Hello everyone and welcome to the Salon program. Salons at Stowe is an ongoing series about contemporary issues. We don’t just talk about the issues, we find ways to solve them.
And tonight we will be focusing on the question- "Women's Rights = Human Rights?"
Before we begin, we have a series of upcoming programs that we hope you will join us for.
at 5:00 pm entitled Unlearning Unconscious Bias. Then on
.
. The Stowe Prize will feature both a ticketed event and a public program with Ta-Nehisi Coates and WNPR's
.
And now for tonight's discussion. Helping facilitate tonight's discussion will be Susan Campbell,
Stowe Center trustee and award-winning author of
Dating Jesus, and the biography,
Tempest-Tossed: The Spirit of Isabella Beecher Hooker. For more than a quarter-century, she was a columnist at the
Hartford Courant, where her work was recognized by the National Women's Political Caucus, New England Associated Press News Executives, the Society for Professional Journalists, the American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors, the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, and the Sunday Magazine Editors Association. Her column about the shootings at lottery headquarters in March 1998 was part of
The Courant's Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage.
Susan Campbell, Stowe Center Trustee and Author:
I love conversations like this. And ones
that involve a lot of people. Let me begin by introducing our guests.
Kyle Turner is freelance writer, editor, and full time student. He's the chief editor of Movie Mezzanine's blog, The Balcony. He began writing on the internet in 2007 with his blog The Movie Scene. Since then, he has contributed to TheBlackMaria.org, Film School Rejects, Under the Radar, and IndieWire's /Bent. He is studying cinema at the University of Hartford in Connecticut.
Carolyn Treiss is the Executive Director of the CT Permanent Commission on the Status of Women. As Executive Director, Carolyn is responsible for administration, major strategic initiatives, budgeting, and mandate compliance, and is the Commission’s main liaison to other State agencies and branches of government. Treiss, who holds a J.D. from the University of Connecticut School of Law, an M.S.W. from the University of Connecticut School of Social Work and a B.A. in political science and Russian from Bates College, brings to the PCSW a background in public policy, social services and grassroots advocacy. Her passion for women’s rights activism was sparked after college as a volunteer for NARAL Pro-Choice CT, and her commitment to women’s rights issues grew during a graduate school internship in which she advocated in the Connecticut General Assembly for victims of sexual assault. Since then, Treiss has served as director of NARAL Pro-Choice CT, Chief of Staff at the Office of Health Care Access, Legislative Program Manager for the Department of Social Services, and most recently as Policy Director for the Connecticut Senate Democratic Caucus. Believing in public service to her community, she has served on both her local Town Council and Board of Education. As a mother of two school-aged sons, she is committed to teaching her boys about the breadth and depth of women’s roles at home, in the workplace and in the community.
Kyle Turner, Student, University of Hartford
Thank you so much for having me. In regards to
the topic of feminism, I have vacillated back and forth between being a feminist
and a feminist ally. I’m conscious of not encroaching on people’s spaces. I
think it’s interesting and a little sad that even though I go to a liberal arts
college in CT, there is still opposition to people identifying as feminists.
Someone on campus the other day used the term “feminazi..”I like talking to my
friends about their experiences and learning from them.
Carolyn Treiss, Executive Director of the CT Permanent Commission on the Status of Women
First, I am honored to be here. If you told me that I
would be here 10 years ago, I wouldn’t have believed it. I thought I would tell you a little bit about myself and how
I found my feminist consciousness. I grew up in a conservative feminist
household in CT. When I went to college, it was really when I became a
feminist. I can pinpoint the moment. I went to Bates College in Lewiston,
Maine. I took a Political Theory 101 class and there were typical people on the
syllabus..Plato, Machiavelli..Then there was this book [holds us Audre Lorde's Sister Outsider]. And I try to keep it in
good condition. It is Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde.
[Reads passage from "Transformation of Silence into Language and Action]
And where the words of women are crying to be heard, we must each of us recognize our responsibility to seek those words out, to read them and share them and examine them in their pertinence to our lives.That we not hide behind the mockeries of separations that have been imposed upon us and which so often we accepts our own.
I went in thinking that what does this person, who identifies as a black, feminist, lesbian, have to say to me? But I read that and it literally changed my life. The exact
prejudices that I walked into while reading this book were laid out for me. There is real power in not
looking at the differences between us, but what is the same. I read that when I was 18 and now I am here.
Susan Campbell:
At PCSW, you do a great deal of work on important issues in CT that impact many women, both young and old. Now is there a such thing as a women's issue or are they just human issues?
Carolyn Treiss:
I'm not sure if I can answer that. A problem we run
into is that sometimes people will say “you should work on this, it is a
women’s issue” or “why are you working on that it’s not a women’s issues.”…If
everything is a women’s issue, then nothing is a women’s issues. There are issues that disproportionately affect women.
