International Women’s Day, which falls annually on March 8, traces its roots to New York City in 1909, when socialists and suffragists came together to advocate for expanded women’s rights. Now we’ve got a whole month (lol) to celebrate our achievements and highlight our setbacks. Chicago has a wide range of events happening to commemorate iconic moments in women’s history. We’ve highlighted a few of the best below. And if you want to celebrate some iconic contemporary women, check out upcoming events with Peaches, Ani DiFranco, Marina Ross, Wild Yams, or a reimagining of Caryl Churchill’s 1982 feminist masterpiece Top Girls at the Raven Theatre.
Female Misbehavior: The Films of Monika Treut
Wed 3/4–Mon 3/30
For more than 40 years, septuagenarian German filmmaker Monika Treut has been blazing an iconoclastic trail in queer cinema. Though some of her early films were banned or deemed controversial in her native country, Treut has carried on—exploring S&M (1985’s Seduction: The Cruel Woman), drag (1988’s Virgin Machine), trans activists (1999’s Gendernauts: A Journey Through Shifting Identities), and much more through both documentaries and feature films. This series at the Music Box covers films from the first half of Treut’s career, recently restored by the Hamburg Kinemathek. (Music Box Theatre, all ages) KERRY CARDOZA
Free Angela and All Political Prisoners (2012) screening and community discussion
Sat 3/7
The Chicago Public Library delivers the goods with this free screening of Shola Lynch’s powerful 2012 documentary. The film centers on the 1970s trial of Angela Davis for her role in a courtroom takeover in California, an attempt to free Black Panther George Jackson. After the film, event organizer (and former Reader staffer) Danielle A. Scruggs will be joined in conversation by TRiiBE publisher Morgan Elise Johnson and Block Club journalist Jamie Nesbitt Golden. (Chicago Public Library Beverly branch, 1 PM, free, all ages) KERRY CARDOZA
Ruidosa Art Collective & Ramova Loft present: Latina Frontwomen of Chicago live panel discussion
Sun 3/8
Local art collective Ruidosa, who work to promote and organize music and art events for the community, present this annual roundtable featuring six Latin American vocalists from the local music scene. The discussion is hosted by Yeshi Regalado, Ruidosa founder and the front woman of the surf rock band La Rosa Noir. Joining Regalado are Brittany Cortez of Payasa, Gaby Akcelik of Killmoves, Alicia Gonzalez of Fantasma Negra, Angel Lunetta of Alenia, and Mila Diaz of Mila La Morena. Seating is first-come, first-served, so don’t plan on arriving on punk time. (Ramova Loft, noon, free, all ages) KERRY CARDOZA
If 2014’s Interstellar left you thinking about Gargantua, the massive black hole the film’s crew orbits to find a new home for humanity, then you are probably still daydreaming about how gravity and time dilation might really connect people across immense distances and dimensions. (Cue crying at Anne Hathaway’s Dr. Brand quote, “Love is the one thing we’re capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space.”)
On March 11, Avondale’s Skunk Cabbage Books hosts another installment of its Ask a Scientist night, a BYOB evening built around curiosity, conversation, and deep questions about our place in the universe.
The featured guest is Dr. Shanika Galaudage, an astrophysicist at Northwestern University and the Adler Planetarium. She studies some of the most extreme objects in existence, like black holes and neutron stars, using gravitational waves to understand how these systems form, evolve, and ultimately collide. If you’ve ever wondered how close real science gets to the mind-bending physics portrayed in Interstellar, this is your chance to ask.
True to its nature-focused, queer-owned ethos, Skunk Cabbage Books curates events, such as Ask a Scientist night, and nature-focused titles that remind us of humanity’s place in a more-than-human world, ranging from climate and ecology to cosmology.
Held during Women’s History Month, the event also highlights the reality that women, people of color, LGBTQ+ people, and others remain underrepresented at every stage of astrophysics careers, not because of a lack of talent, but because of persistent systemic barriers in the field. Making space for women scientists to share their work is part of shifting that story. (Skunk Cabbage Books, 6:30 PM, all ages) SARAH CONWAY
Being a mother requires many qualities: strength, resilience, and the ability to push, push, push (your body, your mind, your child—you name it). To embody all of these qualities at once is hard . . . hence the name “Not a Soft Thing,” a group show of 15 artists who take on the subject of motherhood as seen through their own eyes, enacted by their own hands, and (often) experienced by their own bodies.
In Aubrey Ingmar’s Being there, not being there, but always there, she transforms the space around a gallery entryway into a “yonic passageway,” installing vinyl and paint that appear organic and amorphic. The artist draws our attention to the spaces around us that mimic certain body parts—a welcome reminder that the maternal is ever present, whether we notice it or not. Like the “yonic” shape of the entryway, maternal labor is also easily overlooked.
In A. Martinez’s pieces remember to bring her flowers and I hear you still even now, remembrance of this maternal labor is key. Two figurative paintings are displayed side by side, sewn into a woven frame of dried flowers and hemp cord. Recordings of what sound like a family gathering can be heard from headphones nearby: laughter, music, and voices expressing joy and love. Here, intergenerational maternity is loud and clear. Mothers are not just biological moms. They are your grandmothers, your aunties, your teachers—anyone who provides a nurturing environment. Martinez’s piece is a reminder that motherhood cannot be done alone. (Chicago Cultural Center, daily 10 AM–5 PM, free, all ages) CHRISTINA NAFZIGER
Asha Futterman’s Song of Gray with Mary Helen Callier & Leah Flax Barber
Tue 3/31
Chicago-born poet and performer Asha Futterman is in conversation about her acclaimed work, Song of Gray, a book that explores the liminal spaces between humanity and objecthood. Futterman will be joined by Mary Helen Callier and Leah Flax Barber to talk about how contemporary poetry can help us build new logic systems around identity and being. (The Seminary Co-op, 4 PM, free) SARAH CONWAY
More in NEWS & CITY LIFE
The news you should know in the city you love.
A federal judge ordered immigration authorities to allow religious leaders inside the facility for Ash Wednesday.
Highlands Real Estate Investment Trust is leasing an empty Colorado prison to ICE and GEO Group.
President Donald Trump wants to strip hundreds of millions in public health funding from four states led by Democratic leaders—including $8 million from Illinois.
For the second straight primary season, more than half the races for Cook County circuit judge on the March 17 ballot are uncontested, with just 45 candidates vying for 28 open seats.
A curated list of events from our February Reader Radar and beyond.
Source link
#Celebrate #Womens #History #Month #theseReaderrecommended #events
