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2009 Women’s Studies Program Events
Diversity Week Events:
- Sept. 22, 7: 30 p.m. Kimberly Dark,“Is that a Dude: Inside Lesbian Gender” at EJ Thomas Hall Stage Door
- China Week Events:
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October 6, 10 a.m. to noon
Chinese Mothers’ Parenting Beliefs and Roles in the Context of Economic and Cultural Change
China’s rapidly changing economy has led to social and cultural changes. This presentation will explore Chinese mothers’ infant feeding beliefs and practices in the context of changing gender roles. The lecture will conclude with a brief discussion period.
Presenter: Pamela Schulze is professor of Child and Family Development in the School of Family and Consumer Sciences at the University of Akron. She earned her Ph.D. in family studies with a Child and adolescent development emphasis from the University of Connecticut in 2000. Her research has focused on cultural differences in parenting beliefs and behaviors.
Suggested Readings: Leung, T., Tam, W., Hung, E, Fok, T., & Wong, G. (2003). “Sociodemographic and atopic factors affecting breastfeeding intention in Chinese mothers,” Journal of Pediatrics & Child Health, 39(6), 460-464 and Goode, W. J. (1971). “World revolution and family patterns,” Journal of Marriage and the Family, 33, 624-635.
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Oct. 6, noon to 2 p.m., Chinese Women of Past, Present and Future – A panel discussion with:
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Dr. Baomei Zhao – Born in China, master’s degree in economics, Zhejiang University, China, Ph. D. in family studies, University of Kentucky. Dr. Zhao has interests in quality of life research and service.
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Dr. Xing Liang– a high school teacher in China for decades before coming to the U.S. for graduate school. Ph. D in educational research methodologies from the University of North Dakota. Dr. Liang is interested in program evaluation and classroom assessment- standardized testing and large-scale data analysis.
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Dr. Hefeng Guan, Ph.D. is from Henan University, China. Research area is in British and American fiction and in Chinese American women’s literature.
Suggested Web site: All China Women’s Federation
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2010 Women’s Studies Program Events
- Feb. 12 and 13, The Vagina Monologues at EJ Thomas Hall Stage Door
- March 2, 7:30 p.m. Catie Curtis at EJ Thomas Hall Stage Door for Women’s History Month
For more details, go here.
Past 2009 Women’s Studies Program Events
Brazile is a CNN Democratic strategist and adjunct professor of Women’s Studies at Georgetown University Tickets are available in the Women’s Studies office, 58 Schrank Hall North. The program is part of the University’s Rethinking Race program.
Through interactive activities and lecture audience members will learn about U.S. wealth distribution and the differing realities of wealth accumulation based on race and gender. Through humor, facts and statistics, you will discover how poverty is not just a personal problem.
Past 2008 Women’s Studies Program Events
March 31
“Women and the Space Program,” 7 p.m., Student Union 312
Co-sponsored by Women and Engineering
This talk will show the “bottom-up” nature of the push for civil rights in employment in the 1970s and how African-American women, in particular, played important “bridge” roles between historically excluded groups at NASA. Kim McQuaid, professor of history at Lake Erie College, will speak. Refreshments.
April 2
Singer Jessica Sooner, 7:17 p.m., Stuender dent Union Starbucks
Sponsored by Department of Residence Life and Housing
Graduate Gender Symposium
April 3-4
The University of Akron’s Graduate Committee for Research on Women and Gender presents the Second Graduate Gender Symposium.
The event showcases graduate student scholarship that seeks to explore and understand the various and often contested meanings of gender.
Get the details.
Women’s History Month 2008 at UA featured various events, speakers
Download the full UA Women’s Studies Program 2008 Women’s History Month Calendar.
Add your comments about Women’s History Month events you have attended this year. Just click on the “Comments” link below this post.
Vagina Monologues in February was prequel
The Women’s Studies Program presented Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues” Feb. 15 and 16 on the University of Akron campus to support V-Day, a global movement to stop violence against women and girls. The event served as a prequel to Women’s History Month at UA.
