California Federation of Business and Professional Women The Mission of the CFBPW shall be to promote and support equity for working women in all phases of their lives and to promote personal empowerment and professional development.
Fall Board of directors (2017) attendees (26) wearing white in recognition of Women’s Equality Day and yellow BPW ribbons in recognition of BPW-International.
PRSIDENT’S MESSAGE, August 12, 2024
PRSIDENT’S MESSAGE, JUNE 9, 2024
It is my honor to serve as your president for the 2024-25 BPW year. The theme for the year is ”Respect Tradition *** Embrace Change.”
Our officers for this year include:
President: Anne Marie Johnson, president@bpwcal.org
President-Elect, Sher Singh, president-elect@bpwcal.org
Secretary, Katherine Winans, secretary@bpwcal.org
Treasurer, Denise Luckhurst, treasurer@bpwcal.org
Parliamentarian, Sandy Thompson, parliamentarian@bpwcal.org
My BPW email is president@bpwcal.org, and I welcome your emails with any comments, suggestions, or questions. You may also call me. If you are not in my phone contact list, I may not answer but please leave a message and I’ll call you back.
Membership:
A special recognition goes out to YVONNE NG, Treasurer of East Los Angeles–Montebello BPW, Sierra Mar District for bringing in 6 new members during 2023/2024.
Kudos from all of us in CFBPW!
Dates/locations for 24-25 meetings:
Fall Board: October 5, 2024, Burbank, Courtyard by Marriott
Winter Board/PPC: February 21-22, 2025 in Sacramento, Hilton
Annual Conference: May 16-18, 2025, Burbank, Courtyard by Marriott
All meetings will be hybrid.
Recognition of Pride Month
Pride Month, celebrated every June, stands as a vibrant testament to the progress and ongoing struggle for LGBTQ+ rights around the globe. For organizations like the California Federation of Business and Professional Women (CFBPW), this month provides an invaluable opportunity to reflect on and advance the cause of equality and inclusion within the workplace.
CFBPW Public Policy Statement
CFBPW promotes workplace equality through support of pay equity, advancement opportunities and elimination of all forms of discrimination including “glass ceilings,” LGBTQ, race, ethnicity and gender.
The Origins of Pride Month
Pride Month commemorates the Stonewall Riots of June 1969 in New York City, a pivotal moment in the LGBTQ+ rights movement. This uprising was a response to police brutality and discrimination against LGBTQ+ individuals, particularly those frequenting the Stonewall Inn. Over the past five decades, Pride has evolved into a global movement celebrating diversity and advocating for the rights of all sexual orientations and gender identities.
Moving Forward Together
Pride Month is a reminder of the progress made and the work still to be done in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights. For CFBPW and its members, it is a call to action. By fostering an inclusive and supportive environment for all, we not only honor the legacy of those who fought for equality but also pave the way for a brighter, more inclusive future.
Anne Marie Johnson
CFBPW President 2024-2025
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March 19, 2024 The City of Fremont recognized the California Federation of Business and Professional Women )CFBPW) for its 104 years serving the community, and with the same proclamation designated March as “Women’s History Month” in Fremont. Click here for the proclamation Proclamation presented to President Maria DeSousa on behalf of CFBPW by Fremont Mayor.
Fremont Mayor Lily Mei presenting the proclamation to CFBPW President
Maria De Sousa
Clubs and Districts may want to have one of the Lifelong Learning and Training Program (this is updated Individual Development Program. Click here for descriptions of the modules NFBPWC L3 Training Modules.
SLIDE SHOW AND VIDEO OF CFBPW ANNUAL CONFERENCE, MAY 19-21,2023 Ontario – May 19 – 21, 2023 Trip
2023 Annual Conference Update from President Maria
The 2023-2024 year began with a cross cultural flavor. At the Annual Conference in Ontario the special dance performed by Indian Dance Training Center (IDTC). Ruchi Lamba the director of the school, herself a well-known performer of Indian Classical dance, led a dance performance. Several of the attendees joined the dance floor and added to the cross-cultural flavor. In keeping with this year’s elements of out theme: “The Path to Success- Teamwork, Cooperation, Partnership, and Inspiration”; we look forward to new alliances as we move forward.
President Maria, Ruchi Lamba and C.J.Jacobson, Vice-President of Valley Sunset BPW District
2023-2024 Important Dates
Saturday, June 10th Valley Sunset BPW District June Planning Meeting at Burbank’s First United Methodist Church, located at 700 N Glenoaks Blvd., Burbank, CA.
Saturday, June 17th Sierra Mar BPW District June Training and Dessert Auction at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, 2009 S. Garfield, Monterey Park, CA.
Saturday, October 21st CFBPW Fall Conference in northern CA.
Saturday, October 28th Sierra Mar BPW District Fall Conference at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, 2009 S. Garfield, Monterey Park, CA.
Saturday, January 20, 2024 Sierra Mar BPW District Winter Conference at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, 2009 S. Garfield, Monterey Park, CA.
Friday, February 23-Sunday, February 25, 2024 CFBPW Winter Board and Public Policy in southern CA.
Saturday, April 20, 2024 Sierra Mar BPW District Annual Conference at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, 2009 S. Garfield, Monterey Park, CA.
Friday, May 17-Sunday, May 19, 2024 CFBPW Annual Conference in Monden, NV.
2023 Important Equal Pay Days Dates
March 14th Equal Pay Day—representing all women. Women working full-time, year-round are paid 84 cents and all earners (including part-time and seasonal) are paid 77 cents for every dollar paid to men.
June 15th LGBTQIA+ Equal Pay Awareness Without enough data to make calculations, this day raises awareness about the wage gap experienced by LGBTQIA+ folks.
July 27th Black Women’s Equal Pay Day Black women working full-time, year-round are paid 67 cents and all earners (including part-time and seasonal) are paid 64 cents for every dollar paid to non-Hispanic white men.
August 15th Moms’ Equal Pay Day Moms working full-time, year-round are paid 74 cents and all earners (including part-time and seasonal) are paid 62 cents for every dollar paid to dads.
October 5th Latina’s Equal Pay Day Latinas women working full-time, year-round are paid 57 cents and all earners (including part-time and seasonal) are paid 54 cents for every dollar paid to non-Hispanic white men.
November 30th Native Women’s Equal Pay Day Native women working full-time, year-round are paid 57 cents and all earners (including part-time and seasonal) are paid 51 cents for every dollar paid to non-Hispanic white men.
NFBPWC President Megan Shellman-Rickard on the Equal Rights Amendment, May 1, 2023
The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) remains at the top of our advocacy platform with the following statement: The Alice Paul Equal Rights Amendment shall stand first and foremost above all other items of the advocacy platform until Equal Rights have been guaranteed in the United States Constitution – i.e. “Equality of Rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”
Many of us held out hope that April 27, 2023, would be the day that the S.J. Res. 4 would declare the ERA ratified and valid. Despite polls showing that 83% of Americans believe that it should be incorporated into the U.S. Constitution (https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/public_education/2020-survey-civ-lit-full-report.pdf), S.J. Res. 4 did not pass, and the ERA was not brought to the floor for debate and a vote. As a non-partisan organization, NFBPWC does not endorse any one party over another, and yet, women’s rights are not equally supported by all politicians. Please take a moment to participate in our campaign to contact our representatives, Equality Has No Deadline! The fight continues, despite the failure of S.J. Res. 4. Women, especially those represented by Senators who voted against the ERA, can have the most impact. Please take a moment to tell your representatives that you support the ERA.
