Special Events

Presentation and Discussion
Who Cares for Our Children? The Child Care Crisis in the Other America
Thursday, April 17, 12:00 - 1:30 p.m.
CEW, 330 E. Liberty
Presenter: Valerie Polakow PhD, Eastern Michigan University
Dr. Polakow is professor of Educational Psychology and Early Childhood at EMU. She has written extensively about women and children in poverty and about family and child care policies in national and international contexts. Her latest book, Who Cares for Our Children? The Child Care Crisis in the Other America, is an urgent call to action to address the growing child care crisis in the nation. Dr. Polakow's presentation will contain compelling stories of diverse low-income mothers from across the nation and chronicle their resilient struggles in the face of ongoing child care crises. She will also discuss her groundbreaking analysis of child care as a human right, arguing for a universal child care system.
Please register online at www.cew.umich.edu or by calling 734-764-6005. Deadline to register: Monday, March 17th.
Co-sponsored with the Institute for Research on Women and Gender and LS&A Women's Studies Department.

Focus on Women in the Arts
"The Words of a Woman"
Friday, May 9, 7:00 - 8:30 p.m.
Ann Arbor Library, Downtown, Multipurpose Room
Presenter: Christine Mary McGinley “The Words of a Woman”
343 South Fifth Ave., Ann Arbor

The Words of a Woman is a literary mosaic and one-woman monologue, composed entirely of excerpts from the written works of more than fifty exceptional women from literature and history. It is an exploration of the female voice in literature and in the world — a moving meditation on life, love, learning, and the art of writing.

Some of the artists, thinkers and writers represented in the piece —
Anna Akhmatova, Hannah Arendt, Aung San Suu Kyi, Jane Austen, Simone de Beauvoir, Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Willa Cather, Marie Curie, Bernadette Devlin, Emily Dickinson, Annie Dillard, Isadora Duncan, George Eliot, Margaret Fuller, Alice James, Sarah Orne Jewett, Doris Lessing, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Katherine Mansfield, Beryl Markham, Florence Nightingale, Flannery O’Connor, Katherine Anne Porter, Ayn Rand, George Sand, Sappho, May Sarton, Olive Schreiner, Mary Shelley, Gertrude Stein, Jeanne de Vietinghoff, Alice Walker, Simone Weil, Eudora Welty, Edith Wharton, Mary Wollstonecraft, Virginia Woolf and Marguerite Yourcenar.

Michigan native and local author, Christine Mary McGinley worked for many years in a number of states as executive director and fundraiser for arts and humanities organizations—including as Director of Development for the U-M Library from 1992 through 1997. Her work, The Words of a Woman, completed in Ann Arbor in 1997, inspired her to pursue her lifelong dream of writing full time, which she has done for the years since. She describes her work as passionate advocacy for Human Rights and Social Justice in all of their complexities and for the arts and humanities as societal imperatives.

Christine will read the monologue, The Words of a Woman, reflect on the process of creating the work, and answer questions and share with the audience.

Registration recommended but not required. You may register online or by calling 734.764.6005.

This event is co-sonored with the Institute for Research on Women and Gender and LS&A Women's Studies Department.

January- April 2008
IRWG Changing Perspectives on Sexual Violence and Harassment Series
Selected topics:
Sexual Assault on College Campuses: What is Alcohol's Role?
Sexual Violence and the State: New Approaches to Anti-Violence Organizing
Sexual Harassment in Higher Education and the Workplace
Women Working in a Man's World: Sexual Harassment, Workplace Climate, and Work Outcomes for Women in Male-dominated Fields
The Silent Epidemic in Women's Health: Adolescent Sexual Assault
Workplace Harassment and Incivility: WhatÕs Gender Got to Do With It?
For additional information on this workshop series, please contact the University of Michigan Institute for Research on Women and Gender at its website: http://www.umich.edu/~irwg/
These IRWG events are co-sponsored by CEW, the Rackham Graduate School, the UM Office of Institutional Equity, the School of Social Work, the Women in Engineering and Science (WISE) Program, the NSF ADVANCE Project, the Office of Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs (MESA), and the UM Interdisciplinary Research Program on Violence Across the Lifespan. (IRPVAL)