By
Laura Winsky
Editor's Note: Each day this week, Wildcat Perspectives columnists will be examining a different UA program or service that is sponsored by ASUA. Laura Winsky's column is the first of these five installments.
There is a quiet place on this campus that is far away from the banging and whistling of the construction, the class bells of Modern Languages, the fight song at noon. This place I speak of is a place for women to go, breathe a sigh of relief, take off their backpacks and enjoy the serenity of a quaint - library couches included.
This place is the Women's Resource Center.
Keri Ann Wells, an anthropology junior here, is co-director for the center. She describes WRC as an escape for women to come relax during the day.
The resource center has a piece of ASUA's budget pie, and therefore has the opportunity to put on its own events. The most recent was of course Friday night's Take Back the Night rally and march, a way in which the UA community could demonstrate the need to erase violence against women and children on our streets. The event was a smashing success.
"It was better, a higher turnout of approximately 90 to 120 participants, and surprisingly, the police department's presence turned into an escort at the last minute. We were able to march in a lane of traffic, rather than on the sidewalks," Wells said.
But there was also another important aspect to the march that Wells noticed. "I was happy to see a number of men turn out in support for the night," she said.
This brings us to the male issue.
Many ask the simple question, why do we need three centers for women on campus? Why must we have a Women's Resource Center, CARE and the Oasis Center?
The answer is equally simple: the three centers deal with different issues and constituents. To vastly oversimplify their functions, the Resource Center is a wealth of information for women's needs, CARE puts on classes for rape education, and the Oasis Center counsels victims of abuse and assault. The most basic difference, and the reason why they can't and shouldn't be merged into one program, is that CARE and the Oasis Center provide services to men as well.
The Women's Resource Center is practically a library. It is full of, well, resources - from information on female writers and historians, to women's issues, and UA and Tucson community events that serve our UA women's needs.
The center is experiencing "a low level of traffic" from students right now, said Wells.
But that's probably because UA women are having trouble finding it.
The Women's Resource Center (WRC) has moved, and can be entered from a door at the west end of the new bookstore, and by climbing a flight of stairs where signs mark the way to both ASUA's office and the center.
But the male issue might go beyond a simple questioning of why there are three centers for women's needs. The question could be posed, where do men go for resources?
One might respond that any library can serve as a resource center for males because the sources will be predominantly written from the male perspective. But that doesn't really satisfy the question.
As I learned more about the functions of the Women's Resource Center, I imagined what the campus would be like with a Men's Resource Center, complete with its own lounge, designed for men only.
I can picture myself now, writing a column about exclusionary behavior, about the downfalls of a men's club. But I have to ask myself, would that be fair? As difficult as it is to be a woman, I wouldn't want to struggle as a young man in today's society.
The UA should take a look at the clear definition of equal access to resources and decide if having one resource center designed for one gender fits that definition.
