The York College Women’s Center introduces panelists of all inspirational women social activists for the 2017 Women’s History Month Colloquium on Thursday, March 30. Four inspirational women, Gitte Peng J.D., Letitia James, Jennifer Baumgardner, Professor Sharmayne Jenkins, and Dr. Danielle Moss Lee were ready to pass on their knowledge to the York community.
Ebonie Jackson, Manager of the York College Women’s Center, insured this panel’s succession by gathering panelist with diverse backgrounds in serving the public through writing, teaching, and the social services. Introducing the event with an breakdown of what it means to be an feminists and posing the question, “What can you do?” to fight injustices as an individual. “Activism is the initial action to bring about social or political change. What can those actions be? How can you all as students, as young people, as people of color, as people who care about stuff. How can you be the change that you want to see?” said Jackson.
Letitia James, Public Advocate for the City of New York and Keynote Speaker for the evening, enlightened the audience on the importance of every individual in government relations. Her work as Public Advocate since 2004 granted her status of the second highest ranking public official and the first woman of color in the higher New York City offices. “ I’m sponsoring a bill that will be passed April 5th that basically goes like this, “prospective employers will no longer ask prospective employees about their salary history”. And for all the young women in the audience, the reason why that is is because as women, we take time out of the workforce to take time for our children, to have children, to take care our our seniors, to basically care for everybody because women basically carry the world on their shoulders,” said James.
She also discussed issues with poverty in families across the state and the issues regarding false stereotypes toward struggling families. Her work pushed Mayor De Blasio to have the “Fearless Girl” on wall street for another year as representation for the women empowerment in the workforce. “We have to make sure we have more women who serve on board, more women in positions of power, more women in leadership positions, and address the issue of paid inequity because women are still being paid only 70 cents of every dollar and women of color are paid even less 56 cents of every dollar, so we have to move the needle and she’s a constant reminder of what we have to do in this city and this society,” said James.
Jennifer Baumgardner, Executive Director/Publisher at The Feminist Press at CUNY and successful writer of multiple books including “A Field Guide for Feminist Activism” expressed her work on the StopSlut Project and personal experiences being an activist. “To me that philosophy is the belief in the movement for the full social, economical, political equality of all people. Its self love and love of the community so it’s Love. Its access to enough information resources to make authentic choices about your life, so it’s not the choices you make, it’s not like “I didn’t shave so i’m a feminist”, it’s the ability to make choices in your life,” said Baumgardner. “I think feminism tries to make space so you can bring all parts of yourself into your room and be your whole self integrated and to tell the truth about what’s happened to you.”
Professor Sharmayne Jenkins, Psychology Professor at York and noteable Life Coach, spoke on her experiences as an activist as example for what others can accomplish in their efforts to promote equality. “Posting on Social Media. That’s something I do all the time. I’m always bringing up all of the current events and posting them on social media. I have a lot of people thanking me because people don’t take the time of make the effort or even where to look sometimes to find informations,” said Sharmayne. “And when you know something you can’t unknow it. So it’s very hard to be active even if it’s in conversations with people who know the issues are. Often times it takes one person to really get a hold of an issue to start a movement. When you talk about the women’s march, it only took two women that posted on social media that had to do something.”
Dr. Danielle Moss Lee, a longtime contributing member of the YWCA, a nonprofit organization driven to practice social activism and women empowerment, opened the audience to the conflict around education for women and people of color. “We can’t complain about situations that directly impact our lives and wait for some savior to kinda materialize out of the sky who care as deeply about our lives,” said Dr. Moss. “It really begins with a simple decision that there is something happening in either your life personally or someone else’s life that you find intolerable. I think of someone like Fannie Lu Haven (an African American Civil Rights Activist in the 1917) who was a sharecropper in the south, just woke up one day and said this situation is intolerable to me and what do i have to lose at this point. She had nothing to lose. She made a decision.”
Gitte Peng J.D., Chief of Staff of Queens Libraries and documentarian awarded the MacArthur Foundation for her film “I Learn America,” coned in on the discussion regarding activism toward education for all people including immigrants. Her film work captured students of immigrants throughout their education and broached the bigger issues of education in New York and manifested her work in the Bloomberg administration. “Since I’ve arrived at Queens Library last year, one of the things that’s made the greatest impressions on me, more than anything else, is that it seems like we just open our doors for anyone for free. No matter of their gender identity, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, immigration status, political persuasion, and we do this in the most diverse place in the country which is Queens,” said Peng “At a time where many people are out there are tying to close doors and many people are feeling vulnerable or uncertain, we say please come in and we welcome you.”
