Empowering Female Athletes is helping to combat the issues of gender-based violence and discriminatory behavior towards women and nonbinary athletes at Lafayette.
“We just weren’t being heard,” said junior lacrosse player and club president Ali Krieger.
During Krieger’s first year at Lafayette, she helped conduct a survey highlighting the main issues individuals had with the athletics department leading to the creation of Empowering Female Athletes.
“I think that [the survey] was really surprising to the coaches that these things were happening especially with representation on social media and then we had a hard statistic of people who’d been sexually assaulted, in a pie chart, it’s very obvious when a statistic is very glaring,” Krieger said.
Empowering Female Athletes is still run primarily through surveys sent out each semester to learn of particular issues. Since its foundation in 2021, Krieger has seen many changes.
“Our representation [on social media] changed when we spoke with GoLeopards,” Krieger said. “I don’t want to say it’s 100 percent, but I’d say we’re at 80 percent to 90 percent.”
Krieger explained that photographers are contracted outside of the athletics department which is why GoLeopards, the organization in charge of social media, had a lack of representation of women’s sports on their feeds.
“When that was explained to us, we were able to explain that to all female teams,” Krieger said. “I think that helps people understand and get clarity that it wasn’t just the athletic department not wanting women to be on their media.”
Krieger acknowledged the varying recognition different sports teams receive on campus, impacting the changes that can be made for female athletics.
“Sometimes you have to adjust your goal because it’s out of your control,” Krieger said. “For instance, we will never be the football team, and we should never try to be the football team, but we should try to be the best women’s lacrosse team we can be.”
Sophomore Lizzie Hurshman attributed part of her positive experience on the cross country and track teams to the community created by Empowering Female Athletes.
“I think it’s definitely enhanced my experience,” Hurshman said. “Right when I got onto campus, I already had this big base of people from the day I got here.”
Krieger wants Empowering Female Athletes to impact young girls in the Easton area as well.
“We can make so many changes for Easton female young athletes or nonbinary athletes,” Krieger said. “To have them come into our [lacrosse] game last year and play a little mini League was adorable.”
Krieger hopes to have more bonding activities amongst women’s athletic teams and discussions for all athletes focusing on gender issues.
“I have learned there are some things that you just have to accept that they just are and you can make small changes and you can do little things and you should be proud of those things,” Krieger said.
