Women's Movements

Las Vegas Women Oral History Project

The Las Vegas Women Oral History Project (LVWOHP) evolved from a collaboration to build a collection of sources on women’s lives in Las Vegas. At the time it began (circa 1994), a critical shortage of information on women’s lives existed in traditional repositories and few oral history projects collected the narratives of women. By 2009, other efforts had taken hold to include women in southern Nevada’s history.

Nevada Women's Archives

Founded in 1994 as a means to preserve the text and photographic documentation detailing women's activities in the development of Nevada, the Nevada Women's Archives currently houses more than 250 collections and is located within the Special Collections Department of the Lied Library at UNLV.

Status of Women in Nevada

Since 2002, the Women's Research Institute of Nevada has been a member of a statewide project team collecting and studying data from approximately 150 indicators of women's health, education, social welfare, and employment in the state.

The Status of Women in Nevada. 2004. Since 2002, the Women's Research Institute of Nevada has been a member of a statewide project team collecting and studying data from approximately 150 indicators of women's health, education, social welfare, and employment in the state. Published in November 2004, the Status of Women in Nevada Report makes this critical information on the well being of Nevada's citizens available for our legislators, educators, and general public.

Student Opportunities:

Internships.  For-credit internships are available at our institute. WRIN coordinates with the undergraduate's particular department to allow students to work at our institute on any of a variety of our programs or projects with credits applicable toward the student's major or minor.

Graduate Assistanship Positions. Graduate assistantship positions are available on a competitive basis to students admitted to any College of Liberal Arts graduate degree program.

New Leadership Nevada. The NEW Leadership Development Network builds and supports women's civic leadership and education at colleges and universities across the United States. It consists of a 6-day residential program that brings together 25-30 college students from across the state to learn about women's leadership and civic participation from accomplished women leaders.

The Pipeline Project

Women are under-represented in the political process, both at the state and federal level. In the US, there are 17 women senators and in the North Carolina senate only 6 women. Justtwenty-five per cent of legislators in North Carolina are women (a combination of house and senate).

R. Khanna. Algeria Cuts: Women and Representation, 1830 to the Present. November, November, 2007.

Women's Studies Newsletter

The Women's Studies Program publishes a newsletter twice a year featuring activities in the Program and scholarship by Faculty and Students.

Awards & Grants

Women's Studies administers a variety of awards and grants of up to $1500 each to currently enrolled Duke students in recognition of outstanding scholarship and research. The awards have been generously endowed through the Council on Women's Studies, alumnae/i, and friends.

Fellowships

The Graduate School awards two full fellowships to Women's Studies each year. Each fellowship carries a nine-month $19,840 stipend (tuition and fees to be paid by the Graduate School).

Employment Opportunities

Women's Studies offers a number of Graduate Instructor positions, Teaching Assistantships and Research Assistantships each year. Students may also find additional opportunities for research and jobs on DukeList.

Environment

Earth Charter Summit. On September 29, 2001, WCEIA convened a day-long Earth Charter Summit, one of twelve around the country that were linked together at two points during the day, with over 150 participants and 45 speakers, to build support for the Earth Charter document, which lays out 16 principles for a just, sustainable and peaceful global society.

Global Feminism

Gender Equality Commission Training. In June 2000, Croatian women leaders took part in this three week training, designed by Anne B. Zill and executed in Washington, D.C., New York (at the United Nations in conjunction with the Beijing + 5 proceedings) and in Maine. Participants were exposed to women leaders on the national, international and state levels in government, industry, academia and civil society.

In July 2001, Bulgarian women mayors were trained for two weeks in advocacy, coalition-building, issue development, and democracy in Maine and Washington, DC.

Other

Cuba: Hearts and Minds and Past and Present. 2007. An exhibition of historical and contemporary art by Cuban, Cuban-American and American Artists about the "Island."

Annual Reports

Zill, Anne B. From Civil Society to Critical Mass: Women's Leadership , Global Security & Democracy in the 21st Century. 2002.

Consider the following list of values: consistency, inclusivity, inter-connectivity, collaboration, empathy, transparency, practicality, and long-term, big-picture considerations. How does the conduct of our government reflect these values? And what is to be done? This paper posits the proposition that the United States government is doing only fair to middling in these early days of the 21st century, that our democracy needs reinvigorating, renewed attention to these core values, as well as to the rule of law itself. A critical mass of women in positions of leadership in government and civil society could speed up this process.

Fellows at IRW

Visiting Scholars:

Since the IRW interdisciplinary research seminar began in the 1996-1997 academic year, the IRW has hosted more than 45 visiting scholars and Rockefeller Resident Fellows in the Humanities. Take a moment to discover who's been at the IRW and find out about their subsequent publications, as well as their IRW projects during their terms at Rutgers. We welcome updates to this growing database.

