HerEmpire, a collection of select women’s empowerment groups, formally debuted as an assembly of sisterhood in the University of Michigan’s Diag Friday afternoon. The event was sponsored by Central Student Government through a grant for organizational resources.
HerEmpire included three female-directed clubs — Pretty Smart Girls, CenterSpot LLC and Women in Law. It also included the University’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center. The event was the result of a common goal of the organizations, centered on workplace and education-based feminist empowerment — an effort to help women find their power in male-dominated fields and spaces.
Pretty Smart Girls, a new club on campus, led the event. The website explains the main goal of the club is to “build a network of self-identified women who support and empower one another, building leaders across all fields at the University of Michigan professionally and personally through a network of resources.”
Business junior Darian Double, a co-founder of Pretty Smart Girls, said she founded the organization to provide more resources for female empowerment in the workforce.
“The issue of not having resources when being underprivileged, combined with the issue of being a female, in general, and having a lack of confidence or not being comfortable in certain situations and areas of the workforce were the reason for the startup of this specific organization,” Double said.
Double said she and her co-founder, LSA junior Dajana Korcari, are both interested in business, which is known to be a male-dominated field, and wanted to start a club to address all of those issues.
Korcari said the group will benefit its members by providing support and networking opportunities.
“It will be a support group and a network group to use in these women’s daily lives,” Korcari said.
LSA junior Payton White, a new member of Pretty Smart Girls, said her first impression of PSG has been positive.
“(It) has been a great experience for women to network in all aspects,” White said.
CenterSpot LLC, a business for the development of technology usage for women’s issues, also attended the event. It took on the business aspect of female empowerment inside HerEmpire. The booth visitors were asked to pitch an idea to the CEO and founder of CenterSpot LLC, LSA junior Taylor Lansey.
Lansey explained CenterSpot was initially founded to help girls looking to join sororities.
“It started as a software and mobile app to help women navigate the sorority recruitment process,” Lansey said.
Lansey has since expanded CenterSpot LLC and collaborated with Pretty Smart Girls to come up with the foundations of HerEmpire and what they wanted to emphasize in the process.
LSA sophomores Ellery Weiner and Alexis Ash represented Women in Law. The club is new to campus this semester and is targeted towards undergraduates interested in law. Weiner said the club hopes to bring in speakers and employees in the field to help those interested in law learn and prepare.
“Speakers will be brought in, and employees of the law school to do workshops for those invested in the club,” Weiner said.