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Mar 7th 2013, 18:07

Tomorrow (Friday, March 8) is International Women's Day, and this year's theme is "The Gender Agenda: Gaining Momentum." mtvU correspondent Megan Mitchell spoke with two Harvard students, Kate Sim and Nadia Farjood, who are working to draw attention to gender issues on their campus.

Sim and her co-creator started a campaign called "Our Harvard Can Do Better," which worked to address "Harvard's campus climate around rape culture and sexual assault." They also added a referendum to the Undergraduate Council ballot petitioning Harvard to reexamine its sexual assault policies. The ballot passed in a landslide vote.

Farjood, on the other hand, worked with young women through the Athena Program. Half of the program is a mentoring program, but the other half consists of a conference. The conference created a "space for women to talk about issues that affected them that (they) normally didn't talk about in classes or even with…friends."

Unsurprisingly, the students think that International Women's Day is very important. Sim hopes the day "doesn't just become a day." She finds it "disheartening to see people get so excited about planning things" then watching that enthusiasm fade. Farjood believes it's a wonderful opportunity "acknowledging the work that we have left to do in terms of reproductive justice and in terms of women getting high positions in all sectors of the workforce."

+ Watch Harvard Students Discuss International Women's Day

We love that Sim and Farjood are taking action on their campus to raise awareness about "The Gender Agenda." If you want to learn more about International Women's Day, visit the site's resources page. To find events in your area, visit the events page. For more, take action below!

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