FUSEStudents have formed a number of clubs
dedicated to gender and sexuality issues over the years. Sometime in the 1980s, students and faculty
created the group Women Advocates for Gender Equality (WAGE), which became a student-run chapter of the
Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance (FMLA) in 1998 and subsequently (2004) Feminists United for Sexual
Equality (FUSE). This group has propelled a tremendous amount of nonstop programming on campus. Included
among its activities are weekly meetings, numerous presences on and off campus as activists, workshops
on sexual harassment and other topics in gender and sexuality, Love Your Body Day, the annual production
of The Vagina Monologues, the publication of Underwire: Annual Journal of Women, Gender, and
Sexuality Studies, and occasional sponsorships of films and guest performers.
The St. Mary's Triangle and Rainbow Society (STARS) has been an active club on the SMCM campus
since 1993. The club has served as a resource for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer,
and allied community (LGBTQA), and its members have been actively involved both on and off-campus on
behalf of LGBTQA issues and concerns. STARS has hosted National Coming Out Day, and event which
encourages everyone to "come out"-as gay, straight, or simply sexual; has sponsored National Day of
Silence, in which participants are encouraged to think about members of the LGBTQA community who
have been silenced by ignorance or violence; has participated in local conferences (like Gender PAC's
National Conference on Gender in Washington, DC); and has worked tirelessly on behalf of domestic
partner benefits locally and regionally. Four members of STARS made up the WGSX LLC in 2003-2004.
The Vagina MonologuesSince 2002, FUSE has staged annual Valentines Day performances of Eve Ensler's hit play,
The Vagina Monologues. Each year women from the campus community come together to spread the
good word-vagina-with poignant and funny monologues, including "My Angry Vagina", "My
Vagina was My Village," "Hair," "Because He Liked to Look at It," and "The Woman Who Loved to Make
Vaginas Happy." The benefit production has quickly become one of campus' most anticipated and
uproarious traditions, raising thousands of dollars for a local domestic violence legal aid service.
The show is performed in conjunction with the V-Day campaign, an international movement to end
violence against women.
"Transcending Boundaries: An Interdisciplinary Conference in Gender Studies"Each Spring, members of FUSE, and other interested students help organize a one-day
academic conference in gender studies on the SMCM campus. The aim of the conference is to provide
an opportunity, especially for undergraduate students, to share their work in gender studies (including
St. Mary's Projects) and to explore the work of their peers as well as that of professors and graduate
students. Organized into sessions and panel discussions-similar to any professional academic conference-
the gender conference has included such diverse presentations as "The Self-Portraiture of Narcissus: A
Queer Analysis of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorain Gray (Dan Williford, '03); "I Think
Your Chariot's Sexy: An Analysis of Self-Presentation of Sexuality in Early Roman Emperors" (Patrick
McConnell, '05); "One Cowboy's Power Package is Another Super Mom's Desire: The Gendered, Sexed, and
Sexualized Subject in Contemporary Advertising" (Kristin Effland, '02); "Different Ways of Speaking:
The Expression of Japanese Women in Art and Literature" (Teresa Houk, '01); and "Sexual Assault
Response and Prevention at St. Mary's College of Maryland" (Megan Gabriel, '04). Watch for calls
for papers, presentations, and panel discussions.
Underwire: Annual Journal of Women, Gender, and Sexuality StudiesEstablished in 2000, Underwire is published annually by members of FUSE, and
other students interested in sharing their work on issues of women, gender, and sexuality. The
journal includes essays, articles of an academic nature, poetry, photography, and artwork by students,
faculty, and staff.
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