What is going on here?

On the Tonight Show's "Jaywalking" segment last night, in honor of Women's History Month, Jay Leno hit the streets asking young women questions about women's history. The women were in their late teens and early twenties; some had their mothers with them.

They did not know who Betty Ross was; they did not know a woman is currently running for president; they could not identify the pictures of either Susan B. Anthony, Eleanor Roosevelt, Laura Bush or Nancy Pelosi. And they didn't know what "ERA" stands for.

What is going on here????? Shame on the education system, shame on parents and mentors, and shame on us as AAUW members for not doing a better job of educating our young women!

Meet Cynthia D'Amour

Several years ago, I learned about Cynthia D'Amour and her website, www.chapterleaders.com,
designed for leaders of volunteer organizations. It is truly a resource center with books, CDs, and articles designed to help us with the problems that all organizations have with membership, meeting management, leadership development, and working with volunteers. Up until recently she published a semi-monthly e-zine entitled, "Active Member Minute" with tips on how to get members involved; back issues are now on the website.

Just today she announced her blog, http://cynthiadamour.com.

Check it out to chat with other volunteer leaders about our common issues.

Third Wave Feminism

At Women's Legislative Days, I heard two 30-something speakers, Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards, and their talk (along with their books) changed the way I think about Generation X!

They talk above 3 waves of feminism: the First Wave battled for the vote and for the Equal Rights Amendment; the Second Wave worked to establish reproductive freedom and job equality, and worked on the leftover goal of the Equal Rights Amendment. The young women of today, the Third Wave, feel as if they live their feminist lives without clear political struggles.

So, what are the goals of the Third Wave? They continue to work on issues identified by the Second Wave: sexual harassment, domestic abuse, the wage gap, and the pink-collar ghetto of low-wage women's work. In addition, they have more modern problems: equal access to the Internet and technology, HIV/AIDS awareness, child sexual abuse, self-mutilation, globalization, eating disorders, body image, and sexual health.

I am now convinced that our GenX sisters are, in fact, feminists; they just express it differently than the Second Wave did. Now, how do we, as AAUW members, persuade these women that we can be a vehicle through which they can express their feminism?

"An American Brat" -- a real treat!

In celebration of Women's History Month, Karen Morris and the Houston Branch organized an afternoon at the theater for AAUW members to see "An American Brat." Bapsi Sidhwa wrote the book of the same name, based on her real life, and then worked for several years to develop the stage adaptation of this delightful play. For an additional treat, because it was the first performance of the current run, there was a talk back session following the play. All the cast members, the director, and the author came out on stage and answered questions from the audience. It was entertaining, educational, and enjoyable!

Sidhwa, called "Pakistan's finest English-language novelist" by the New York Times, visited with AAUW members after the talk back session. We also visited with cast members and even recruited a couple of potential Houston branch members!

If you are in Houston between now and March 25, I highly recommend you see the play; if that's not possible, I suggest you read the book. It offers some much to think about regarding family, culture, religion, and intergenerational tensions that exist for all of us.

From left to right: Luke Eddy, Rahnuma Panthaky, Arzan Gonda (cast members), Karen Morris (president, Houston Branch), Bapsi Sidhwa, Linda Conger and Sundy Srinivasan (cast member)

A Trailblazer Extraordinaire

Meet Emogene Emery, 96, who is thought to be the oldest member of the Abilene Branch of AAUW. I met her in February when I attended the branch's 75th anniversary celebration. She is an amazing woman.

When asked why she joined AAUW she replied, "I was so disturbed by the way Shawnee (public schools in Oklahoma) treated single women. . .I liked what AAUW members were trying to do, which was give women a chance."

She went on to tell her story: she graduated from college when she was 20; her father became ill and her mother wanted her to stay in Shawnee and take a job teaching. She was told, "I'm sorry, Miss Emory. We'd like to have you in our school system, but we can't hire single women." When asked why they didn't want single women, she replied, "They thought the women didn't need the money."

Miss Emory has spent her life working for women's equity, and has inspired many college women to pursue their dreams. She got her college degree when it was rare for a women to attend college, rarer for a woman to graduate, and and even more rare for a woman to achieve advanced degrees. She is truly a trailblazer and one of the many women in AAUW we can thank for the improvements in equity which we enjoy today.

What will our granddaughters and great-granddaughters say about the improvements we made for them?

Victory for Women

A victory for all women who have battled gender discrimination in the workplace was won this week when a jury awarded Janet Conney $4.07 million from her suit against the University of California Regents and UCLA.

In 2003 Conney, a former assistant clinical professor at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute and Hospital, sued UC-Regents and UCLA for sexual harassment, retaliation for complaining about discrimination, and pay inequity.

Conney is supported by AAUW's Legal Advocacy Fund (LAF) which provides funding and a support system for individuals seeking judicial redress for sex discrimination. To date, AAUW has donated more than $17,000 to Conney's case. The award is one of the largest awarded to an AAUW LAF plaintiff.

Read the full case summary of Janet Conney v. The Regents of the University of California, et al.

Swifty and Friends

This is Karen McKibben Morris and I with Swifty, the swimming pig. She's only 4 months old and will be vying for a Guiness World record at a competition in Los Angeles later this month. Title IX has opened the doors of athletics for ALL females!

AAUW Educational Foundation Changes Women's Lives

A couple of weeks ago I attended the 42nd SMU Women's Symposium. Our luncheon speaker was Dr. Asma Barlas, Associate Professor and Chair of Politics and interim director of the Center for the Study of Culture, Race, and Ethnicity at Ithaca College.

Dr. Barlas' book, "Believing Women" in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qur'an, addresses sexism, patriarchy, misogyny, tradition, and reform, drawing on a diverse group of scholars but establishing her own voice and distinctive scholarly and Islamic position. She "rereads" thousands of years of interpretations of the Qur'an and convincingly asserts that the Qur'an affirms the complete equality of the sexes. This new view takes readers into the very heart of Islamic teachings on women, gender, patriarchy, allowing them to understand Islam through its most sacred scripture, rather than through Muslim cultural practices or Western media stereotypes.

This "groundbreaking piece of scholarship" is a huge step toward establishing equity for Muslim women and girls, and for that we in AAUW applaud her. But, more interesting and arguably more important, it was an AAUW International Fellowship which allowed Dr. Barlas to get her Ph.D. She came to the U. S. from Pakistan and AAUW was the only source of funding she could find for an international student. In the late 1980's, she receieved $10,000 from the Educational Foundation; this allowed her, a single mother, to quit her job and pay for daycare for her children so that she could dedicate her days to her study! She told me she would be forever grateful to AAUW!

This is only one example of the many ways women's lives are being changed by women who receive help from AAUW's Educational Foundation.