2004 National NOW Conference: Speakers

Speakers

Carol Moseley Braun
Rep. Hilda Solis (D-Calif.)
Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nevada)
Dr. Donna J. Nelson
Medea Benjamin
Laura Flanders
Stephanie Alves
Susan Polis Schutz
Roselyn O'Connell
Wendy Shanker
Geraldine Miller
Alice Cohan

Carol Moseley Braun

Carol Moseley Braun has served her country as a United States Senator (1992-98) and U.S. Ambassador (1999-2001), as well as County Executive, State Representative, and Assistant U.S. Attorney. In 1992, Moseley Braun became the first female senator from Illinois, the first female African-American senator and the first African-American Democratic senator. In the Senate, Moseley Braun was a consistent and strong voice for equal opportunity, the prevention of discrimination on the basis of race, gender or sexual orientation, reproductive freedom, and social and economic justice.

Most recently, in her historic bid for this nation's highest office, she stood tall among the presidential candidates, pressing for fairness, pay equity, family security, equal opportunity and retirement dignity for women and communities of color. Her candidacy was a prime example of what feminists strive for—women moving up through all levels of political office—and it served as an inspiration to women and girls of all ages who believe that a woman of courage truly can become President of the United States.

Rep. Hilda Solis (D-Calif.)

Congresswoman Hilda L. Solis is currently serving her second term in the U.S. House of Representatives. She represents the 32nd Congressional District of California, which encompasses the San Gabriel Valley and parts of East Los Angeles. In the 2000 elections, Solis was the first new feminist woman heading to Congress and the only candidate in the country to defeat an incumbent on Super Tuesday. Today, Congresswoman Solis serves on the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, becoming the first Latina to serve on this committee. She is the Ranking Member of the Environment and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee. Solis is also Assistant Whip, Chairwoman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus' Task Force on Health and Democratic Vice-Chair of the Congressional Caucus on Women's Issues. Her priorities include protecting the environment, improving the quality of health care and fighting for the rights of working families.

Congresswoman Solis' hard work and passion to fight for environmental justice is nationally recognized. In August 2000, as a result of her perseverance against anti-environmental groups and polluters in California, she became the first woman awarded the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award. As a trailblazing California state senator, she passed innovative environmental justice legislation aimed at improving low-income and minority communities most affected by pollution and waste. Furthermore, as the chairwoman of the powerful Senate Industrial Relations Committee she worked with labor groups and led the battle to increase the minimum wage in California from $4.25 to $5.75 an hour in 1996.

Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nevada)

Congresswoman Shelley Berkley began serving in the U.S. House of Representatives in Jan. 1999, representing the 1st congressional district of Nevada, which encompasses Las Vegas. She serves on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, and the House Committee on International Relations.

Having lived in Las Vegas for over four decades, Berkley has a deep sense of commitment to give back to the community that opened the doors of opportunity for her. Berkley became the first member of her family to attend college when she enrolled in University of Nevada Las Vegas in the 1970s. After earning her law degree at the University of San Diego School of Law in 1976, Berkley returned to Las Vegas to begin her career. Serving in the Nevada State Assembly from 1982 through 1984, Berkley championed consumer protection for car buyers and mobile home owners, fought for tougher drunk driving laws, and founded the Senior Law Project.

A longtime NOW supporter and activist, Berkley served two terms on the Nevada University and Community College System Board of Regents, where she worked to keep higher education in Nevada affordable and accessible to all qualified students.

Dr. Donna J. Nelson

NOW is presenting its annual Woman of Courage Award to Dr. Donna J. Nelson for her fearless commitment to encouraging the participation of women and people of color in the sciences. An expert on diversity issues, Dr. Nelson is an associate professor of organic chemistry at the University of Oklahoma, where she has taught undergraduate and graduate level organic chemistry since 1983. Dr. Nelson recently conducted a ground breaking national analysis of racial, ethnic and gender diversity in science and engineering faculties at the nation's top research universities, which found there are far fewer women on these faculties, even in disciplines where females outnumber male Ph.D. recipients.

