Feminist Alliance of Students at Tulane began this month in an effort to increase the visibility and understanding of the meaning and importance of feminism to the Tulane campus.

Though there are other feminist and women’s groups on campus, sophomore Caroline Lutkewitte, the founder of FAST, said Tulane lacked a group focused on impacting the general student body.

Lutkewitte’s goal is for FAST to help feminism be more accepted and for people across all genders and sexual orientations to be more comfortable with the term.

“Obviously, it would be awesome if the whole campus could just embrace that, and we didn’t need a club in order to effect that change,” Lutkewitte said. “I think a club is the best way, though, to have visibility on campus and to gain active membership.”

Lutkewitte said she believes there is a need to bring awareness of the meaning of feminism and the implications of feminism to the Tulane campus.

“On Tulane’s campus in particular, there are a lot of things that create this skewed sense of feminism and an attitude toward women that isn’t acceptable,” Lutkewitte said.

FAST meetings will offer a safe space for people to discuss women’s issues and bring up problems they see on campus. Lutkewitte also wants to introduce “Feminist Fridays” to celebrate and start conversations about feminism. In addition, she said she wants FAST to reach out to different niches of campus that would benefit from discussion and exposure to the concepts of feminism. 

“I really want to start off with the Greek life population, both fraternities and sororities, as well as the male population and the international population,” Lutkewitte said.

She envisions volunteering as an important aspect of FAST. With all the volunteer opportunities New Orleans has to offer, Lutkewitte wants members to reach out and serve various women’s organizations in the New Orleans area, such as domestic violence homes.

“For me its like, ‘why not be a feminist?,’” Lutkewitte said. “Feminism is just believing that men and women are equal.”