Women 2000 - Workshops

Saturday, October 21, 2000 - Centrum Centre

Continue the dialogue that began in 1850!

Choose from 30 workshops, including...

8:30-10:00 Workshops
 1. A Hero for Daisy [FILM] A Struggle for Title 1X With Mary Mazzio - Writer, Director, Producer
8:30 Junior Ballroom

Partner at the Boston law firm of Brown, Rudnick, and Freed Member of the 1992 Olympic Rowing Team A close, personal friend of Chris Ernst

This film tells an important story in the struggle for Title IX, which, in 1972, mandated gender equality in sports and other programs at all institutions receiving federal funds. In 1976, Yale rowing legend Chris Ernst galvanized her rowing team to storm the Yale athletic director's office to protest the lack of locker-room facilities for women. In front of a reporter from The New York Times, the women stripped, exposing 19 sets of breasts emblazoned with the phrase "Title IX" in blue marker. Ernst went on to represent the United States in two Olympic games, becoming a world champion in 1986.

Movie website

2. On The Homefront: Cultural Ideals and the Reality of Marriage and Motherhood in the 19th Century
8:30 Mtg. Room D
Moderator:Susan Elizabeth Sweeney, Holy Cross College
Panelists:Wells Staley-Mays, Diversity Network Project Coordinator for Peace Action Council of Maine

Katherine Winthrop, Minister, Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, Edgecomb, Maine; Interim Minister, Swedenborgian Church, Portland, Maine

Amanda Ray, Graduate Teaching Assistant in Women's Studies, West Virginia University

3. Abolitionists, Peace and Women's Rights--1850: Worcester's Legacy
8:30 Mtg. Room E
Moderator:Harriet Hyman Alonso, Professor of History, City College of New York/CUNY
Panelists:Bonnie S. Anderson, Professor of History, Brooklyn College and Graduate Center of CUNY

Sibyl Brownlee, Assistant Professor of History, Fitchburg State College

Melanie Gustafson, Associate Professor of History, University of Vermont

This roundtable discussion will address the international and generational legacy of the Worcester, 1850, meeting as it pertains to abolitionist, peace, and women's rights activists.

4. Violence Against Women: Still Killing Us Not So Softly
8:30 Ballroom 1
Moderator:Lucy Candib, M.D., Family Health Center, Worcester
Panelists:Nassrine Farhoody, Executive, Director, Rape Crisis Center of Central Massachusetts.
Focus:"How We Got Here: Our Roots in the Women's Movement"
Marianne Winters, Jane Doe, Inc. Massachusetts Coalition against Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence
Focus:"What's Working and What's Not"
Margaret Lazarus, Executive Co-Director, Co-Founder, President, of Cambridge Documentary Films, Inc.
Focus:"The Strength to Resist: No More Killing Us Softly"

5. Health and Relationships of Adult Women: Diverse Perspectives
8:30 Mtg. Room C
Moderator:Frances Anthes, LICSW, President/CEO Family Health Center of Worcester, Inc.
Panelists:Deborah Harmon Hines, Ph.D., Single Mother; Associate Vice-Chancellor for School Services, University of Massachusetts Medical School

Zelda Schwartz, LICSW, Director of Therapy - Jewish Family Service Of Worcester

Miriam Torres, R.N. Family Health Center, Worcester

Beverly Wedda, M.D. Assistant Professor of Family and Community Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School; Private Practice In Holistic and Integrative Wellness
Focus:This workshop will focus on what we have come to understand about the unique aspects of women's physical and emotional well-being. The workshops will be presented by a diverse group of participants who are willing to reflect upon our many roles as women and the impact of these roles in our daily lives.

6. Off Welfare and Into Poverty: Washington Report of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee's Welfare and Human Rights Monitoring Project
8:30 Mtg. Room A

Jacqueline I. Ladd, Program Associate for U.S. Programs, Unitarian Universalist Service Committee

7. We Got the Vote...So What?
8:30 Ballroom 2
Moderator:Elizabeth Sherman, Ph.D., Director of the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy, and Senior Fellow at the McCormack Institute, U Mass Boston
Panelists:Carol Hardy-Fanta, Ph.D., Research Director of the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy

Elected women legislators and women elected municipal officials
Focus:This workshop will focus on three areas where women have made a tremendous difference over the past 80 years - as elected policy-makers, as voters, and as shapers of Public policy.