It is important not to marginalize issues...I'm not sure if I have an answer to that question.
Susan:
Is there a resistance to identify as a feminist?
Kyle:
There does seem to be a reservation. We have wonderful
faculty who want to ignite these conversations, but very few people want to
engage. In one of my film classes we watched Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Very few people wanted to engage with the idea of the director's portrayal of the female character.
Audience member:
You especially see this in the online community. Certain people
are resistant to the idea that they take part in something larger than
themselves. There is constantly a defense point when someone acknowledges sexism, racism, etc. Online I’m often the only one talking about feminism, sexism..
People are dismissed online, receive hatred, violent remarks just for speaking up about these issues.
Kyle:
It's important to recognize the need for other people's voices. I had the idea of a film school that admitted 75% women, queer people, or people from marginalized communities and the other 25% (straight, white male) would have to write an
essay on the hyper-masculinity of their favorite film. This did not go over well. [laughs]
Susan:
Have older feminists done something wrong? Is there
something we could have done differently to take away some of the sting of
misconceptions about feminism?
Kyle:
I would say no. I do think certain ways the feminist
movement has had their issues are being rectified. In terms of heterosexism, not being inclusive to people of color..
Audience member:
I think in some ways that woule be yes. It
got lumped with the counter culture movement, the left-wing of the democratic
party, which hurt the movement.
Audience: Is there some type of denial where people think we
are in a “post feminist” era?
Carolyn:
Or is it something that younger women think that
those problems don’t exist anymore? Do some think, "Why do we even need to use that word
anymore? We have a woman running for President…"So I just wonder if it is almost
generational.
Audience member:
Even in my [older] generation people won’t
identify.
Susan:
How do we define feminism? I think I sometime get into to much
quality control, “well she’s not a feminist”... Really how do you define feminism?
Audience member:
I think you can define feminism from when people
say “I’m not a feminist but” what ever is after the but is feminism.
Susan:
But I’m for equal pay, but I'm for choice...
Audience member:
My memory goes back a long way. There is
certainly a hangover [from the original iterations of the feminist movement]. The media is quick to pounce on moments a radical movement
make. For example, bra burning, and those images make people scared and resistant.
Audience member:
Back when I was in school, they would make sure we had
our bras on because of that.
Audience member:
There were systemic problems, and above all there
was a backlash and Rush Limbaugh spreading around Feminazi...
Audience member:
It is so subtle that sometimes young people don't pick up on it. When talking about Hillary Clinton's email scandal, people kept commenting on how she was “wearing pink”...
Kyle:
To some degree, there may be a little bit of hope. You see it in online communities. When I signed up for Twitter, I started learning about
different perspectives. There are so many people you can follow on twitter and tumblr are
they are a safe space. People can start writing on these sites and can move on to bigger spaces like The Atlantic and Time.
Susan:
Kyle you said you go back and forth about identifying as a feminist. Why the vacillation?
Kyle:
It’s about space. I don’t want to encroach on anyone’s
space. I’m more comfortable with amplyifying people’s voices.
Susan: Can men be feminists?
Kyle: I think so. I think they can have feminist ideals, but
I think they can shut down other people’s voices too. It is never a good idea to block
out other people’s experiences or voices. Know your place and understand the
privileges you have and that other people don’t have.
Audience:
Carolyn, you mentioned that republicans can be
feminists. Is that true? I just think Dick Cheney and his openly gay daughter and how she was treated and it just seems like a contradiction.
Carolyn:
Now I’m in really dangerous territory [laughs]. In
all seriousness, my mother was a Republican and a feminist, but she never would
have called herself a feminist. She was a nurse, went to Columbia, was a nurse
pre-Roe. She was 100% pro-choice. She raised me to speak my voice, which got me into a
lot of trouble with my dad. She encouraged me to follow your dreams. When I said I
wanted to President, she said you can President. And she was a Reublican. There
is a caveat though- she did vote for President Obama. I think it is possible to be a Republican and a feminist…Honestly, I don’t know what the negation process is like because my political
beliefs, they jive. So I can’t speak to having a dissonance. I know people
that are registered Republican, but believe in the things I believe in, and I
don’t know how they reconcile that in the voting booth. I think the party has
moved to such an extreme that it is difficult now to see Republicans as feminism.
Audience member:
I’m not sure if it is that useful to talk in
feminism in terms of political parties. I recently went to Twain to the lecture they held with trans
writers. They came out and they started to talk and my first thought was that I
don’t like this and I wanted to leave. I couldn’t categorize these people,
almost like a fear thing, but as each of them spoke and introduced themselves,
I felt differently. I was really glad I was there. It’s pretty amazing how much
we attach to what people look like, what gender they are, what political party they are, but it matters when
you get to know people. It is kind of like a xenophobia, what we do.
