Changing of the Guards ~ Communications Vice President Paradise Resigns

My Fellow Virginia NOW Officers & Members,
5/15/2018

It is with deep sadness that I inform you I will no longer be serving as an officer of Virginia NOW. I have been with this organization since I was 15 years old and it has been a remarkable journey. It has my privilege to grow up with Virginia NOW and it has been my privilege to know all of you. I will miss you dearly.

The two things I am most proud of during my time with Virginia NOW are the creation of the first ever Virginia NOW website and founding the Virginia Foremothers Oral History Project, where I was introduced to the most inspirational women I could ever hope to be in the presence of. It has been my greatest honor to assist in the preservation of their stories in both video and audio format.

In light of recent events under new management, I will be needing to find a new home for the Virginia Foremothers Oral History Project. Perhaps a women’s history museum would be appropriate. I will also be needing to find a new home for the content of the website I created for Virginia NOW. As I will not be a part of the upcoming website redesign, I will be endeavoring to find the best way to continue to share with you all of the information, tools, and resources that I built into our current website.

I would like to thank my web editor, Katie Regan, for her friendship, solidarity, and her support.

I must carry on now. I wish you all great happiness and joy in your present and future endeavors. Be well, always.

—
In Love and Revolution,
Paradise
Virginia NOW
Communications Vice President ♦️ Webmistress

“If I can’t dance, I’m not coming to your revolution.” – Emma Goldman

Putting Women Back Into History

The Women 2 Women Committee of the Tower Club presents: An Evening with Cokie Roberts and daughter Rebecca Boggs Roberts Thursday, May 24, 2018 6-9pm Tower Club-Tysons Corner 8000 Towers Crescent Drive, Suite #1700 Vienna, Va, 22182 The Women 2 Women Committee of the Tower Club is hosting a fundraiser to benefit the Turning Point Suffragist Memorial Association. The evening will feature a presentation by journalists/authors Cokie Roberts and her daughter, Rebecca Boggs Roberts. This dynamic mother-daughter duo will capture our attention with a presentation about “Putting Women Back Into History,” a timely topic with heightened attention to women’s issues and as we approach the centennial anniversary of the 19thAmendment in 2020. There will also be an opportunity to purchase books and have them signed by the Roberts. “Capitol Dames: The Civil War and the Women of Washington, 1848-1868” “Ladies of Liberty: The Women Who Shaped Our Nation” “Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation” By Cokie Roberts “Suffragists in Washington, D.C.: The 1913 Parade and the Fight for the Vote” By Rebecca Boggs Roberts Highlights: All tickets ($95, +fees) entitle you to a reception featuring heavy hors d’oeuvres and two drink tickets. Addtional libations will be available at a cash bar. A limited number of VIP tickets ($175, +fees) are available that entitle you to join the Roberts at a private reception. Silent/Live Auction featuring a variety of items including weekend getaways, art work, Nationals tickets, Luke Bryan concert tickets Sponsorship and Partnership opportunities may also be purchased through Eventbrite Click to Register   About The Memorial: Turning Point Suffragist Memorial Association is raising funds to build a national memorial to honor the millions of suffragists who fought more than seven decades to win the vote for women. It’s another hidden piece of women’s history even though it was a national campaign that included incidents of arrests, jail, torture and even death. The memorial will ensure that the suffrage story is elevated to its proper place in history and will educate present and future generations on the need for eternal vigilance for equal rights.  As author, Eleanor Clift, writes, “the suffragists engineered the greatest expansion of democracy in a single day that the world had ever seen, and yet…the leaders built no monuments to themselves, and too many of their names have been lost to history.” Please help us to bring to light the “best kept secret in American history.” http://www.suffragistmemorial.org The Turning Point Suffragist Memorial Association is a 501(c)(3)non-profit raising funds to build a national suffragist memorial at NOVA Parks’ Occoquan Regional Park, in Lorton, Va. Mission: To educate, inspire, and empower present and future generations to remain vigilant in the quest for equal rights.

