The Womxn’s Advocacy Day event took place March 7 from 11 am to 3 pm in the Mid Quad at Rio Hondo. The event consisted of booths like “Walk a Mile in Her Shoes,” where males were encouraged to walk in high heels. A concept introduced by Frank Baird for the International Men’s March to Stop Rape, Sexual Assault, and Gender Violence in 2001.

Baird explains, “the same violence that targets women also targets men because rape isn’t about sex, it’s about power, control, and violence.”

Oralia Alcorta is a part of the Violence Intervention Program. She explained to us how VIP is a group of advocates trying to bring sexual assault and domestic violence awareness to the Rio Hondo Campus. This was in honor of Sexual assault awareness month.

All the heels in the booth were red, Alcorta explains that the red represents power and sensuality of women whereas in walking in heels, the brave males would get a glimpse of the struggles of being a woman.

Along with the activities, there were speakers such as poet LaSpeaksVolumes, who performed two poems. The first reminded women to love themselves.

She said, “we’re here to celebrate women and in a world that has you under a microscope, the least you could do is love yourself, and tell yourself that you’re enough when nobody else says that you are,” she followed with, “ and I want to let every woman here know that you are beautiful and you are worth it and you better flaunt it”.

She followed that up with her most popular poem, “Pretty Brown Girl,”  Where she shared inspirational lines like, “you could never be duplicated, there’s always ever gonna be one you to do what you do so never doubt why you were created”. LaSpeaksVolumes left everyone with chills and all who related clapped and snapped their fingers in praise.

We also heard from other speakers, such as Autumn Lewis and Dalia Lechon, two students of Rio Hondo.

Lewis wrote a piece inspired by LaSpeaksVolumes’ poem Pretty Brown Girl and her experience growing up as a minority throughout grade school.

Lechon is the leader of Spectrum and she spoke about her experience as a transgender female and how regardless of the setbacks in life, she has learned to love herself. This ignited her passion to help others to learn to love themselves.

On day one of the two-day event, many powerful women took the stage and walked around the event supporting the cause and raised awareness.