At the start of each new academic year, the department recognizes an alum at our Annual Fall Reception for their longstanding commitment to feminist activism and advancement of knowledge and values central to Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies. The 2024 recipient of the Alumni Award is Martina Kartman, co-founder of Collective Justice and co-manager of their Collective Wellness Team. She graduated from the University of Washington with a BA in Women Studies in 2011, shortly before the department changed its name to GWSS. She also holds a JD from the University of Washington School of Law, where she was a William H. Gates Public Service Law Scholar.
Collective Justice is a restorative justice organization that grew out of conversations with survivors, community members, and incarcerated people who have been directly impacted by multiple forms of violence. Their mission states: “Through the collective wisdom and power of our members, we work toward cultural and systemic transformation that centers the dignity and resilience of all people impacted by mass imprisonment and violence.”
angela ginorio, who first got to know Kartman when she took GWSS 427: Women and Violence, presented the award to her former student at the department’s fall reception on October 9, 2024, with the following remarks.
As I thought about a brief introduction for Martina Kartman, three things came to mind:
Every time I do a Google search on Martina, I find something new she is doing. Just last night Martina Kartman was at Town Hall as part of a panel titled “We Keep Us Safe: Public Safety, Crime, and Elections.” I can’t keep up with her and learn so much from her.
The second thing that came to mind was how from her early years in our department Martina’s activism was making a difference; and for that she received the Herring Phelps Award for Scholarly Activism as an undergraduate. I’m not sure if that was the first award she ever got for her activism, but I can tell you it was not the last.
Finally, in the brief essay that Martina wrote as part of her application for the scholarly activism award, she mentions Adrienne Rich as one of her inspirations. So, I want to close my remarks with a few lines from two Adrienne Rich poems that speak directly to why Martina is the recipient of the 2024 GWSS Alumni Award. The first poem poses a question, and the second one answers it.
THE QUESTION
What would it mean to live
in a city whose people were changing
each other's despair into hope?—
You yourself must change it. —
what would it feel like to know
your country was changing?—
You yourself must change it.—
Though your life felt arduous
new and unmapped and strange
what would it mean to stand on the first
page of the end of despair?
(from Adrienne Rich, “Dreams Before Waking,” Your Native Land, Your Life: Poems, 1986, p. 46)
ADRIENNE’S & MARTINA’S ANSWER:
I have cast my lot with those
who, age after age, perversely,
with no extraordinary power,
reconstitute the world.
(from Adrienne Rich, “Natural Resources,” The Dream of a Common Language, 1978, p. 67)
[To learn more about our alumni awardees, read “There is so much work for us to do out there,” a profile of a previous recipient written by Simona Liao when she was a GWSS Communications Intern.]