Feminist Events Calendar

January:
-22nd: 32nd Anniversary of Roe v. Wade

February:
-14th: V-day

March--Women's History Month:
-8th: International Women's Day

April:
NEW DATES!
-8th: Feminist Leadership Institute
-9th-11th: National Collegiate Global Women's and Human Rights Conference

Contact Us!

Call us toll free at either the East coast office (1-866-444-FMLA) or the West coast office (1-866-471-FMLA) . You can also email us at campusteam@feminist.org. We are always happy to hear from you and answer any questions or concerns!

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This is your E-zine, and we are always updating and changing to fit your needs, so please let us know what you think of our new format! Email campusteam@feminist.org with any suggestions, ideas, or comments.

EC Week of Action a success
You sent thousends of letters urging the FDA to approve Emergency Contraception (EC) for over-the-counter (OTC) status during EC Week of Action, but it is very important to keep up the good work until the FDA makes its decision about EC OTC in January! If you haven't sent a letter yet, send one today! If you have sent your letter already, remember to tell your friends to send one too! We must continue to take action on this issue until the FDA approves EC for OTC status.

Feminist Majority Foundation Election Analysis - Ohio 2004
On Wednesday, December 8, Representative John Conyers, Jr., and other members of Congress held the first congressional forum on election irregularities in Ohio. Feminist Majority Foundation Eleanor Smeal testified, as did other leaders, lawyers, and citizens of Ohio.

Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, explained that in her analysis, voter purging in Ohio is inconsistent from county to county, but appeared to significantly affect Cuyahoga County (Cleveland area). Because of purging of voters in 2001 and 2002 in Cuyahoga County, the massive voter registration effort in the county in 2003 and 2004 still resulted in a net loss in registered voters in 2004 compared to the 2000 election. Find out more

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Feminist Spotlight: Outstanding Students, Groups, and Faculty
We would like to thank all of the FMLAs and affiliate groups around the country for the great job they did this semester, especially for thier work on the Get Out Her Vote campaign. We would also like to recognize the following outstanding students, groups, and faculty members for their activism and efforts this semester:

St. Mary's College (MD)
FUSE, St. Mary's FMF affiliate group, has had a very active and successful semester under the outstanding leadership of Co-Presidents Lauren Strange and Allison Mull.

Most recently, they made the EC OTC campaign part of their work with Amnesty International's 16 Days of Activism, a joint project with other activist clubs on campus which links the spread of HIV/AIDS to the violence against women world-wide. They also participated in EC Week of Action, during which they sent a Letter to the Editor, which was published in their student newspaper, put up flyers informing students that EC is available at their Health Center, and tabled with the EC OTC petition. They got a great deal of support from students and plan on continuing to pass on the EC OTC email letter over the Winter break.

Their activities over the semester also included Love Your Body Week, during which they hosted a discussion on body image, as well as a belly dancing workshop. They put together a presentation for Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week on the ways in which poverty disproportionately affects women, especially in terms of reproductive rights and access to contraception. They co-hosted an event that brought Alix Olson, an activist and slam poet, and Pamela Means, an activist folk guitarist and singer, to their campus. Members of this group also worked with the Executive Board of the Gay and Straight Alliance to create a closer network for the two social justice groups.

This semester they were also finally given a room of their own in one of the storage closets in the all-women's dorm on campus to use as a Women's Center. The new Women's Center already has a library of feminist literature, a computer, a couch, several chairs, and space for group materials, but they are in the process of updating the room and making it not only more accessible to the student body but also more attractive.

University of California, Riverside
This FMLA did outstanding work this semester on the Get Out Her Vote campaign. They worked with other organizations on campus to create a Vote coalition and collectively registered 2100 students. The FMLA took the lead on the voter registration on the last day by organizing over 50 volunteers. They made t-shirts with the "Virgins Wanted" logo and had people stationed all over campus regsitering voters for one final push. The FMLA was able to register over 250 people in that one day!

Aside from their outstanding voter registration, the FMLA also conducted two "teach ins" on rape prevention and sexual assault survivor services on campus. In their teach ins, they educated attendees on Emergency Contraception and advocated for giving EC over-the-counter status. Over 75 people attended each teach in.

Jackie Wang
Jackie is a junior high school student at JW Mitchell High School in Trinity, FL, and she is attempting to start an FMLA at her school. Since her school has been slow to give her group recognition she has started having feminist gatherings at her house. She has invited feminists from both her own school and the surrounding schools to have an activist dialogue. She is always looking for wasy to build upon their feminist consciousness both collectivley and independently.

