Tag Archive for 'California Governor’s Conference for Women'

Talking to your inner child

Published on December 3, 2008 in Politics and Society. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

climb-treephoto by learnsomethingnew

Gloria Steinem spoke on a moderated panel at the California Governor’s conference this fall. At one point, moderator Farai Chideya asked feminist Steinem what her little 9 year-old girl self would say to the other panelist’s 9-year-old girl self.

In the ensuing discussion, Steinem suggested that “who you are at 9 or 10 is who we are at 60.” She noted that young kids at nine or ten have absolute clarity about their passions. They’re climbing trees and exploring the world and haven’t yet added the word impossible to their vocabularies. Tweens are “full of wonder.”

Given I’m in a major career transition, and have spent more than a year struggling with the notion of what I should do versus what my passions could fuel, Steinem’s comments gave me pause.

My inner child

As I hit middle school, I became thoroughly obsessed with social activism, in particular, saving the planet. I read about recycling and ocean pollutions and worried endlessly about the plight of sea turtles eating plastic bags, which is probably why the Santa Monica Plastic Bag Monster stunt tickled me recently.

While communities were just beginning to offer curbside recycling programs, our family always had the most recycling bins out in our neighborhood. In fact, my mom’s best friend used to tease her about the extent of our recycling: stacks of newspapers; bundles of junk mail and magazines; glass, aluminum and tin bottles, jars and cans.   Though I realized that one family recycling wasn’t putting a dent in the landfill problem, I dreamt of a day when everyone recycled as much of their garbage as possible.

In the 5th grade, I also began to realize that not everyone was equal, which lit my interest in social justice, as well as equitable and utilitarian treatment of all people.  I wanted to be unwaveringly fair in my actions, not just self-serving.  I sought to do what was right for everyone, even if it meant a temporary dip in my own life.  My experience staying silent while another kid was tease mercilessly for being different definitely contributed to that philosophy.

Full Stop

But I hit the metaphorical brick wall in high school.

At fifteen, I helped lead the charge against a 6-community referendum to break up a school district.  Adults rallied support for break up of the district using socioeconomic snobbery and even mock seances — yes, seriously.   After forming a student group, we attended public meetings and canvassed the neighborhood, though derided by local school administrators and parents on the other side.   The teenagers fighting the referendum spent hours in the library researching the economic and social costs of breaking up the district; in reality, more regionalization made fiscal sense than less.

And we fought the good fight.  I remember the day one classmate approached me and told me that she could never do what I was doing, but she was 100% behind me.  Someone needed to take a stand, it just wasn’t going to be her.

But we lost.  And the district was dissolved.  Ironically, the prognostications of teens came to be.  Over the next five years schools taxes shot up, the performance of the athletic teams (with slimmer pickings) diminished, and the number of courses offerings declined.  While we were satisfied to be right, we wished we had been wrong.

A few tiny details slammed the breaks on activism for me.  Afterwards, a story trickled down through the ranks.  A lot of favors were owed all the way up to the governor’s office. One way or another this district was being dismantled, even though it completely contradicted the Governor’s very public support of regionalization to streamline costs throughout the state.    When people questioned the legality of using a referendum to dissolve the district, all copies of the district charter mysteriously vanished.

Powerful forces beyond our control worked hard to ensure the appropriate “democratic” outcome. The people were squelched.  The little guy was silenced.  The power brokers made a decision, and the die were set.  And at 15 and 16, I just wasn’t ready to maneuver the shady back room dealings of politics. Though I fight fair, I hadn’t yet accepted that most at that level are just playing to win. It’s personal, not community- focused.

Waking up

This year,  I  found my spark again.  Watching Obama’s team out campaign the GOP made me realize that I am no less capable of gaming the system in the name of the greater good. Sometimes you have to play by the other team’s rules just to get in the game, but you don’t have to dump your own values in the process.

Excessive volunteerism allowed me to develop the skill sets I need to reconnect with activism.  I’ve revisited the development and ongoing review of the strategy that can take me from A to B.  As much as I hate public speaking, I’m more comfortable rallying the troops and inspiring people to act than anytime in recent memory.  And I’m well-versed in the nitty gritty of data management and manipulation.

At the moment, my search is on for the right opportunity to splice with my aptitude, because I’m pretty sure that who I was at ten is who I’ll be at thirty.   What feels like a quarterlife quagmire seems to be me coming full circle.

But enough about me; take your own trip down memory lane.  What motivated your ten-year old self to act?  Who did you want to be when you grew up? Are you there yet?

