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Women's and Gender Studies Scrapbook
The Women's and Gender Studies scrapbook is evolving.
We are putting together photo collections from WST and related
events that our students, faculty and friends have participated in. If you
happen to have any photos for the scrapbook, please send them along with a description of the photo and event, including names, to womensstudies@nau.edu or to Women's and Gender Studies, PO Box 5695, NAU, Flagstaff, AZ 86011.
Iraq Veterans Against the War Panel Discussion
A panel discussion was sponsored by NAU Peace & Justice and co-sponsored by Women's and Gender Studies on April 14, 2008 in the Cline Library.
Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) was founded by Iraq war veterans in July 2004 at the annual convention of Veterans for Peace (VFP) in Boston to give a voice to the large number of active duty service people and veterans who are against this war, but are under various pressures to remain silent.
Today, IVAW members are in 48 states, Washington D.C., Canada and on numerous bases overseas, including Iraq. IVAW has chapters around the country and in Canada. IVAW members educate the public about the realities of the Iraq war by speaking in communities and to the media about their experiences. Members also dialogue with youth in classrooms about the realities of military service. IVAW supports all those resisting the war, including Conscientious Objectors and others facing military prosecution for their refusal to fight. IVAW advocates for full funding for the Veterans Administration and full quality health treatment (including mental health) and benefits for veterans when they return from duty.
Spring 2008 San Juan River Trip
The Women’s and Gender Studies program held our first spring San Juan River trip. The trip was open to all students and we were pleased to offer a welcoming environment for our diverse student body. We partnered with NAU Outdoors and the Ecological Monitoring & Assessment (EMA) program for this journey. Individual student scholarship applications were available from the Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Program (download the scholarship application here in Word or PDF).
We departed March 28 and returned March 30. The cost of the trip was $400; gratefully, an EMA program scholarship was awarded and deducted $50 for each student (thus, student total trip cost was $350). The cost included food, equipment and transportation.
The San Juan travels through painted canyons of southeast Utah. Our put-in location was Bluff Utah, and we took out at Mexican hat. We experienced wonderful views, beautiful campsites, and great side hikes/explorations. At this time of the year, the river may offer small whitewater experiences. You can float in “duckies” (inflatable kayaks), share in the paddling of a raft, or travel in a guide boat.
A one-credit course option was available for interested students. To enroll or obtain information regarding the course, please contact the Women's and Gender Studies office directly.
We thank all participants who joined us as we provided a safe, comfortable, and enjoyable experience that embraced our belief of "imagining the possibilities."
NAU Celebrated International Women's Day
March 3, 2008 ~ All Day ~ SBS West, room 200
Departments and groups around the Northern Arizona University campus celebrated International Women’s Day with panel discussions and a free movie. All the events were free and open to the public.
Welcome Lecture ~ 9:15 a.m.
Dr. Frances Julia Riemer, Director, Women's and Gender Studies
“Transnational, Cross-Cultural Research on Politics and the History of Women & Gender" ~ 9:30 a.m. to noon
Panelists: Chair, Dr. John Leung, History, NAU; Commentator, Dr. Sheila Nair, Political Science, NAU; Dr. Sheryl Lutjens, Director, Women’s Studies, California State University, San Marcos; Dr. Geeta Chowdhry, Political Science, NAU; Dr. Cynthia Kosso, Chair, Department of History, NAU; Dr. Heather Martel, History, NAU.
“The Politics and History of Native American Women” ~ 1:30 to 4 p.m.
Panelists: Chair, Dr. Monica Brown, English, NAU; Commentator, Dr. Sanjam Ahluwalia, WGS and History, NAU; Dr. Andrea Smith, University Of Michigan, American Culture and Women’s Studies; Dr. Waziyatawin Angela Wilson, Minnesota; Dr. Jennifer Denetdale, History, University of New Mexico; Dr. Doreen E. Martinez, Women’s and Gender Studies, NAU.
The Apple, a film by Samira Makhmalbaf ~ 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.
“Echoes a sense of rebellion not only against such sexual discrimination, but also against all forms of inequality and injustice.” David Parkinson, Empire Magazine.
Introduction: Dr. Elizabeth Matthews, English, NAU.
International Women’s Day was sponsored by Women’s and Gender Studies, Political Science, Office of the Dean-Social and Behavioral Science, History, Commission on the Status of Women, Center for International Education, Masters of Liberal Studies, and College of Arts and Letters.
Byron Hurt came to NAU
Byron Hurt is a Gender Violence Prevention Educator and Anti-sexist Activist. Hurt spoke on Thursday, Feb. 21, 7:00 p.m. at the Cline Library Auditorium.