 

Statewide Elections + A Letter From Our President

Virginia NOW Statewide Elections
Saturday, April 7th
Fox Point Clubhouse
6120 Blackstone Blvd.
Fredericksburg, VA 22407

Agenda

9-10 am: Registration; Coffee and donuts; time to relax

10-12 pm: Introductions of Speakers:

Eleanor Smeal and Alice Cohan, Feminist Majority and past president and vice-president of NOW

12-1 pm: Lunch

1-3 pm: Continuation of talks with the addition of Mary Ann Beall, Illinois faster for the ERA and fence climber at the White House

3-4 pm: Introduction of those running for office, speeches and election of new officers

A Letter from Our President…

Hi Everyone,

I wanted to say good-bye to all the VA NOW members, and to thank you for your time and work for VA NOW. I hope you will continue to be a NOW member in the future no matter where life takes you. We are the oldest women’s rights organization in the United States so let’s keep it going. If you would like to run for an office, you can come to the conference and submit your name. It is never too late. There are also appointed jobs to be filled. Take a chance. Below, I have listed a few of VA NOW’s accomplishments during my years as president. Unfortunately, I can not list all the good work that the chapters have accomplished across Virginia.

Diana Egozcue’s Presidential Accomplishments:

1 Hired a NOW member as a paid webmistress to assist and teach Paradise and Simone to create a new website and logo; Lisa Keyser is on contract to work as we need her.

2 Convened a meeting in Richmond with chapter leaders, officers, members and college women to talk about planning a future; a paid facilitator was hired from the VCU campus to direct the meeting.

3 Helped all chapters get their IRS accreditation back as well as VA NOW; it took me 4 years and a mountain of paperwork.

4 Found a new lawyer to get back our business license and solicitation license.

5 Started and restarted chapters around the state plus visiting them during the years.

6 Joined and worked with coalitions such as Virginia 2021, Transparency coalition, and Women’s Equality Coalition.

7 Hired a friend at minimal expense to us to create a VA NOW database to handle the membership lists and make them work for us as we wanted.

8 Hired a member who is a tax professional each year to file our taxes so we would not run afoul of the IRS again.

9 Put on a young feminist conference in Richmond which drew college and high school activists to discuss the issues important to them.

10 Preserved the rainy day investment account which is not to be touched, and worked only with what was available in the bank account. A money market fund had already been dissolved and used on PAC donations before I became president.

11 Created the VA NOW Foremother’s Project which has archived many feminists at the Smithsonian and VCU, and runs on YouTube. This is an ongoing project through our Communications VP, Paradise, and her helper.

Again, thank you for all you do have done, and will do in the future,

―Diana Egozcue, Virginia NOW President

Please join us in bidding farewell to our incredible president and welcoming our new candidates. We look forward to seeing you there!

Together we make change happen.

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Giving to Virginia NOW supports our mission for women’s economic, legal, social, and personal equality in all areas of life.

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From the Virginia Feminist Oral History Project Collection

Creating a Progressive Commonwealth:

Women Activists, Feminism, and Politics of Social Change in Virginia, 1970s-2000s

When

March 19, 2018 from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM

Register

Where

James Branch Cabell Library, Lecture Hall (Room 303)
901 Park Ave., Richmond, Va. 23284

About

The 2,999,999th volume is The Virginia Feminist Oral History Project, 2013–2014 by Megan Shockley, Ph.D., a collection of born-digital oral histories made available online through Special Collections and Archives via a finding aid. Shockley’s donation of this material makes it possible for VCU Libraries to preserve and provide access to the voices of second-wave feminists throughout Virginia. In a talk titled “Creating a Progressive Commonwealth: Women Activists, Feminism, and the Politics of Social Change in Virginia, 1970s–2000s,” she discusses her work on and findings from the project. The talk is followed by a reception.

VCU Libraries celebrates the 3-millionth addition to its library collections in 2018 with a series of events called Milestones. The events highlight the 2,999,999th volume (an oral history collection featuring second-wave feminists in central Virginia), the 3,000,000th volume (a seminal new book about treatment of traumatic brain injury, co-authored by David X. Cifu, M.D., chair of VCU’s Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation) and the 3,000,001st volume (an artists’ book by VCU alumna Colette Fu).

This event, like every event in the Milestones series, is free and open to all, but please register. For special accommodations, please call the VCU Libraries Events Office at (804) 828-0593 at least two days prior to the event.

Schedule and Registration

Please complete this online form.

