New Witcombe Video Asks ‘What is a Feminist?’

SUZANNE RAMSEY
College relations staff writer

A new video by art history professor Chris Witcombe poses the question, “What is a feminist?”

He made the video over spring break in response to that question, which was posed as the theme of a student contest sponsored by Sweet Briar’s women and gender studies program.

For the competition, students could submit essays, fiction, poetry, painting or other creative projects.

“It got me thinking,” Witcombe said, adding he also believes a lot of students don’t know what a feminist is or think the word has bad connotations. “[I wanted to] bring up the issue in a different way.”

As a professor, Witcombe was not qualified to enter the contest but he was “very inspired by the question,” assistant professor of sociology Debbie Kasper said, adding that for his 10-minute podcast Witcombe was declared the “victorious non-winning winner.”

You can watch the video on Witcombe’s Web site and YouTube.