Women & Society Conference

The 20th annual Women & Society Conference is this weekend ( Friday Oct 21 & Saturday the 22nd) at Marist College, Poughkeepsie NY.
Women and Society is an academic conference covering all aspects of women and gender currently under study. Among the topics to be discussed this year are Sex, Violence, Counseling and Advocacy; Body and Sexuality; Media Portrayals; Reproductive Rights and Activism; Lesbians and Gays: Nature Versus Nurture; Empowering Women Through the Arts; New Ways of Thinking about Gender; and Warning Signs of Domestic Violence.

The keynote address is free and open to the public and will be given Dr. Gail Dines, a professor of sociology and women's studies at Wheelock College in Boston, on Friday, October 21 at 7 p.m. in the Nelly Goletti Theatre, located on the third floor of the college's Student Center. Dines is an internationally acclaimed speaker and author, and a feminist activist who focuses on the hypersexualization of the culture and the ways that porn images filter down into mainstream pop culture.

Dr. Dines' work on media and pornography has appeared in academic journals, magazines such as Time and Newsweek, and newspapers across the country. She is a frequent guest on radio and television and is a recipient of the Myers Center Award for the Study of Human Rights. Dr. Dines is a founding member of Stop Porn Culture, an educational and activist group made up of academics, anti-violence experts, community organizers and anyone who is concerned about the increasing "pornification" of culture.

Dr. Dines' new book "Pornland" has just been published by Beacon Press and has received coverage by the Boston Globe The Guardian, the American Spectator, Ms. Magazine, The Huffington Post, AlterNet, the New York Post, the Sacramento Book Review, and Pulse Media. She has been featured on CNN and Canadian Public Radio.

This conference aims to mentor undergraduate scholars, to do so, we allow them to attend for free. All others must pay the registration fee. Conference registration begins on site at noon Friday in the Henry Hudson Room, 3rd floor of Fontaine Hall.

For registration and further information, contact conference coordinator Dr. JoAnne Myers, associate professor of political science and co-director of Women's Studies at Marist, at joanne.myers@marist.edu or (845) 575-3000, ext. 2234. A conference schedule is available online at

http://www.marist.edu/liberalarts/womensstudies/program.html

Women's Equality Day

Today (August 26) is Womens Equality Day...91 years ago women got the right to vote. And, for the most part, vote we do...Yet for some reason, we are not equal--Women still earn substantially less then men (even in the same jobs)and that translates into less social security/pensions/retirement incomes.
Women do not even make up 20% of the House (16.7%) or Senate (17%)--we are ranked 70th (see http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/classif.htm); in state legislatures women make up 23.6%.
Women's voices are still not equally represented in op/eds in Newspapers and Magazines, on television, in films....
Yes, we have made some strides--but NOT ENOUGH.

2011

Let us work so that in 2011 women have true equality.

-all women need access to total reproductive health care including female service members and family members, they should have access to all reproductive health care options on base;

-women's work should not be under- or de-valued...women's pay should be equal to men's pay for comparable jobs;

-we need men to step up to the plate at home--housework, child- and elder-care; if women were not doing 2nd and 3rd shifts of work, they might have more time to get involved politically because

- we need more women need to be in the pipeline for political candidacies;

-we need affordable, reliable and available more than just 9-6 child- and elder-care;

- we need affordable public transportation and housing; ALL issues are Women's issues!



Happy New Year! We have a lot of work ahead of us in 2011. . .