Sexuality and Feminity
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2010 - Seven Who Build Autonomy
in 34 states. A new effort Seele is rolling out in 2010 is the National Week of Prayer, in which women will play an essential role in championing the cause. She believes her work as an immunologist--which combines public health with personal faith--is no accident, citing the Rev. Johnnie Colemon of the Christ Universal Temple in Chicago as a major influence in setting her on the path of medicine and ministry. "I was amazed at this African American woman who was so spiritually evolved," Seele says of Colemon, who was the first African American woman to graduate from the Unity School of Christianity in Unity Village, Mo. "She changed the whole racial dynamic." Seele"s first major endeavor was launching the Harlem Week of Prayer in New York in 1989, where she sought religious leaders in the African American community to come together to address the HIV-AIDS epidemic and demonstrate compassion for those affected by the disease. The following year, she created the Balm in Gilead as an educational support system for HIV-AIDS patients. Over the next decade, the organization expanded its efforts to countries like Barbados and Zimbabwe. Seele also developed programs geared toward women, starting the African-American Denominational Leadership Health Initiative in 2005 with the help of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church. In addition to HIV-AIDS, she wanted to tackle other health-related crises affecting women in the community, such as cervical cancer and diabetes. "The Balm in Gilead establishes health ministries at the national and local levels to provide training and technical services," Seele says, "and provides screenings for HIV-AIDS and high blood pressure, as well as resources to help women get the human papillomavirus test." --Shahnaz Mahmud Eveline Shen, Pusher of the Health Envelope Climate change, toxic work environments and immigrant women workers are just some of the issues that Eveline Shen links to women"s reproductive health. Going beyond the issues of access to appropriate health care or even nutrition, Shen"s mission is to improve women"s health--particularly those of color--by interjecting the concept of justice throughout her work. "A person has reproductive justice when they can drink water and not be worried about reproductive health," says Shen, the executive director of the Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice. "A person has reproductive justice when he or she can adopt, regardless of his or her sexual orientation. A person has reproductive justice when they can walk safely at night, free from physical or sexual violence, and when they are able to receive appropriate health care (if) they are transgender." Shen explains that the concept of reproductive justice emerged in 1994 from a group of African American women during an informal caucus at a national pro-choice conference in Chicago. That was around the time Shen, a first-generation Chinese American, was completing her master"s degree in public health at the University of California, Berkeley, and starting an internship at the Oakland, Calif.-based organization. While still a student, Shen created and implemented an educational training program for 14-year-old Southeast Asian girls to teach them about self-defense, sex education, media advocacy, body image and the importance of teen health clinics. This work became the foundation for the group"s youth organizing project curriculum, now called Sisters in Action for Issues of Reproductive Empowerment. The program is comprised of low-income teenage girls who organized to get a medical waste incinerator moved out of a low-income area in Oakland. They also educate their peers about the harmful chemicals contained in personal body care products. Shen says through these efforts, the teens are learning about the connection between climate justice and reproductive justice. Shen has also worked to elevate the importance of reproductive justice issues to meet the world"s changing needs for the past decade. Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice embraces several objectives: creating conditions so women of color and their communities can thrive, securing rights for immigrant women workers and youth and pursuing racial and environmental justice. She supervises a staff of 10 and manages an annual budget of $1 million. "In the U.S. many women of color and immigrant women work in low-wage toxic industries," says Shen. "It is not enough for climate change solutions to focus only on the levels of pollution emitted by industries, but we must also consider the working conditions and toxic exposures faced by these workers who bear the greatest burden." --Kristin Bender Jennifer Stockman, Standard-Bearer for Choice Jennifer Blei Stockman still remembers how she was one of the few female managers at IBM in Washington, D.C., in the 1970s. She says she encountered a glass ceiling while carving a path in the male-dominated management sector. She was expected to bond with male colleagues on the golf course and wear bowties as part of her wardrobe. "It was all about trying to fit into a man"s world," Stockman says. But Stockman didn"t give in, drawing inspiration from her mother"s words that a "woman needed to be self-sufficient and independent." This spirit influenced her career choices and political viewpoints as she dedicated her life to business, politics, art and community service, and used every opportunity to push for women"s rights. Stockman had her first brush with politics while selling computers to government agencies. She believed in the Republican principles of small government, but became dismayed with her party"s anti-choice agenda. She founded a board for the YWCA in her hometown of Greenwich, Conn., that was devoted to empowering women facing illness, abuse and neglect. She also committed herself to supporting pro-choice Republican candidates and legislation nationwide. From 2002 to 2008, Stockman was co-chair of the Republican Majority for Choice, the largest pro-choice and pro-stem cell advocacy group within the GOP. She fought against President Bush"s policies that tried to take reproductive rights away from women. "The extreme right of the GOP had Bush"s ear and they were determined to overturn Roe v. Wade and have women go back in time before abortion was legal, thus limiting their career opportunities and chances for advancement," Stockman says. "It was like pushing a 20-ton boulder uphill during his administration; there was such narrow-mindedness and hypocrisy." The Republican Majority for Choice also worked to elect pro-choice Republicans at the national level, lobby Congress for legislation that seeks to reduce the incidence of abortion, promote family planning and stem cell legislation and play an active role in the Supreme Court nomination process. They also launched the "Women for Arnold" campaign in October 2003, which helped Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger close the gender gap in California"s recall election. Now serving as a board member of the Republican Majority for Choice and as the first female president of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Stockman is still pushing for women"s rights. She says she"s proud to have established a strong voice for moderate Republicans. "My greatest achievement is raising two independent and motivated young women who share the same values and will hopefully continue a legacy I"ve just begun." --Bijoyeta Das Jen Taylor Friedman, Rewriter of Gender Roles In 2007, Jen Taylor Friedman became the first female Jewish ritual scribe in modern times to complete a Torah scroll. The aftermath of her achievement earned her a spot on the Forward"s Top 50 Jew list as well as some notoriety, but she never wanted to make a statement--she just wanted to write a Torah and make a decent living. "I happened to be in the right place at the right time and I wrote a Torah," Taylor Friedman says. "I didn"t set out to change anything except myself." The 29-year-old post-denominational halakhically-observant egalitarian scholar spent a year completing the Torah. These sacred writings of Judaism are written on parchment in a formal, traditional manner by a specially trained scribe, who combines the skill of calligraphy with the study of halakha (Jewish ritual law). Taylor Friedman received her first commission to write a Torah in 2005 with the St. Louis Reform Synagogue, who found her on Google. She says she encountered many challenges during this time, most notably a steep learning curve. "If you are a woman, many people are not interested in teaching you," Taylor Friedman says. "They feel it would be a betrayal of their principles." This sentiment stems from established gender roles in the community, where Orthodox canon law says a Torah written by a female isn"t fit for ritual use. As a woman, Taylor Friedman says it"s nearly impossible to find an apprenticeship with a competent sofer (ritual scribe). Not one to give up, she taught herself calligraphy and halakha and learned Hebrew from reading "A Practical Grammar for Classical Hebrew." Unlike clergy roles, there is no formal ordination required to become a sofer, so she was able to proceed to writing sacred scrolls despite being barred from entry into existing professional organizations. "It is very difficult," Taylor Friedman says. "How do you balance between respect for somebody"s traditions and an idea that your interpretation of the traditions is somewhat different?" In 2005, Taylor Friedman received a research award from the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute to explore the relationship between writing sacred scrolls and menstruation. While her inquiry generated little interest within the community, it proved useful for reassuring new female scribes that the normal body function wouldn"t interfere with their work. "There is no technical reason (that) menstruation should interfere withPages: 1 [2] 3