Feminist Conversations: Women, Trauma and Empowerment in Post-Transitional Societies

For those of you can't get enough...Cincinnati Women's Political Caucus just announced two book related events:

March 9, 2009: Women, Trauma Empowerment in Post-Transitional Societies

The authors/editors of Feminist Conversations: Women, Trauma and Empowerment in Post-Transitional Societies, will be in Cincinnati to discuss their seminal work and its global implications. The program will take place at 7 P.M. at the First Unitarian Church , 536 Linton Street .

Drs. Dovile Budryte, Lisa Vaughn, and Natalya Riegg will discuss their recent book, Feminist Conversations: Women, Trauma and Empowerment in Post-Transitional Societies. This book is about the ways in which social and political transitions affect women’s lives. The essays in the book, collected from women in post-transitional societies, address traumatic and empowering aspects of structural changes and challenges faced by women in these societies, including violence against women.

Women's issues are treated in the book as a subset of larger democratization projects, with all the complexity and controversy of the latter. Feminist Conversations is designed as a forum of cross-cultural communication among women from different parts of the world, as well as from different life paths.

REVIEWS:
Mary Brydon-Miller, Ph.D.Director, Action Research CenterAssociate Professor, CECH-Educational Studies & Leadership University of Cincinnati , USA

The oppression of women happens in all parts of the world and takes many forms—from domestic abuse to economic disenfranchisement and the use of violence against women as a weapon of war. But responses to trauma and women’s empowerment also take diverse forms, as this important and engaging volume illustrates. Drawing on different countries and speaking from the experiences of
women themselves, the contributors explore the diverse ways in which women understand and respond to experiences of trauma and violence.

Feminist Conversations is a book full of fresh thought and hopeful strategies on how to improve the prospects for women’s rights in post-transitional societies.
The stories the editors included as a background to their deliberations also speak most eloquently about how far away we are from eradicating violence against women in much of the world. One sees clearly that in most post-transitional societies there are only the beginnings of women’s rights,overshadowed relentlessly by patriarchy. But in presenting this insightful book,the editors have at best taken bold and creative steps toward providing the one indispensable element in the struggle for women’s rights—international awareness.

Reflecting the conversational structure of their book, this presentation will be structured as a conversation among the editors about the basic themes throughout the book. The presentation will include readings from several of the chapters and commentaries.

March 12, 2009: Woman’s City Club 16th Annual National Speaker Forum

GAIL COLLINS: Scorpion Tongues: Gossip, Celebrity and American Politics
On Thursday, March 12, 2009 beginning at 7:30 pm at the Millennium Hotel, 6th and Elm downtown. TICKET PRICE: $25 each

Beyond her work as a journalist, Collins, a Cincinnati native, has published several books including her 1998 book, Scorpion Tongues: Gossip, Celebrity. Also, she wrote American Politics, America's Woman: 400 years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates and Heroines and The Millennium Book with her husband Dan Collins.