Newsletter

Cut, Paste, Resist: Zine making for Womanist Week

By Eva Jo McIlraith

April 2, 2026

What does it mean to be a Womanist? Attendees gathered in the DMC on the night of Tuesday, February 24th to discuss the meaning of the Womanist movement and how it diverges from mainstream feminism while exploring the art of zine making in community. Coined by author and activist Alice Walker, the term first appeared in her 1982 publication In Search of Our Mothers Gardens: A Womanist Prose. The movement was made to acknowledge the unique obstacles and challenges faced by Black women.

Center for Intersectional Feminism (CIF) and Feminists of Color Collective (FCC) organizers selected zine making as an element of the event, building off of the functional art form with a long history of social organizing. FCC Secretary Lucia Kitsos ‘28 led the group in a workshop on how to fold and form zines, before the group dissolved into conversation and crafting. Attendees shared among themselves various zine topics, including campus politics and community connections. Taking up Walker’s belief that crafting and art exists as an expression of Black femininity, organizers facilitated zine making as an accessible and powerful tool for community building and self-realization.

By the end of the evening, the question of what it means to be a Womanist had transformed into lived experience. Through conversation, creativity, and shared reflection, attendees engaged with Alice Walker’s vision, and carried it forward in their own creations. The act of zine-making became more than an artistic exercise, it became a space for storytelling, resistance, and affirmation. In centering Black women’s experiences and embracing art as a vehicle for expression, the gathering fostered a sense of connection and empowerment that reminded participants that Womanism is not only something to study, but to practice, build, and sustain in community and creation.