February has arrived, and with it comes Dartmouth’s 15^th annual V-Week celebration! V-Week, a global activist campaign to end gender-based violence, will culminate in performances of the Vagina Monologues by a phenomenal group of women on February 26^th and 27^th.

This year’s V-Week will feature events from a wide variety of campus groups and a collection of voices spanning many communities. The schedule boasts several thought-provoking dialogues intended to not only facilitate discussion, but also challenge us all to embrace one another wholly.

As a campus dedicated to the cultivation of community, we must continually take it upon ourselves to reflect on the ways in which we support one another already and the ways in which we can grow. V-Week, a series of events and showcases intended to promote honest conversation about multi-faceted issues of gender, presents a particularly meaningful opportunity to do just that.

Engage with V-Week, even if you are not familiar with issues of gender. Come learn. Come share your thoughts. Do you have a story about your time at Dartmouth that complicates others’ understanding of what it means to be a woman here—or what it means to negotiate any gender? Lend your voice to this ongoing conversation. The programs will cover a series of issues centered on fostering gender equality both on campus and in broader society; there is a place here for any story.

Within the confines of a social culture reliant on hyper-masculinity at the expense of all students’ health and personal development, challenging ourselves to dig deeper is imperative. Let us not stifle our ability to recognize each other’s humanity. Now is not the time to stigmatize emotion, pain, or anger. All of these things are not just useful; they are innately tied to our human experience. If we deny one another the ability to feel deeply and express these visceral reactions, we lose the opportunity to effect genuine, nuanced change.

V-Week allows women and people of all genders to express themselves in a way that other forums do not. Though V-Week skeptics assert that it paints men as a violent monolith, this could not be further from the truth.  We seek not to alienate but to invite those most invested in patriarchy to examine its role in all of our lives. There is no part of our Dartmouth experience(s) that is not deeply intertwined with the lives of others. Our constructions of gender are no different. We do not live in a vacuum, and the role of men in framing issues of gender is monumental!

This V-Week, do not view yourself as separate from your fellow students’ experiences. Resist the temptation to invalidate others’ concerns. Recognize that your perspectives may be different from those being shared, but that does not make your peers’ personal narratives any less true. We are a community, and the struggles of few must be our collective responsibility. Let us operate in solidarity with those most affected by gender-based violence. Dartmouth students have accomplished so much as individuals; how much more could we do together?

-Hannah Giorgis, ’13, CGSE Intern