8. Joining Forces: Community Investment in Child Care
8:30 Second Floor
Panelists:Patricia Hnatiuk, Director Child Care Training, Wheelock College

Marta Rosa, Executive Director, Child Care Resource Center, Inc., Cambridge, MA
Focus:Joining Forces is a book that is the outcome of a statewide community planning process in Massachusetts. Its primary goal is for universally accessible, high quality, affordable child care and school-age programs for all. Our two panelists were the co-chairs of the process. The session will address building consensus around an overarching public policy goal (stated above), why we need a vision, challenges and opportunities, improving quality, structure and funding in the new system of early education and care. It includes recommendations and action steps.

9. Race vs. Gender: A Common Struggle for Empowerment
2:30 Ballroom 1
Moderator:Kristin Waters, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies, Worcester State College
Panelists:Joyce Berkman, Professor of History, UMASS--Amherst

Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, Professor of History, Morgan State University

Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Director of Women's Research and Research Center Spellman College
Commentator:Deirdre Hill, Ph.D. candidate (Clark University)
Focus:This panel will look at the debate over the 15th Amendment, which split the women's movement over the issue of race and gender. Panelists will discuss how this split shaped the modern women's movement and how it addressed the issues of race and gender, including how lessons from the past can help shape our thinking about the interlocking nature of race, class, and gender inequalities.

10. Women's Voices, Women's Choices: New Hampshire Women's Oral History Project
8:30 Ballroom 3
Panelists:Randy Ann Thomas, Ph.D., Co-ordinator of the New Hampshire Women's oral History Project

Sylvia Foster, Faculty Member University System's College for Lifelong Learning

Mary M. Moynihan, Internship Co-ordinator, Program Advisor and Instructor for the Women's Studies Program, University of New Hampshire
Focus:A Reader's Theater brings forward the voices of 100 New Hampshire women of different ages, interests, and affiliations as they articulate some of the choices they have made within the sociohistorical context of their lives and experiences. The panel will discuss what they have learned about the process of doing oral history.
10:15-11:45 Workshops
11. We Are Still Here: What Poor Women Need From Their Sisters in the Movement
10:15 Mtg. Room D

Abby's House, Shelter for Homeless Women, Worcester
Moderator:Tess Sneesby, Executive Director Abby's House
Panelists:Staff Members and Former Guests
Focus:This workshop will educate participants about the individual experiences of being poor and/or homeless, and identify HOW THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL. A challenge for change will be voiced with specific proposals for the women's community and the community at large.

12. You Just Don't Get It: Seeing the World Through Teenage Girls' Eyes
10:15 Mtg. Room E
Presenter:Georgia Sassen, Clinical Psychologist and Educational Consultant, Faculty member Stone Center, Wellesley College
Panel of High School Girls:
Focus:Join Georgia Sassen, a specialist in girls' and women's development, and a panel of teenage girls as they talk to teachers, parents, and each other about "sailing the sometimes stormy seas of adolescence."

13. You Can Make The Difference: Community Activism, Lobbying and the Legislative Process
10:15 Mtg. Room A
Workshop Leaders:Roni Thaler, Executive Director, Massachusetts Women's Political Caucus

Rachael Kemp, MWPC Board Member, Former Assistant Secretary for Economic Affairs
Focus:This interactive workshop will give women the tools to work successfully within the political arena from the local level through the state level. Discussion of different strategies for successful community activism as well as hands-on problem solving is part of the workshop agenda. The legislative process will be covered through an anecdotal history of a bill sponsored by a very small women's group that became a law in one legislative session.

14. Breaking the Glass Ceiling
10:15 Mtg. Room B
Panelists:Sharon Ann Lenhart, Associate Chancellor for Faculty Administration, University of Massachusetts Medial School; Past President American Medical Women's Association; Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, University Of Massachusetts Medical School

Gladys Rodriguez- Parker, District Director for Congressman James McGovern

Jacqueline Peterson, Vice-President for Student Affairs - Dean of Students, College of the Holy Cross

15. We Were There: A Multi-Media Women's Labor History Workshop
10:15 Junior Ballroom
Moderator:Kathy Casavant, Secretary-Treasurer, Massachusetts AFL-CIO.
Performers:Members of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO Women's Committee and the Worcester Central Labor Council
Focus:This multi-media presentation celebrates the history of women in the labor movement. The presentation will be followed by a discussion with the performers, the Secretary-Treasurer of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, and members of the audience.

16. A Women's Health Perspective: Where We Have Been and Where We Are Going
10:15 Second Floor
Moderator:Zoila Torres Feldman, Director Great Brook Valley Health Center, Worcester

Susan Bell, Ph.D., Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Bowdoin College

Paula B. Doress-Worters, MD, Boston Women's Health Book Collective
Focus:This workshop will provide a historical perspective of the women's political health movement. It will address current issues affecting women's health care and will culminate with a presentation on the implications gender differences have in research, education, and public policy.

