The Chicago Feminists Meetup Group is sponsoring a book discussion on Ellen Bravo's Taking on the Big Boys on May 19 at Argo Tea 16 W. Randolph in downtown Chicago.  A fee of $1  is charged to cover expenses.  An RSVP is requested. You may sign up and RSVP at the Chicago Feminist Meetup site.

For people unfamiliar with Meetups, the idea is to sign up at the Meetup website where you will be able to see who is in the group, get the latest news, contact other Meetup participants, and register for events. It's a form of online organizing that can work suprisingly well.

The Chicago Feminist Meetup Group currently has 113 members and has sponsored 12 meetings so far. Check them out here.

Poet, essayist and activist Adrienne Rich will appear in Northeastern Illinois University's (NEIU) Presidential Lecture Series. Since receiving the Yale Younger Poets Award in 1951 at the age of 21, Adrienne Rich has not stopped writing in her distinct voice, with strength and conviction.This event is free and open to the public

Fine Arts Center Recital Hall, Northeastern Illinois University
5500 N. Saint Louis Ave in Chicago
(Use campus entrance located at 3701 W. Bryn Mawr Ave.) Free parking in Lot F
Thursday, April 24 at 8 p.m

From the Chicago Abortion Fund's First TV Appearance

The Chicago Abortion Fund(CAF) is made up of a diverse group of women who firmly believe that affordable abortions are part and parcel of the fight for reproductive justice. Not content with simply raising money to financially assist women to obtain abortions, CAF has been doing some serious outreach efforts  into the communities of Chicagoland.

The Our Bodies, Ourselves (OBOS) group has been teaching us about women's bodies since their first stapled and cheaply printed pamphlet appeared in 1970 and started a revolution in women's health.

Founder Judy Norsigian will be visiting Chicago to introduce the latest book from OBOS, Our Bodies, Ourselves: Pregnancy and Birth. You can meet Judy and buy a copy of the book.

Monday, April 7, 2008 4:00-6:00 pm at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum University of Illinois at Chicago 800 S. Halsted Street, Chicago, IL

Keynote Speakers: Judy Norsigian, Co-author and Executive Director of Our Bodies Ourselves & Carrie Klima, CNM, PhD, Clinical Assistant Professor, UIC College of Nursing

Please come to welcome the newest book from the creators of Our Bodies, Ourselves, as the presenters explore the history of health care for pregnant women in the United States, beginning with midwives and dramatic change that happened with physicians taking over pregnancy and childbirth, and the movement over the last 30 years to take back some of the control for women over their birthing experience.

This annual event brings together young organizers from unions and community groups and Chicago area college students interested in learning about working for change. Panelists from Illinois Action Now, UNITE HERE, AFSCME Council 31, IEA-NEA and others will share their experiences as organizers. Some of the invited groups are looking for interns and new staff.
Saturday, April 5th
11:00am to 1:00pm (lunch included)
Gage Gallery,
Roosevelt University,
18 S. Michigan Avenue, Chicago

To rsvp please contact:
Carrie Breitbach This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Join author Paula Giddings for a reading and discussion of her new book Ida: A Sword Among Lions on March 10 at 6 pm at the Jane Addams Hull House Museum.

Ida B. Wells was one of the most fearless crusaders for civil rights and women's rights in United States history. She was a newspaper editor and publisher, investigative journalist, co-founder of the NAACP, political candidate, mother, wife, and the single most powerful leader in the anti-lynching campaign in America.

As part of its Women's History Month celebration the Chicago History Museum will feature a program on March 6th called "Women On The Move: We Can Do It!" Among the presenters will be Suzanne Davenport of the CWLU Herstory Project . Suzanne was active in the Chicago Women's Liberation Union and has been a film maker and educational reformer.

When Mardge Cohen and her partner Gordy Schiff left Chicago for Boston, they were warned that their old friends in the Windy City would do what was necessary to drag them back here.

Mardge is one of the world's leading experts on the treatment of HIV/AIDS and a former CWLU member. Gordy is a prof at Harvard and has written extensively on patient safety.

Well, on April 25, Marge will be back in town to receive an award from the Chicago Democratic Socialists of America at their annual dinner. Les Orear of the Illinois Labor History Society and labor lawyer Laurie Burgess will be her co-honorees.

Rose Ann DeMoro of the National Nurses Organizing Committee will be the featured speaker on the theme," Universal Healthcare Now!

The Chicago Area Women’s History Council (CAWHC) is launching a new project to help document the Chicago 2nd Wave women's movement. Both oral histories and written documents are being collected so that they may be saved and shared with the public.

The kickoff event will be held at 1:30 on March 16 at the Chicago History Museum. Speakers include:

• Sara M. Evans, Regents Professor of History, University of Minnesota
• Mary Jean Collins, Organizer; Activist; Sr. Vice Pres. People for the American Way
• Erin McCarthy, Oral Historian; History Faculty, Columbia College of Chicago
• Elizabeth Myers, Archivist, Women and Leadership Archives, Loyola University

Book Launch and Reception

Wednesday, March 12, 20085 p.m. - 7 p.m.

UNITE! HERE

333 S. Ashland, Chicago IL

On the Global Waterfront by Suzan Erem and E. Paul Durrenberger tells the story of the Charleston 5, who became an international labor cause celebre when they were falsely accused of inciting a riot after police attacked a longshore protest in Charleston, South Carolina. The dockworkers were protesting the attempt by a multinational shipping conglomerate to shift to non-union labor.