Dr. Laura Moore, Hood College (MD)
Dr. Moore is a professor in the department of Sociology and Social Work at Hood College in Frederick, MD. One of the classes she teaches is the Sociology of Gender: Sexuality. She received her BA from Lousiana State University, MA and Ph.D from the University of Maryland-College Park.

Her research and interests include a multi-level analysis of Christian fundamentalism and gender attitudes; contextual factors contributing to U.S. South distinctiveness; socio-cultural factors impacting female sexual autonomy; successful HIV-prevention strategies of at-risk women; impact of high status tokens on campus climate, student performance measures and gender identity. She is a member of the Southern Sociological Society, Sociologists for Women in Society, Sexuality Section for the American Sociological Association.

This semester Dr. Moore has been integral in launching the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance at Hood College. She helped quickly organize and advertisement a general interest meeting for students. She and the students were very energetic and invested in the launching the FMLA and within a week of the meeting, had drafted a constution. Dr. Moore worked to make sure that the consitution was submitted in time for the last meeting of the Hood College Student Government. The group is now waiting to be officially recognized by Hood.

Dr. Deborah Burghardt, Clarion University (PA)
Dr. Burghardt has directed the Women’s Studies Program from its inception (1992). Dr. Deb (as she likes to be called by her students) is particularly interested in the organization and administration of Women's Studies programs and what motivates faculty to do feminist scholarship. Other research interests include African-American women leaders, women and minorities and science, and interpersonal violence among college students.

In teaching the Survey of Women’s Studies, she has provided students with a feminist perspective on a conservative campus. Dr. Burghardt has provided many students with a feminist background through her courses and through her activism in the newly formed Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance at Clarion.

Through her unorthodox but effective teaching style, she provides students with an option of participating in activism such as domestic violence training with the local rape crisis center, PASSAGES, Inc and domestic violence center, SAFE. She recently included participation in FMLA as an option in her classes, which has given students a hands on experience in activism. Her students participated in the Get Out Her Vote campaign, the V-Day campaign, for which they had the opportunity to travel to New York City for events hosted by the movement behind “The Vagina Monologues.”

The students who are in her course often become active beyond requirements of the course and provide a basis for leadership at Clarion University. Dr. Deb welcomes all to the Women’s Studies Center, which provides a comfortable and ‘feminist friendly’ atmosphere. As the faculty organizer for “The Vagina Monologues” for the fifth year, she has assisted in raising over $12,000 for SAFE, PASSAGES, and the V-Day Spotlight: Women in Juarez. Additionally, she organized several student leaders to present their experiences for activism from their personal struggles such as racism, suicide, self-mutilation and anorexia at the 2004 Pennsylvania Women’s Consortium for State Schools. As an outstanding professor and an activist for social justice, Dr. Deb is a pioneer for feminism at Clarion University.

New FMLAs!
We would like to welcome University of Texas-Arlington to the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance community!

HHS Secretary Nominee Opposes Abortion Rights
December 15, 2004--President Bush on Monday nominated Republican Mike Leavitt to replace Tommy Thompson as Secretary of Health and Human Services. Leavitt is a former Governor of Utah and currently the head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Over the course of his tenure as Governor of Utah, Leavitt signed several pieces of legislation restricting women’s right to choose a safe, legal, and accessible abortion. More

Canadian Supreme Court Rules that Same-Sex Marriage Is Constitutional
December 10, 2004--The Supreme Court of Canada ruled on Thursday that a federal proposal to legalize same-sex marriage would be constitutional, allowing Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin of the Liberal Party to fulfill his promise to introduce legislation to legalize same-sex marriage. The Supreme Court ruling was based on the argument that the traditional definition of marriage as a woman and man arrangement is discriminatory. More

More Feminist News

US Denies Funds That Could Stem Child Marriage
December 16, 2004--The Bush Administration's withdrawal of funding for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has negative consequence for the battle against child marriage. Since July 2002, the Bush Administration has withdrawn $34 million annual for the UNFPA, a major played in the fight to eradicate child marriage, based on false allegations that the UNFPA participated in coercive abortion and involuntary sterilization in China. More

First Woman Appointed Chief in Botswana
December 14, 2004--Mosadi Seboko has been appointed chief of the Baletes tribe in Botswana. Overcoming the centuries’ old tradition only allowing men to become tribal leaders, Seboko leads one of the eight largest tribes in her county. Seboko, whose first name means “woman” in the local language, was opposed by members of her late father’s family who promoted her male cousin for the position. In response, Seboko, backed by her mother, seven sisters, and women’s rights leaders, maintained to the tribal leaders that Botswana’s 38-year-old constitution guaranteeing freedom from discrimination, and not custom, should prevail according to the New York Times. More

More Global Feminist News

NEW DATE!
The Feminist Majority Foundation will host a National Collegiate Global Women's and Human Rights Conference in Washington, DC. Save the dates April 9, 10, & 11, 2005!

