Virtual Events

WOMEN'S EQUALITY DAY: Honoring Those Who Fought Before ... And Continuing the Fight.

WOMEN'S EQUALITY DAY: Honoring Those Who Fought Before ... And Continuing the Fight.
What better way to spend WOMEN’S EQUALITY DAY this August 26 than revisiting how it came to be ... and continuing the fight for equality that women around the globe still seek?

American women were granted the right to vote on August 26, 1920, when the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified. But this did not include non-white women. Astoundingly, women of color were not awarded suffrage for another 45 years, with the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Consider what the word “equality” really means in the context of “Women’s Equality Day” when women remain on an unequal playing field and voter suppression continues to influence elections.

Come get a truer, fuller picture of the people and cultures and realities of our shared history – and get to work with outstanding women who are making a difference.


Topics to be covered include:


* Why is August 26th significant?

* Who are some of the women we should particularly honor on this day?

* How did this divided/ uninclusive beginning of the suffrage movement go on to limit the discourse of feminism today?

* How do we confront the erasure of the efforts of women of color in the fight for the right to vote?

* What challenges lie ahead in securing equality amongst all women in America right now?

* What role did race/racism play in the suffrage movement?
* What can you do - within your span of control - to decrease systemic racism in the US?


Featured Speakers:

Rene Redwood, CEO of Redwood Enterprise, informs the debate, policies, and practices on equity and inclusion while directing winning initiatives for public, non-profit, and private sector. She is a chemist by training, was director of the Presidential Glass Ceiling Commission, was court-appointed to oversee a Fortune 100 corporation class action settlement, and currently Chairs the Equality Task Force for a security agency. Rene conducts: workplace audits, culture assessments and barrier analysis on human capital organizational risk; workforce systems and process transformation; and qualitative research with internal and external customers on policies, institutional practices, values, and attitudes impacting morale and the bottom line. She facilitates learning on: EEO, DEI, sexual harassment; and the impact of bias on individual and institutional success.

Jovita Jenkins, MBA, is an executive/leadership coach, educator, and author. Her unique background includes forging a stellar career in the male-dominated aerospace industry, starting as an engineer, and culminating as an executive. She left corporate America to leverage her hard-won wisdom to help others master the skill sets needed to more effectively lead in organizations, manage challenging situations and people, and overcome roadblocks to their success. She coaches aspiring and seasoned leaders in partnership with three international coaching organizations: CoachSource, Chief, and Landit. An advocate for STEM education, Jovita is a founding board member for Black Women In Tech (BWIT), a board member for AMAN Science Foundation, member of the Los Angeles leadership team for Anita Borg, and a founding member Women In Technology International (WITI). She also served as a Commissioner on the Los Angeles City Quality and Productivity Commission through three mayoral terms. Author of the highly acclaimed book, Get Out Of Your Own Way – Create The Next Chapter Of Your Life, Jovita is a nationally known speaker on topics of success, leadership, and transformation. She holds BS and MS degrees in Math, an MBA from UCLA’s prestigious Anderson School of Business, and is certified as a professional coach through the International Coach Federation. 

Kimberly A. Hamlin, Ph.D., is an award-winning historian, speaker, and writer. Her book - Free Thinker: Sex, Suffrage, and the Extraordinary Life of Helen Hamilton Gardener - reveals the fascinating story of the “fallen woman” who reinvented herself and became the “most potent factor” in Congressional passage of the 19th Amendment. Free Thinker received support from a National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar Award and the Carrie Chapman Catt Prize for Research on Women and Politics. Appointed to the Organization of American Historians Distinguished Lecturer Bureau, Kimberly speaks about the history of women, gender, and sex across the country. A regular contributor to the Washington Post, her research has also been featured in NPR and CBC radio, Vice , qz.com, among other outlets, and she has contributed to several PBS documentaries. Dr. Hamlin is currently helping to organize commemorations of the 2020 suffrage centennial, and she serves as historical consultant to the Bearded Lady Project, now on view at the National Museum of Natural History. She cohosts the Mercantile Library’s “Women You Should Know” Book Series in Cincinnati and teaches at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

Cathleen D. Cahill, Ph.D., associate professor of history at Penn State University, is a social historian who explores the everyday experiences of ordinary people, primarily women. She focuses on women's working and political lives, asking how identities such as race, nationality, class, and age have shaped them. Cathleen is the author of “Federal Fathers and Mothers: A Social History of the United States Indian Service, 1869-1932” (University of North Carolina Press, 2011), which won the Labriola Center American Indian National Book Award and was a finalist for the David J. Weber and Bill Clements Book Prize. Her upcoming book (Fall 2020)“Recasting the Vote: How Women of Color Transformed the Suffrage Movement” follows the lead of feminist scholars of color calling for alternative "genealogies of feminism." It is a collective biography of six suffragists, Yankton Dakota Sioux author and activist Gertrude Bonnin (Zitkala-ša); Wisconsin Oneida writer Laura Cornelius Kellogg; Turtle Mountain Chippewa and French lawyer Marie Bottineau Baldwin; African American poet and clubwoman Carrie Williams Clifford; Mabel Ping Hau Lee, the first Chinese woman in the United States to earn her Ph.D. ; and New Mexican Hispana politician and writer Nina Otero Warren, both before and after the ratification of the 19th Amendment.


* This online gathering was inspired by an article written by one of our 
young WITI members, Ellie Ebby. 

100 YEARS AFTER THE 19TH AMENDMENT, REFLECTING ON THE HISTORY OF WOMEN'S EQUALITY DAY

https://witi.com/articles/1759/100-Years-After-the-19th-Amendment,-Reflecting-on-The-History-of-Women's-Eq/

Ellie Ebby is a WITI intern studying English and art at Connecticut College. Her artwork explores digital storytelling and can be found here: https://eebby.myportfolio.com/animation