Our organization continues to develop the professional, business, and leadership potential of women at all levels. In order to fulfill our mission at its highest level, it is imperative that Equal Rights are guaranteed in the United States Constitution. The Executive Committee and Board of Directors continue our work to elevate this goal. We are open to collaboration and partnerships as we strive for the success of the ERA. Thank you to all the members who continue to participate in conversations about the ERA at all levels. We have been working towards the goal of Equal Rights as an organization for over 100 years and we will continue the fight together. Please share your thoughts and ideas on how we can better represent ourselves and our efforts in regard to the ERA with the Executive Committee and thank you for your continued support.
Please remember, you have an opportunity to provide constructive input and to find your own unique path in this organization. This is a chance to develop your potential, and that of NFBPWC, in a safe and welcoming space. Please continue to bring your ideas, projects, and your own light forward. Let us celebrate our successes as individuals and as an organization!
NFBPWC is truly living our theme for this biennium: Cultivate Connections, Create Community. Sending personal wishes of celebration, health, and progress around the globe.
Kind Regards,
Megan Shellman-Rickard
NBPWC President
2020-2024
CFBPW Leadership Seminar via Zoom, June 4, 2022
June 4th CFBPW President Bessie Hironimus held a “Leadership Seminar” with 37 members from California and around the nation attending. BPW International Regional Coordinator for North America and the Caribbean led off by talking about “What is a great leader?” She pointed out that anyone can lead, but great leadership is based on competency. The essence of leadership is to move from the comfortable and controlled to an uncomfortable requirement to empower, coach, facilitate and educate. Emotional leadership is the heart, the soul and spirit of leadership. A leader must build trust which is based on honesty, integrity and transparency. Leaders need to develop others by empowering them. Leadership is inclusion. Everyone has a contribution to make. Leaders need a positive attitude. Align yourself with people who add value to your life. You need to be open and engaged. You much allow others into your space. It is about the team. Listen for understanding. A leader must value diversity. A leader has to be flexible. It is serious to be a leader, but a leader can have fun. We must focus on the best next steps for the organization. Remember to think first, fell the emotion and then act. BPW is based on volunteers so it is vital to show appreciation.
Other speakers were Neelima Basnet (Young BPW 2021 from Nepal), Dr. Trish Knight (NFBPWC Mentoring Chair and past national President), Trudy Waldroop (CFBPW past President and CFBPW Membership Chair 2022-23) and Barbara J Davis (NFBPWC L3 Committee member, CFBPW past President and CFBPW L3 Chair 2022-23).
Young BPW members are members under the age of 35. Neelima pointed out that the more opportunities that we give Young BPW members the more likely they are to stay in BPW. If you want to be a global citizen, you need to go to other regions of the world. She recommended members attend BPW International Congress. She said, “Life is not about how much you earn or learn, but how much you give and share your knowledge with humanity.”
Trish told us about generations – i.e. Silent Generation, the Baby Boomers, Generation Y, Millennials and Generation Z. She said that Generation Y have the most disposable income. They are eager to learn new things. They prefer in-person interaction instead of cell phones. They want to build lasting memories. She said most of our members are in the Silent Generation and the Baby Boomers. We need to work on bringing in more Millennials to keep BPW going. Advocacy issues matter. They are not afraid to push for change. They are the largest (1.3 billion) worldwide. This generation joins for community. Events need to be interactive and fun. They live to learn and use Twitter, Instagram and Tumbir for self-expression. They want to move forward. They are motivated, optimistic and forward thinking. They want satisfying and well-paying jobs. Many have college debt. Generation Z would be candidates for Student Memberships at $30/year. They want fair and equal treatment. 48 percent identify as non-white. They embrace diversity. They value issues and have wordly and progressive views.
Trudy talked about how to increase membership. She reminded participants to always carry a BPW brochure and a business card. Have your BPW elevator speech ready. Wear your NFBPWC pin! Search out City Council members and business owners. Invite them to a meeting where they can speak. If your Club has a drawing, a prize could be membership in BPW. Look for new businesses in your community, make a personal contact and invite them to the next meeting where there is a speaker on a topic that may interest them. Feature new businesses in the Club newsletter. Member retention is just as important as new members. Listen to what the member want and expect from the Club and BPW. Get them involved! Keep an index of members’ talents and interests. Establish goals and objectives for the organization. Get members involved in getting speakers. People like to be asked to help. Have an orientation on BPW once a year. Make meetings interesting. Thank members for their contributions. Let members know membership benefits. Ask former members to rejoin. Each member needs to invite one member to a meeting in order for us to grow. All members need to take action.
Barbara was the last speaker. She was not in attendance due to being a Poll Worker. She sent a video on the Lifelong Leadership and Learning (L3) Program. She talked about what the modules in the program are. She is planning to do Zoom training on the modules during the next year and is putting together a calendar of this training. This training session on Leadership was recorded. Contact Bessie Hironimus for the link to view it.
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CFBPW President Bessie |
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Dawne Williams, BPW International Regional Coordinator for North America and the Caribbean |
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Zoom Participants |
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Zoom participants |
Zoom participants |
Zoom participants |
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Neelima Basnet |
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NFBPWC Mentoring Chair Dr. Trish Knight |
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CFBPW Membership Chair Trudy |
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CFBPW Lifelong Leadership and Learning Chair Barbara |
Past BPW International President Dr. Yasmin Darwich |
The following article on membership and membership recruitment is from CFBPW President Bessie Hironimus
Let’s Just Ask
MEMBERSHIP: Why, When, How?
WHY:
BPW empowers women personally, professionally, and politically.
BPW is a member-based organization. Our members are the stockholders of BPW, and the most important part of our organization. It doesn’t matter how good our Mission, projects and programs are, our efforts to succeed will fail if we don’t have the member-based participation.
We must make a collective effort to retain and recruit members! Now it is easier than ever to invite people to our meetings and events, since they can join us from the comfort of their home without travel or expense! And it doesn’t even have to be to our local meetings, the invitation can be made to any event anywhere! Just invite at least one guest to the meetings you will attend.
Belonging to BPW is as important to the member, as the member is to BPW.
WHEN:
Although membership recruitment is an all-year task, now is the best time to renew our efforts. A new term is approaching, new programs and projects are being planned, and it is the best time to bring in new members to reinforce our clubswith their new ideas and new enthusiasm. So, let’s roll up our sleeves and contact those prospects!
HOW:
It is not necessary to be an expert or an experienced membership chair to work on membership recruitment or retention. Whatis needed is to have energy, driveand determination. We have a variety of resources such as booklets, manuals, articles and guidelines available that can assist our committee chairs. Also available is the mentorship from our previous officers and committees.
Create a growth plan, do an assessment. Analyze your target. Is it a group of potential members, an established club or an individual? Make your presentation accordingly.
Be positive, informative, and enthusiastic. Don’t try to “sell membership”, just share BPW information and the numerous proven benefits of belonging. Mention the availability of electronic training, webinars, programs and presentations available to our members.
Share the scope of our Organization, its work, the variety in its membership, and its size. We have the big advantage of being a global organization of working women.