Pictured here are some of the Akron area women and University of Akron students who appeared in the cast, including Women’s Studies Program Director Pat Millhoff, second from the left.
Paula Maggio
Alyssa Berthiaume
Pat Millhoff
Sharon K Henry
davisrules
Caroline Drotar
christinecox
Lauren Cash
ohlsmegan
jwmschweizer
I really enjoyed Jessica Valenti’s talk last night. She is so smart and funny! I really like that she reaches out to younger women and lets them realize that they are feminists, since many women do not know the true meaning of what a feminist really is. She also brought up some really disturbing issues of sexism that still goes on in our mainstream culture. I am so mad that some of my tax money goes to those disgusting purity balls she was describing. If you haven’t heard of these, its these ceremonies where they take 5 and 6 year old girls, dress them up in gowns and put a ton of makeup on them, then they hand their father a key which he gives to her future husband as a way of promising her virginity to her father. Creepy, right?
Creepy indeed. Read more about Purity Balls at feministing.com at http://feministing.com/archives/004966.html or in Glamour magazine at http://www.glamour.com/news/articles/2007/01/purityballs07feb.
Helllllooooo! I went to an event called the media, body image and you. It was a discussion. There were about 4 other people and we all discussed how the media affects our body image as well as what we think will fulfill us in life. For instance, if we smell good all the time, have perky breasts, and great teeth we will be happy. But we didn’t only talk about body image; we spoke about what the media tells us we should have financially as well. Our culture is all about consumption. Companies make money because they continue to tell society what they should have to be happy and since of course material possessions and perfect bodies don’t make people happy, people never stop trying to find “that thing” to make them happy. Society tells us we are never fine. We always need this and that, and should look like this and if we wear this, that will happen. It’s quite ridiculous! It was a pretty good discussion. There was one male that came in late and he pretty much agreed with what everyone else was saying.
I also went to hear Jessica Valenti speak and it was great! It’s awesome to be able to hear a young active feminist speak. She was very funny and refreshing. I have to say that I enjoyed her potty mouth. lol. I love the fact that she is a feminist and acts and behaves like one. Not to say all feminists have potty mouths. I guess to me she represented a woman that doesn’t care what society says about how a women should speak and what her demeaner should be. I bought her book, and I am seriously excited to read it. The parts from her book that she read were really interesting. She told the audience about how her website gets death threat emails and how people say the dumbest things. She also told the story about how there was so much hoopla about her outfit when she met Bill Clinton which was ridiculous…what was she supposed to have on a mumu!? Anyways. She was a great speaker and I am glad women’s studies got her to come. UAKRON women studies rocks!
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Hi all! Today, March 29, 2008, I went to the “Election Reform” at the Quaker Square Inn. It was interesting. It was sponsored by the League of Women Voters of the Akron Area, and the American Association of University Women. However, this town hall meeting did not focus on women’s issues in the political arena, like I believed it would.
We sat in groups, about 100 people total, and each group thought of one election issue for the speakers to discuss. The group I was in, chose paper ballots vs. electronic ballots. The speakers, Ann Henkener and Peg Rosenfield, discussed topics in a debate like setting. It was very interesting. We covered issues, like closed and open primaries, which one was believed to be more beneficial, and why. Some people thought the idea of a closed primary was too difficult to enforce. Also, same day registration was covered. These are only a few topic touched upon by the women. I thought the meeting was informative, because I am not as well versed as I should be on certain subjects that were covered today. Also, sitting with other women, some who were involved in the election itself, was a very nice experience. I am glad the meeting was held.
~ Sarah Laurenti
I went to the imagine a world without gender symposion on April 3. The speaker discussed how much better society would be if we completely deemphasize gender in general. She had some really interesting (and radical) ideas but I really do think her heart was in the right place. I think it would take be very difficult and take a really long time to create such a society since ours really values gender division in any way possible. I would like to at least see gender roles gone away with soon, but I don’t know how long it will take for that to happen.
I went to the gender symposium on April 3. It was really interesting. It was annoying at the end though because people began to ask silly questions. Anyways. I think that the one thing that the symposium really made me think about was transgenderism because if we lived in a genderless society where would transgenderism fit? Because gender is socially constructed and all. Anyways. She was a good speaker, although she was a lil dry. I really enjoyed it.
