History Professor Dr. Elisabeth Ritacca is leading a discussion after a screening of the documentary Miss Representation from 1 to 3:30 p.m. March 7 in the student lounge (ED 170).
The film focuses on media and how they portray a certain way for how a woman should be and look like.
“I think that’s a valuable conversation to have.” Ritacca said.
This is the second year Citrus is celebrating Women’s History Month and the first year there is a full committee devoted to it, Ritacca said.
Ritacca went to a small college in eastern Washington and took her first women’s history class when her professor decided to focus on women in a labor history class.
“I really hadn’t known that there was such a thing as women’s history before that class,” Ritacca said.
Then she got her Master’s degree in U.S. History at Purdue and her PhD at UC Davis.
In 2014, she started looking for work and became a professor at Citrus.
“I took this position because they were looking specifically for someone to teach U.S. women’s history,” Ritacca said.
Yachi Rivas, student trustee, took the Women’s History class with Professor Ritacca in Fall 2017.
She learned that women play a bigger role than she thought.
“I’m sad that they didn’t offer it again.” Rivas said.
Rivas goes to conferences with all men and there is a difference from business at Citrus.
“You don’t think it’s different until you go somewhere else and then you see the difference over there and I think Citrus is better than those colleges,” Rivas said.
The majority of leaders on campus are women.
“My boss is a woman, her boss is a woman and her boss is a woman,” Rosario Garcia, the interim student life supervisor said. “I just think that’s great.”
