Feminisms and Feminists Today: A Conversation Across the Decades

The stock tale of American feminism is one produced through the narrative of waves: the first wave rises with the suffrage movement, the second wave with women’s consciousness-raising in the 1960s, and the third wave with the activism of riot grrrls, queers and young women of color. This narrative assumes vast periods of feminist abeyance, when, in fact, feminists have been active in many different periods and in a variety of locations. In their communities, workplaces, families, public institutions and everyday lives, women have, in some way, always challenged conditions of gender inequity and injustice, sometimes as part of movements, at other times as individuals. This conversation will consider different moments of feminism in the lives of Barnard alumnae across several decades, exploring what it meant and still means to be a feminist. We’ll look at the challenges, victories, setbacks, ideas and movements that have emerged in different decades, and reflect on the current moment in feminist scholarship and activism.

Panelists include:

Kate Drabinski (’97) graduated from Barnard with a degree in Women’s Studies. After a couple years knocking about, she entered the Rhetoric program at UC Berkeley where she earned her PhD in 2006. She taught gender and sexuality studies at Tulane University for four years and just finished her first year at UMBC in Baltimore, MD where she is Lecturer in Gender and Women’s Studies and directs the WILL Program, a student feminist activist and leadership group. She has presented and published on pedagogies of transgender studies, teaching prison abolition, and the politics of autobiography and self narrative. She is currently working on a book about Baltimore museums and the use of public memory as urban redevelopment. In her spare time she rides her bicycle around cities and blogs about the politics of space, place, and community.

Katherine Franke (’81) is the Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law, and Director of the Center for Gender & Sexuality Law at Columbia Law School, where she teaches courses on Gender Justice, Queer Theory, Feminist Legal Theory, Critical Legal Thought, Gay Marriage, and The Law of Occupation. She also serves on the Executive Committee of Columbia’s Institute for Research on Women and Gender and works closely with Columbia’s Center for Palestine Studies. She is among the nation’s leading scholars working at the intersections of feminist, queer, and critical race theory. Among her recent publications are: Dating the State: The Moral Hazards of Winning Gay Rights; Public Sex, Same-Sex Marriage, and the Afterlife of Homophobia; and Longing for Loving. Her book in progress explores the curious role of the right to marry in larger civil rights struggles, comparing African Americans in the immediate post Civil War period with same-sex couples today. In addition to her scholarly research she has conducted workshops for Palestinian women lawyers in Ramallah, Palestine, and writes regularly for a more popular audience in the Gender & Sexuality Law Blog and is on the Board of Directors of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Shilpa Guha (’12) is a recent graduate of political science and human rights. She has interned for the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom at the United Nations and in Geneva, the Africa Division of Human Rights Watch, and most recently the Ms. Foundation. On campus, she coordinated AfterHours Tutoring, a Community Impact youth group, worked as a research assistant at the Barnard Center for Research on Women, and served as a Global Symposium Fellow in Mumbai. She will spend this summer in Washington, D.C. interning for the American Bar Association, after which she hopes to pursue women’s rights and international law in India.

Mila M. Jasey (’72) is Assemblywoman of New Jersey’s 27th Legislative District. She was first elected on November 6, 2007, and is serving her third term representing 14 towns in Morris and Essex Counties. The abolishment of the Death Penalty in N.J. was her first bill and vote. During her tenure she has sponsored numerous bills that have become law, including significant measures addressing the prevention and treatment of traumatic brain injury among student athletes (including cheerleaders), creation of the TBI Task Force, the NJ HERO Act promoting organ donation, the Mortgage Stabilization and Relief Act, the Neighborhood Revitalization Tax Credit Act, the Traders to Teachers Act, the Vet-Teach Act and the PMI/PSI Act to address the shortage of math and science teachers in N.J. She is also prime sponsor of the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights Act, the strongest in the nation, the Interdistrict Public School Choice Law and enhanced penalties for hate crimes. While a student at Barnard, Jasey was very active politically. She served as co-chair of the fledgling Barnard Organization of Soul Sisters (BOSS) during her junior year. She also worked with the student government committees and served on a committee with the college president.

Courtney E. Martin (’02) is an author, blogger, and speaker. Her most recent book, Project Rebirth: Survival and the Strength of the Human Spirit from 9/11 Survivors, was published last fall. She is also the author of Do It Anyway: The New Generation of Activists and Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: How the Quest for Perfection is Harming Young Women. She is Editor Emeritus at Feministing.com, Founding Director of the Solutions Journalism Network, and Partner at Valenti Martin Media, a social media strategy firm. Her work appears frequently in The Christian Science Monitor, GOOD, and The Nation, among other national publications. Courtney has appeared on the TODAY Show, Good Morning America, MSNBC, and The O’Reilly Factor, and is the recipient of the Elie Wiesel Prize in Ethics, a residency from the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Centre, and is a TED speaker. She is the leader of the Op-Ed Project’s Public Voices Fellowship Program at Princeton University. She is currently collaborating with the Barnard Center for Research on Women on a project to further the sustainability and impact of online feminism. Read more about her work at www.courtneyemartin.com.