The Power of Femvolution
“That was honestly so scary!” Melissa Morillo said as we walked down the dim hall of the Student Center Annex on the campus of Montclair State University.
“Why was it so scary?” I asked.
“I don’t know. It just was. I have never done something like that before,” Morillo said as we had just ended our interview regarding the organization called Femvolution which resides on the MSU campus.
Morillo has been a part of Femvolution since 2014. Currently, she is the Vice President, Arts/Media and Public Relations Coordinator. She is now in her senior year but has high hopes and plans in store for the upcoming semester along with the President Lilly Melartin.
This is Melartin’s first year being involved and she is also in her senior year. Even though she joined later in her college career she feels that a lot of what they do is familiar to her. She has been a feminist since she was a child.
Together, Morillo and Melartin are teaming up to restructure Femvolution’s missions and goals. This semester the organization was inactive due to the lack of E-board members many of whom graduated this past May.
As written in their mission statement, Femvolution is an inclusive group that welcomes all people to join their “fight for a better world”. They hold bi-weekly discussion groups and focus on current social issues tying them back into their own personal experiences. The group is not restricted to just feminist ideals or the stigma of being a rebel and an angry woman.
As Melartin added, feminism can be described in many ways. She herself refused to try and define it, but both Melartin and Morillo agree “equality is a big part of it”.
“We have a cause and we’re going to cause a scene but [only] to create a revolution, hence the word Femvolution,” said Morillo.
Just a few weeks ago, Femvolution organized a Trump protest on MSU’s campus. The protest began with a march around the campus for all to see and ended in the Blanton Quad where students were given the opportunity to share their own views of the election. The protest is one of Morillo and Melartin’s most memorable moments since being apart of the organization.
The main goal of the protest was to “stand up and say hate is not an MSU value. As a university we should stick together as a community,” Morillo said. “We are entering a new stage of life, a civil revolution I would call it….We should have been awake this whole time about the things that have been going on. But this election has definitely brought around awareness and a lot of activism on campus and throughout the world.”
Some people spoke about their own problems while others spoke about their fears. “Some people were crying and I’d hate to say it but it was touching,” said Melartin.
These are the things Femvolution likes to see. Proud moments where they are able to educate, spread awareness and motivate people to try and change how things are going. But Femvolution isn’t all about spreading awareness. It is also about friendships, connections and being happy with who you are and what you do.
Morillo describes the organization as dealing a lot with women empowerment and getting women to believe in themselves.
Next year, they hope to possibly host self-defense classes along with the help of MSU Police and to raise money for different organizations such as Love is Respect, Planned Parenthood and Now. They are planning to host a series of speakers that deal with women empowerment and safe sex which they have worked with a lot in the past.
Morillo believes the organization is very educational both on a personal and academic level. She herself did not know much about feminism until college. There are things people grow up not understanding. Things that could cause trauma she explained. When you learn about things it makes it easier to heal, cope, understand and bring about change. It is all about being proactive.
Overall, both Morillo and Melartin want to continue to make an impact on other people and are all about activism and volunteering.
“We basically try to look at [Femvolution] as being the future,” Morillo said. “We are the future. We are recreating the future.”
