CWHHR Connects with Wisconsin Activists, June 1

The Center for Women’s Health and Human Rights, in partnership with the Wisconsin working Group on CEDAW organized two workshops for the National Women’s Studies Association Conference held this past June at the Milwaukee Hyatt Regency.

Throughout the 1970s, Wisconsin continued to build its historical reputation for progressive politics by addressing feminist concerns for women’s equal rights through innovative state legislation. A number of prominent members in the women’s movement nationally lived in Wisconsin and the women of the state managed to establish some strong state-wide institutions, most notably its Women’s Commission and the Wisconsin Women’s Network. Very little of this connective infrastructure survived the eighties and nineties, as the state legislature began to chip away at women’s reproductive rights and the state gained notoriety for its bold attempts to manipulate the life choices of poor women through public policy.

Tired of fighting each other over the fine points of Governor Tommy Thompson’s welfare "deform" and inspired by a speech delivered by Nancy Bothne of Amnesty International, in 1997 local women’s groups in Milwaukee began banding together to promote respect for women’s human rights and the ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Shortly thereafter, the City of Milwaukee passed a resolution, introduced by Alderman Michael Murphy, that endorsed U.S. ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and committed the city to observing the convention’s standards of non-discrimination in its own practices and policies [link to doc “Milwaukee CEDAW Resolution”] . Similar resolutions were subsequently adopted by Milwaukee County, Dane County, the cities of Madison and Fond Du Lac, and the Wisconsin State Senate.

In 2002, Democrat Jim Doyle won the gubernatorial election along with running mate Barbara Lawton. Lawton brought with her deep ties to women activists and women’s organizations across the state and quickly mounted the Wisconsin Women = Prosperity campaign to articulate an agenda focused on women. With women’s issues on the road to gaining a higher profile, the Wisconsin Working Group on CEDAW felt it might be time to think about how to build on the previously adopted resolutions toward true implementation of CEDAW’s guarantees and protections.

The local organizer and host for CWHHR’s workshops at the NWSA was Rose Daitsman, a member of the Wisconsin Working Group on CEDAW and a board member of the local ACLU chapter (daitsman@uwm.edu). In the first of these workshops, Center Director Amy Agigian and community organizer Barbara Schulman of the Urban Justice Center focused on interpreting and using CEDAW and another on strategies for integrating CEDAW into local law. The second session began with an overview of existing Wisconsin State law governing gender equality prepared by State Appeals Court Judge Joan Kessler. She was followed by Belle Taylor McGhee who discussed San Francisco’s ordinances and their implementation processes and Barbara Schulman who spoke about New York City’s experiences in building a coalition to draft and pass an ordinance implementing both CEDAW and the Convention on the Elimination of Racism (CERD). These presentations were responded to by Lee Henderson, a past president of Local 594 AFSCME and Amy Stear, an organizer with 9-5.

Later that evening, Rose hosted a dinner at her home where the conference speakers were able to talk informally with workshop participants and meet with local activists. We look forward to hearing more about developments in Wisconsin.

Amy Agigian presented Baby Steps: How Lesbian Alternative Insemination is Changing the World, September 22

On September 22, Amy Agigian, Ph.D. presented her book, Baby Steps: How Lesbian Alternative Insemination is Changing the World (2004, Wesleyan University Press). Drawing on legal findings and personal interviews, as well as medical and psychoanalytic research, Agigian has looked at the impact and potential of this unique form of family making that increasingly more lesbian women are choosing to employ. Some questions that will be explored during the discussion include:

How, and why, do lesbians use insemination to build their families? How could it best be protected by law? Is insemination the ultimate in lesbian liberation, or a sell-out to nuclear family norms? How are race, class, feminism, and human engineering involved?

The “persephone project” performance co-sponsored by the Center for Women’s Health and Human Rights, October 6

On Wednesday, Oct 6th, about 50 diverse community stakeholders, including Cambridge City Councilor Denise Williams, attended a staged reading of the persephone project, directed by Nora Hussey, at the Cambridge YWCA. The 75-minute adaptation of Anna Baum’s play based on the experiences of Boston-area survivors of domestic violence, featured actors Stephen Cooper, Eric Hamel, Alicia Kahn, Andrea Kennedy, Hollee Mangrum-Willis and Angela Meade. the persephone project follows the evolution of a range of relationships so that the audience can watch abusive behaviors escalate over time and begin to understand how the trajectory of these relationships differs from that of a healthy intimacy. Wednesday’s reading was staged with minimal props and no set to distract from power of the actors’ performances or the emotional impact of the play itself.

Before the actors took the stage, State Representative Alice Wolf offered opening remarks. The performance was followed by a panel discussion featuring Clare Dalton of Northeastern University’s School of Law’s Domestic Violence Institute, Irene Monroe of Harvard Divinity School, and Christine Hansen, Executive Director of the Miles Foundation. The Miles Foundation, based in Connecticut , has been collecting data on sexual assault within the U.S. military and offering assistance to those victimized by such assaults. An engaged audience raised questions about how to intervene effectively in the abusive relations of neighbors and colleagues, about the combined effects of race and gender on U.S. servicewomen who are disproportionately women of color, and about the limits of "law and order" approaches to intimate partner abuse.

If your school or organization would be interested in hosting a performance of the persephone project, please contact Connie Chow of the Mass CEDAW Project at cchow@post.harvard.edu.

Nicole Soucy delivers Brown Bag Presentation "What’s the Score: Examining Title IX from a Human Rights Perspective," October 20

On Wednesday, October 20, Nicole Soucy delivered "What’s the Score: Examining Title IX from a Human Rights Perspective" as part of the CWHHR-sponsored Brown Bag Presentation series. In 1972 Title IX of the Education Amendment Act forbade gender discrimination in the programs and activities of all educational institutions that receive federal funds. Thirty-three years later, however, U.S. high schools and colleges do not offer equal opportunities, scholarships, and resources to male and female athletes. Nicole explained why is this the case, why is it important that women have equal access to sports and fitness and discussed what can a human rights perspective add to this issue.

Lina Ruiz-Mingote, HIV/AIDS Regional Resource Network Coordinator Department of Health and Human Services

On November 10, Lina Ruiz-Mingote presented "Women of Color and HIV in Massachusetts." Despite the overall decline in reported cases of HIV/AIDS in the United States, the situation for women, particularly women of color, has grown worse.  While the AIDS epidemic overseas has drawn significant media and policy attention in recent years, the growing problem of HIV/AIDS among women of color here in the U.S. has gone virtually unexamined.  Ruiz-Mingote examined the reasons women of color are experiencing the fastest growing rate of infection, the social and economic factors that contribute to this alarming trend, and what is being done about it here in Massachusetts.