67 Years Ago

The Equality Stud, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 - legislation that prohibited discrimination on the basis of race and gender. And on this day 67 years ago, the leading motivator of the act , Dr, Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis Tennessee.

Originally only inclusive of race, Howard W. Smith amended the bill that would eventually become the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include clauses forbidding gender discrimination. Now, whether Smith did this because he was a proponent of women's rights or just wanted to kill the bill before passage (hoping that congress would be too chauvinistic to pass a bill including women's rights) is up for debate. In any case, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 happened. So, thank you Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, thank you John F. Kennedy, thank you Lyndon Johnson, thank you Everette Dirksen, thank you Mike Mansfield, thank you Emmanuel Cellar, thank you  Howard W. Smith, thank you the rest of congress, and thank you to all the other people that helped this great piece of legislation pass!

For more information, check out this episode of Fresh Air with an interview of Todd Purnam, author of the book An Idea Whose Time Has Come: Two Presidents, Two Parties and the Battle for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It's mad fresh.

PS. International Women's Day was great last month. Thanks to all who attended! We're going to keep this blog going with posts like this and preparations for IWD 2015.

In 24 hours...

we'll be setting up for the Women in Decision Making Expo! And, in 24.5 hours, we hope you'll be registering at the FREE event. Then, in 26.5 hours we hope you'll be enjoying FREE FOOD. Click on that awesome purple link on the right to RSVP!

But enough with the free stuff, the real point of International Women's Day is to think on and improve the lives of women all over the world. Tomorrow we'll be engaging on and discussing some actions we can do to change our community for the better by taking a look at what some amazing women in the Chicagoland area are doing. If you haven't already read up on our panelists, check out the brief bios in the right-hand toolbar and if you have questions for any or all of the panelists, submit an email to the address listed in the post below!

Lastly, Sarah Small of Food Tank wrote an awesome article: 23 Women Changing Food. You should check it out or at least check out some of the facts and highlights below (you'll have to read the article for the fact references).

• Women perform 66 percent of the world’s work, but only earn 10 percent of the world's income
• 70 percent of all farmers are women
• Providing women farmers with access to the same resources that men have could reduce the number of hungry people in the world by 100-150 million people
• Shout out to Sarah Kalloch, Senior Advisor at Oxfam America for making the list!

Two women clearing farmland in Nachole, Northern Bangladesh. Photo credit: IPS News.

Optimism

This year's IWD theme is Inspiring Change. Perhaps you're a person with boatloads of optimism which keeps you motivated for the future or perhaps you're a person who needs a kick in the shins to get motivated. We cannot kick you because that would be wrong and painful, but here's an awesome Forbe's article about the progress women have made in the 106 years of International Women's Days.

Questions? We know women with answers.

International Women's Day is only 4 days away! We're excited. There will be loads of awesome information, earfuls of engaging discussion, and even free food in case you need any more enticing. To prepare for our panelist discussion we're looking for questions from YOU! If you have a question, please send an email to: chimedia.oxfam@gmail.com with you question(s) and intended recipient(s) from the panelist list at right. All question askers will remain anonymous unless otherwise specified by said asker. We're not sure if asker is really a word either.

And don't forget to RSVP and get your google maps directions from the purple link on the right!

Host Committee Members

Who is planning this wonderful event for International Women's Day? Take a peek at the Host Committee Members!

Megan Nakra, Organizer Chicago Oxfam Action Corps : 
Research Scientist at Rush University Medical Center

Nancy Carpenter : 

Director of Member Relations for POPAI

James Marcell Robinson : 

Geological Engineer at Sullivan International Group

Lizzie Nolan : 

Vice President and Founding Member of Double Helix Group, a health and technology start-up located in 1871
Susana Perez : 

PhD Candidate in Literature at University of Chicago

Rachel Henry : 
Trade Marketing Coordinator at GrubHub Seamless
Simone Blake : 

Market Researcher at Volt

Sandra Agik : 
Clinical Research Associate

Kathryn Sokolowski, Organizer Chicago Oxfam Action Corps:  

Special Education Teacher Joliet Township High School

 

Sharing some Buzz(feed)

There's an awesome Buzzfeed article that's being passed around and we figured we'd share. Check it out and let us know what your favorite pictures are and why in the comment section!

Oxfam America Sisters on The Planet

The Oxfam America Sisters on the Planet have been posting about a bunch of awesome things for the past few years. If this is the first time you've heard about it, check it out here!

In a recent post by Danielle Nierenburg, co-founder of Food Tank (an uber-rad agriculture focused nonprofit worth learning more about), a recent food-policy boot camp is discussed as is the Daily Meal's list of the 50 Most Powerful People in Food in 2014.

Even cooler - the first person blog has an entire section devoted to stories about women and girls, so check it out!