Madonna & Me Charity Reading

Book Reading Event

Madonna and Me Charity Reading

Susan Shapiro hosts a Madonna and Me charity reading at Barnes & Noble.

(Bullet bras welcome)

Join Laura Barcella, Emily Nussbaum, Wendy Shanker, Gloria Feldt & Susan Shapiro as they read from the anthology “Madonna & Me.”

10% of book sales to Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen

Editor Laura Barcella and I read our essays from the anthology “Madonna and Me” – Like a Virgin and all that

March 23, 2012, Friday, 7:30-9pm.

396 Avenue of the Americas at 8th Street, Greenwich Village, NYC.

 

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Soundtrack Series: March Maddness Madonnathon

Book Reading Event

March Maddness Madannathon

March Maddness Madonnathon from Soundtrack Series. I join other guest writers reading my essay from Laura Barcella’s new anthology, Madonna and Me.

March 22, 2012 – Thursday, 7-9:30 pm. Le Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleeker Street, NYC

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She’s Doing It: What Courtney Martin Learned This Year

When I speak on college campuses, I score points with students when they find out I know Courtney Martin, author, among several books, of Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters and Do It Anyway. Though she’s the youngest of the four of us on the WomenGirlsLadies intergenerational feminist panel, she is usually the most together. The one who knows where we’re supposed to be when, gets the power point together, and remains calm when things go awry.

Follow Courtney @courtwrites and find her commentaries on The American Prospect and many other publications. Courtney is the Founding Director of the Solutions Journalism Network, along with New York Times columnist David Bornstein. In addition, she is the leader of the Op-Ed Project’s Public Voices Fellowship Program at Princeton University–coaching women academics to become part of public debate. She is a partner in Valenti Martin Media, a communications consulting firm focused on making social justice organizations more effective in movement building and making change and is an Editor Emeritus at Feministing.com.

Here’s what Courtney says she learned since I interviewed her for No Excuses:

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Lesser-Known Women Often Make History

Today in the Women’s History Month series, let’s shine a light on lesser known women.

In the spirit of the month, here are links to articles drawing attention to women you may not have heard of—and the awesome things they are doing today.

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NCJW Leader’s Retreat

Keynote Speaking Event

NCJW Leadership Training Retreat: Focus on Leadership Plenary Keynote address

NCJW leaders from around the country gathered from March 16–18 in Florham Park, NJ for a weekend of learning and networking at NCJW Leaders’ Retreat 2012.

This hands-on leadership training retreat gave current and future NCJW leaders the opportunity to boost their leadership skills to build and grow a successful NCJW section.

On Saturday, I delivered the Focus on Leadership Plenary Keynote address. Hamutal Gouri, Executive Director of The Dafna Fund, delivered the Focus on Israel Plenary Keynote address.

March 17, 2012 – NCJW Leaders’ Retreat 2012 “Focus on Leadership”, Plenary Keynote speaker. Florham Park, NJ

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BETTY, The Workshop Series

H2>Book Reading Event

BETTY, The Workshop Series

Great crowds at 92YTribeca for BETTY and me reading from No Excuses set to music!

BETTY, The Workshop Series featuring a musical collaboration with special guest Gloria Feldt.

“Imagine! No Excuses set to music and me reading with the fabulous BETTY singing backup!”

Media Buzz

Here’s a nice piece on the concert and a conversation we had afterward, written by Examiner’s Jim Bessman

Check out the great Event Pics

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Aung San Suu Kyi Says Value Change Over Regime Change

“Regime change can be temporary, but value change is a long-term business. We want the values in our country to be changed.”

As a contemporary figure making women’s history, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi reflects the kind of ‘power-to’ leadership which is truly earth shattering.

“Regime change can be temporary,” she says, “but value change is a long-term business. We want the values in our country to be changed. “

Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is the leading pro-democracy opposition leader in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, one of the world’s most isolated and repressive nations.

