Club meets Friday mornings from 8 – 8:25 a.m. in US Room 4

By Amelia Chen

A couple of weeks ago, my friend, Soie Haberman, and I started the Women’s Club for Oak Hall’s Upper School as a way to empower women, spread awareness, and build confidence in teenage girls.

This idea blossomed from the Middle School club we, along with Laurel Gurley, had previously created to achieve the same goals. During our time having the club in Middle School, we neither had the time nor the resources to do all the things we wanted to do. The Upper School paved the way for us to achieve this. 

First, we knew we had to find a sponsor and we couldn’t think of anyone better than Ms. Palmer who teaches, among other classes, our AP Government and Politics class. She enthusiastically agreed, thrilled at the idea that it would be a heavily student-run club. From there, all we needed was the administration’s approval. We met with Mr. Brown, the Assistant Director of the Upper School, who supportively approved our club, giving us the ability to finally start.

Part of starting the club would include appointing officers and gaining members. Appointing officers wasn’t very difficult given the fact that many freshman girls already desired to be involved. Haberman and I already had decided because we started the club, I would be president and she would be vice president. Isabelle Watson, Mackenzie Rowe, and Kaitlyn Lee immediately asked to participate as officers. Because of their delightful enthusiasm and passion to be a part of this club we immediately agreed to appoint Watson as secretary, Rowe as social media coordinator, and Lee as treasurer. Gaining members was slightly more difficult but by spreading the word by mouth and social media we were able to start our club with 18 members including the officers.

The main purpose of this club would be to spread awareness of the issues of sexism and hopefully decrease the sexism that occurs around us. “I really want to change the atmosphere for Oak Hall, and I feel like this would be a good club for just changing how everybody gets along,” Haberman said.

Not only did we want to create this club to create a good environment for teen girls, but we also wanted to make this club inclusive. This wasn’t just exclusive to girls but also allowed boys to be part of it. We also want to help the women’s community around us by hopefully participating in drives and helping in any way we can.

Overall, we believe by making the effort to have this club, we can make a change not just in the school but in the greater Gainesville community. The best way to make a difference is taking action, not just standing by and doing nothing. We are hoping to do that with this club. We are thrilled to have more members join as the year goes by!