation, featured many workshops ranging from the climate crisis and how this is affecting women to abortion.

“They focused a lot on abortion providers this year, and reproductive health, nationally and globally, as well as the things going on with health care and how that relates to women’s rights,” said recent ETSU graduate Sarah Olivo.

ETSU sophomore Taren Stiles said it was her first time at an FMF conference. “We were really concerned about FMLA for the future because a lot of us are graduating, and we got some advice on recruiting and organizing and things of that nature,” she said.

“I went to another workshop that was about exposing fake abortion clinics,” said Stiles. “The workshop gave us tips on how to protest without violence. They gave us some good signs of what a fake clinic is.”

“A real clinic should give you all the choices, including choices for the future,” said Stiles. “I was surprised, there are actually a lot of fake clinics around Bristol and Johnson City.”

“One of the coolest parts was the forum on women in the environment, and listening to different issues with women and access to water,” Olivo said. “Women are 70 percent of the world’s poor, and so climate change and natural disasters have a large impact on women and children.”

ETSU student Ash-Lee Henderson was on the panel for women and climate change.

“Being able to speak on a panel with pretty well known activists and organizers was pretty impressive,” she said. But the highlight of her trip was being in the nation’s capitol during an anti-war march on Saturday and then an immigrant’s rights march Sunday.

“There was nothing like being in our nation’s capitol with so many people united for the same cause,” said Henderson. “It was really powerful.

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