Image from a performance of Les Barrileras del 8M at the annual manifestation in commemoration of International Women's Day, March 8, 2024 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Photo by Ana Irma Rivera Lassen.

International Women's Day is annually celebrated on March 8th since 1974 and recognized formally in Puerto Rico by law as a result of feminist activism. The United Nations recognized this day as International Women's Day in 1975 at the First International Women's Conference held in México. In Latin America and the Caribbean, it is commemorated widely by feminist organizations.

Meet Our 2025 Annual Conference Co-Chairs

We’re proud to share that our 45th Annual Conference Co-Chairs are Zoán T. Dávila Roldán, Shariana Ferrer-Nuñez, and Alexandra Pagán Vélez! Our Conference Co-Chairs serve as thought partners in designing a conference experience that attends to the contours of place/space - leveraging their leadership in the radical tradition of Black feminist, Queer, antiracist, anticolonial, political struggle as well as transformative pedagogy in naming, resisting, and dismantling systemic oppression.

Our Conference Co-Chairs, selected and invited by our President Heidi R. Lewis, support the vision of our annual convening and work collaboratively with the National Office in (re)designing how we gather - whether as settlers, arrivants, peoples of the Puerto Rican diaspora, and/or as generations of Feminist Freedom Warriors - and intentionally incorporating space for building power and political action, co-developing pedagogical interventions, enacting feminist ethics of imagined communities, amplifying your contributions that enrich our field of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality studies, and anchoring our whole selves as sites of joyful and radical possibility. 

Learn More About our Conference Co-Chairs

Travel Safety and Resources

The National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) recognizes and affirms the need for interventions and support as we navigate, resist, and survive the increasing violence codified by the Trump-Vance US administration.

A number of our community members are impacted by the escalating illegal ICE raids and deportations, the kidnappings in the name of “documentation,” the targeting of immigrant and undocumented activists, artists, educators, students, and the endangerment of community members exercising their right to freedom of speech (specifically in support of Palestinian liberation). We are witnessing the disappearing of our comrades and fascist violation of human rights in the United States and beyond.

As we prepare to be in Puerto Rico for our 45th Annual Conference, we recognize that traveling is a legitimate safety concern. Permanent residents, visa-holders, non-immigrants, green card holders, undocumented persons, and naturalized US citizens, are facing particular surveillance when traveling domestically within the United States of America and internationally. Our community’s safety is of the utmost importance; in addition to our existing (and growing) accessibility and inclusion protocols, we are providing an evolving list of resources from legal experts and organizations with expertise, in good faith.

We are mindful about making such a resource publicly available and the potential of further risking the safety of members by formally documenting (ex: via IP address collecting interest forms) who receives access. Therefore, if you’d like to receive this information, please reach out to the National Office by phone or email and our team will work with you in sharing these resources securely.

How We Develop Our Conference Program

Each year, the National Office invites submissions via our official Call for Proposals. The Association President sets the theme and areas of focus (sub-themes) that guide the curation of our conference program. We welcome proposals from activists, administrators, artists, educators, dreamers, practitioners, and feminist trouble makers with a vested interest in and commitment to promoting and supporting the production and dissemination of knowledge about gender and sexuality through teaching, learning, research and service in academic and other settings. Our commitments are to: illuminate the ways in which women’s, gender, and sexuality studies are vital to education; to demonstrate the contributions of feminist scholarship that is anti-racist, comparative, decolonial, global, intersectional and interdisciplinary to understandings of the arts, humanities, social sciences and sciences; and to promote synergistic relationships between scholarship, teaching and civic engagement in understandings of culture and society.

As a gentle reminder, the Association limits presenters to two (2) presentation sessions to assist us with building the conference schedule as well as honor all of our needs for balance and wellness in what can be a very capitalist space of expected (constant) production, and to allow for more diverse presenter participation!