Since a military junta grabbed power of the country in 1962, it has secured its power by rigging elections and suppressing opposition. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi spent 15 of the last 20 years under house arrest after her party, the National League for Democracy, won an overwhelming victory in the 1990 elections but was denied power. In November 2010 elections, Myanmar’s main military-backed party won in a vote again engineered to assure the military’s continued grip on power. The National League of Democracy boycotted this election and called it what it was—undemocratic.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi—who was released from house-arrest November of 2010—and her party, the National League for Democracy, have chosen to participate in elections this time around. On April 1 of this year, Suu Kyi and other pro-democratic candidates will run for 47 of the 48 open seats in Parliament.

Her campaign speech, which will appear on National TV, will mark the first time the Nobel Peace laureate has been given the opportunity to use state media to promote her party’s platform. She calls for amending the 2008 constitution,

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From Olympe de Gouges to Women Demanding Rights Worldwide

“A woman has the right to mount the scaffold. She must possess equally the right to mount the rostrum [speaker’s platform].”

Olympe de Gouges was an 18th Century French playwright and political activist way ahead of her time, and her feminist and abolitionist writings stirred political discourse in ways that presaged uprisings by women around the world last week.

Disenchanted when equal rights were not extended to women after the outbreak of the French Revolution, Olympe de Gouges wrote a Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen. Modeled on the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen by the National Assembly, De Gouges’ Declaration echoed the same language, replacing ‘Man’ with ‘Woman’.

De Gouges argued that the rights revolutionaries were attempting to expand for men should be extended to women as well. She passionately insisted upon universal suffrage, legal equality in marriage, women’s right to divorce in cases of abuse and her right to property and custody of her children, among other things. In her postscript, Gouges exhorted women to awaken to consciousness of their rights to embrace their power. She encouraged them to step up, take action and demand equality.

Sound familiar?

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She’s Doing It: Jen Nedeau and the Joy of Media

Are there generational differences in women’s relationship with power?

When I started writing No Excuses, I wanted to interview young women in their 20’s to learn about their relationships with power. Media relations professional and digital strategist Jen Nedeau, then 24, brought together several of her friends for a frank and far reaching conversation.

Jen, who seems to have been born knowing her power, blew me away with her poise, sense of balance, and that power of intention that many women of all ages need to be urged to pursue. See what I mean in her update—she must keep those power tools in her purse, because she uses them so proficiently to deal with the ups and downs of life. (As befitting a digital strategist, you can follow Jen on Twitter @JenNedeau.)

Gloria Feldt: In No Excuses, I asked, “When did you know you had the power to_____?” What have you learned about your power to ______ during the past year or so?

Jen Nedeau: When I spoke to you for the book, we talked about finding the “power source. ” For me, few experiences have been more profound in discovering my own source of power than the past three years I’ve spent in New York. Since moving here, I watched a company I once worked for go bankrupt, I’ve been robbed three times, lived with far too many random roommates and I had to stare down an army of cockroaches on a regular basis in my old apartment in the Lower East Side.

I would definitely say that I had to employ Power Tool #5: Carpe the Chaos on a regular basis.

But if the company I worked for hadn’t gone bankrupt, I probably would not have started my own consultancy and secured a variety of clients in the arts, media and non-profit worlds—proving to myself that I could make it on my own—before taking a job with a major magazine publisher. After two years of living here, I was able to move out of my cramped apartment in the Lower East Side and into a studio apartment, which I am glad to say is thus far, free of Manhattan’s favorite pests.

All of these challenges, big and small, helped me learn that I have the power not only to survive life’s challenges, but succeed despite them. Now, at age 27, I can say that even a bit of struggle can reap big rewards. I am enjoying my life here, meeting amazing people and working on interesting projects, but more importantly, I know that no matter what happens, I have the ability to make it on my own. And independence, in any form, is one of the most empowering tools in the toolbox.

GF: Was there a moment when you felt very powerful recently? Was there a moment when you felt powerless?

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Winter at Book Hampton event

Book Speaking Event

Winter at Book Hampton

Photo: Kim introducing Gloria at Book Hampton.

Thanks for the great book display. What fun to see all those copies of the paperback edition!

Winter at Book Hampton. Conversation and Workshop

The public book talk and signing was held from 4-5:30 pm at Book Hampton, 41 Main Street, East Hampton

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