About the Speaker

Megan Shockley, Ph.D., is the author of the forthcoming Combating Southern Patriarchy: Virginia Feminists and the Politics of Social Change (Louisiana State University Press, 2018), which draws from the oral histories that make up The Virginia Feminist Oral History Project, the 2,999,999th volume to be added to VCU Libraries’ collection. She is also the author of Changing History: Virginia Women Through Four Centuries (with Cynthia Kierner and Jennifer Loux) (Library of Virginia Press, 2013), The Captain’s Widow of Sandwich: Self-Invention and the Life of Hannah Rebecca Burgess, 1834–1917 (New York University Press, 2010) and ‘We, Too, Are Americans’: African American Women in Detroit and Richmond, 1940–1954 (University of Illinois Press, 2004). She teaches courses in museum studies, heritage tourism, digital history and women’s history at Clemson University. She is the coordinator of the Public History Emphasis Area Program and supervises internships and is a project manager on the Palmetto History Project.

Tribute to Patsy Ticer

Have your purchased your ticket to the Tribute to Patsy Ticer?

If not, click here now.

There are few women who have had a more profound influence on Alexandria than our beloved Patsy Ticer. As the first female Mayor of Alexandria and as a Virginia State Senator, Patsy dedicated her life to those less fortunate; to improving the quality of education, especially for our youngest learners; and to making our community a better place to live and work. The Alexandria Commission for Women and the Friends of the Alexandria Commission for Women are very honored to be recognizing Patsy and her many contributions at a very special Tribute to Patsy Ticer. We hope you will be part of it.

The event, which will include a cocktail reception and program highlighting her life, will be held on Monday, March 19, 2018 at the George Washington Masonic National Memorial, located at 101 Callahan Dr., Alexandria, VA.

Tickets are $50 and again, you can purchase them here.

We the Women Exhibition

In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, the National Archives will launch a nationwide initiative and major exhibition that explores the generations-long fight for universal woman suffrage. Our fundraising event – We the Women – will serve as a launching point for this bold initiative and help provide financial support for the National Archives. The Exhibition will include:

• Speakeasies, specialty cocktails and tasting stations from women-owned and led businesses including Drink Company, Columbia Room, Denizens Brewing Company, Chaia, Catoctin Creek Distilling Company, Gray Wolf Craft Distillery, Lyon Distilling Company, and Republic Restoratives
• Light hors d’oeurves
• Historic suffragist documents on view
• Live jazz and swing music
• Dance lessons including the “Charleston” by GottaSwing
• Make your own suffragist-themed buttons and sashes
• Chat with Archives curators and historians
• After-hours access to museum exhibits
• Themed photo booth
• Cocktail attire, suffragist white — or come in 1920’s era theme (suffragist, Gatsby, etc.). There will be stations and props to help you get in character.

Purchase Tickets Here

Any amount paid in excess of $85/ticket is considered an unrestricted donation and is fully deductible as provided by law. Proceeds from We the Women will support the National Archives’ Rightfully Hers Initiative and Exhibition and the digitization of women’s records.

 *On behalf of the National Archives Foundation

Act NOW to Support the ERA

House Committee on Privileges and Elections to Consider United States Constitution; Equal Rights Amendment

RESOLUTIONS NUMBERS: HJ 2, 4, 129

TITLE: United States Constitution; Equal Rights Amendment

ACTION: Call your legislators and urge them to support HJ 2, 4 & 129! These are great resolutions with bipartisan support. It’s time for Virginia to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. It has been ratified by 36 states, including Nevada just last year. This resolution advocates that the General Assembly ratify the ERA. Now is the time for equal rights for women!

Only two more states are needed to ratify; Virginia could be one of them. The bills ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment are already gaining bipartisan support. In fact, Republican Delegate Roxann Robinson has filed a House bill and John McGuire is a co-patron. Expanding this to a bipartisan majority will give the General Assembly national accolades for its leadership during these contentious times.

