Arrowhead introduces new club: Me Her Us

A new club named Me Her Us will have its first meetings on Tuesday, February 13 or Wednesday, February 14 at 2:45 in Room 201 at North campus. Interested students, both boys and girls, can attend either meeting. The club’s goal is to support girls through conversation and action by bringing awareness to the struggles faced by women.

One objective of Me Her Us is to work with Day for Girls, to provide menstrual products and education to women everywhere. Members will hold fundraisers and volunteer at women’s shelters such as The Milwaukee’s Women Center, the Women’s shelter in Waukesha, and the Joy House. The club will visit middle schools and lead discussions with young girls about friendship, periods, and pressure to be perfect.

According to August by Always, one in five girls in the U.S. miss school because they cannot afford menstrual products. According to Rewire News, every year, Americans spend two billion dollars on these products. According to a Girlguiding survey, 36% of seven to ten year old girls say people make them think that the most important thing to to be attractive.

The club was created by Lily MacLean, a junior at Arrowhead. At school, she says she enjoys Modern Literature, A.P. Psychology, and Forensics.

She says, “I’ve always cared about…woman empowerment, especially since freshman year when I started forensics and did a lot of speeches on that stuff…Some of the things we’ll do [in the club] is volunteer and hold fundraisers for different women’s shelters in the area…and we will work with Days for Girls who provide reusable period kits to girls in less developed countries, so they can actually go to school and take care of that stuff. We’ll have guest speakers come in and some of the girls will be chosen to visit middle schoolers during the reproductive unit for girls so they can be more open and it’s not weird like you have to talk to grown-ups about it.”

She says the process for creating the club was relatively easy.

MacLean says, “I had to write up a proposal and give it to Mr. Mangan, the activities director, and then I had to pick a teacher to be my supervisor so Mrs. Passler. She teaches some of the English classes. She was my favorite teacher and she had mentioned topics related to women empowerment through the stories we red in class.”

Ainsley Benneker is a sophomore at Arrowhead. She said she just recently heard about the club but could not recall what it was about. After reading into it, she said “I think that’s a good idea, it’s really cool.”

MacLean says this to students thinking about joining the club: “Do it. I think it’s really important to put time and effort into [women’s issues] that affect people, either for yourself, or the other females you know.”