Share our newsletters; invite them to a program meeting. With the advantage of electronic meetings, it is much easier for guests to join us.
After they attend our meeting, contact them again with a thank-you note, and ask for their opinion or suggestions and mention an upcoming meeting or event. Follow-up is as important as the first contact.
Need assistance? Just Ask!
Bessie R. Hironimus
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Resolution Passed at CFBPW Annual Conference on May 14, 2021 to Recognize the Life and Accomplishments of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Whereas, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg lost her long battle with cancer and died on September 18, 2020;
Whereas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg graduated 1st in her class at Columbia Law School in 1959, yet,despite her academic achievements experienced Gender Discrimination while seeking employment and in her first job after a judicial clerkship, where she was paid less than male professors at Rutgers University School of law because she was married and her husband had a well-paying job;
Whereas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg received tenure at Rutgers in 1969 and became a Professor at Columbia School of Law in 1972 and became it’s first tenured woman;
Whereas, In 1972, Ginsburg co-founded the Women’s Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and in 1973, she became the Project’s general counsel, participated in more than 300 gender discrimination cases, and argued six gender discrimination cases before the United States Supreme Court, winning five;
Whereas, In 1980, Ginsburg was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to the 4th District Court of Appeal for the District of Columbia, and in 1993 was appointed by President Bill Clinton as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, making her the 2nd, woman and 1st Jewish woman to serve on the Supreme Court;
Whereas, On the Court Ginsburg continued to be a strong voice for gender equality and women’s reproductive freedom, and she wrote over 100 majority opinions, including the landmark decision in United States v. Virginia, which held that the state-supported Virginia Military Institute could not refuse to admit women.
Whereas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was known for her forceful dissenting opinions, including her dissent in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, which led Congress to pass the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act;
Whereas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg became an inspiration and role model to young women towards the end of her life, who called her “The Notorious RBG”; and
Therefore, Be It Resolved That the California Federation of Business and Professional Women support Federal recognition of Ruth Bader Ginsburg for her years of hard work and fierce advocacy on behalf of Woman’s Rights and Gender Equality and that such recognition be in the form of a stamp, coin, currency, or other appropriate object; and
Resolved, That the President of the California Federation of Business and Professional Women is instructed to forward a copy of this resolution to the National Federation of Business and Professional Women for them to consider taking action to obtain Federal recognition of Ruth Bader Ginsburg on a stamp, coin, currency, or any other appropriate object.
BPW International Installation of President, April 21, 2021
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BPW International |
Dr. Catherine Bosshard, BPW International President 2021-24 |
NFBPWC President Megan speaking at BPW International |
BPW International Triennial Congress and Assembly, March 21-31, 2021 virtually via Zoom
Members from North America and the Caribbean Region participating in discussions
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Yasmin Darwich, Immediate Past BPW International President |
Liz Benham, Past BPW International President and Past NFBPWC President |
Dawne Williams, North America and the Caribbean Regional President for BPW International |
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Bessie Hironimus, BPW International Executive Secretary, Past NFBPWC President and Past CFBPW President |
Sandy Thompson, Past NFBPWC President and Past CFBPW President |
Francesca Burack, Past President of NYC-BPW |
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Manjul, NFBPWC and CBPW Small Business Chairs and Past CFBPW President |
CFBPW Program/Projects Chair and Hollywood BPW President |
From the Executive Committee of the National Federation of Business and Professional Women (January 7, 2021):
We live in a nation where we can exercise rights that many around the world would covet. In 1870, the 15th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guaranteed the right to vote for men, regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” It took nearly 100 years of the suffrage movement to see passage of the 19th Amendment that would grant women the right to vote in 1920. Following this, in 1965, the Voting Rights Act was passed, making discriminatory voting practices illegal. In the United States of America, we have the right to register our choices for our country by voting.
Each vote, a personal choice, was registered and recorded in the recent elections – the outcome of which was certified in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the United States Congress. Sometimes our candidates win and sometimes our candidates lose. “We the People” are always the winners, benefiting from our Constitutional rights as Americans and the peaceful transfer of power.
January 6, 2021 was a day to celebrate the privilege of democracy, yet we witnessed the unprecedented assault of irresponsible and reckless behavior of extremists. While peaceful protest has been part of the fabric of our great nation, the unconscionable violence of the rioters yesterday is not a reflection of our democratic values. However, we should not allow these inexcusable actions to overshadow the victory of many – the victory of democracy. As citizens of this country, we have the awesome responsibility to act with respect toward one another, respect for our democratic system, and a respect for our representatives – even if the results do not always go in our favor.
Respect does not automatically indicate agreement, in fact, it infers that we value one another despite our differences. The Founding Fathers of this nation found strength in unity. Similarly, the suffragettes united in their fight for the right to vote. The hope that NFBPWC, as a nonpartisan organization, can set aside partisanship and be a beacon of light and unity for our communities is heartening after these events. We have a responsibility to serve as an example for the young women who will follow in our footsteps as responsible voters, leaders, and citizens who will continue the work of democracy.
The National Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs condemns the violence that took place in our nation’s Capitol. We are heartbroken and shocked by the situation that erupted on January 6, 2021 and we grieve for the loss of life endured by these actions. As an organization, we have and will continue to support our flawed, but beautiful democracy for all citizens.
Sincerely,
The 2020-2022 Executive Committee
National Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs
ec@nfbpwc.org
www.nfbpwc.org
Program Resource: Marsha Riibner Cady of BPW North Carolina has volunteered to do a presentation on using the NFBPWC website for any of our clubs or districts. You can contact her at romarsci@gmail.com.
Membership Reminder: District and Club Presidents, have you contacted members who did not renew? Please contact them to find out why they are no longer members. Did they forget to renew? Our most recent membership list shows a decline in numbers. Let’s encourage them to join us again.
Business Incubator Please click to see the attached email from Carol Hanlon of Australia with great information about training and mentoring links Business. — Bessie Hironimus, Membership Chair
NFBPWC in its June 15, 2020 e-Alert made clear that BPW supports BLM; and that systemic racism has been within our culture for some 400 years. That would be about the time, of course, that the first slave ships arrived on the shores of our mostly southern states. But please note that white male dominance has been present in America since 1492! Whites have enjoyed affirmative action for the whole history of this country. [ Women have only had the Vote for 100 years.]
If we are going to restructure, reform, and/or defund police departments [some 18,000 of them] across the country for exercising racism and brutality and violence against black Americans, in our proper and opening attack on systemic racism, let’s not forget systemic sexism that is the basis of pay inequity, assaults, violence and harassment against working women. Let’s not forget the #MeToo movement is still well and functioning and needs our continuing support and action, as well as our energetic support of BLM and black working women! Give break to a woman because she is a woman. That’s justice, not discrimination! -Jackie Melvin, Chair, Sexual Abuse against Working Women Committee
Young BPW: They are BPW members who are 35 years old or younger. Our young business and professional women have opportunities to develop their professional leadership and business potential through advocacy, mentoring, networking, skill building and economic empowerment programs and projects around the world. They can also gain hands-on leadership experience serving in roles on the National, Regional and International levels of BPW.
Young BPW is interested in how they play a role as a global citizen, educating themselves on our climate crises, health education, gender equity, policy, equality for all, and more.
