Women’s Studies Hosts “Genitalia Geopardy”

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Colgate students learn about genitalia in a fun way. 

In celebration of Genitalia Week, the Women’s Studies Intern team hosted “Genitalia Geopardy” on Thursday, February 16. Held in the Edge Cafe, this event was filled with frozen yogurt, pizza and many students who were excited to be there. 

Sophomore Cate Barber, who became a Women’s Studies Intern this past fall, explained how grateful she is to have the space.

“Women’s Studies is an incredible place. Just sitting in there, anyone you see will say hi to you. There are some incredible people that walk into that space,” Barber said. 

After finishing the food, students were asked to pair up with another two-person team for the game of “Genitalia Geopardy.” In between jeopardy questions, students chatted about their involvement with women’s studies, both in and out of the classroom. 

Seniors Eleanor Hilton and Madeleine Tsao discussed how they first heard of “Genitalia Geopardy” and why they were immediately interested. 

“We heard about it [‘Genitalia Geopardy’] during our senior capstone seminar meetings. We always update each other on the various events going on on campus that pertain to health, sexual health and feminism. The event was mentioned at the beginning of the week, and we were encouraged to go,” Tsao said.

The advertisement of the event was apparently successful because the cafe quickly filled up with students from every class year and across varying majors. The turnout brought many students who like to support events pertaining to women and women’s health. 

“I go to all the brown bags, and I like to go to the film screenings and listen to the speakers,” Hilton said. 

The evening was filled with friendly competition and learning as each team raced to write their answer down and turn it into the intern panel of judges. There were two rounds of jeopardy. Questions came from six different categories, and each question provided new knowledge that some students hadn’t known about. For example, gender essentialism is the idea that men and women have inherent, unique and natural attributes that qualify them as their separate genders. Furthermore, California, Colorado, Iowa, Washington and the District of Columbia have state laws or regulatory guidance that require sex education to include conservation of LGBTQ issues, hoping to make strides toward inclusion for LGBTQ youth. 

Senior Romelia Loaiza and junior Taylor Huffer discussed the importance of the LGBTQ community and the fact that LGBTQ issues are not limited to just the LGBTQ community but are issues that impact everyone.

“These are issues that really concern the LGBTQ community, but they should concern everyone and so this was the perfect opportunity for us to come and support someone as – and I loosely use the term – allies, or more as advocates,” Loaiza said. 

Loaiza and Huffer are both LGBTQ initiative interns. They not only attended the event, but were members of the winning team. When discussing the difference between LGBTQ allies and advocates, Huffer cleared things up.

“My favorite metaphor is that allies have the shield, they don’t do much, but they defend. Advocates have the sword, they go on the offensive and do the work,” Huffer said.

Students interested in women’s studies host events every week, and those events have a consistent following. “Genitalia Geopardy” was unique, and this year was the first time the game was played. Since “The Vagina Monologues” did not happen this year, students felt like they needed another event to inform students about sex education, in a way that is more inclusive toward the trans community.

“We just wanted to do something fun since we didn’t do the Vagina Monologues this year. We wanted to do something that was focused on genitalia but also queering how we think about sex ed, something more inclusive. We feel like vagina monologues is often focused on cis-women, and so it’s quite trans-phobic. That’s why we decided to do something fun like ‘Genitalia Geopardy.’ Also in women’s studies right now we have ‘Draw Your Genitalia.’  We’re trying to change the way that people think about what genitals looks like. Right now we see the same image all the time, and that’s very exclusive,” senior Nitika Sachdev said.

Overall, “Genitalia Geopardy” was a fun way to get new information out and start a discussion. Although “Genitalia Geopardy” was a special event in honor of Genitalia Week, there are more opportunities for students to engage in Women’s Studies discourse.