Dr. Nelson, who as an undergraduate was one of a handful of women and the only Native American in the chemistry department at the University of Oklahoma, returned in 1983 as the first tenure-track female professor ever hired into the University's chemistry department, which has been in existence since 1890. She has published several articles and has been invited to speak at national symposia of the American Chemical Society regarding issues of concern to women and minorities in science. Her findings were announced in Jan. 2004 at a Washington D.C. press conference co-sponsored by NOW, American Association of University Women, National Women's Law Center, and the Association for Women in Science. The news conference was followed by a Senate briefing moderated by NOW President Kim Gandy, during which the findings of the detailed national survey were discussed with members of Congress and their staff.

Medea Benjamin

For over twenty years, Medea Benjamin has supported human rights and social justice struggles around the world. She is founding director of Global Exchange, an organization that helps fix world attention on the need to place labor and environmental concerns over corporate profits.

A leading activist in the peace movement, Benjamin helped bring together the groups forming the coalition United for Peace and Justice. She is the co-founder of Code Pink: Women for Peace, a women's group that has been organizing against the occupation of Iraq and pushing for a reorientation of budget priorities in the U.S. to focus on heath care, education and housing, not war. Benjamin has traveled several times to Iraq to establish the Occupation Watch International Center in Baghdad. The center monitors the military occupation forces and foreign corporations, hosts international delegations, and keeps the international community updated about the occupation forces' activities.

Benjamin was the Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate from California in 2000, and is a key figure in the anti-sweatshop movement, having spearheaded campaigns against the giant sports shoe company Nike and clothing companies such as The Gap.

Laura Flanders

Laura Flanders is the host of The Laura Flanders Show on the new Air America Radio Network, and Your Call on public radio KALW in San Francisco. She is the author of a new essay collection called The W Effect: Sexual Politics in the Age of Bush, and Bushwomen: Tales of a Cynical Species, an investigation into the women in George W. Bush's Cabinet. Publisher's Weekly called her book, "fierce, funny and intelligent." She writes regularly for Tompaine.com, the Nation, Ms. Magazine and Znet, and has appeared on a variety of television programs including The O'Reilly Factor and Washington Journal. Her insightful and unfailingly feminist opinion pieces appear in newspapers across the country. Flanders was founding director of the Women's Desk at the media watch group, FAIR, and for more than ten years she produced and hosted CounterSpin, FAIR's nationally-syndicated radio program. Katha Pollitt called Flanders' book, Real Majority, Media Minority; the Cost of Sidelining Women in Reporting, "Funny, angry, fact-filled and brilliant." In 2000, Flanders was the host of Crashing the Party, a series of independent television broadcasts from the Democratic and Republican Conventions, produced by the independent media movement and distributed by FreeSpeech TV.

Stephanie Alves

NOW is introducing the Woman of Action award at this year's conference to recognize a woman under 30 who has taken extraordinary action for women's rights, and Estefania "Stephanie" Alves is its first recipient. Two years ago, tired of hearing songs on the radio that depict women as sex objects and fashion accessories, Alves decided to take action. She got together with a group of other young women in the Boston suburb of Dorchester and came up with the idea of creating a radio station to send a positive message to teenage girls. With help from their school�s director and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, their radio station, R-LOG (540 AM), hit the airwaves this spring, broadcasting from a local women's center for three hours each weekday afternoon.

The station plays a range of carefully vetted music, along with interviews and phone-ins. Its motto: "Where the voices of young women are heard and respected."

"We don't ban particular artists but select music on the basis of the lyrics," Alves told the Guardian. "For example, someone like Ashanti has some music that reflects women positively and some that reflects women negatively. We don't play the negative stuff." The station�s playlist includes songs by Alicia Keyes, Faith Evans and Usher. Off the playlist are certain tracks by Snoop Doggy Dogg, Lil Kim and Tupac Shakur.

Alves, 18, whose parents emigrated from the Cape Verde Islands in western Africa, is a first-year political science and communication major at Boston College.