Currently, Young BPW on an international level is working to educate our members on our world’s new “Work From Home” life through the program “BPW Goes Digital” on YouTube. Here, members teach classes on Zoom, Webinars, even Marketing. Here is the link: https://bit.ly/bpwdigital. You can also find Ashley Maria’s class there “Presenting Your Best Self Online.”
Congratulations, Ashley Maria: Her film, Pioneers in Skirts, won the Spirit of Activism Award at the Nevada Women’s Film Festival. We are VERY proud of you, Ashley!
“History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
CFBPW 100th Anniversary Major Donation: In honor of the 100th anniversary of the California Federation’s founding, the BPW club of Orange County has donated $8,000 to CFBPW’s general fund. A big thank you to OC BPW for their generosity! This is an amazing gift.
Congratulations Pioneers in Skirts, written, directed and produced by our own member, Ashley Maria, won Best Documentary Feature at the 2020 Worldwide Women’s Film Festival. 86 films made by female filmmakers from all over the globe were hand-picked to screen at this event. This is the 4th award Pioneers in Skirts has won since it premiered!!
Sexual Harassment and Sexual Abuse Against Women in the Workplace
By: Jackie Melvin, NFBPWC Task Force Chair
SURJ, [Showing Up for Racial Justice], is 10-years-old and was founded by activist Carla Wallace from Louisville, Kentucky. SURJ is a “national network of groups and individuals working to undermine white supremacy and to work for racial justice. Through community organizing, mobilizing, and education, SURJ moves white people to act as part of a multiracial majority for justice with passion and accountability”. There are numerous chapters throughout the United States of this group made up of white people having conversations with white people about racism. It’s a 501(c) 4 doing political, advocacy and lobbying work to eliminate white supremacy and offers a tool kit with Color of Change tools. We need to understand and acknowledge the world of white privilege.
BLM, [Black Lives Matter] is 7 years old and was founded by Patrisse Cullors from Van Nuys, CA, when she created a hash tag from a statement made by a friend of hers. She is mother of a four-year-old son, an artist, organizer and educator oriented to the world of art and considers BLM a cultural movement. Melina Abdullah, co-founder, is from East Oakland, CA, a California State University, Los Angeles, professor and former chairperson of Pan-African Studies at that state college. BLM is a movement led and envisioned and directed by Black women who are laying the groundwork and foundation for a new world of equality.
These groups, like others, propose “educating yoursel(ves) in the ways that institutions-from elected officials to banks and labor unions have been complicit in propping up pillars of structural racism…. That hierarchy has to be dismantled. And that will require more than scrubbing Aunt Jemima from a box of pancake mix.” [Sandy Banks, LA Times, July, 2020]
As noted by columnist Robin Abcarian in her Op-Ed of July 12 [LA Times], “we are in the midst of this decade’s great reckoning, which was unleashed by women who were sick and tired of being sexually harassed and violated by powerful men. The #MeToo movement, among other things, caused a great culling of abusive male bosses that continues to this day. The current iteration of the reckoning is more complicated. At its roots are a rage against racism and sexism and long-standing social inequities that have manifested themselves in every aspect of American life….This is a fraught moment for discussions about race and gender.” Indeed!
Sexual Harassment and Sexual Abuse Against Women in the Workplace
By: Jackie Melvin, NFBPWC Task Force Chair
ANTI-RACIST; ANTI-SEXIST
The history buffs among you will be able to trace the compatibility of the movements toward racial freedoms and women’s rights. The terminology progresses as times change – racist, nationalist, sexist, feminist, for example, are terms viewed from different perspectives by people of diverse backgrounds. In this period of justifiable national protests on behalf of “Black Lives Matter”, the term “racist” has grown in its function from “I am not a racist” to “I am anti-racist” suggesting needed activism on behalf of persons for greater progress toward elimination of racial injustice within our society. So, too, my friends, hearing “I am not a sexist” from your husband or mate, is no longer sufficient if we are to eliminate social injustices against women in our country. Rather, let’s encourage “I am anti-sexist” as a calling cry to encourage not just a characterization, but action and activity.
I am elated by the eAlert statement from President NFBPWC Sandy and the Executive Committee in support of BLACK LIVES MATTER and look forward to our continuing support and action.
I am encouraged by an Op-Ed piece on June 7, 2020, by the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, former V.P. JOE BIDEN, who noted [L.A. Times] while addressing the BLM weekend protests;
“WE MUST BECOME A NATION WHERE ALL MEN AND WOMEN ARE NOT ONLY CREATED EQUAL, BUT TREATED EQUALLY. WE NEED TO BECOME THE NATION DEFINED – IN DR. KING’S WORDS – NOT ONLY BY THE ABSENCE OF TENSION, BUT BY THE PRESENCE OF JUSTICE.”
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SPOTS OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT EVENTS
DURING PANDEMIC, PROTESTS/RIOTS, AND ELECTION ACTIVITIES
CRIMINAL MINDS. Our BPW focus has been on sexual harassment of women in the workplace, but it should be noted that such violations occur to men as well. The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing filed a sexual harassment lawsuit in Los Angeles County in May against the producers and studios behind the CBS television show “Criminal Minds”, one of the longest running network dramas.
For over 14 years, it alleges, GREGORY ST. JOHNS, director of photography on the series, subjected male production crew members to frequent sexual harassment, doting on those who acquiesced to his attention and retaliating against those who resisted, in common patterns including ultimate termination.
Further, the executive producers including the Walt Disney Co., ABC Signature Studios, CBS Studios “had knowledge of and condoned St John’s alleged conduct…firing over a dozen men who resisted [his] harassment,” and thereby also violating the law.
The Department is seeking damages for all production employees who were subjected to alleged harassment. [Stacy Perman, L.A.Times, 05/27/20]
“ON THE RECORD” DOCUMENTARY FILM. Three women tell on film their stories of rape by hip-hop mogul RUSSELL SIMMONS in a documentary film distributed by HBO Max, a new streaming device, which is the first original film to be featured on its platform premiering in late May.
SIL LAI ABRAMS, now 49, DREW DIXON, also 49, and SHERRI HINES, now 59, are the three faces of the film describing their survivals.
Abrams first told her story to Hollywood Reporter in June of 2018, alleging Simmons raped her in New York in 1994. Dixon told the New York Times in December, 2017, that she was raped in his apartment when she was 24 years old and at the time an executive at his record company. Hines was diagnosed with Covid-19 in March while working as a state Supreme Court officer at the Bronx Hall of Justice. She told her story in December, 2017, to the Los Angeles Times of his raping her in his office around 1983.
Simmons has denied dozens of allegations against him claiming he has never engaged in non-consensual sex.
WOMEN IN POWER. 490 women have filed as candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives nationwide in 2020 which number is a record high and a number that can grow as filing deadlines had yet to pass in about a dozen states as cited in May by the Center for American Women and Politics. Much of the surge in candidate filings is in Republican primaries.
#METOO EMPOWERING WOMEN TO SPEAK OUT. The California Commission on Judicial Performance has called for the removal of Court of Appeal JUSTICE JEFFREY JOHNSON for sexual misconduct, dishonesty and undignified conduct. The decision becomes final in July unless the Justice asks the California Supreme Court for review. Among those claiming sexual harassment from Johnson was JUSTICE VICTORIA CHANEY, who serves with him on the Los Angeles based 2nd District Court of Appeal and told the Commission that Johnson harassed her from 2009 to 2018. She testified that she had not initially reported Johnson or even told him to stop harassing her because she feared it would creative divisiveness on the court. She further believed she was the only woman being harassed and felt she was tough enough to handle it.