Susan:
I wonder if that works with feminism today. I did a
speech today and I got a standing ovation when I announced that I was a
feminist. I didn’t think that was revolutionary.
Carolyn:
Isn’t that what happens in the gay movement today?
You get people who say “my brother is gay” “my best friend is gay” that changes
people’s minds.
Audience member:
When I was growing up you couldn’t speak about
that. People would say I don't get involved in that [politics]..
Kyle:
In Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay, she argues that being a
feminist is a fluid-being. She says bad feminist specifically because she is a
flawed person.We can be flawed and still identify as a feminist or have feminist
ideals.
Audience:
I want to go back to topic of women's rights as human rights. Hillary Clinton is talking about 1% and 99% and I think about that and the pay gap between men and women.
Susan:
I hope Hillary brings the conversation to wealth and
income inequality. It would be fabulous if she could talk about the gender pay
gap.
Audience member:
I would guess that she is being advised not to do
that. If she’s too focused in that it will seem self-serving.
Carolyn:
I think income inequality is a women’s issues. We are looking very seriously about income inequality in low-wage jobs. Not one answer
to the problem-it is not an easy thing to explain. In CT we are at .78 cents on
the dollar, which is actually not very good. Some say it’s because women self
segregate into lower wage jobs. Which I have a big problem with, because it is
victim blaming. Waitresses, nurses etc...Nurses make a lot more now, and that’s
because men started becoming nurses. And male nurses still make more
money. We still found that in those lower wage jobs, men make more.
There is systemic and institutional discrimination going on to this day.
Audience member:
And in Hollywood too. Sony hack should us that men are making more.
Kyle:
The CEO said that men were making more because women will work for less and should walk away [when they are paid less than their worth]. The problem is some other actress will come in and take the job [at a low pay rate] if another walks away.
Audience member:
On equal pay, women doctors are starting to be paid more. But you're right hairdressing, cooking, men going in, wages go up. Another point on the Republican party…Lilith, Adam’s first wife, who was created just like Adam, is so often forgotten. God
created Eve out of Adam’s rib and thus all women are born from man, I think that is basically a conservative
story. And as for women rights as human rights? Human rights aren’t that respected around
the world. We had Eleanor Roosevelt, but many governments don’t respect human
rights around the world today.
Carolyn:
Women in those countries, get treated the worst.
Susan:
I don’t know, can we just pass the ERA [Equal Rights Amendment]? Back when I was younger and the original talks of the ERA were happening,I sat in a
church pew in Joplin, MI and someone was saying women are going to have to
shower with men [if the ERA gets passed]. I was there thinking this is horse shit.
Carolyn:
Just look at pay inequity. We had a well
respected DC think tank crunch numbers. Fact of the that matter is that pay inequity exists, but there are people who don’t believe it exists. There are people in our state
legislature that you really have to convince that sexism exists, discrimination
exists, that there is a pay gap. I'm not that surpsied that the ERA doesn’t exist.
Susan:
Christine Palm who does communications at PCSW and is wonderful at getting your message across said recently to a group of men: “you all have mothers, sisters, some may date a women. This [pay inequity] affects all
women. Some day you may share a house with a women, and that woman earning
less that affects your household income."
Audience member:
Women are the ones that live longer too.
Carolyn:
And we have less assets in our old age.
Susan:
And then we go on public assistance and you pay for
it. That’s a great system.
Kyle: I do hope we reach a point where men, cis-men, can get
to a point where women, outside of their own relationships, are seen as powerful and worthy of equity.
Audience member:
It is also a faith issue. There is power in the faith
community. There are many in the faith community who have issues with gay
people, we haven’t gotten there in the faith community. In the conservative right,
still a lot of emphasis of men being in control over women. It’s still
appealing to go to a conservative church because they [say] have all the answers.
I do honestly believe in talking about the power, we do have, but there are parts of
Christendom that aren’t doing any favors. I grew up in a pastor’s family. I grew
up in a community with no black people and one Jewish family. I believe our faith
based institutions should be growing too...We got a lot of work today.
Susan:
I can say from my own church background, which was very conservative, there is
movement to talk more about women’s roles but it is glacial. There is huge movement
among the Church of Christ, people saying this [sexism, inequity] can’t be right.. I mean it’s
glacial, but faith groups can play an outsized role.
Audience:
I think the figure is 26% of all voters are
fundamentalist. I'm thinking about Hillary there will be a primary in Iowa, South
Carolina, New Hampshire. That guarantees that religion will play a role.