"It's up to us as consumers to challenge some of the representations of masculinity that we see in American culture. I don't buy into this idea that a man is supposed to be violent or sexist or homophobic." Byron Hurt
Byron Hurt is nationally known for redefining male roles in relation to women. Byron Hurt is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, a published writer, and an anti-sexist activist. His most recent documentary, Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. It was later broadcast nationally on the Emmy award-winning PBS series Independent Lens, drawing an audience of more than 1.3 million viewers. To date, Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes has been selected to appear in more than 50 film festivals worldwide. The Chicago Tribune named Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes “one of the best documentary films in 2007.”
Hurt also directed and produced I AM A MAN: Black Masculinity in America, a 60-minute award-winning documentary that captures the thoughts and feelings of African-American men and women from over fifteen cities across America. In this award-winning film, Hurt challenges audiences to interrogate the damaging effects of patriarchy, racism and sexism in American culture.
More than a filmmaker, Hurt is a former Northeastern University football quarterback and a long-time gender violence prevention educator. He is a founding member of the Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) program, the leading college-based rape and domestic violence prevention initiative for college and professional athletics. He is also the former associate director of the first gender violence prevention program in the United States Marine Corps.
Hurt has been featured in numerous newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsday, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Boston Globe, The L.A. Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer; O, The Oprah Magazine; The Source Magazine, Vibe Magazine, Ms. Magazine, Mother Jones, Entertainment Weekly, Variety Magazine, allhiphop.com, and vibe.com. Comments and reviews of his film can be found all over the internet and blogosphere.
He has also appeared on The Montel Williams Show, CNN, Access Hollywood, MTV, BET, ABC News World Tonight, the Michael Baisden Show, and the Michael Eric Dyson Show.
Over the last 15 years, Hurt has lectured at hundreds of campuses, presented at numerous professional conferences, and trained thousands of young men and women on issues related to gender, race, sex, violence, music and visual media.
His websites are www.bhurt.com and www.myspace.com/beyondbeats
andrhymes, both of which offer Beyond Beats and Rhymes DVDs for sale. Byron Hurt can be reached at info@bhurt.com.
Suggested Hip Hop Reading/Film List
Join the BEYOND BEATS AND RHYHMES Mailing List!
Free Trade and Community Resistance: Zapatista
Solidarity, the Other Campaign, and Alternative Economy
Wednesday, Oct. 24th, 2007, 7:00-9:00 pm, Cline Library Auditorium, Northern Arizona University ~ free to the public
The Mexico Solidarity Network presented Cecilia Santiago Vera, a social psychologist and adherent to the Other Campaign from Chiapas, Mexico. Her work is focused on gender and intercultural studies and is community-based. She has worked with displaced indigenous populations, particularly with women survivors of the Acteal Massacre and with other indigenous people who are survivors of state-sponsored military and paramilitary violence. She is currently organizing with a group of adherents to the Other Campaign who are political prisoners in Chiapas. As an adherent to the Other Campaign, Cecilia’s work focuses on organizing from the left and below.
Cecilia's presentation, with Spanish-to-English translation:
• Discussed threats to indigenous communities, especially women, such as the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Plan Puebla Panama, and the corn and coffee crises in Mexico.
• Discussed human rights abuses in Mexico, their relationship to globalization and how indigenous communities are working to end the abuses and impunity.
• Discussed the 6th Declaration of the Selva Lacandona issued by the Zapatistas, in terms of how it relates to the development of alternative political systems and power relationships.
• Discussed the importance and political implications of the “Other Campaign” a national campaign of struggle initiated by the Zapatistas in which the Zapatistas are traveling throughout Mexico, to understand, listen and unite all of the struggles of the left and below of Mexico.
• Discussed the leadership of women in fair trade cooperatives
• Delivered a message from the Zapatista women’s cooperative and offer weavings and traditional handicrafts made in women's cooperatives for sale to raise money to improve living conditions in communities.
Neoliberal trade agreements such as NAFTA have disproportionately affected indigenous communities, campesinos, and women in Mexico. Now, new plans such as Plan Puebla Panama, CAFTA, and the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) threaten these populations further. But communities in Chiapas and all over Mexico are resisting the economic violence of these treaties as well as the militarization, paramilitarization, and privatization of resources that goes along with them. When the Zapatistas made their public uprising on January 1, 1994 (the same day that NAFTA went into effect), they brought the struggle of indigenous communities in Chiapas to the world stage. Today, 13 years after the uprising, communities continue to exercise autonomy and create alternatives to the neoliberal model under the Zapatista-initiated Other Campaign.
For more information on the Other Campaign:
www.mexicosolidarity.org/site/la_otra
www.commondreams.org/views06/0118-21.htm
Mexico Solidarty Network: www.mexicosolidarity.org
Maquilapolis (city of factories)
Leading up to Cecilia Santiago Vera’s presentation, the film Maquilapolis, a film by Vicky Funari and Sergio De La Torre, was shown Monday, Oct. 22, 2007, in Cline Assembly hall ~ 7:00-8:30 pm.