17. Voice of the Native Woman
10:15 Mtg. Room C
Moderator:Lorraine C. Gray, Mohawk Nation, local businesswoman, artist, and human rights activist
Panelists:TBA
Focus:Panel discussion on issues facing native women in today's society.

18. The Shoulders We Stand On: Women As Agents Of Change
10:15 Mechanics Hall
Presenter:Louise Bernikow, author The American Women's Almanac
Focus:A slide show of never before seen photographs and talk about the history of women's activism in this country, with anecdotes and provocative questions about race, sexual preference, ethnicity, reading the past, reinventing the wheel, celebrating a tradition

19. A Tribute To Women Composers: A Performance Workshop
10:15 Mechanics Hall
Musicians:Sheila Reid, violinist

Olga Rogach, pianist
Focus:Listen to music rarely performed of Clara Schumann, Lili Boulanger, Grazyna Bacewicz, Amy Beach, and other luminaries. You'll learn of the struggle these women faced to have their music heard. Brief descriptions by the performers will characterize the context in which the composers worked, and enhance hearing this wonderful music.

20. Preserving Women's History: Seneca Falls, Worcester, and Beyond
10:15 Mechanics Hall
Panelists:Vivien Ellen Rose, Ph.D., Chief, Interpretation and Cultural Resources, Women's Rights National Historical Park, Moderator
Focus:Preserving Women's History in Upstate New York: Strategies and Alliances

Elizabeth Bacon, Preservation Worcester

Josie Fernandez, Superintendent, Women's Rights National Historical Park
Focus:The Women's Historic Sites Collaborative: Strategies for Preserving Women's History Sites

Ellen Levin Carlson, Manager, Women's Rights Heritage Trail Study, National Park Service
Focus:"The Women's Rights Heritage Trail Study: A Congressionally- Funded survey of NorthEast Historic Sites."
2:30-4:00 Workshops
21. Remote Control: A Three-Person Drama With Response Panel
2:30 Junior Ballroom

Presented by Deana's Fund, developer and producer of comprehensive educational theater programs on dating and domestic violence for schools, colleges, workplaces, and communities.

Remote Control is an interactive three-person dramatic play written by Kristin Baker. The play focuses on early warning signs of abusive relationships and promotes a strong bystander approach to violence prevention and intervention. The play illustrates behaviors students recognize and deal with everyday. It also provides positive modeling on how to help friends.
Response Panel Moderator:Laurel Fardella, Director of Programs and Training, Deana's Fund
Panelists:Julie Maloney, Director of Community and School Projects, Office of District Attorney John J. Conte

Dr. Evan Graber, Director of Outpatient Services, YOU Inc.

Lory Santoro, Community Education Program, Daybreak

Esperanza Donovan, Student Services Coordinator, Doherty Memorial High School, Worcester

22. Lesbian Families: How the Law Treats Same-Sex Relationships
2:30 Mtg. Room A
Moderator:Josephine Ross, Professor, Boston College Law School

Kate Kendell, Executive Director, National Center for Lesbian Rights
Focus:Did you know that in 1995, a judge removed a child from her lesbian mother and gave custody to a man convicted of killing his first wife? Kate Kendell, who worked on that case, will give a short history of lesbian custody battles around the nation and discuss the present state of affairs for gay families in the courts. In addition, Jo Ross will provide some insights into recent legal challenges to gay marriage, draw the parallel between the historic anti-miscegenation laws and the present exclusion of same sex couples from civil marriage, and lead a discussion about the continued resistance in this country to legal recognition of marriages between two women and two men.

23. A Political History of Women's Mental Health: Treatment or Mistreatment
2:30 Mtg. Room B
Co-Moderators:Amy Wolfson, Associate Professor of Psychology, College of the Holy Cross, and Ed Thompson, Professor of Sociology College of the Holy Cross
Panelists:Barbara G. Rosenkrantz, Ph.D., Department of History of Science, Harvard University

Jeffrey Geller, M.D., MPH, Department of Psychiatry UMASS--Memorial Health Care, Worcester

Judith Jordan, Ph.D., Co-Director of Jean Baker Miller Training Institute and the Working Connections Project, The Stone Center, Wellesley College
Discussant:Sharyn Ann Lenhart, M.D., Associate Vice-Chancellor for Faculty Administration, University of Massachusetts Medical School; Past President, American Medical Women's Association; Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School