Katherine Kane:
I have a question and a comment: perhaps there is someone here that identifies as a Republican and I hope that they would feel comfortable in speaking out. A lot of the issues about
whether you are a feminist, or how sexist you are a lot of it comes from fear,
fear of change. It resonated what you [directed at an audience member] said about the event with trans writers. If
you don’t know people who are different from you, there is fear, fear that people will be different, will have different thoughts.
Susan:
How do you talk to people who are fearful?
Kyle:
I do this foolish thing, and I am also a queer person, where I
engage with people who disagree. And I try to be egalitarian, but they don’t get it. A lot of the
fear does ignite thought, ignite discussion, and sometimes we do get a little headway. All you can hope for is for them to consider your perspective while you consider theirs. Sometimes things get heated, personal and you end up filing a claim against them...
Audience member:
Depending on the person, you can bring up other
person’s marginalized experience. I didn’t get it, the whole feminism thing until I took a class with
Dr. Matacin (University of Hartford), and she brought up race. You can bring up commonality
of oppression and that sometimes helps.
Audience:
It doesn't surprise me that the ERA isn’t passed. You don’t see
a lot of articles on safety gaps. It is not safe a lot of time for women to bring up certain issues. I was in Florida and we were talking with women who are Muslim and they expressed that it is dangerous to go into a voting poll
if dressed in certain, identifiably Muslim clothing. We are not addressing a hierarcy of means; ultimately
if I don't feel safe that would matter more than other issues.
Audience member:
I recently read a book called A Sister to Honor by Lucy
Ferris. I picked it up and could not put that book down. Brought you into the
life of a woman in Pakistan. I think we are talking about empowerment and
disempowerment. Whenever any women feels disempowered you are paralyzed, you can’t
act on anything that you believe.
Dr. Mala Matacin, Associate Professor and Director of the Undergraduate Program in Psychology, University of Hartford:
This conversation reminds me of a conference with
Angela Davis. We were talking about large scale change on a political level and saying how it probably won’t
even come from the U.S. Have to look globally, change probably isn’t going to
come from here. And yet we still have to do our work. And it may be 50 years
til we see the results of our struggle.
Susan:
Look at Norwary, Sweden, countries that have parental leave...they are the leaders on issues like these.
Carolyn:
I wanted to talk about the safety issues as a human
rights issues. This has come up very recently, the issue had to do with campus
sexual assault. Women do spend a good part of their life feeling unsafe which is
a very different experience that most men. I had an event last night at the Capitol. I parked just across the street and a man comes up walking in
another direction, so I slowed way down, got my key out, and I thought my husband
wouldn’t have done that. It is hard to feel that you’re a powerful person when you can’t feel safe, that your body is the domain of someone else..Man, women, Republican, Democrat, you can have bodily integrity. Campus sexual assault is
what I’m concerned about now at this moment and it is a human rights issue.
Audience member:
Some people would rather have us not say anything,
and I will say it is 2015 and I’m not going to give into someone who says that we shouldn't talk about these issues. There are other people who don’t feel comfortable with gay issues, I don’t want
to stand down, people have to listen.
Susan:
We are winding down and we want to make sure we look at what we can do.
Carolyn:
We can all become engaged, and encourage others to be engaged. Pay
issues, paid leave, these are the things that happen in legislatures. We can hold them
accountable.
Susan:
Holding people in power accountable. Emails, calls, all matter.
Katherine:
How do we build safety?
Susan:
It angers me that I have to think I have to have an
escort. But having an escort doesn’t address systemic issues.
Carolyn:
Encourage men to stop terrorizing women. We do all
these things, holding keys in our hand, not walking alone at night, and it has to be allies to help.
Audience member:
I think that disempowerment vs empowerment is important to recognize. Change will come
quickly if we act on it. Change can come so quickly, it just has to be right
thing to trigger it.
Audience member:
Before coming here tonight, I re-read about Harriet Beecher Stowe. With no voting
rights, property rights, but with a simple newspaper series she gave push to
abolitionist movement and the Civil War. I think about the tools we have today and what we can do. She
drew from her experience and she wrote about them in such a way that resonated with people.It’s about having a vision
and standing up and taking a stand. She stuck her head out above the crowd.
Dr. Matacin:
I would like to add to this to be conscious about your
language. Using women instead of girls, be more gender neutral.. You don’t know someone’s
gender by looking them. I think about language and safety and how we talk to women. We tell women "walk with your keys in your hand, don't wear certain things," but why don't we tell men to "not rape"?
Audience member:
We can check individual privilege and intersectionalize all
forms of identity. Checking privilege can be empowering.
Kyle:
I like to encourage people to raise voices through art. There is a visibility problem, so few
female directors, so few women in those positions. I want to encourage women, queer people to apply to those programs
and find your voice there would make a great change.
