Category: Activism

What Feminist Leadership Looks Like for Me In Real Life

Kiersten Marek, LICSW, Founder and Publisher of Philanthropy Women

In this video, I discuss what feminist leadership looks like for me as a publisher and writer. The discussion includes different domains of experience and how I apply feminist leadership in those domains.

I made this video to participate in the Feminist Leadership Project’s series. If you’d like to participate in this project, you can go here for more details.

***

Philanthropy Women covers funding for gender equity in all sectors of society. We want to significantly shift public discourse, particularly in philanthropy, toward increased action for gender equality. You can support our work and access unlimited and premium content with one of our subscriptions.

Read More

Kamala Harris Unveils $1 Billion Proposal to Clear Rape Kit Backlog

Senator and 2020 Presidential Candidate Kamala Harris. (Photo Credit: US SenateBy United States Senate)

2020 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris unveiled a $1 billion proposal in early July that could help to clear the backlog of an estimated 225,000-250,000 untested rape kits.

Linking her new proposal to her history as a prosecutor, Harris tweeted to her followers, “We need leaders committed to fighting for justice for survivors of abuse, not protecting predators.” As California’s Attorney General, Harris’ push for more funding to go towards rape kit analysis cleared a 1,300-kit backlog and lowered the average testing time from 90-120 days to just 30, earning her an Award for Professional Innovation in Victim Services from the U.S. Department of Justice. 

Read More

What is Feminist Leadership?

Kiersten Marek, LICSW, Editor and Publisher of Philanthropy Women.

This short video features me discussing the five components that make up my definition of feminist leadership.

I made this video to participate in the Feminist Leadership Project’s series. If you’d like to participate in this project, you can go here for more details.

Hope you enjoy this video in which I describe my definition of feminist leadership.
Read More

How Feminist Philanthropy is Studying Who Buys Sex and Why

Swanee Hunt, Founder and Chair of Demand Abolition. (Photo Credit: Demand Abolition)

A new effort has formed to refocus issues of sex trafficking on the buyers of sex, not the victims. Demand Abolition, initiated by philanthropist Swanee Hunt, has the goal of fighting sex trafficking by eliminating the illegal sex industry in the US – and thereby the world. Among the tasks, Demand Abolition funded a research report “Who Buys Sex? Understanding and Disrupting Illicit Sex Demand.” Conducted by a team of researchers at the University of Portland, over 8,000 men were surveyed. The report fills critical gaps in understanding of the illegal sex trade, why men buy sex, and what might be done short term and long term to alleviate this exploitative behavior.

Read More

The Free Black Mamas Fellowship: Bailed-Out Black Moms Organize

(Image credit: public domain)

This year for Mother’s Day, incarcerated mothers and caregivers in 36 U.S. cities had their bails paid through public donations. The Black Mamas Bail Out brings together givers and organizers from across the country to free imprisoned moms who can’t afford bail.

Bailing Out Black Moms and Caregivers

Today and every day, tens of thousands of people are imprisoned in the U.S. because they cannot pay bail. Most of the about 2.3 million people in American prisons and jails are people of color. While they are primarily male, women are now the fastest-growing incarcerated population. And, Black women are imprisoned at a rate double that of white women.

Read More

#WomenFunded2019: WFN Opens Registration for Annual Conference

Women Funding Network’s Executive Director Cynthia Nimmo. (Photo Credit: WFN)

The Women’s Funding Network (WFN) recently opened registration for their September conference, Women Funded 2019: Leadership for a Changing World.

The event, held from September 11-13 at Hotel Kabuki in San Francisco’s Japantown neighborhood, is the next iteration in WFN’s successful conference series. You may remember last September’s Seattle takeover with Women Moving Millions and the Gates Foundation — WFN’s WOMEN+POWER conference was held in Seattle, Washington, in an incredible weekend for feminist thought leaders.

The San Francisco conference is gearing up to be WFN’s biggest event yet, featuring more than 80 speakers across more than 40 sessions. This year’s four themes — On The Frontlines, It’s Personal, The Power of Voice, and How Money Moves — focus on resolving complex social issues, leading with power across sectors, shaping stories, policy, and solution, and re-shaping philanthropy by redefining investment.

Read More

Women Givers: Support Female Empowerment through UN’s CEDAW

CEDAW, the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) is underfunded, and its fourth quarter meeting for 2019 is threatened by budget shortfalls. (Image Credit: CEDAW)

The rights of women, girls, and LGBTQA+ people around the world are once again coming into question, based on countries’ like the U.S.’s reluctance to commit to championing those rights in the United Nations.

On May 27, 2019, the Women’s UN Report Network (WUNRN) drafted an open letter to United Nations representatives, urging the protection of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) session scheduled for later this year.

Read More

Texas Women’s Foundation Honors Seven Pioneers and Raises $600,000

Left to right: Retta Miller (event co-chair), Roslyn Dawson Thompson (TXWF president & CEO), Dee Dee Bates (Maura honoree), Ana Hernandez (Maura honoree), Sally Dunning (Maura honoree), Dr. HaeSung Han (Young Leader honoree), Ana Rodriguez (Young Leader honoree), Ashlee Kleinert (Maura honoree), Nicole Small (Maura honoree), Thear Suzuki (event co-chair), Effie Dennison (Texas Capital Bank), Brenda L. Jackson (selection committee co-chair), Sallie Krawcheck (keynote speaker). (Photo credit: TWF/Kristina Bowman)

For the Texas Women’s Foundation, 2019 has provided excellent opportunities to build on the groundwork laid by their 2018 transformation.

On May 2nd, the Texas Women’s Foundation held its annual Leadership Forum & Awards Dinner, presented by AT&T at the Omni Dallas Hotel. Like previous years, the LFAD event was an opportunity for the Foundation to look back on its achievements and work from the past year, but 2019 marked the first such event for the organization since its rebranding in 2018.

Read More

Are Female Presidential Candidates Getting Treated Fairly by the Media?

UltraViolet is calling on mainstream media outlets to be fair and impartial in covering candidates for the 2020 elections. (Image Credit: UltraViolet)

The 23-person field vying for the Democratic nomination for president includes six women: Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Kirsten Gillibrand, Tulsi Gabbard and Marianne Williamson. Two of them (Harris and Warren) are seen as having decent odds of taking the nomination, while Klobuchar is a potential dark horse.

But will these women be torpedoed by press coverage that holds them to a different standard than their male counterparts? The women’s advocacy organization UltraViolet Action says that is a very real danger, and decries the sexist coverage so far exhibited by the mainstream media.

Read More

Gender Lens Funding in Israel: A New Framework for Collaboration

Hamutal Gouri, former director of Dafna Fund, with co-author Tuti Scott, discusses specific steps we can take to grow feminist funding in Israel.

Editor’s Note: This piece is authored by Hamutal Gouri, founder of Consult4Good, with support from Tuti B. Scott, gender justice leader and facilitator for the Jewish Women’s Funding Network community learnings.

Aviva is a preschool teacher’s aide in Jerusalem. Despite being an experienced and dedicated professional who educates and cares for those most precious to us, she is employed only as a contracted worker earning low wages with no job security.

Aviva is not alone. Her reality is that of tens of thousands of women in caring professions who, more often than not, are poor working women. But Aviva and her peers are also members of local labor union chapters and therefore are also social leaders with years of activist experience. These women are fighting for their human rights while working in what are often abusive and underpaid employment settings.

Read More