Final Project

Shelly K., Tierney L., and I chose the theme of the women's rights movement because we realized that the women today would not be where they are without the feminist movement that occurred during the 1970s and 1980s. It was important to us to learn about and realize what the women had to go through and how they gained the rights that we have today. We used many different items on our box including movie covers, pictures, quotes, and items to go with each topic that we talked about. Some of the topics that we included in our project were Title IX (which gave women the right to play professional sports), Roe vs. Wade (gave women the right to have abortions as well as use different types of birth control), the women's rights magazine called Ms. and the woman who founded it (Gloria Steinmen). We also talked about famous women such as Bella Abzung who was the first woman in the House of Representatives, Sara Evans, Betty Lahan Harragan, Marilyn Chambers, and Sally Ride. These women were important because they took steps to show other women that they could participate in the community and work towards equal rights. Some of the items we used were a copy of Ms., a rocket ship to signify Sally Ride going in space, pictures of women playing sports, a clothes hanger to show how women had to abort their pregnancies before Roe vs. Wade, pictures from the women's rights protest as well as statistics on women's discrimination. We obtained these items using the internet as well as items that we found in our houses to signify the struggle that women had to go through and how it has improved and affected our society today. I think that if we did the project again we would research and learn more about other women that helped with the movement and use more physical objects to signify their contributions. We should also have used more short statements to describe our items so that people understand what they signify. I would suggest that for the students next year, that they spend a little time outside of class preparing their boxes and items before the assemble day so that there is not as much to do on that one day in class. It is hard to get it all done so try and organize yourself prior to the class period and paint your boxes so that during class you only have to put on the final touches.