Director's Report
As CCA's Women's Issues Director, my goal is to develop a strong, active coalition of individuals committed to the issue of women's rights, equality, and justice for not just the members of our organization...not just women as faculty in our community colleges...but women the world over.
As much progress as we have made for women's rights here in the United States, much remains to be done.
We need to ensure that equal pay for equal work becomes the standard for women in every occupation. We need to work together for passage of the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (see below). We need to heighten the public's awareness of the terrible toll that domestic violence and child sexual abuse exact on women in our homes, neighborhoods, schools, and communities. We need to ensure that gender equity becomes more than just a pat campaign slogan to be trotted out whenever there is a gathering of women. We need to educate our daughters and sons that a woman can be anything and anyone she chooses to be, whether that is a Fortune-500 CEO or a mother--or both!
And perhaps even more importantly, we need to celebrate the women in our lives, our families, and our world. We need to celebrate them for their accomplishments, for their contributions, and for the unique perspective they bring to the issues and challenges facing us all. In the months ahead, I will be bringing you stories of some of these women, in the hope that they will inspire you as much as they have inspired me.
If you know of women in our community college system--past or present--who have made contributions to CCA, higher education, or the state as a whole, please let me know! Drop me an email at vvccoach@aol.com, with the subject heading of "CCA Women."
Now, take a look at our latest recipient of CCA's Exceptional Women honor!
To view previous recipients of this honor, click here.
As the CCA Women's Issues Director, I am investigating manifestations of gender discrimination in the college environment. I have developed a very brief (only six questions) survey to assist me in obtaining this information. Please take 60 seconds and fill it out TODAY! Click here to take survey
Ratifying the Women's Rights Treaty
Since 1981, the American Association of University Women (AAUW) has endorsed the ratification of the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
Also known as the Women's Rights Treaty, it is the most comprehensive agreement addressing international women's rights. The treaty can be an effective tool in reducing violence and discrimination against women and girls, ensuring access to education and health care, and preventing other human rights abuses.
Although the U.S. played a defining role in drafting the convention and signed the treaty in 1980, it remains the only industrialized country to fail to ratify it. In fact, while 185 countries have ratified the treaty, the U.S. is one of only eight countries that have yet to do so, standing alongside Sudan, Iran, Qatar, Somalia, Nauru, Palau, and Tonga.
While the treaty has enjoyed bipartisan support in the U.S., it has never made it to the Senate floor for a full vote. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted in 1994 and in 2002 to send the treaty to the floor for ratification, but the Senate recessed each time before the vote occurred.
The week of May 14, 2007, AAUW joined more than 200 leading organizations nationwide in supporting ratification of CEDAW. We advocate for basic rights for mothers and all women around the world.
Take Action! Urge your senators to ratify CEDAW.
Update on Women's History Museum
The National Women’s History Museum is a non-partisan, non-profit educational institution dedicated to fostering a greater appreciation of how women have shaped our culture.
The Museum has not had a permanent home since its founding in 1996. On October 29, 2009, Senator Susan Collins introduced S. 2129 that would give the museum a permanent home on the National Mall. On October 14, 2009, H.R. 1700 passed the House Floor on a voice vote. Click here to read the press release. Click here to watch the video.
Contact your Representatives in Congress. Tell Congress to support legislation to give the National Women’s History Museum a permanent home.
Win for Women Who Wrestled
A federal appeals court has ordered the University of California at Davis to defend itself against sex discrimination charges brought by a group of female former wrestlers at the institution. The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which sided with the former athletes on several fronts, overturned a lower court judge's 2008 opinion.
In taking up the former athletes' appeal, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit court soundly disagreed with the lower court judge's conclusions and significantly expanded its reach. The appeals panel challenges the university's record in meeting the second prong of Title IX -- a "history and continuing practice of program expansion" for female athletes and women's teams.
The court's analysis goes so far as to question whether Davis officials added the right sports when they added women's teams -- a level of analysis that some university administrators might well see as micromanagement -- but the court's bottom line judgment is that "the record before us does not contain undisputed facts showing a history and continuing process of program expansion that is responsive to women's interests." Read the entire article here...
Gender Does Matter
Does having a woman in the top job (or the No. 2 slot) make a difference? When it comes to faculty hiring, the answer appears to be Yes. And having a critical mass of women on boards of trustees also makes a difference. These are the results of a study by the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute. The new study could provide new evidence to those who argue that change at the top of institutions is crucial to promoting change at the junior faculty ranks as well. Read the entire article from Inside Higher Education...
Check out our archives of previous articles from our
Women's Issues page here.
The
2009 California Women's Conference
The California Governor and First Lady’s Conference on Women, hosted by First Lady Maria Shriver and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, was held in July of 2009.
The mission of The Women’s Conference is to inspire, empower and educate women to be Architects of Change in their own lives and in the lives of others. The Conference has grown from a California initiative for working professionals into an international network of women from all walks of life, backgrounds and perspectives, and a life-changing experience for the thousands of women who have attended.
This annual Conference unites more than 80 internationally-acclaimed leaders, visionaries and authors with 14,000 women in one arena, plus thousands more online, to share enriching stories of transformation and success, self-empowerment and life lessons. To extend the power and reach of The Women’s Conference, a new website, www.womensconference.org, was launched in July 2009.
You can view video of many of the workshops and keynote speakers, as well as audio of the Conference sessions, here.
Dr. Jane Goodall
Among
the speakers at the 2009 Conference was
Dr. Jane Goodall, founder of
the Jane Goodall Institute and the Gombe Stream Research
Centre in Tanzania.
The Institute supports the continuing research at Gombe and is a global leader in the effort to protect chimpanzees and their habitats. It also is widely recognized for establishing innovative community-centered conservation and development programs in Africa, and Jane Goodall’s Roots & Shoots, the global environmental and humanitarian youth program that has nearly 150,000 members in 110 countries.
The Gombe Centre is a world-renowned training ground for students interested in studying primates, hosting a skilled team of researchers and field assistants. To read more about Dr. Goodall, click here.
Mark your calendars for the 2010 Women's Conference, set for October 25 and 26!