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The power of freebies and community service

Published on October 24, 2008 in Business and Society. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

photo by benimoto

I spent Tuesday night and Wednesday at the California Governor’s Conference for Women.   It’s my second year volunteering with a non-profit at their booth in the exhibitor’s hall.

Thus, my conference experience is a bit different than those that bought tickets or were given ones by their employers.

There are two primary types of exhibitors — corporations and nonprofits.  Non-profits rent booths to raise the profile of their organizations and philanthropic work, as well as to add as many names as possible to their e-mail lists. With non-profits, you’re more apt to get a brochure than a bag of chips or a notebook, so traffic at these booths tends to be sporatic at best. Corporations typically come laden with all sorts of schwag to hand off to the greedy consumer masses, whose hearts swell at the thought of collecting “free stuff. In fact, attendees are given tote bags as they check in, semi-filled with product samples, to allow for the the collection of all sorts of promotional items and snack foods.

This year, the organization I went with brought a “wheel of philanthropy.”  It’s essentially a prize wheel.  The majority of the slots were filled with ice breaker questions  like, “How do you serve your community?,”  “How do you pamper yourself?” and “Who inspires you?”  The questions are meant to open up a dialogue, so that we can ultimately point out the benefits of membership.  But 2 of the landing spaces offered raffle tickets (for a 1-year membership and a $100 gift card to a Los Angeles area skin spa chain), and 2 others offered up a free lip gloss.

Clearly, the Programs Manager struck gold.  That wheel drew women in like flies to honey, since a good spin could land you a free lip gloss or an entry into a raffle.  We had a steady line of women throughout the day (nonprofits generally don’t get lines without a celebrity assist), waiting to spin that wheel.  Those landing on the raffle ticket spots didn’t even need to know what we were giving away, before they gladly signed up for our mailing list and a chance to win something, anything.  Our presence at the conference meant hundreds of new names on the mailing list.

After a day and half working the conference, I’ve drawn two polar opposite conclusions.

On the one hand, the women in attendance were incredibly dedicated to their communities.  I talked to social workers, grad students of social work, teachers and mentors through Big Brothers/Sisters.  One remained a member of the local parent teacher organization, though she has no kids left in the system.  Others served on charity boards, raised funds to provide a constructive environment for women recently released from prison and ran drives to collect suits for low income women looking for work.  Some volunteered at soup kitchens or animal shelters. They led Bible study sessions and soup kitchens, led scout troops and ran marathons for medical research. Most women remained actively involved in multiple community service projects and seemed unimpressed by their own remarkable contributions to society.

Community organizing in its many incarnations is natural to the women in attendance.  They’re at a leadership conference, so I should have expected to hear about this devotion beyond self.

Alternately, I’m rather dismayed by the behavior of a fairly large minority of women at the conference who looked at the exhibit hall as a freebie take-all. When a company brings product samples, it doesn’t mean take 5 since they’re sitting out in the open.  Self control and moderation should kick in at some point, as you realize you’re not the only person in the exhibition hall.

By the end of the conference, my booth’s volunteers were a bit flabberghasted.  Women salivating over the lip glosses, asking “are these free?”  The disappointment clearly stamped across their faces when they were told “no, you need to ‘spin and win.’”  Women who upon landing a question space, not a free lip gloss, turned and walked away, ignoring those staffing the table. The woman who tried to covertly grab an entire handful of lip products, not just one, surprised to find herself foiled by an eagle-eye volunteer who explained they aren’t samples.  The women who strategically stay and chat for a few minutes about the thought-provoking question they landed on, before picking up a lip gloss and saying, “come on, I can take one, right?,” suggesting with their eyes that yes, I played your game, now give me what I want.

And my personal favorite, the woman who approached at the end of the day Wednesday, refusing to make eye contact with any of the volunteers, who tries to help herself to the remaining lip glosses. She summed up the attitude of that minority of gluttonous women who tried to stock up like  Christmas came early.

Our exchange, emphasis mine:

Me: I’m sorry. Those aren’t freebies.

Lady: It’s the end of the event; you have to get rid of them.

Me: Actually, we don’t. We’re a non-profit.

Lady: Oh (with disdain).  You’re going to take them back with you.

Me: Yes we are. We can use them at another event.

Lady: looks longingly one last time at the lip gloss (ironically, the shade Goddess) before turning abruptly and heading towards the exit. No “spin and win” for her.

Since I had the opportunity to sit in on one of the panel sessions, I am trying to convince myself that this ballsy minority merely found itself overwhelmed by the exhibition hall.  The moderated discussions taking place at the Conference Hall were intense and served to inspire us all to do more.  We just have to find a place to store all the pens, notebooks, highlighters, charm necklaces, snack food packages and cosmetic samples first.

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