Archive: Apr 2009

So check this out:

Tonight at 6:30pm, Legal Momentum and Cornell University are bringing together leading lights Linda Hirshman, Heather Boushey, Mimi Abramowitz, and Irasema Garza to discuss the next frontier in women’s rights: Building Economic Equality and Security in a Time of Crisis. This panel event is free and open to the public.  Register here.

Cornell University ILR
16 East 34th Street, 6th Floor (between Madison and Fifth)
New York, NY 10016

I sadly cannot go but if any NYC-based GWP reader is interested in attending and either liveblogging for us or doing a post about it tomorrow, we’d all be thrilled!

More:

The current economic crisis has thrown the long-term impacts of women’s economic inequality into relief. Although women make up nearly half the workforce, they hold the vast majority of minimum and below-minimum wage and part-time jobs. Now, more than a year into a recession that has claimed millions of jobs in traditionally male-dominated industries, women are emerging as the de facto breadwinners, often struggling to support their families on low-wage salaries. While the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the FY 2010 budget promise major changes in labor and employment, it is not at all clear that these programs directly address the unique impact the recession is having on women.

The “Women’s Economic Equality: the Next Frontier for Women’s Rights” panelists will give an overview of the current economic landscape for women and families; will review policy initiatives to address the challenges confronting women; and set forth the case for a significant change in focus for the women’s rights movement toward an agenda focused on economic equality and personal security.

If you want to liveblog or post on this for us, please post a comment here or email me at deborah (at) girlwpen (dot) com.  Thanks!

Check out our own Miss Courtney Martin’s fearsome post at American Prospect last week and tell us what you think!  I’m sensing this is gonna be fodder for our next Women, Girls, and Ladies event –which, by the way, is at the very same Sackler Center for Feminist Art (June 20 – Save the Date!) where the event Courtney writes about here took place:

The End of the Women’s Movement

(For liveblogging of the event she refers to — by moi — go here.)

So I loves me a campus visit, but my visit to Framingham State College on Monday — though exhausting! — took the cake. Heartfelt thanks to superorganizer Virginia Rutter and her amazing crew: Lisa Eck, Bridgette Sheridan, the Gender Interest Group, English, History, Psychology, Sociology, Academic Affairs, President’s Office, Wellness Center, and Women’s Empowerment, with special kudos to students Chelsea Hastbacka and Ashley Barry.

The day started with a first-run lecture/discussion called “Gender Shakeup at the Recession,” in which I got to play professor once again.  I talked a bit about my personal experience with layoff, and national trends, and then had students go through two media pieces chock full of gender stereotypes (that DABA article from the New York Times from January and my dear co-blogger Joe the Trader’s piece at Recessionwire called “Gendernomics”).  The students really got it, and I learned from the things they noticed as well.  We talked about why the return to these traditional notions and self-presentations of gender now, and it’s something I sense I’ll be writing about more and more…

Then, a Sisterhood, Interrupted talk in a church — I got to say words like “ass” and “bitch” in a church!  Hey, they’re in the section of my book that I read from; not like I planned it or anything.

Next up, a blogging workshop.  And finally, a wrap-up with the faculty Gender Interest Group and the kind of discussion that made me really miss academia.  As a freelancer out here who straddles academic and non-academic worlds, it was grounding and re-energizing to be among engaged students and engaging faculty for a whirlwind day of thinking, discussing, and mulling.

The feminist group on campus — who call themselves “Women’s Empowerment” — played a big role in getting me there, and they, together with the faculty I met, are the lifeblood of feminist consciousness on this campus.  As always, the sight of young people coming to — and questioning — their feminism inspires me to no end.  Thank you, FSC, for reminding me why I do what I do!  You keep me going, you really do.