Suzan Erem is a former Chicago labor organizer who wrote the book Labor Pains about her experiences as a SEIU staffer here in the Windy City. You can meet Suzan and get her autograph on the book by attending the celebration at UNITE! HERE on March 12.

Faculty from nine universities and colleges will hold the largest ever conference on black and Latina/o sexuality on April 11-12 at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "Race, Sex, Power: New Movements in Black and Latina/o Sexualities," the culmination of more than two years of planning, will bring together academics, activists, and artists to address topics ranging from intimacy and desire to HIV/AIDS and teen pregnancy to humor and Hip Hop. 

Organizer Cathy Cohen, Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, calls the conference "a bold effort to rethink what sexuality means for the two largest racial minorities in the US." Dr. Jocelyn Elders, the former United States Surgeon General appointed by President Clinton, will open the conference on Friday morning, April 11.

The nursing profession faces enormous challenges in the coming years, particularly in hospital settings. Aggressive cost-cutting, higher patient acuity, physician/nurse relations, inadequate staffing and the intense physical and emotional demands of the work are driving experienced nurses from the field and discouraging new recruits.

Join the RN2RN Network on Saturday, February 23 to learn more about these issues and their impact on patient quality of care at a conference sponsored by the RN2RN Network. Discuss strategies to address these challenges and chart a new course for the nursing profession.

The RN2RN Network was launched by nurses from Resurrection Health Care hospitals, who are part of HEART/AFSCME, to bring together nurses from around the state to organize for improved patient care and better staffing in Illinois hospitals.

In an effort to remake Chicago into a "global city" – one attractive to businesses and tourists worldwide – Chicago's educational, environmental, employment and housing policies have been rewritten over the last two decades. These changes in policy and funding priorities have effected Chicago residents differently by class, race and, as we focus on here, by gender.

Gertrude (Trudy) Alma Pax, 70, died February 9, 2008, of pancreatic cancer, at her home at Camphill Village Minnesota. Trudy was born March 9, 1937 in Celina, Ohio to Gertrude (Jenniges) and Leo Pax and was the youngest of eight children. Raised on a farm, Trudy attended college at Marquette University, Milwaukee, and graduated with a degree in sociology. After working with a service organization in Brazil for four years, Trudy moved to Chicago and continued her involvement in social justice and political activism. Trudy worked in the steel mills in Chicago from 1975-1980. She married Tom Farr in 1974. Nic was born in 1981 and Daniel joined the family in 1983 when he was 3 years old. Trudy received a master’s degree in ESL and taught adult education classes.

The Rock 'n' Roll Camp for Girls is a place where 8-18 year olds come from all over the country to learn Rock DIY-style--forming bands, writing songs and building community, and “Girls Rock !” is the movie about their journey.

Film makers Arne Johnson and Shane King  have put together a story that focuses on 4 girls  at the camp learning how to be the people they really are as they make a whole lot of joyful noise.

The film opens in Chicago at the Music Box Theater at 3733 North Southport.

WBEZ radio here in Chicago conducted a phone interview with former "Jane" Judith Arcana on the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. Jane was the nickname for the Abortion Counseling Service of Women's Liberation. Jane performed an estimated 11,000 illegal abortions in Chicago before Roe v. Wade legalized the procedure.

You may listen to the interview below. Judith's portion is preceded by a news story about an anti-abortion march down Chicago's Michigan Ave.

You should also check out Judith's pro-choice blogging feature at Words of Choice.

One of our favorite Chicago women is the hardworking Gaylon Alcaraz, director of the Chicago Abortion Fund (CAF), part of the National Network of Abortion Funds :

The Chicago Abortion Fund (CAF) fights to overturn economic barriers to reproductive choice. Through direct service and education/advocacy, CAF assists low-income women in obtaining safe abortion services by providing clinic referrals, negotiated discounts and financial assistance. While we are unable to directly assist all the women in need, we work to extend choice to all low-income women by making the issue of economic access a priority on the agenda of policy makers. --from the CAF Mission Statement

Along with the CAF Board of Directors and resourceful CAF volunteers, Gaylon helps bring reproductive justice to low income women.

 

In September of 2004 I lost a dear friend when Ruth Surgal died suddenly after attending a feminist conference. Ruth had been a leader of the Abortion Counseling Service of Women's Liberation, better known as Jane. You can read more about Jane on this website.

I was asked to speak at Ruth's funeral service, so today I'll share with you what I said on that sad day.

Veronica Arreola is one of those people who get to live out their dreams.

A committed feminist, she wanted to direct a program that would encourage young women to remake the fields of science and engineering. She is now the director of University of Illinois at Chicago’s Women in Science and Engineering program (WISE).

“The job I have now, five years ago was on my 10-to-15-year list of things to accomplish,” Veronica told the UIC News.

Your Infogal has had the pleasure of working with Veronica on several projects. She is amazing. She blogs, she protests, she organizes, she raises her child, she leads, she laughs and she is so supportive of the women who want to do some real science and engineering.

Go Veronica!

 

Beyondmedia Education is embroiled in a censorship battle with Chicago Public Television station WTTW over their refusal to air the documentary Turning a Corner. This video recently won the Chicago Reporter’s John A. McDermott Documentary (short) Film Competition. As part of the award, Turning a Corner was to be screened on WTTW’s Image Union program. The station is refusing to air the video, citing its sensitive subject matter.

Turning a Corner tells the personal stories of women formerly involved in the sex trade in Chicago – through their own voices – and follows their efforts to raise public awareness and promote legislative reforms.