Daniel Murray, ’18, has recently started a social media campaign on Facebook that is focused on giving women a voice in regards to how they have been suppressed or treated unfairly in society.
Kate Polak’s English class “Lost in the Funhouse Mirror,” which focuses primarily on women writers, was the basis and inspiration for Murray’s project. He shares that towards the end of the semester, when he needed to start thinking of what the final project would be he found himself in a dilemma, stating that “as a male, I have never experienced the same issues and situations women have.” Murray was afraid that he would end up “mansplaining” if he tried to write a story that was about female oppression. Instead, he decided to remove himself completely and ask the women around him to speak about their lives and times of oppression.
There isn’t an official name for the project yet, but Polak suggested “Women of Witt,” playing off the popular Facebook page “Humans of New York.”
Murray has thought about asking other people aside from Wittenberg female students, but hasn’t found the time at the current moment to move forward in that direction.
When asked if he will extend the project to men’s stories, Murray stated that “the voice of the stories have been silenced by a patriarchal society, and if I was to expand it to men, it would dilute the idea and create just another knock-off of ‘Humans of New York.’”
So far, Murray has interviewed over 20 women with the main purpose of bringing light to stories that are either ignored or not spoken about.
After posting one or two photos, the positive responses were overwhelming for Murray. He hopes that people continuing to share these stories on social media will help shed light on issues people ignore, and that bringing awareness to them would make him extremely happy.