Rutgers Faculty Fellows:

The Ms. Foundation for Women is dedicated to building women's collective power to ignite change. We seek opportunities to both proactively and reactively inform public policy, and obtain policy wins at the local, state, tribal and national level, with the ultimate goal of transforming the systems that govern women's lives.

We also aim to change the language, beliefs and behaviors that continue to hold women's oppression in place-particularly at the intersection of race, class and gender-and to shift public debate on key issues so that the perspectives of, and impact on, low income women and women of color are visible and addressed.

We support both cross-issue organizing and organizing within four broad areas of impact:

Women's Health

Reproductive Justice organizing and advocacy
Sexuality education organizing and advocacy
Women and HIV/AIDS policy advocacy and organizational capacity building
Access to health care coverage

Ending Violence

Community-based strategies to prevent child sexual abuse and violence against women and LGBTQ people
Strategies to engage men and boys in ending violence
Public education and media literacy
Youth-driven strategies

Economic Security

Organizing for better wages and working conditions, especially in female dominated sectors
Paid leave (including paid sick days and paid family leave)
Affordable, accessible quality child care
Access to health care coverage

Building Democracy

Building the infrastructure of organizations working for a progressive vision of democracy
Amplifying the voices of women of color, with a special emphasis on the Gulf South
Voter/civic engagement
Just immigration and refugee policies
Criminal Justice reform
Media Justice

Examples of funding initiatives across these broad and interconnected issue areas include:

Katrina Women's Response Fund: The Ms. Foundation responded immediately to the destruction and massive displacement caused by Hurricane Katrina by creating the Katrina Women's Response Fund. The Fund provides strategic support to meet the immediate needs of women of color and low-income women in the Gulf Coast region and ensure that their leadership and priorities are central in both short and long-term recovery and rebuilding efforts. By making grants to organizations throughout the region, the Katrina Women's Response Fund invests in the crucial infrastructure that promotes the health, safety, and economic well-being of women, their families and communities.

The Women and AIDS Fund: The Ms. Foundation for Women created the Women and AIDS Fund (WAF)to support organizations that advocate for policies and services that meet the needs of women with HIV/AIDS. WAF remains the only national fund that supports advocacy and self-determination by and for women living with this disease. By providing grants, technical assistance and networking opportunities to community-based organizations led by and for women who are HIV-positive, we contribute to the development of model approaches for women's HIV/AIDS advocacy that can be shared across the country. Our work has also helped create a national network of HIV-positive infected and affected women, called the National Women and AIDS Collective (NWAC), who strive to influence the ways in which policies are determined at the federal level.

The Reproductive Rights Coalition and Organizing Fund: The Ms. Foundation for Women's Reproductive Rights Coalition and Organizing Fund (RRCOF) has been a strong, responsive resource for state reproductive rights organizations across the United States since 1989. RRCOF provides grantmaking, technical assistance, and networking activities to strengthen state-level infrastructures and build critical, broad-based support for reproductive rights. RRCOF aims to increase the capacity of state and local reproductive rights organizations so that they can: 1) expand and mobilize their base of support; 2) reach a broader and more diverse audience; 3) frame reproductive rights and health in a broader health and social justice context; and 4) more effectively advocate for positive - and avert restrictive - reproductive health policies and programs.

Join our movement for social justice and help to bring the experience and solutions of women and girls to the challenging issues that impact women and their communities most. Learn more about how you can show your support. 

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Stir It UP: Lessons in Community Organizing and Advocacy. Written by activist and trainer Rinku Sen, this publication examines the work of economic justice organizations funded by the Ms. Foundation and applies the lessons they learned to other community organizations. Sen also provides models and tools that any organization can use to successfully create social change and influence public policy.

Raise the Floor: Wages and Policies that Work for All of Us . Most Americans believe a job should keep you out of poverty, not keep you in it. Raise The Floor shows us how we can translate that belief into reality by raising the minimum wage. In addition to telling workers' stories, presenting original data, and proposing comprehensive policies, Raise The Floor spotlights businesses large and small that demonstrate how good wages are good business-in good economic times and bad.

Kitchen Table Entrepreneurs: How Eleven Women Escaped Poverty and Became Their Own Bosses. This publication tells the inspirational stories of eleven low-income women who have marshaled the creative energy, confidence, and capital necessary to start their own small businesses. These women, who have used their entrepreneurial skills as a route out of poverty, give an American face to an economic empowerment tool that has enjoyed great success in developing countries.

Ms. Foundation. 2009. Creating Connections, Igniting Change: Annual Report 2007-2008.

Ms. Foundation. 2009. Building Momentum to Sustain Social Change: Evaluation of the Katrina Women's Response Fund.  

Grants