I go to a small women’s college in North Carolina. Salem College’s single sex classrooms reinforce the school’s mission of empowering young women. During my three years here, I have been fortunate enough to hear and meet many strong and intelligent women, like bell hooks, Chelsea Clinton, and most recently, Gloria Steinem.

On November 13, we had a different sort of female image on our stage: one member of a lesser-known organization called the Guerrilla Girls, and she came with a very clear purpose: to change people’s minds about the “f”-word.

That “f”-word is, of course, ‘feminism.’ The Guerrilla Girls are a group of anonymous female artists who work towards putting an end to sexism and racism in arts, politics, Hollywood, and American culture in general. The Girls take the names of dead female artists and don gorilla masks when they make appearances to protect their anonymity.

They chose to remain anonymous because they wanted their audience to focus on the issues they were presenting rather than their personal lives. And, being artists themselves, they didn’t want to jeopardize their own careers. “The art world is a very small place,” they say on their website. “Of course, we were afraid that if we blew the whistle on some of its most powerful people, we could kiss off our art careers. But mainly, we wanted the focus to be on the issues, not on our personalities or our own work.”

Our guest went the name of Frida Kahlo, and she is one of the founding Guerrilla Girls. Kahlo made her way into the crowded room, offering bananas as she walked down the aisle. She explained how the Guerrilla Girls came to be in 1985.

Kahlo and other female artists became infuriated when they learned how few women artists had their work showcased in major art museums. They did research on various art museums and learned the demographics of the artists whose works were hanging on museum walls and were not happy with what they found: the galleries were dominated by white male artists.

The Girls combined their newly discovered statistics with a commanding attitude to write books and make posters and billboards. Many feature classic sculptures and paintings with a gorilla face stuck on the head. One poster shows a nude sculpture, and asks, “Do women have to be naked to get into U.S. museums?” It then defends that less than 3% of the artists featured in the Metropolitan Museum of Art are female, yet 83% of the nudes on display are women.

They are also going after the movie industry. They say that no woman has ever won the Academy Award for Best Director and that 94% of the Oscars for writing have gone to men. Only 3% of all Oscars for acting have been awarded to people of color. Another billboard says that “even the U.S. Senate is more progressive than Hollywood,” as 14% of Senators are women and only 4% of film directors are female.

The Girls put on their gorilla masks and sneak around New York City in the middle of the night, pasting posters around town-even on mailboxes. Kahlo said the public displays garnered attention to the issues, so they kept going.

The Guerrilla Girls have since taken their act worldwide, protesting museums in Spain, Mexico, China, Turkey, and Greece. Many of these museums, as well as major ones in the United States, keep women’s work in their basements rather than putting it on display.

While they do a great deal of work to call attention to the prevalent sexism and racism in the art world, they also work to raise awareness of all women’s issues in America and worldwide. They aim to redefine the often demonized and eschewed “feminist” label. “Isn’t it a crazy world where a feminist has to wear a mask to get attention?” she said.

Kahlo concluded with the reminder that change is something you need to fight for. She advised the attending Salem women to create their own way of being an activist, just like they had.

“I advise you to put on a mask and see what comes out of your mouth,” she said. “While you’re at it, invent your own way to be a feminist as well.”