What do bees and feminism have in common? A lot, actually.

The Women and Gender Advocacy Center hosted the 14th annual Feminist Thought & Activism Conference March 30, where participants shared thoughts and skills all surrounding feminism and all the ways feminism shows up in the community.

The theme for the conference was bees, following the idea that “a world without feminism is like a world without bees,” said Sam Leak, the event coordinator. According to the Women and Gender Advocacy Center newsletter, they drew inspiration from the honeybee, which is a key insect in providing food essential to our survival. The honeybee is a feminist colony that works toward the collective well-being of the entire community, just like the conference aimed to do.

It’s not only learning about feminism. It’s people learning about their roles in this world, in this society in regards to your race, your gender, how you identify, et cetera, et cetera. I just think this is a really good space for people to communicate and get to know about different (types of feminism).” – Sam leak, event coordinator

“I think I was just reading something about how essential honeybees are to our society and how if we didn’t have them, we’d lose a lot of our different food resources and how it was just this huge thing that we still haven’t addressed really,” Leak said. “I just kind of thought about how like a world without bees is like a world without feminism and without equality.”

The theme showed up in multiple ways, such as bee puns in speeches, bees on logo designs, honey on tables and so on.

“I think my favorite thing is how we’re talking about feminism through a variety of lenses,” Leak said. “It’s not just through people who identify as white. It’s a lot of Latinx and Black (identities), different gender identities and sexuality identities, and how that kind of intermingles with feminism.”

The conference topics extended past feminism and ventured into presentations like death positivity and spirituality. The event covered many different topics to have something for everyone.

“It’s not only learning about feminism,” Leak said. “It’s people learning about their roles in this world, in this society in regards to your race, your gender, how you identify, et cetera, et cetera. I just think this is a really good space for people to communicate and get to know about different (types of feminism).”

One of the sessions was on the topic of spirituality and how it relates to activism.

“I was interested in ways to sustain myself as an activist, to avoid burnout and to also have my work fuel me and make it feel nourishing, not draining,” said Atlas Tanudjaja, who facilitated this session.

Conferences like these help attendees meet a lot of different needs.

“The first is community,” Tanudjaja said. “So we know who is doing the work, who’s out there. The second is to create opportunity, to learn and to generate more collaboration. The third is to show with presence, ‘Hey we’re here, and we care about these things.'”

Healthy discussion of such controversial topics provides a level of hope to everyone involved.

“I hope people leave here just kind of feeling a little bit better about the world,” Leak said. “I know the world can be really frustrating sometimes, after reading news articles, or just after reading the title of something, you’re just like ‘I’m feeling defeated.’ So I just hope they leave here today feeling a little bit better and come out with different ways to tackle the world and just to view how feminism can affect parts of people’s lives.”

Maddie Wright can be reached at entertainment@collegian.com or on Twitter @maddierwright.