Every year the Women’s Center at the University of Idaho brings in speakers for Women’s History month. This year they worked with the Women’s Center at Washington State University (WSU) to bring Francesca Ramsey.
Ramsey became famous in 2012 for a video she released and since then has become a comedian and activist, while she also has written a book.
Kendra Robinson, a student at WSU, said once she had found out about it, she knew she had to go.
“As soon as I heard that Francesca Ramsey was coming, I was like ‘I’m going’, I’ve been anticipating this night all semester,” Robinson said.
Ramsey signs books and talks to children who came to her speech.
Kali Nelson | Argonaut
Ramsey started her speech off with humor, telling jokes about her life and how she got to where she was now.
“I think this talk was especially important because there’s been a lot of talk around activism and social media, what does it mean, what are we doing, where do we go from here and I think she had a lot of answers to those questions,” said Jackie Sedano, UI Women’s Center program coordinator.
While Ramsey spoke, she clicked through a PowerPoint filled with family photos and memes. Each joke Ramsey told came accompanied by a change in the slide to add a graphic.
Ramsey spoke about topics like privilege, intersectionality, and race along with her jokes.
“If your activism isn’t intersectional, it isn’t activism,” Ramsey said.
Ramsey spoke about activism and the effects social media can have on it.
She said to fight for the rights of all women means fighting for all women.
“You have to be willing to fight for the rights of everyone and you have to acknowledge your privilege sometimes is going to prevent you from understanding somebody else’s experience and that is OK,” Ramsey said.
She gave advice to the audience about how to use social media to advance the conversation. Ramsey said specifically that students should try to take the kinds of conversations she spoke about offline and speak to people in-person.
“When someone says I don’t see your race or I don’t see your gender — unintentionally — they are saying I don’t see the challenges and the struggles and the things that shape your world view,” Ramsey said.
Kali Nelson can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @kalinelson6