“Until the ‘MeToo’ movement”, she testified, she believed women who complained were not believed and might be marginalized. But once she learned other women had complained about him and that she would be part of a broader workplace investigation, she decided to come forward.
The Commission noted in its investigation “…particularly, concerning [his] actions toward women who had recently graduated from law school; were in the early stages of their legal careers; and welcomed the opportunity to establish professional contacts with a Court of Appeal justice.”
Sexual Harassment and Sexual Abuse Against Women in the Workplace
By: Jackie Melvin, NFBPWC Task Force Chair jamelvin@pacbell.net
POLITICAL PARTY PERPETRATORS
Can’t we all just get this right. Sexual harassment does not belong to a political party. A perpetrator can be from either party or from no party. It is also without a religious affiliation, an ethnicity, an age group, an occupation. It is a surge of power over a person of lesser power. Its exercise in intended humiliation for the recipient brands the perpetrator a bully, a pitiful human being, someone requiring a scapegoat. Sexual harassment can be ongoing or a momentary expression. The perpetrators may or may not be punished.
Since 2017 and in the #Me Too era, perpetrators have been punished by their bosses, the general public, legislatures, and the courts. Great strides have been made to humiliate the perpetrator to terminate the practice in our workplaces. But let’s get it right. People who likely wouldn’t commit a murder or a burglary or arson or other crimes against persons or property, need to understand that sexual harassment is a violation too, and has always been so. And this is the generation that ends it!
Let’s continue to promote termination of harassment in our new world. Be safe. Be well. Be kind.
Sexual Harassment and Sexual Abuse Against Women in the Workplace
By: Jackie Melvin, NFBPWC Task Force Chair jamelvin@pacbell.net
Certain themes have evolved within public policy and legislation which are significant to the elimination of sexual harassment and abuse in the workplaces of the #MeToo era.
ELIMINATION OF MANDATORY ARBITRATION when an employee files a sexual harassment complaint: “A global reckoning about sexual harassment has been unleashed in the #MeToo era, with forced arbitration coming under scrutiny for being one of many tools companies use to keep complaints from coming to light. Although businesses say the process saves money, a 2015 study found employees prevail only about a third as often in mandatory arbitration as in federal courts, and get less money in damages. The system can also cover up misconduct by repeat offenders.” [LA Times 2/13/20]
While several tech giants, including Microsoft Corp., Google, and Facebook, have done away with the requirement clause in their contracts over these last few years, the process remains widespread on Wall Street, which pioneered it decades ago.
Wells Fargo, one of the largest U.S. Banks, is trying to regain customer and business confidence after years of scandals, and has instituted a series of reforms under their new Chief Executive [Charlie Scharf.] One of these is to no longer require arbitration when an employee files a sexual harassment complaint, making it the first of the largest US banks to announce an end to the practice. The national advocacy group Lift Our Voices suggests “Wells Fargo’s decision is yet another step in ending the secrecy and silence that survivors of sexual harassment and assault have been forced to endure…One major bank can inspire others in the financial sector to do the right thing.”
ELIMINATION OF NDA’S [NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENTS] IN EMPLOYMENT CONTRACTS: Buying silence should not be mandatory. Significant was SB 820 by Senator Connie Leyva, signed into law by Gov Brown, Oct 2018, which prohibits mandatory settlement agreements that prevent the disclosure of facts related to sexual abuse, harassment, or workplace discrimination. “Some victims’ attorneys argue that NDAs offer essential protection to women, and usually net them higher settlements.” But in practice, NDAs are invaluable tools for harassers. Oakland employment discrimination attorney Leslie Levy: “I really hate NDAs…The ability to talk about what happened is critical to the healing process. The act of harassment or rape and assault is all about power. You leave the power in the perpetrator’s hands when you allow him to gag the woman….a man who pays a million dollars to a woman he has assaulted is probably not going to go around babbling about it. And victims risk losing it all if they breathe a word to anyone.” [ R.Abcarian, LA Times, 9/11/19]
STATUTES OF LIMITATION (SOL): for filing Sexual Harassment and Abuse complaints: Kate Manne, an assistant professor of philosophy at Cornell University, spoke out with regard to the Blasé Ford/Kavanaugh matter, but her declaration is appropriate within the context of SOL: “When I have to explain over and over why victims of sexual abuse or harassment don’t come forward I feel like hitting my head against a wall. Why do we even have to have this conversation anymore? “Let’s just stipulate, please, that women are often afraid to come forward because they won’t be believed or the powerful man who assaulted them might damage their career, or they are ashamed or embarrassed or consumed by guilt.” LA Times, 10/2/18
ASM Lorena Gonzalez, whose SOL bill was signed by Governor Newsom after veto by Governor Brown, said: “The idea that someone who is assaulted as a child can actually run out of time to report that abuse is outrageous… more and more, we’re hearing about people who were victims years ago but were not ready to come forward to tell their story until now.” LA Times 10/21/19
AB 218 became CA law effective January 1, 2020, and opens a three year look-back window for victims to claim damages on claims previously barred by Statutes of Limitation, and also relaxes age restrictions on filing claims, giving victims until age 40, or 5 years after they become aware of injury caused by abuse.
CA joins New York and New Jersey which passed similar laws in 2019, and other states such as Maine, Delaware and Utah which have completely abolished civil statutes of limitation in these kinds of cases.
EMPLOYER SEXUAL HARASSMENT TRAINING: 2018 state law was to go into effect with the first stage of employer sexual training to be completed by January 1, 2020. But… Oops. After some confusion resulted with the requirements of SB 1343, Gov Newsom signed SB 778 into law with requirements and clarifications allowing employer compliance: The law requires an employer with 5 or more employees to provide sexual harassment training and education by Jan. 1, 2021 [not 2020], and thereafter once every 2 years;
it requires new non-supervisory employees be provided training within 6 months of hire; it requires new supervisory employees be provided training within 6 months of assumption of a supervisory position; it clarifies that an employer who has provided this training and education in 2019 is not required to provide it again until 2 years thereafter. The law also includes specifics of training and education content.
HARVEY WEINSTEIN
Bursting onto the scene as catalyst for the MeToo era, the Weinstein case and its verdict, it was said, “will be viewed as a referendum on the #MeToo movement.” The verdict came in on Monday, 2/24/20: guilty on two of the five felony counts – third degree rape and first degree sexual assault. Maximum sentence under New York law was for 29 years. Sentencing was on March 11 and Weinstein was given a total 23 years by the judge. The judicial system unanimously voted “Yes” and Harvey Weinstein is “now a convicted rapist.”
The defense and the prosecution arguments reflect the disparate societal thinking and attitudes toward sexual abuse, which makes this case especially significant for our understanding. NY Prosecutors submitted 5 felony counts, as perpetrated against two women, Haley and Mann, including rape, criminal sexual assault and predatory sexual assault, and used the testimony of 4 other women to establish “prior acts” and a serial pattern.
