Monthly Archives: May 2012

20th Annual Women Helping Women Fund Benefit Luncheon

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Elizabeth Smart speaking at the 20th Annual WHW Fund Benefit Luncheon in Spokane

May 21 marked the 20th Annual Women Helping Women Fund Benefit Luncheon. It was held in the Spokane Convention Center and packed wall to wall with inspirational women and men from all over the great Northwest. Every table had a captain, which symbolically was a person who had attended before or sponsored others to be at their table. Each captain welcomed their guests and spent time helping the members network with one another. I was fortunate enough to have Dr. Elizabeth J. Keeler as my captain, thanks to the generous sponsoring by one of Eastern’s own, Dr. Jennifer Stucker.  Dr. Keeler was jubilant to be celebrating her 20th year in attendance at the WHWF Benefit Luncheon, which made the atmosphere of our table that much more amazing.  Read more...

Birth Controlz

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A recent Jezebel article “Americans Find Just About Everything More Sinful Than Birth Control” stated that after the most recent Gallup poll it was found that 9 out of 10 Americans approve of birth control as morally sound within their own social spheres. This is an interesting juxtaposition to the frequented media propagation that birth control is an outlandish moral compromise. If 90 % of Americans approve of the implementation and necessity of birth control how is it that we are still refuting organizations such as Planned Parenthood?  Read more...

Book Review of Bell Hooks’ “Feminsit Theory: From Margin To Center”

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I recently read Bell Hooks book, Feminist Theory: From Margin To Center, which speaks out about how early feminists, in particular those of the second wave, though well intended, often excluded women of color, as well as the impoverished and uneducated, via their platforms involving feminine theory. A feminine theory, Hooks states, that was not sufficiently developed to include the marginalized populations of American women. Betty Friedan’s book, The Feminine Mystique, was one of the earliest books Hooks said biased what women learned about feminism during the 1960’s and 70’s. Hooks pointed at how Friedan’s book left out the real concerns of black women and others economically disadvantaged when she states, “masses of women were concerned about economic survival, ethnic and racial discrimination” (2) because their needs and concerns were not the same as Friedan’s readers. Friedan’s readers were worried about what to do with their spare time, which “deflected attention away from her classism, her racism, her sexist attitudes toward the masses of American women” (2) concerned with how to feed their children, get a job and keep roofs over their heads.  It was like saying that only college-educated white housewives and upper class women were American women. So what were the women living on the margins of society?  So were certain women excluded because they were less American or lacked privilege?  Read more...

Screening of “Miss Representation”

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The Magic Lantern recently screened the documentary “Miss Representation” as part of Get Lit! week. It is a film that explores the under-representation of women in positions of power and influence in America, and challenges the media’s limited portrayal of what it means to be a powerful woman.

if you want the text to wrap around video.  Read more...

Need a Reason to Love Poetry?

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For my first post as Poetry Editor of this fine blog, I am pleased to share a fantastic poem by Elizabeth Austen. Out of all the poems I encountered during EWU’s Get Lit! Festival this year, Austen’s “Untitled” was my favorite. Fortunately for us, she has been gracious enough to give me permission to post it here. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.  Read more...

Review of NARAL’s I <3 Choice Student Leadership Summit

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Krystal Starwich,

NARAL’s Volunteer & Youth Programs Coordinator began the 2012 I Heart Choice Student Leadership Summit by thanking the young men and women in the audience for taking time out of their schedules to focus on reproductive rights in Washington State, next Starwich introduced the summit schedule which looked like the following:

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2012 and Future Women and Gender Studies Graduates!

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Dr. Kissling’s 2012 Senior Capstone class began discussing our need/want for honors cords for Woman and Gender Studies Graduates. In lieu  of this hot topic,  student by day and talented seamstress by occasion, senior Danielle Glover-Cloutier offered to make Women and Gender Studies cords for a $4.00 fee. The cords will be green, white, and viole as a tribute to the early women suffragists of first wave feminism.  Read more...