Susan Polis Schutz

Susan Polis Schutz is an accomplished poet and co-founder—along with husband and creative partner Stephen Schutz—of Blue Mountain Arts, which publishes greeting cards and poetry books and produces the famous bluemountain.com web site. Schutz's innovation has helped Blue Mountain consistently break the mold of the publishing industry. Over 12 million books have been sold containing Schutz's poems and her work has appeared on more greeting cards than any other writer in history. Her first book, Come Into the Mountains, Dear Friend, was overwhelmingly received. Schutz's very personal expressions about love, nature, friendship, family and motherhood led Time magazine to proclaim her "the reigning star" in high emotion. Recently, when her daughter went to college, Schutz updated her most famous book, To My Daughter, with Love, on the Important Things in Life, and it became an immediate bestseller again. She is a longtime supporter of equality between the sexes and an advocate for women's health issues and the elderly. Schutz and her husband are also committed to civil rights and peace.

Roselyn O'Connell

According to Roselyn O'Connell, there are three choices in political life: lead, follow or get out of the way. An active member in the Arizona Republican party and other community organizations for more than 20 years, she is running for U.S. Congress in Arizona's 5th congressional district. As President of the National Women's Political Caucus (NWPC) since 1999, O'Connell has traveled throughout the country talking to women and men about the importance of individual participation in the political process. After 10 years working in the engineering industry, O'Connell became Director of Public Affairs for Planned Parenthood of Central & Northern Arizona. At the NWPC, O'Connell was elected to serve an unprecedented three terms as president, and was the first Republican woman to direct the non-partisan organization in 14 years. Under her leadership, the NWPC has established a reputation of diverse coalition-building and creating access and participation of young women in the political process through the Roselyn O'Connell Scholarship Fund.

Wendy Shanker

Wendy Shanker is a 32-year-old writer and comedian whose first book, The Fat Girls Guide to Life, was published in April 2004. In spring 2004, Bitch magazine called Shanker's novel "a collection of razor-sharp retorts to the diet industry and our female-focused culture of body obsession and self-loathing." Shanker co-hosted Oxygen's She-Commerce, a show about shopping and style. She also appeared on Oxygen as an entertainment correspondent for Pure Oxygen, and a movie reviewer for Girls On. She has been featured in fashion and style segments on Lifetime and on The Ricki Lake Show, and has written for networks including MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, and ABC. She has performed at numerous comedy clubs in New York and Los Angeles, including Caroline's, Stand Up New York and Luna Lounge. As a writer for Grace Magazine, Shanker's words reached a million plus-size women with every issue; she was also a frequent contributor to Mode, Grace's predecessor. Her byline has appeared in Cosmopolitan, Marie-Claire, Seventeen and Teen People, as well as alternative women's magazines like Bust and Bitch. She is a contributor to the anthology Body Outlaws: Rewriting the Rules of Beauty and Body Image. Shanker is currently one of Us Weekly's Fashion Police and is conducting her first nationwide book tour.

Special Presentations

Geraldine Miller

Geraldine Miller, an activist for decades, founded the Household Technicians Union to ensure equal rights for women who work mainly in "under-the-table" jobs, such as maids, nannies and cooks, and to pressure employers to comply with minimum wage and social security laws. A past president of the National Congress of Neighborhood Women, she ran a workshop for NCNW's Project Open Doors that brought to light the similarities and shared concerns of homemakers and household workers, breaking down the barriers of class and race. Now in her 80's and still going strong, Gerrie was a founder of Bronx (NY) NOW, the first chair of NOW's Women of Color Task Force, and served several terms as Chair of NOW's committee on Eliminating Racism. Join NOW in saluting Geraldine Miller's lifetime of achievement!

Alice Cohan

Alice Cohan, Director of National Programs for the Feminist Majority, has been an activist since age 19 when she became an intern for NOW-New Jersey. Alice devoted many years to NOW activism as a grassroots leader, staffer, and finally as Political Director. She was the organizing power behind many great marches, including NOW's 1992 March for Women's Lives, which brought 750,000 people to Washington, D.C., to stand up for women's rights. But this year's March brought new organizing challenges and new heights—over a million marched with us to stand up to the Bush administration's anti-women policies. As March Director, Alice braved countless storms, juggled egos and priorities, and pulled off the March of a lifetime. Join NOW in saluting Alice Cohan—organizer par excellence!

Send, Print or this page