A Jury of 7 men and 5 women was selected allegedly for their professed ability to ignore media coverage and decide the case based only on evidence heard in court. The verdict is the decision of these specific 12 people, and these 12 alone. The decision is based upon their judgment of the facts and evidence presented, and their interpretation of the New York State laws as presented to and understood by them.
Defense Attorney Donna Rotunno declared Weinstein is an innocent man who has become the “target of a cause and of a movement”. “All the women made choices in how they interacted with [him] and how they tried to advance their Hollywood careers”. She declared them to be opportunists, and presented the victims as chasing Harvey for personal advantage, and thereby consenting to his sexual advances. Rotunno argued the accusers made the choice to go to his apartment or his hotel room, that they made the choice to engage in sex with him, and that they should take responsibility for those choices. Further, they sought attention through their involvement.
Wendy Murphy, a professor of sexual violence at New England Law in Boston and a former sex crimes prosecutor said, with reference to Mann’s consensual sexual interactions with Weinstein after the alleged attack, a possible sticking point for some jurors, “Even when the laws around rape are clear and the evidence is powerful, there may be jurors who will have a tough time valuing what happened to that woman’s body as a serious enough cry to warrant a criminal conviction, because of a historic disrespect for women in this country, and rape victims in particular.”
But the conviction, she says, shows a shift in society’s understanding of the various contexts in which an assault can occur, and the different ways victims might behave after an assault… “It shouldn’t matter if you’re sexually assaulted in your own home, by your husband, by your boss…The law should apply the same to each circumstance.”
Defense only had to establish “reasonable doubt” in the minds of the jury for a not guilty verdict, that presented acts did not substantiate the legal definition of the criminal charges against him, at which she was apparently successful on the more serious counts that could have lead to life imprisonment. The charges he was found guilty of are among the lowest levels of sex crimes in New York [Murphy].
But there was still joy in Hollywood land – “an important day”…”the beginning of justice”, but wisely “our fight is far from over”. ASHLEY JUDD: I am thinking about how it took 90 women coming forward for two guilty convictions.
RAINN
RAINN is the acronym for the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network, an American non-profit anti-sexual assault organization founded in 1994, and the largest in the U.S. RAINN did a national survey and found 995 of 1000 sexual assault perpetrators go unpunished. It’s broken down like this:
… of the 1000 assaults, only 230 are reported to the police; 46 of the 230 lead to arrests; 9 of the 46 are reported to prosecutors; 5 of the 9 lead to felony convictions; 4.6 will be incarcerated.
“The world is watching…your mother, your sisters, your daughters, and I want to be unequivocally clear that there is only one way to spell equality: E-R-A!”– Virginia Delegate Jennifer Carroll Foy, who carried the 19th amendment bill to the floor of the legislature.
Rose Parade Float BPW was represented by two “walkers”: Riley Wagner of Conejo Valley Club and Stephanie Ruiz of Sierra Mar District. They were part of a group of 100 women dressed in white as Suffragists, walking the 5-mile parade route behind the float. This officer and Valley Sunset District member Marcia Jackman spent a truly fun December Saturday working on the float. It was too early to put flowers on the float, but volunteers were preparing materials. Marcia and I spent the day cutting petals and painting “coco” sticks. (I also painted my sweatshirt, jeans and my hair.) It was a very memorable experience. You can see our photos below.
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Rosemary and Marcia beside the float |
Marcia and Rosemary working on the float |
Rosemary working on the float. |
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Side view of the float |
Side and front of float |
Rosemary and Marcia at the front of the float |
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Photo of Nan Johnson by Ryan Cartier of “The Pasadena Star-News” |
Photo of Pasadena Celebrates 2020 |
Suffragist descendants on the |
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Marchers behind the float. Photo by John McCarty. |
Two of the marchers behind the float. Photo by John McCarty. Stephanie Ruiz is on the right. |
Stephanie Ruiz, representing East Los Angeles-Montebello BPW. Photo by John McCarty. |
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Float on exhibit on January 2nd |
Float on exhibit on January 2nd |
Float on exhibit on January 2nd |
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Float on exhibit on January 2nd |
Float on exhibit on January 2nd |
Float on exhibit on January 2nd |
Program Idea Reminder If your district or club is looking for a program for entrepreneurs, the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration (CDTFA) will partner with you to present seminars for small businesses. Katherine Winans sent information to district presidents about this excellent opportunity. Don’t miss out on this!
Webpage Please send the names of Club Officers for 2023-24 with meeting dates and places to Linda Wilson. If you know who your speakers and programs are, get them to lindalwilson@juno.com or (626) 307-5650. People are checking our webpages, so this gets the message out as to what your club is doing. Other information such as scholarship winners, “Woman of Achievement,” “Young Professional/Careerist,” etc. can also be put on your webpages.
Email Warning Apparently someone is trolling the State website looking for someone to scam. If you receive a request to send gift cards, do NOT do this! Also beware of attachments that say Google docs. Pay attention to the return email address and if it does not belong the person sending, do NOT open.
New Member Information Remember to send to information to Linda Wilson, web manager, at lindalwilson@juno.com about your club’s new members: name, occupation, community involvement and a photo. No bios, please. The information will be posted on our CFBPW website.
BEGONE
SEXUAL ABUSE AGAINST WORKING WOMEN
by Jackie Melvin, Chair, Sexual Abuse against Working Women Committee
ABOUT WOMEN IN POWER
San Luis Obispo [Spanish for St. Louis, the Bishop] is a nice little city in California located midway between San Jose and Los Angeles on the Central Coast. Population 45,119 at the 2010 Census, it has been called “the happiest city in America” by Oprah Winfrey and others. Heidi Harmon became its Mayor in 2016, but in January of 2020, she took to Facebook, fed up and ready to call out the constant harassment she receives. “The amount of cruelty, rudeness, threats, sexism, stalking, body shaming, rude/threatening comments towards my children, etc., I receive are unbelievable,” she wrote. [Julia Wick, Los Angeles Times, January 19, 2020]
So that’s just politics, you suggest? Huh!
Wick notes: “A recent study published in the academic journal State and Local Government Review found that mayors – women and men – face greater levels of physical violence and psychological abuse than those in the general U.S. work force, with social media being the most common channel for that abuse. Female mayors were not only much more likely to face some form of violence or abuse, but they were also more likely to experience abuse of a sexualized nature” “Women are facing more of this kind of abuse and violence, and more types of it,” noted Sue Thomas, a research scientist and co-author of the Review study, and “the abuse and violence…is likely heightened by the executive nature of their job.” In comparing results in a yet unpublished study of state senators across the U.S., Thomas found these gender differences of abuse and violence to be present but not “as pronounced.” But further, among the state senators, female committee chairs experience more violence than women who are not committee chairs.
