August 2019
Women's Equality Day Celebration
From Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s electrifying call for women’s rights in 1848 to the passionate outcries of women involved in the Women’s Marches of today, this program endeavors to put the issue of Women’s Equality into a culturally, historically, politically, and socially relevant context of the United States and beyond.
Lake County Women’s Coalition invites you to a FREE and OPEN-TO-THE-PUBLIC round-table discussion focusing on current issues surrounding women’s equality. Tremendous strides have been made, but there is still a long way to go toward achieving true equality for women. Our panel will include multi-generational voices from our community, telling their own stories as they relate to specific topics.
The panel included the following speakers:
- LGBTQ Rights: Joanne Rae, a member of the LGBTQ community. Joanne will emphasize the issues of reproductive justice and transgender discrimination while discussing the rights of LGBTQ individuals to live their lives with dignity and security. She will touch on discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in the areas of employment, housing, public accommodations, health services, child custody, and military policies.
- Racial Justice: Cheryl Hudson-Jackson, YWCA Lake County. Cheryl will talk about systemic racism as told through her experiences as a woman of color while helping us understand what racism looks like. She will show us how to identify stereotypes and learn the differences between bias, discrimination, and racism while increasing our awareness of our cultural differences. Her story will focus on the double burden of race and gender discrimination placed on women of color.
- Ending Violence Against Women: Sandra Bankston, Victim Advocate for Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office. Sandra will speak to the stories of her clients who are dealing with various forms of violence including domestic violence, sexual assault, sexual harassment, gender bias in our political system, and the violence of poverty emphasized by attacks on poor women and children.
- Equal Rights Amendment: Lisa Cherry, Gender Equity Fund. Lisa will address how pay equality, job opportunities, political structure, social security, and education will remain an elusive dream without a guarantee of equality in legislation and the U.S. Constitution.
The Round Lake High School Ghostlight Readers Theatre will also be performing A LOT to SAY, a new piece that weaves through history to the present with the words of visionaries, pioneers, those who refused to move aside, those who marched in the streets, those who continue the fight, and those who still need our help.
