To kick off Creighton’s 2023 Women’s Empowerment Week, four students performed at the Lieben Center’s first ever women’s empowerment poetry slam/open mic event.  

Nikki Ruiz, Vaishnavi Ravichandran, Bethy Ruiz and Katie Engel all read original poems as the audience snacked on popcorn and lemonade.  

“We thought this would be a super fun event to start off the week and that it was super needed,” Nikki said, who is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences and who organized the event. “Just getting emotions out and to get a good baseline to start Empowerment Week, we wanted to let people talk about what they want and to use their own voice.” 

Each poem highlighted different themes of women’s empowerment and told a little bit about each student’s story as gender minorities.  

Nikki was the first performer of the evening, and her poem was an uplifting piece that focused on the power of women supporting one another in the face of the patriarchy. 

“I feel like in today’s day and age, women are meant to be seen and not heard,” she said. “Our thoughts are put secondhand to men’s, and that’s what women’s empowerment is all about: letting women know that you are heard.”  

Vaishnavi, a junior majoring in both marketing and graphic design, was the next performer up. Her poem told of her appreciation for her experiences moving from India to America and her time finding friends as an international student and as a woman.  

“It was one of those moments when I knew it was time to appreciate the people I have in my life,” she said. “Since I was presenting to them [friends in the audience], I thought it was time I say something about them.” 

Bethy, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, was the third performer of the evening. Her original poem emphasized the discrimination that women face on a daily basis, and how a new light needs to be shed on women that illuminates their strength. 

“I knew that I didn’t want to talk just about women and how they are discriminated against. There are so many good things about being a woman, and there isn’t much recognition in that aspect,” she said. “We can still be the victim, but we can also overcome that.” 

The final performer of the night was Katie Engel, a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences, who performed an original piece titled “Gorgeous Gorgeous Girls.” The poem used a repetitive flow to describe the stereotypes that women are judged by, and how Katie has experienced such stereotypes as a nonbinary person.  

“I was conveying the stereotypes that I grew up with being put on me because I was assigned female at birth, what all those stereotypes entailed for me and how I stray from those,” they said. “It’s ok to stray from those things. I wanted to show how rigid gender-binary is not essential to being a successful person.”  

Women’s Empowerment Week concluded with a march from Skutt Student Center to the Harper Center, followed by a reception shortly after on March 31.