“Meaning as you hold more power and responsibility, the more types of abuse and violence you may face.” Mayor Harmon described an incident early in her mayorship, when she was introducing a male public figure at a local event. Power, in her view, was the thing that man was trying to take away from her when he grabbed the microphone and said. “Wow, how great it must be to live in a town with a kissable mayor,” after she had stepped off the stage. Theoretically complimentary, but in her view, the comment didn’t just disempower her by reducing her to an object, but every other women in the audience that night. A few hours after the Facebook post, a man at City Hall who was said to have had “a strange, romantic fixation on the mayor” knocked a city staffer to the ground before being arrested. An Instagram comment following the incident told her she “deserved to be sexually assaulted.” While noting other incidents, some of which are graphically sexual, the Mayor adds there are many nonexplicitly gendered attacks – like the people who call her “trailer trash” because she lives in a mobile home, or those who mock her because she worked as a housecleaner while raising her now grown children, instances she believes to be “rooted in misogyny.” Many incidents are from social media, but she says she often experiences comments from men – her constituents – of an inappropriate sexual nature or even just focused on her looks, while out in public doing her job. How do you call someone out while also trying to accomplish meaningful work for your city? In retrospect, she wishes she had walked back on stage and told him with microphone in hand, why his comment wasn’t okay, why it was misogynist, and then said “I’m not here to be kissed…I’m here to lead this city and to create policy for the people in this community.” The Mayor is a hero in my book of modern ones.
THE POWER, A BOOK BY NAOMI ALDERMAN
is certainly a proposed remedy for the Mayor…but perhaps a bit extreme! But it should be read and enjoyed and discussed as a tome of science fiction or a work of ”speculative fiction” that muses about what might happen in a conventional society if the roles of men and women were flipped, so that women were the “aggressors.” It is a dystopian tale in which its British author, who admits to being influenced by Margaret Atwood, her mentor and supporter, tells of the “power” embedded in young women and which produces a deadly electrical charge that renders them able to zap men at will, enfeebling or exterminating them, or just jolting them for sexual kicks. It is an engrossing read. First published in England in 2016, the novel resonated with American readers, and when published in America, it was named by the New York Times Book Review’s 10 Best Books of 2017, and has been described as “The Handmaid’s Tale” for a millennial generation.
BEGONE
SEXUAL ABUSE AGAINST WORKING WOMEN
by Jackie Melvin, Chair, Sexual Abuse against Working Women Committee
“DON’T CHANGE WOMEN TO FIT THE WORLD; DON’T CHANGE WOMEN TO FIT THE WORLD; DON’T CHANGE WOMEN TO FIT THE WORLD; CHANGE THE WORLD TO FIT WOMEN” [Gloria Steinem:2019]
Did you get yourself a nice gift for the Holidays? It’s not too late – or perhaps as an inspiration and motivation for the New Year.
The feminist that lurks there within you, or daily expresses herself, or is you, will be invigorated by Gloria Steinem’s new THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE, BUT FIRST IT WILL PISS YOU OFF. And buy copies for friends – you’ll see.
This small book [161 pages] abounds in short personal narrative/essays and a lifetime of thought-provoking, enjoyable, and humorous quotes – hers and others – and will lift your spirits and enrich your understandings and knowledge of gender history and issues, both past and current. Not his-story, but her-story. [“Women’s Studies are Remedial Studies and should be required of everyone”.]
I bought it for Christmas presents then read it before gifting and was captivated. Emailed Amazon the next day for more copies which I will spread about like gum drops – or whatever is popular today.
“One day, an army of gray-haired women may quietly take over the earth.” Oh, yeah!
Then, too, “Once, sexual harassment was just called life.”
“We need to make chosen families of small groups of women who support each other, talk to each other regularly, can speak their truths and their experiences, and find they’re not alone in them. It makes all the difference.”
WOMEN IN POWER
A 34 year old new mother, having given birth to a daughter in 2018, has become the prime minister of the country of Finland. Sanna Marin became the world’s youngest sitting head of government when she was tapped by her Social Democratic Party to head its winning party, and will head a coalition with four other parties that are all led by women, three of whom are in their early 30’s. The fourth is an old lady of 55.
Elina Penttinen, a lecturer in gender studies at the University of Helsinki, said the rise of so many women is “exceptional” not only by the standards of the wider world, where older men hold most power, but even by the standards of Finland, which regularly ranks as one of the best countries in the world for gender equality. [Associated Press, L.A. Times, 12/10/19]
Penttinen describes the new young leader as “a talented politician known for her leadership skills whose progressive program emphasizes combating climate change, protecting the country’s famous social protections like healthcare, and reaching out to young people.”
The Nordic region have had women as leaders in politics for decades, and today represent half of the party leaders in Sweden. Four of Denmark’s nine parties are headed by women. Mette Frederiksen became Denmark’s prime minister in June of 2019, and Erna Solberg has been Norway’s head of government since 2013. Then, too, Iceland’s Vigdis Finnbogadottir was the first woman to be democratically elected as head of state by voters when she defeated three men for the presidency in 1980.
Well, that’s certainly a way to reduce sexual harassment and assault against women, isn’t it?
Oh, speaking of Nordic women as leaders, how about this:
“For sounding the alarm about humanity’s predatory relationship with the only home we have, for bringing to a fragmented world a voice that transcends backgrounds and borders, for showing us all what it might look like when a new generation leads, GRETA THUNBERG is TIME’S 2019 PERSON OF THE YEAR.” [from Associated Press, L.A. Times of 12/12/19, citing website media franchise]. She’s the 16-year-old climate activist from Sweden who has become Time Magazine’s youngest person of the year.
GOING TO A MOVIE?
Give a look to “BOMBSHELL” featuring three outstanding actresses coming together to portray the ugly world of Roger Ailes, played by super-talent John Lithgow, deposed media titan of Fox News. Charlize Theron, who also produced, as Megan Kelly, Nicole Kidman as Gretchen Carlson, and Margot Robbie tell the story of a workplace where sexual harassment “was bred in the bone”. Noted L.A. Times film critic Kenneth Turan says “…in this adroit marriage of socially conscious drama with nail-biting suspense and dark satire … ‘Bombshell’
BEGONE
SEXUAL ABUSE AGAINST WORKING WOMEN
by Jackie Melvin, Chair, Sexual Abuse against Working Women Committee
“SHE SAID”
I bought a book online a while back after reading a review by Mary McNamara in the Los Angeles Times [9/13/19] entitled “Must Read What “She Said’. The book is by New York Times journalists Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey and has been compared in impact with All the President’s Men with the Woodward and Bernstein classic coming out “on the short end,” as stated by Rachel Maddow on her MSNBC show during which she interviewed the two women journalists. Maddow described She Said as “an xray into the abuse of power” by the notorious film producer Harvey Weinstein and others also accused of sexual harassment and abuse in the workplaces of Hollywood, New York, and London.
Noted is that the Woodward/Bernstein revelation unseated a sitting United States President, whereas the Kantor/Twohey classic-to-be unearths what is already becoming a change in the culture of our country and beyond. McNamara notes: “There was a finite number of people responsible for the crimes of the Nixon administration; the alleged crimes of Harvey Weinstein are also the crimes of our culture; and they continue to be committed every day by many men all around the world.
Although now, one hopes, without as much silence, secrecy and cultural complacency.”
I’m about halfway through the book with the sub-title ”Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement.” I admit to being, in my last third of life, a lover of fiction as I had plenty of other type reading required to get me through college, a teaching career, law school, and 30+ years of lawyering. But She Said is easy reading. The authors have a comfortable style and the unfolding of the “history” is engrossing even for this writer who has been quite on top of the movement since its inception in 2016. The personal stories of the victims and their development toward revelation of their stories that unfold are stories of modern heroines whom the reader roots for all along the way. Enough said. I hope you will get your own copy of SHE SAID and check out what I said.