24. One Hundred Fifty Years (Hence): Universalist and Unitarian Women and Their Participation in the 1850 Worcester Convention and Subsequent Work in Support of Women
2:30 Second Floor
Moderator:The Reverend Dorothy Emerson, Executive Director, Unitarian Universalist Women's Heritage Society
Participants:Joan Goodwin, Author The Remarkable Mrs. Ripley: The Life of Sarah Alden Bradford Ripley

The Reverend Dorothy Boroush, Retired Ballou-Channing District Executive, Unitarian Universalist Association

The Reverend Janet Bowering, Retired Minister, Universalist Unitarian Church, Haverhill, MA

The Reverend Sarah Barber-Braun, Minister, First Universalist Church, Southold, NY
Focus:In 1852, at one of the state conventions inspired by the 1850 Worcester Convention, a new song "One Hundred Years Hence" was introduced. The words describe a vision of the future that was to be brought forth by the votes of women. This workshop will review that vision, consider what has been accomplished, and define our vision for the next one hundred fifty years. We'll sing the song, present brief vignettes of some of the Universalist and Unitarian women who attended the Worcester convention in hopes of bringing forth a brighter future for all, and then invite participants to share their visions and consider the work that lies ahead to bring our visions of equality and justice into being.

25. Women's Studies: Learning From the Past, Lifeline to the Future
8:30 Ballroom 1
Moderator:Theresa M. McBride, Professor of History. College of the Holy Cross
Panelists:Karen Offen, Senior Scholar, Institute of Women and Gender, Stanford University.
Focus:The History of Feminism - A New Core for Women's Studies
Vicki Kirsch, Director, Quinsigamond Community College Women's Center
Focus:Unlearning by Heart: Feminist Pedagogy, Passion and Power
Julie Parker, Director of U Mass Dartmouth Women's Resource Center

Pamela Whitehouse, Doctoral Candidate in Education, Harvard Graduate school of Education
Focus:Learning our Herstory through Activism and Technology

26. Gender Justice: Women's Rights ARE Human Rights
2:30 Ballroom 3

Linda Gray MacKay, Coordinator International Studies Program, Boston College

Learn more about the agenda for action developed at the Fourth World Conference on Women at Beijing which is highlighted in the user-friendly workshop series based on it called Gender Justice: Women's Rights Are Human Rights. The workshop will be led by series author, Linda Gray MacKay.

27. Franchising the Disenfranchised: Using Business for Social Change
2:30 Mtg. Room E
Presenter:Jane R. Plitt, Author and Visiting Scholar, University of Rochester
Focus:Learn how a servant woman, Martha Matilda Harper, encouraged by suffragists, empowered other working class women by launching America's first business-format franchise in 1891. Her visionary entrepreneurial lessons still teach us how to succeed better in business and to use business for social change. This workshop unearths Martha Matilda Harper's buried lessons and teaches us how women have innovatively led businesses and continue to do so today.

28. Working Women Deserve Equal Pay: A Discussion
2:30 Ballroom 2
Moderator:U.S. Congressman James P. McGovern, 3rd District, Massachusetts
Panelists:Diane Bruce, Director of the Career Resource Center, Worcester YWCA and Member of the City Manager's Advisory Committee on the Status of Women

Anita Collins, LICSW, Life Planning Consultant

Margaret Costello, Master Electrician, SAMBA approved Electrical Contracting and Owner Ampere Electrical Contracting Company

The Honorable Rosa L. DeLauro, U.S. House of Representatives, 3rd Congressional District, Connecticut
Focus:President John Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act into law in 1963. Thirty-six years later, women still earn approximately 75 cents for every dollar earned by men. This wage gap affects not only women in the workforce but is one of the most pressing issues facing American families today. Nearly two-thirds of working women provide half or more of their household income, and many are the sole source of income for their families. While there has been progress since 1963, there is a long way to go.

29. African American Women: Fashioning Lives of Dignity, Creativity, and Beauty (Co-sponsored by the Henry Lee Willis Community Center)
2:30 Mtg. Room C

Sharon Chan-Williams, Wheelock College

Reverend Hilanyi Chan-Williams

Stacey DeBoise Luster, Human Resources Manager, Worcester Public Schools Anne White, Retired Teacher, Worcester Public Schools
Focus:This workshop will feature a paper presentation of what it was like for African American women living in the mid-1800's. A step dance "The Journey" will conclude the first part of the workshop. The second part of the workshop will feature a panel of elders, adult, and young women who will address how the past influences the present, and how it points us toward the future

30. Deaf Women United: A Place for Only Deaf Women
Presenter:Barbara Jean "BJ" Wood, Commissioner, Massachusetts Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing 2:15 Mtg. Room D
Focus:A discussion about why there is a need for a place for deaf women only.