Minneapolis Feminists Speak Out at National Young Women's Leadership Conference

At the University of the District of Columbia on March 21 & 22, about 500 college-age feminists from around the country clapped and cheered through lecture after lecture-- until Sunday afternoon. Then, when comments and questions were finally taken by the young women who organized the conference within the Feminist Majority Foundation, delegates voiced their concerns at a mic. in the dim auditorium.

Four students from Augsburg College, in the only delegation from Minnesota, commented that the conference's political focus was unbalanced. (I was the fifth person in the delegation.)

The Feminist Majority Foundation's National Young Women's Leadership Conference:

Feminist Leaders Call for following Obama, more troops in Afghanistan.

They pointed out that there was only one transgender person speaking at the Queer Activism workshop, which had an emphasis on the question, 'How do we understand queer women?' They pointed out that five American women got to speak about women's rights in Afghanistan before the two Afghan  women did, on Saturday's panel. They said that the organizers could've been more careful about who was representing whom.

A Minneapolis delegae also spoke on the arts' importance to movements and their absence from the conference.

Other Midwestern feminist groups agreed with these points at the regional caucus that followed. Though the speeches of Dolores Huerta, Executive Director for the White House Council for Women and Girls Tina Tchen, Lilly Ledbetter, Shelby Knox, and Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis were interesting and inspiring, their rallying for change through legislation and running for office didn't encompass the leadership skills that attendees expected to gain. A young woman from Illinois said that this would be ok if the weekend were titled 'Feminist Politics 101' not 'National Young Women's Leadership Conference. The two Illinois delegations were more interested in activism, art, and bringing diverse people together on their very different campuses.

Though one of the celebrated speakers, Dr. Sima Samar, chair of Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, has led an amazing life building women's schools and hospitals and briefly serving as Afghanistan's Minister for Women's Affairs, when she spoke on Saturday the Minneapolis delegation wondered whether she really represented Afghan women's ways and wants. She called for more foreign troops to come and fight the remaining members of Taliban, for America to remember its promises to rebuild infrastructure that the war destroyed, and-- for America to please lessen civilian casualties, because they are used to justify extremism like the Taliban's. She gave her plea to thunderous applause, only after the audience was shown two very graphic videos about abuses against women around the world, and had listened to Mavis Leno, the chair of FMF's Campaign for Afghan Women and Girls, speak well past her allotted time about Afghanistan as 'the good war.'

The videos and speeches were streaming live on the web, followed by over 300 web visitors, and can be viewed at ustream.tv/channel/feminst-majority-foundation-2009-nywlc

These are the issues that the young women and men brought to their Senators and Representatives on Monday, a coordinated congressional visit day:

• signing the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women treaty
• rebuilding Afghanistan
• passing the Fair Pay Act
• passing the Responsible Education About Life Act for comprehensive sex ed

Feminist Majority Foundation leaders like Elly Smeal and Kathy Spillar, executive editor of Ms., led the younger feminists towards Congress with confidence and faith in President Obama-- the 'feminist-in-chief' according to Spillar.

The Minnesotan women did not stick around to visit Amy Klobuchar-- rather they headed back home with long to-do lists, like many campus organizers. Some of the workshops and students' testimony opened eyes to all the local work to be done:

• making campuses safer and free from sexual assault
• making comprehensive sex ed. available, for those of us who didn't get it in high school
• making mother-friendly spaces on campuses
• exposing fake clinics called Crisis Pregnancy Centers that misinform women about reproductive choices
• educating about sexual orientation and ending gay-bashing

Of course, hundreds of other issues could be approached from a feminist angle, and just might drive the next National Young Women's Leadership Conference towards a different focus.