Last Wednesday I went to the 5:30 showing of Osama. The movie was sooo sad! It was about this young girl in Afganistan who had to pretend to be a boy in order to support her family. Well she got caught and almost killed for it, but instead she got married off to this guy which she really didn’t want to do. It made me really sad for oppressed women in countries where they are not even seen as people. I think there should be a lot of refugee camps for people who do not want to be a part of it. I know a lot of people may believe that we shouldn’t intervene in other countries’ businesses, but those women can’t help where they are born, it could have happened to any of us. We are just so lucky to be where we are.
I’m a little late at posting my blog, but I had attended the lecture on “Children of Incarcerated Mothers” given by Sabine Ferran Gerhardt on March 13th. However, this lecture did go along with today’s class discussion on State, Law, and Social Policy. This lecture was very interesting and helpful not only for this class, but for my major as well. I am a secondary english education major and as talked about at the lecture may have to deal with students whose mothers are incarcerated. The statistics for women in jail or prison are rising at alarming rates and mothers are the fastest growing segment of the prison population. There are nown nearly 140,000 women in prison and the #1 reason behind thier incarceration is drugs.
This presentation dealt with how teachers or caregivers can acknowledge what a child whose mother is in prison may be going through and to help them recover from any possible trauma so they do not follow in thier parents footsteps. I found this lecture very informative in the areas of how incarceration affects the family, students attendence and grades, as well as thier emotional development. When taking my education classes we talk about many family issues, but we never went in to any depth about mothers in prison and now I will be more knowledeable on the subject and aware of how to help students any way I can.
I also attended the “Children of Incarcerated Mothers” lecture on March 13th. I found the lecture very enlightening and informative. I was unaware up to this point just how many women in jail have children on the outside and the effects that the incarceration may have on those children. Learning about the different effects at the different stages was probably the most helpful to myself. Since I am hoping to be a teacher someday I want to be prepared for any situations that may arise. I personally hope to also someday have a degree in counseling so being able to help children at any stage with this problem is something that I hope to accomplish someday.
I attended the showing of “Osama” on Wednesday April 9th ( I just found my notes
). This movie was about the awful things women in the middle east go through. IN particular it was about a young girl who had to dress up as a boy in order to get a job and work. She got caught and was forced to marry someone she did not love. This movie was extremely sad and made me very happy to be an American where I have the right to dress the way I want without punishment. I find it so outrageous that women in Afghanastan are so restircted that they can not even bare a toe in public.
I also attended the 12:00 showing of the movie Veiled Revolution on Wednesday April 23. This movie was about the women in Egypt and how many women living there today are reverting back to thier old way of dress by choice. These women are not being forced by the government to cover thier hair or wear long gowns, but some choose to to show thier extreme devotion to God and the Koran. Some of the women even go so far as to wear the full face coverings and gloves so that you can hardly tell that their is a person inside (but these are only a few). In this movie you hear the women of Eygpt discuss the different views about western dress and influence and why they feel it is necessary to avoid the western culture. I found it extremely interesting that some women would actually want to dress that way and cover thier hair, but that shows the difference of our cultures.
After the veiled revolution we talked some about the second movie with the canadian islamic activist. She was very passionate about reforming the ways of islamic women and having them get rid of the traditonal veils and face coverings. She even went so far as to go over to the middle east and purchase one of the heavy face veils and gowns to try it on and see just how hot and restrictive they were. She was a funny women with a strong opinion and personality and hopefully she will be able to convince the women of islam to stand up for thier rights and dress and act it the way they see fit.
I went to the 5:30 showing of both of those movies. I really enjoyed the one about the canadian woman that wants to reform islam. She wants to focus on the peaceful, intellectual parts of islam and she wrote a book about her beliefs. Now she needs to live in a bulletproof apartment and have a mailbox with a lock on it so as not to receive mail bombs. She regarded as “the devil” by religious extremists, who burn her book and send her death threats. I really liked her ideas and I think its great that she is standing up for what she believes in. She thinks its very wrong to use religion to justify killing and torturing people, and I completely agree.
