Collaboration and Coalition: A White Woman’s Reflections on Leading a Women’s Center

Abstract

This chapter offers an introspective account of the author’s experience as a white, queer, cisgender woman serving as acting manager of a Women’s Center at a predominantly white research university. Employing critical whiteness theory and intersectional feminism, she examines her evolving understanding of privilege, accountability, and feminist leadership within higher education’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) landscape. Through autoethnographic reflection, she contextualizes her work within institutional histories of white feminism, heteronormativity, and resource inequity. The narrative interrogates how identity centers can simultaneously empower and marginalize, and how white women practitioners must engage in self-critical praxis to advance equity meaningfully. The author underscores the importance of coalition building, reflexivity, and humility in leadership, positioning Women’s Centers as evolving spaces that must continually reimagine inclusion and purpose in response to shifting campus demographics and social contexts.