Carmen works the graveyard shift in one of Tijuana’s maquiladoras, the multinationally-owned factories that came to Mexico for its cheap labor. After making television components all night, Carmen comes home to a shack she built out of recycled garage doors, in a neighborhood with no sewage lines or electricity. She suffers from kidney damage and lead poisoning from her years of exposure to toxic chemicals. She earns six dollars a day. But Carmen is not a victim. She is a dynamic young woman, busy making a life for herself and her children.
As Carmen and a million other maquiladora workers produce televisions, electrical cables, toys, clothes, batteries and IV tubes, they weave the very fabric of life for consumer nations. They also confront labor violations, environmental devastation and urban chaos -- life on the frontier of the global economy. In MAQUILAPOLIS, Carmen and her colleague Lourdes reach beyond the daily struggle for survival to organize for change: Carmen takes a major television manufacturer to task for violating her labor rights. Lourdes pressures the government to clean up a toxic waste dump left behind by a departing factory.
As they work for change, the world changes too: a global economic crisis and the availability of cheaper labor in China begin to pull the factories away from Tijuana, leaving Carmen, Lourdes and their colleagues with an uncertain future.
For more information about the film, visit http://www.maquilapolis.com.
Fall 2007 Women on the Rapids
The Women’s and Gender Studies program, in conjunction with the NAU Outdoors program, held its fall all-women rafting trip down the Colorado River from Wednesday, October 4 through Sunday, October 7, 2007.
The Women’s and Gender Studies program, in conjunction with the NAU Outdoors program, organizes the yearly all-women rafting trip down the Colorado River.
From Diamond Down to Lake Mead on the Colorado River, the 70-mile trip includes navigation through thrilling white water rapids, a climb into Travertine grotto and up to Travertine Falls, camping on Niece Beach and God’s Pocket, hiking into the Grand Canyon, and boating on the relaxing waters in the Lake Mead Recreation Area.
Join us for this once-in-a-lifetime trip on Colorado River.
Contact the Women's and Gender Studies program for more details.
expand your comfort zone, learn to trust, learn about yourself, find muscle, breathe in the trough, experience nature, get re-acquainted with your survival instincts, smell yourself again
One of the leading anti-sexist male activists came to NAU
Jackson Katz "More Than a Few Good Men: A Lecture on American Manhood and Violence Against Women"
Monday, April 23rd, 2007, 7:00pm
Cline Auditorium
Free and Open to the Public
Book signing to follow lecture
www.jacksonkatz.com
How can we encourage men to attend programs on sex and gender issues? How can we encourage men to move beyond defensiveness on the subject of rape and other forms of gender violence? How can we educate men about these issues without blaming them for centuries of sexism and gender oppression? In More Than a Few Good Men, Jackson Katz addresses these topics head-on. This acclaimed program inspires men and women to confront one of the most serious and persistent problems facing college students: violence against women. The subjects he covers include sexual and domestic violence, but also pornography, prostitution and stripping. Traditionally, these issues have been considered "women's issues." More Than a Few Good Men, by contrast, focuses on the lives and attitudes of boys and men. In a provocative presentation that interposes irreverent humor with unpleasant reality, Katz stimulates dialogue between the sexes by helping to illuminate how the problems of individual women and men are linked to larger social forces. More Than a Few Good Men is not the typical lecture about men behaving badly. With his witty, engaging, and personal speaking style, Katz:
• Shares stories from his pioneering gender violence prevention work with U.S. Marines, professional and collegiate athletes, and college fraternities.
• Illustrates how the sports culture, comedy, advertising, and other media depictions of men, women, sex and violence contribute to pandemic levels of gender violence.
• Conveys a cutting edge analysis of masculinity and sexual politics.
• Shows, with humor, how homophobia prevents many men, and women, from dealing honestly with sexism.
• Draws connections between the campus culture of drinking and the incidence of sexual assault.
The Guerrilla Girls came to NAU
March 8, 2007, 7:00 pm in Prochnow Auditorium
Exposing sexism, racism and corruption in politics, art, film and pop culture with facts, humor and outrageous visuals, the Guerrilla Girls describe themselves as “feminist masked avengers in the tradition of anonymous do-gooders like Robin Hood, Wonder Woman, and Batman.
Check out:
The Guerrilla Girls’ website
http://www.guerrillagirls.com/
The School of Art’s Guerrilla Girls announcement
http://home.nau.edu/art/guerrillagirls.asp
Articles and educator resources on the Guerrilla Girls
http://home.nau.edu/art/guerillagirls/links.asp