The 20th Annual Women's Studies Conference
"Women and Labor:
At Home, At Work, Around the Globe"
To be held on the campus of Southern Connecticut State University
Friday and Saturday, April 20 and 21
Hotel Reservations
Keynote speakers:
Dolores Huerta
Lilly leDbetter
Dolores Huerta's feminist seed was planted by her mother's independence and entrepreneurial spirit. Huerta's mother, Alicia, encouraged the cultural diversity that was a natural part of her upbringing in Stockton, CA. Huerta found her calling as an organizer while serving as a leader of the Stockton Community Service Organization (CSO). She founded the Agricultural Workers Association, launched the National Farm Workers Association with César E. Chavez, and was instrumental in the enactment of the Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975. Within women's liberation, Huerta initially dismissed the 1960s women's movement as a "middle-class phenomenon". She consciously began to challenge gender discrimination within the farm workers movement.
For more information on Dolores Huerta and her activism, please visit http://www.doloreshuerta.org
Listen to why Dolores Huerta decided to change her life in this interview.
The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the first piece of real legislation Barack Obama signed as the 44th President of the United States, helps ensure that workers discriminated on the basis of gender have a fair chance to sue their employers. The Act was signed into action on January 29, 2009. Lilly Ledbetter became a woman's equality activist after the Supreme Court ruled against her in the case of Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company.
For more information on Lilly Ledbetter and the case of Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, please visit
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1874954,00.html
Listen to an interview with Lilly Ledbetter telling her story.
INVITATION FOR PROPOSALS ON INTERDISCIPLINARY SCHOLARLY
AND CREATIVE WORK
CLICK TO DOWNLOAD PDF
Our 20th annual conference addresses one perennial struggle in women's movements across the globe: labor. As we witness this spring the surge of labor movements in the U.S. as labor is challenged-specifically, unionized & feminized labor, we also receive findings, just released in May 2011 by Ms. Foundation for Women, that women are bearing the brunt of today's economic crisis. More than ever, women's labor is at the forefront of our struggles. In a different part of the world, we continue to observe women's critical contribution to what is now called the Arab Awakening. Yet we, too, see little representation of women in the wake of the Egyptian revolution. By all accounts, the report cards on women and labor have made less than significant progress over the decades. In this annual conference, we invite colleagues and activists to take a close look at all issues concerning women and labor, in both private and public domains as well as globally and locally. Employed as a category of analysis in women's and gender studies, feminist analyses of gender and labor do not simply travel throughout diverse communities and academic disciplines in the U.S., but they also travel globally, generating significant connections with other fields. With this conference, we will have an opportunity to examine the body of activist and scholarly feminist work on women and labor. What aspect of labor continues to be the struggle that women share across the race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, nationality divide? How might we begin to talk about women and labor without collapsing the multicultural, heterogeneous, global and transnational within us? How have women contributed their labor artistically, culturally, and politically, in our communities as well as around the globe? What challenges do women and girls across races, classes, religions, and cultures face in an increasingly globalized world? Going forward, what might labor as a site of knowledge production further benefit our work and struggle in the human community? What are some of the best practices?
PROPOSAL FORMAT: Faculty, students, staff, administrators, and community activists from all disciplines and fields are invited to submit proposals for individual papers, complete sessions, panels, or round tables. Poster sessions, performance pieces, video recordings, and other creative works are also encouraged. For individual papers, please submit a one-page abstract. For complete panels, submit a one-page abstract for each presentation plus an overview on the relationship among individual components. For the poster sessions and artwork, submit a one-page overview. All proposals must include speaker's/speakers' name(s), affiliation(s), and contact information (address, E-mail, & telephone number). Please also indicate preference for Friday afternoon, Saturday morning or Saturday afternoon; all attempts will be made to honor schedule requests.
PANELS: Each 75 minute session usually includes three presenters and a session moderator, but individual presenters may request an entire session for a more substantial paper or presentation. Presenters are encouraged, though not required, to form their own panels. The conference committee will group individual proposals into panels and assign a moderator. Please indicate in your contact information if you are willing to serve as a moderator.