THE EDUCATION OF BRET KAVANAUGH
Then there’s the September released book by New York Times reporters Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly. NPR host Hanna Rosin notes in her review, that “What [the authors] do…is almost too cruel: use his mother’s words against him. In an extremely satisfying epilogue, Pogrebin and Kelly invoke as a guide something Martha Kavanaugh, who was a state prosecutor, would often say at the dinner table: ‘Use your common sense. What rings true? What rings false?’ With this standard they come to a generous but also damning conclusion, which is that Blasey Ford and [Deborah] Ramirez are believable and were in fact mistreated by Kavanaugh as teenagers, but that over the next 35 years he became a better person.”
Favorite LA Times journalist Robin Abcarian notes: “There are two kinds of people in this country today: Those who believe that men who are credibly accused of sexually assaulting or harassing women are perfectly appropriate candidates for the U.S. Supreme Court…and the infuriated rest of us…
“I would never suggest that he be charged with a crime for his alleged high school and college misbehavior. That would be pointless all these years later. The issue was and is whether a man with such an explosive and accusatory temperament, who has been credibly accused of sexually assaulting women-even if the bad behavior occurred decades ago-should have been rewarded with a lifetime appointment on the highest court. “Surely our country deserves better.” [09/17/19]
And so, because this societal movement, this cultural change, is monumental…like a pit bull’s grip, it just won’t let go … and to continue my literary education on history in the making, I will buy this book, too, as disgusting as its contents may be.
CATCH AND KILL
And more on Harvey Weinstein and others, but in somewhat different journalistic style, Ronan Farrow, son of famous/infamous director/actor Woody Allen and actress Mia Farrow, now the New Yorker magazine contributor who shared the 2018 Pulitzer Prize gold medal for public service with Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, has authored Catch and Kill and sub-titled Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators. An investigative non-fiction report, Farrow also cited noted detective novelists Raymond Chandler and Dasheill Hammett as inspirations.“I did want it to live in a dramatic structure” said the author of his narrative. [Agatha French, LA Times, 10/24/19]
Reflecting precisely my feeling, and why, I will buy this book too, was Maria L. LaGanga’s LA Times book review:
“At first, I wasn’t sure I wanted to read [this] book.
“I didn’t want to spend hours with a revolving cast of powerful men accused of doing unspeakable things to women, with impunity or the next best thing.
“I didn’t want more evidence that women can matter so little, that we can be interchangeable orifices to a not-that-small group of rich guys in high places.
“I know the world can be like this. But I didn’t want to know the world can be like this.
“Now I know, in painful detail, thanks to Farrow and Catch and Kill.
“And you should too. Read this book.”
BEGONE
SEXUAL ABUSE AGAINST WORKING WOMEN
by Jackie Melvin, Chair, Sexual Abuse against Working Women Committee
WHOSE OX IS BEING GORED?
A whole generation of women is saying Enough Is Enough and impacting our culture and society.
The #MeToo movement and the entertainment world of Time’s Up, in less than two years, have lit a fire under out cultural thinking that “might prove as revolutionary for women as the civil rights movement was for people of color,” suggested Lorraine Ali in her commentary column, July 15, 2019, L.A. Times.
But, she observes, “It takes a village to protect an alleged high-profile predator,” noting the criminal indictments of two rich, powerful men, both charged with preying on underage girls, which also swept up men accused of enabling them. Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein sits in jail either, at this reading, an attempted suicide or victim of an assault in that setting. Simultaneously with his arrest came the resignation of Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta for the good of the country. Oh, yeh! He was the Florida prosecutor in the 2008 charges against Epstein that resulted in a plea deal for 13 months in jail with 12 hours of freedom six days a week to go to his “office” during which time he allegedly brought in teen age girls for his massages. Yuk.
Superstar R & B singer R. Kelly, too, was accompanied in his indictment for child pornography, conspiracy and obstruction of justice, by his former manager and another employee as enabler defendants in the charges.
Jim DeRogatis, a former Chicago Sun-Times reporter, spent decades investigating the singer’s troubled history with women. [Author of Soul-less: The Case Against R. Kelly] “Everybody from the driver to the personal assistant to the person who books the airplane tickets and makes the travel arrangements to the person who pays off the girls to be quiet…”
Ali concludes “A village of enablers helped these accused predators roam free, now a rising chorus of women is taking them down. The rest of us need to pick a side.”
Which takes me to whose ox is being gored and favorite columnist Robin Abcarian, June 25, 2019, L.A. Times.
“Can we all agree that sexual abuse has nothing to do with politics or partisanship, and everything to do with male privilege, sexism, a historical discounting of women’s lives and the failure of our justice system – until recently – to take rape very seriously at all?”
“And can we also finally agree – whatever our political persuasion – that we don’t want rapists or sexual harassers/assaulters/abusers as our president, our senator, our congressman or our Supreme Court justice?”
“Too many partisans treat women as credible victims only when men from the other party rape and assault them. But sexual assault is not a partisan crime. These are transgressions of power and privilege.”
We have picked a side, Robin, and so, HEAR OUR VOICE
SEXUAL HARASSMENT AND SEXUAL ABUSE
AGAINST WOMEN IN THE WORKPLACE
By Jackie Melvin, Task Force jamelvin@pacbell.net
“THE ONLY TIME WE LOSE IS IF WE QUIT”
What inspires you? What motivates you? Someone as old as I am has a long history of such times and persons. But occasionally something pops up that hits this old feminist anew and makes her want to get out and do something important for women’s rights.
Here’s what happened. On August 20 this year, Dolores Huerta got arrested. What? Who? Why?
Well let’s go back a few years first. In 1943, during WWII, a talented artist created a poster that is alive and well even today. “We Can Do It” it said, with the working woman showing the muscle of her right arm as she flexed it. The purpose, of course, was to boost female work morale as women poured into jobs left vacant by the boys and men going to war in Europe and in Asia.
Flash to 1972, California, where the great union leader Caesar Chavez with Dolores Huerta beside him created the United Farmworkers of America, a union seeking rights for farmworkers and their families in the central valley of California, and during one of his numerous hunger strikes, the phrase “Si, se puede” was coined – Change we can believe in was the emotion expressed, and more casually “Yes We Can,” it pronounced.
Flash ahead again, to 2008, when a community organizer and first term Senator by the name of Obama runs for President of the United States. “Yes We Can” becomes his campaign slogan, and you know the result.
During his term as President he presented a Medal of Freedom, America’s greatest civilian honor, to Dolores Huerta, recognizing her lifetime of work for civil rights and her contribution of “Si, se puede” as an historical motivation for society.
And on August 20, 2019, in California, Dolores Huerta, with seven others, was arrested outside the hallway of the meeting room of the Fresno Board of Supervisors where she was protesting on behalf of county home care workers for a livable working wage. This woman has been arrested, over her lifetime, some 12 times for similar protests on behalf of working people – and now, at age 89, she’s been arrested again. Oh, my.
When she was arrested , she is quoted as saying, “The only time we lose is if we quit.” Oh, my.
“Yes, We Can” has been called the road to women’s liberation, and Dolores Huerta is one of our most inspirational, motivational living persons.
NEW STUDY ON PAY EQUITY – OR LACK OF IT.
This from Armen Yedalyan of Hollywood BPW. This new study suggests women actually earn about half what men earn…