The second movie we saw was A veiled revolution which I thought was OK but did not like as much as the first one. It was a bit outdated also and I was wondering what the women were choosing to do in Egypt right now.
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Hello everyone!! I went to the L.I.P Interactive Game Show
“To End Violence Against Women Please CLICK HERE”. It was held on Tuesday, September 23 from 2-4 p.m.Student Union 312. I have to say it was the most fun I have had. I ended up going with Manny Martir and another buddy named Tom. We sat down at these comfortable desks and ate the candy they had out for everyone. The game was set up so we used clickers to answer the questions. The questions were shocking. I never knew how many woman suffered from rape and violence everyday. The experience was very eye opening for me and I would recommend everyone to attend if they have another meeting!
My friend Manny ended up winning and my other friend Tom came in second place. I was proud of both of them but at the same time I teased Manny for being so knowledgeable about statistics on rape and violence Hahahaha All of my friends agree that more people should know more about rape and violence. Maybe if we spread the word, we can help be able to prevent rape and violence.
This is an article I got published in the Buchtelite last week.
Yesterday, the University of Akron was visited by Janet Black, assistant director of the Rape Crisis Center of Medina and Summit Counties. The event, called “Women-Filled Wednesday,” served to promote the Rape Crisis Center and this Friday’s “Take Back the Night” event to raise awareness to end sexual violence.
The Rape Crisis Center of Summit and Medina Counties has four employees at their Summit County office and two employees in Medina County. The Crisis Center provides valuable services to rape victims, as well as volunteer and internship programs for the general public. Although the Crisis Center does not provide counseling from their agency, they provide face-to-face crisis intervention, justice system advocacy, education, and a twenty-four hour hotline.
The Justice System Advocacy program serves to help rape victims that are interested in pressing charges against their alleged attacker. Justice system advocates will answer questions pertaining to pressing charges, filing police reports, alternative legal remedies, or any other legal question a victim may have.
“Sexual assault still tends to be a crime that the victim takes on the responsibility for. Society is more than willing to push that responsibility there, as well,” Black said.
Face-to-face intervention helps victims process their assault, by attempting to normalize their emotions and the turmoil they may be experiencing. Victims often need to be reminded that they are experiencing a normal reaction to an abnormal situation. “We have advocates on call 24/7 to come to the hospital to be a support for that victim,” Black said. “Someone will always be there to support a rape victim when they come to the hospital,” she added. Group therapy sessions are also made available to victims that would benefit from them.
Another priority of the Rape Crisis Center is to provide public education of the nature of sexual assault. To raise awareness for their cause, the Crisis Center is hosting a “Take Back the Night” rally this Friday, October 10. Take Back the Night is a historic event that has roots as early as 1877. During this rally, survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence will share their stories to raise awareness and become empowered. The night will end in a march through downtown Akron, in the hope that someday, women will be able to walk the streets in safety. “Violence does cut across all socioeconomic levels, all educational levels, all racial groups. It is an equal opportunity destroyer,” Black said.
As for the frequency of sexual assault on college campuses, Black said “Of course things vary greatly from campus to campus. A lot of things depend greatly upon how open that campus is to reporting [cases]. In terms of working with police departments, the University of Akron’s police department has responded phenomenally.”
If any readers have been sexually assaulted, remember: your body is the crime scene. Refrain from brushing your teeth or showering. Leave your clothing on and get to a hospital as soon as possible. Evidence could be found for up to ninety-six hours at St. Thomas Hospital and seventy-two hours at most other hospitals. Victims should get to a hospital however possible. Many victims get rides from a friend or family member, but if you feel the need to call 911, please do so. After seeking medical attention and being evaluated by a forensics nurse, a representative from the Crisis Center will be contacted.
Take Back the Night
Friday, October 10th, 2008
6 PM- 9PM
First Grace United Church of Christ
350 S. Portage Path
Akron, OH
24 Hour Hotline
1-877-906-7273 (RAPE)
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