POSTERS, ART DISPLAYS, AND SLIDE PRESENTATIONS: A poster presentation consists of an exhibit of materials that report research activities or informational resources in visual & summary form. An art display consists of a depiction of feminist concerns in an artistic medium. Both types of presentations provide a unique platform that facilitates personal discussion of work with interested colleagues & allows meeting attendees to browse through highlights of current research. Please indicate in your proposal your anticipated needs in terms of space, etc
In keeping with the conference theme, suggested topics include, but are not limited to:
Women, Technology, & Labor
Motherhood & Labor
Women & Labor Movements
Working Women and Childcare/Elder Care
Sexism& Racism in Labor
Single, Childless Women's Labor
Women and Sex Labor
Women, Labor, & Heterosexist Privilege
Women & Child Labor
Women's Labor & Leadership
Gender, Race, Class & Labor
Women, Health, and Labor
Women's Movements & Labor
Ethnography & Women & Labor
21st Century Slavery
Women, Labor, Academe
Then and Now: Women and Labor
Women's Labor and the Arab Awakening
Women, Community, & Labor
Women and Care Economy
Indigenous Women and Labor
Women & Domestic Labor
Women & Emotional/Care Work
Women and Unions
Women, Labor, and Resistance
Women and Volunteerism
Women, Immigration, Labor
Women's Labor in Fashion Industries
Labor and Violence against Women
Women & Food Production/Industries
Women and Unemployment
Girls, Young Women and Labor Market
Wage Gap and Glass Ceiling
Women, Labor, and Artistic Expression
Women, Labor, Incarceration
Women's Labor across/between Worlds
We also invite your ideas and suggestions. Conference sessions will juxtapose cultural, generational, and geopolitical perspectives for the collective re-examination of narratives on women and labor. Expect serious fun through meals and performance, with women, girls and their allies speaking of their struggles and power.
Submission Deadline: Postmarked by December 1, 2011
Please submit proposals and supporting materials to:
Women's Studies Conference Committee
Women's Studies Program, EN B 229
Southern Connecticut State University
501 Crescent Street
New Haven, CT 06515
Or via E-mail to:
womenstudies@southernct.edu, with attention to Conference Committee. If you have any questions, please call the Women's Studies office at (203) 392-6133.
Please include name, affiliation, E-mail, standard mailing address, and phone number. Proposals should be no longer than one page, with a second page for identification information. Panel Proposals are welcome.
The Annual Women's Studies Conference at SCSU is self-supporting; all presenters can pre-register at the discounted presenter's fee. The fee includes all costs for supporting materials, entrance to keynote events, and all meals and beverage breaks.
Past Conferences
- 2010: "Women and Girls of Color: History, Heritage, Heterogeneity"
- 2008: "Girls' Culture & Girls' Studies: Surviving, Reviving, Celebrating Girlhood"
- 2007: "Global and Local Women's Studies: Going on 40"
- 2006: "Women's Health: Colonized, Resisted, Reclaimed"
- 2005: "Asian and Pacific Women: Indigenous and Diasporic"
- 2004: "Women, Power and Politics"
- 2003: "Women, War and Peace"
- 2002: "Ecofeminist Ethics & Activism: Re-Envisioning the Future"
- 2001: "All Women of Red Nations Weaving Connections"
- 2000: "Women of African Descent: Reaching Across the Diaspora"
- 1999: "Global Justice/Women's Rights"
- 1998: "Fulfilling Possibilities: Women & Girls with Disabilities"
- 1997: "Latina Visions for Transforming the Americas"
- 1996: "Change the Politics: Women Make the Difference"
- 1995: "The Fate of Feminism: Is there a Next Generation?"
- 1994: "Women's Voices/ Women's Power: Theory, Action, Transformation"
- 1993: "Women Building Community: Crossing the Boundaries of Race, Religion, Class, Gender..."
- 1992: "Celebrating Our Diversity: Women Revisioning the Future"
- 1991: "Women's Studies in the 1990s: Where Have We Been? Where Are We Going?"