The conference will gather and activate student leaders and activists from college campuses, as well as global human rights and women's rights experts from across the nation about many pressing global women's issues. Send a reminder card to tell your friends to Save the Date!

EC OTC Campaign
The EC Week of Action December 6th-10th was a big success, but it is imperative that we continue to send letters to the FDA telling its members that we support over-the-counter status for EC right up until it makes its decision in January. Here are some ideas for what you can do:

• Write a letter to the FDA in support of providing Emergency Contraception over-the-counter.
• Tell your friends to write a letter too!
• Write an article for your campus paper on why EC is important
• Put up EC informational flyers all over campus.
• Make banners and signs to hang up all over campus
• Have a bucket drive, instead of getting donations, pass out EC palm cards.
• Coordinate an evening program or activity with a residential advisor. Make sure the program emphasizes the importance of ensuring women access to EC.

SIECUS essay contest
Write an essay and you could win a spot in the European/American Youth Advocacy Summit in Brussels!

The Summit is co-organized by the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), Advocates for Youth, Marie Stopes International, and YouAct, the European Youth Network on Sexual and Reproductive Rights. It will be held in Brussels on February 14-16, 2005.

Sexual and reproductive rights advocates ages 18-25 are invited to submit an essay of no more than three hundred words about their efforts to advocate for access to reproductive health education and services and how that work relates to sexual and reproductive rights and health internationally.

To qualify, contestants must currently, on a volunteer or professional basis, work with an organization that addresses adolescent sexual and reproductive rights and health. A letter of recommendation from that organization is required.

SIECUS will fly the winning essayists to Brussels, Belgium for the European/American Youth Advocacy Summit along with the SIECUS international policy staff.

For more information about the European/American Youth Advocacy Summit and the essay contest visit http://www.siecus.org/contest.html or contact Vanessa Brocato at the SIECUS DC Public Policy Office, (202) 265-2405, or via email at vbrocato@siecusdc.org.

CONTEST ENDS DECEMBER 20, 2004

F.U.E.L. 2K5: The Power Within Asian Pacific American Leadership Conference
Friday & Saturday, February 25-26, 2005
Tentative Speaker: Dat Phan, winner of NBC's Last Comic Standing

FUEL brings together Asian Pacific Americans from the East Coast, F.U.E.L. in a dynamic two-day conference designed to promote APA awareness and community-building. This year's conference is themed around superheroes. Who are your superheroes? Are any of them Asian Pacific Americans? If not, why is that so? Superheroes, like APAs, face duel identities. We constantly seek a balance between our Asian and American culture. This year, we hope to explore our duel identities and the "superheroes" that exist in our community as well as to realize the heroic powers that lie in all of us.

For more information visit http://www.fuelumd.com
Questions? Email fuel2k5@yahoo.com.

Women as Global Leaders: Educating the Next Generation
March 14-16, 2005
Zayed University, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
http://www.zuglobaleaders.org

Zayed University announces its First Annual Student Leadership
Conference, to be held March 14-16, 2005, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

The conference will bring together female students, faculty mentors and student leadership professionals of both genders from around the world to focus on issues relating to "Women as Global Leaders."

The conference format will include presentations by prominent world leaders and personalities, and opportunities for participants to interact with these leaders, as well as papers, presentations, simulations and workshops. While student participation is limited to female students, leadership practitioners and educators of both genders are invited. Parallel and interactive sessions are planned for all participants, and all sessions will be in English.

Sacred Circles: A Celebration of Women's Spirituality Conference 2005
February 18-19, 2005
http://www.cathedral.org/cathedral/sacredcircles/
Washington National Cathedral
Massachusetts and Wisconsin Avenues, NW
Washington, DC 20016-5098
202-537-2221
http://www.nationalcathedral.org

Find a feminist internship or post-graduate job!

Job Search Tips:

• Look for jobs 3-6 months before graduation.

Each issue will have new tips to help you succeed in finding a feminist internship or job. Have a great tip for this section? Submit it to campusteam@feminist.org!