Letter from the Editor

If the last year has taught us anything, it is that humans are just as resilient as Spring’s first blooms after a long and dark winter. While we admire those first sprouts of crocus petals waving their vibrant colors proudly, let us emerge from this past season strong and ready for action, too. Our GWC has a lot going on!

We have a host of events this month in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, a new GWC Initiative: Women’s Economic Wellbeing and Leadership, as well as Earth Day. While women and women’s issues are finally getting their deserved attention, our Action Teams are also busy preparing campaigns to warrant you the title of "Activist". Scroll down for important updates, insightful articles on the filibuster and the American Rescue Plan, and make sure to take our March Newsletter quiz! Lastly, we would love your participation in our #MyStoryGWC campaign, where you can connect with other members through shared stories, to highlight the issues most important to us.

We hope you enjoy this edition and we look forward to seeing you at our events!

Stayce Camparo, Communications Co-Chair Global Women’s Caucus

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On December 5th, Senator Tina Smith (NM) shared on Twitter that she was in favor of removing the filibuster, in an attempt “to move this country forward.” With previous convictions over using the filibuster to protect voting rights, civil rights, and women’s health, she took an abrupt turn stating, “it’s been a highly effective tool to thwart the will of the people.”

The filibuster, a congressional tool requiring a supermajority of 60 votes in the Senate, was mistakenly created to protect minority representation. For example, the filibuster in its ideal form looks something like this:

With roughly 9 million Americans living abroad, what does immersion in another culture offer people, and what, if any, environmental factors impact their behaviors as empathic, tolerant human beings? “Being able to take another’s perspective may be a key element in reducing prejudice” a 2012 study stated, but does simply living abroad offer individuals that experience, or does maintaining empathy and tolerance go beyond the effects of environmental exposures? How much does our environment affect our behaviors and attitudes?

The American Rescue Plan will change the course of the pandemic, deliver immediate relief for hard hit families and small businesses, and build a bridge towards economic recovery.

Letter from the Editor

This March, we are commemorating the brave and diverse women who’ve carved out a space for the female voice. We will be looking to the past, as well as focusing on the issues and stories of today, to continue the progression of equality and justice for women all over the world.

Join us for our speaker series events, a month-long campaign of informational material for you to brush up on your knowledge of women’s history, and two events-in-a-box. This issue has updates on our various action campaigns as well as reports on current events. Scroll down to see our featured artist, L.A. based Andrea Bowers, to commemorate WHM, and take our February Newsletter quiz!

We hope you enjoy this edition, and we hope to see you at our events!

Stayce Camparo, Communications Co-Chair Global Women’s Caucus

About Ms. By: Katherine Spillar, Executive Editor of Ms. Magazine and our Guest Speaker for International Women’s Day

When Ms. was launched as a “one-shot” sample insert in New York magazine in December 1971, few realized it would become the landmark institution in both women’s rights and American journalism that it is today.

The founders of Ms., many of whom are now household names, helped to shape contemporary feminism, with Ms. editors and authors translating “a movement into a magazine.”

Ms. was a brazen act of independence in the 1970s. At the time, the fledgling feminist movement was either denigrated or dismissed in the so-called mainstream media. Most magazines marketed to women were limited to advice about finding a husband, saving marriages, raising babies or using the right cosmetics.

Essay: What Virginia Woolf can Teach Us About Practicing Wisdom this WHM
By: Stayce Camparo

In the garden near the Divinity School at Harvard University, a small labyrinth is paved in stone. There is only one way to navigate it. In many ways I find this unfortunate, because I believe that questions and choices are where discernment lies, however perhaps the most important factor is not actually losing one’s self, but in the impression of being lost. For instance, the labyrinth takes the form of moving away from the center (the goal), creating an impression that one is moving in the wrong direction. Though you can’t get lost in this particular labyrinth, doubt can easily creep in as the bordered current sweeps the traveler in a contrary direction from the objective. Like philosophers contemplating abstract topics of morality or meaning, politicians debating policy, or friends and family listening and talking to each other, we all at some point navigate labyrinths. Practicing wisdom is the process by which we can allow ourselves to get lost (either genuinely or seemingly), and acknowledge that questions and doubt help us get closer to the wisdom in which we seek.

Women’s History Month has its Own History
By: Kathy Tullos

The Month has its origins in Santa Rosa, California, where a County Task Force designated the week beginning March 8, 1978 as Women’s History Week. The Task Force selected the date because March 8 is International Women’s Day. Other communities quickly followed suit.

By 1980 a consortium of women’s groups and historians formed the National Women’s History Project. The Project, which is now known as the National Women’s History Alliance, began to lobby at the federal level for designation of a national Women’s History Week. President Jimmy Carter responded by proclaiming March 2-8, 1980 as National Women’s History Week.

Ah, Women's History Month, we meet again, We COULD start by rattling off a list of accomplishments from the ladies of yore (and we will), but first let us take a collective bow in honor of all the moms who have lived through this last year.

Whether you home-schooled while holding down a 9-5 in home office, went out into the wild as an essential worker, delivered a child while masked or cried every day in the only space you could be alone (the toilet), we are IN AWE. You are a champion and we cannot start Women's History Month without recognizing this historic feat.

Ladies, it's been A YEAR. Add to the above; the unprecedented (are we sick of this word yet?) female-only unemployment statistics we saw in December, the never-ending struggle for reproductive rights, equal pay, and I don't know, equal representation(?), it's a wonder any of us are still standing.

This March, allow your Global Women's Caucus to celebrate YOU, your mothers, your daughters and neighbors who paved the way before them. This month is ours and we are going to make the most of it.

Between our speakers' series events, final efforts to push through the Equal Rights Amendment and open dialogue on our social pages, we are shaping the conversation and history itself, magnifying women's voices one story at a time and giving credit where it is long overdue.

Because...Who runs the world? GIRLS.

Letter from the Editor

This February, the Global Women’s Caucus celebrates Black History Month, by sharing and listening to the personal stories embodied in Black culture and experience. Our sister caucus, the Global Black Caucus has put together an exciting collection of events to commemorate this important month, and we encourage you to join the conversation as we remember, learn about, and celebrate Black History. 

In this February issue, Black History Month is celebrated with passages by notable writer Joy Notoma, Action Team Leader for our Books Abroad Book Club. Joy delves into the story of this February’s featured book, “Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments,” by Saidiya Hartman. This issue also provides reports on reproductive justice, the Violence Against Women Act, and Biden’s new inclusive cabinet, as well as policy information and the current status of COVID relief and vaccination. We are also highlighting the ERA’s call-to-action, as well as numerous events for Black History Month and our upcoming Women’s History Month.

We hope you enjoy this edition!

Stayce Camparo, Communications Co-Chair Global Women’s Caucus