The ERA will give Congress greater Constitutional authority to enact legislation to protect women. Without this, legislation protecting women could be invalidated, as happened in 2000, when the Supreme Court struck down the civil remedy provision of the Violence Against Women Act.
Ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment is good politics for Virginia, especially now when national attention is focused on women’s issues and technology companies are looking to locate in welcoming sites in the Southeast. Ratifying the ERA would attract such companies to Virginia.
For additional talking points: tinyurl.com/VAratifyERAtalkpt2

PATRONS: HJ 2: Kaye Kory; chief co-patrons Eileen Filler-Corn; Jennifer Carroll Foy; Hala Ayala; HJ 4: Alfonso Lopez; HJ 129: Roxanne Robinson; chief co-patron Kaye Kory

If your Delegate is on the list below, call and say why you support this joint resolution.
Or email: DelXXX@senate.virginia.gov (fill in your Delegate’s first initial and last name)
Find your Delegate here: whosmy.virginiageneralassembly.gov

 

A Personal Reminder About Online Bullying Between Feminists

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A personal reminder from Virginia NOW’s Communications Vice President, Paradise

~o~

Any time someone says to you, ‘you’re not a feminist if you don’t also support _________’, realize immediately that this is NOT your issue. This is a conflict that the original poster needs to resolve within themselves.

~o~

These kinds of posts are a flagrant abuse of power and manipulation, whereby the poster banks on someone else’s insecurities, guilts and fears in order to create lapdog who will do their preaching for them. 

These social justice warriors need to bully others into believing what they believe, and should you disagree, you’re simply not a part of the women’s movement any longer.

And this is just lies and manipulation. 

Nastiness, bullying, and political guilt trips should be non-existent between fellow feminists within the movement.  Women receive enough guilt in their day to day lives.  Let us not retreat back to high school tactics as our new form of advocacy.  Let us seek camaraderie in the feminist community. Let us seek a safe haven to share our thoughts, our passions, and our struggles without being shut down for saying something outside the status quo.

Christians used to do this to me all the time. They would tell me that if I wasn’t their denomination of Christianity, then I wasn’t really a Christian. So I said, “K, then I’m not a Christian.”

I don’t want to reach this same point with feminism.

It’s very sad to see so many of these ‘faux feminist social justice warrior elites’ bully lifelong feminists with explicit sexist and racist slurs.  I’m used to seeing this kind of behavior from the radical right.  I’ve come to learn that radical is radical, regardless of whether it’s from the right or left.

“Feminism is a great sisterhood of love and support where the acceptance of different ideas and perspectives is welcomed for the greater good.  This is liberation.  The right to disagree and the choice to still support each other is actual feminism.“

I might not be in someone else’s denomination of feminism, but that doesn’t mean I’m not an incredible feminist and aficionada of the women’s liberation movement.

So please, if you see a feminist attacking someone else – especially online, even if you agree with his or her stance, call them out on it.  Tell them to try another approach.  Why?  Because they are single-handedly making potential newbie feminists back AWAY from the women’s movement. These bullies are creating resistance to what you represent.

There are so many different topics to address in the women’s movement that it would be a waste of our collective knowledge, resources, and solutions if we only worked on the same issues.  Welcome what others can bring to the movement.

A movement, after all, is only as good as its people. Be kind and be awesome.

♥️♥️♥️♥️

Love and light,
Paradise

P.S. Thank you to my incredible web editor, Katie Regan, who encouraged me to post this on Virginia NOW’s blog.  You’re an inspiration, m’friend.  xoxo!

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Join a Centennial Commemoration “Night of Terror”

The Workhouse Arts Center Prison Museum and
The Turning Point Suffragist Memorial Association present:

Centennial Commemoration 
“Night of Terror”

Sunday, November 12, 2017
2-5pm

Workhouse Arts Center, Bldg W-16 Gallery
9518 Workhouse Road, Lorton, Virginia 20079

On November 14, 1917, thirty-two women arrested for picketing the White

House for the right to vote were beaten, chained, and force-fed at the Occoquan Workhouse. It came to be known as “The Night of Terror.” Their indomitable strength and sacrifice helped turn the tide in efforts to have the 19th Amendment passed. Ratification eventually occurred in 1920. Help us celebrate and commemorate this important turning point in the history of the suffrage movement in the United States and remember these remarkable women known as the Silent Sentinels.

Highlights:

• “Struggle for the Vote,” a talk by suffrage historian, Dr. Elisabeth Griffith
• Staged, dramatic reading of the Occoquan suffragists’ own accounts
• NY Metropolitan Museum of Art quartet-in-residence, PUBLIQuartet presents world premiere of commissioned work, “Silent Sentinels”
• Anthems of protest led by Capital Harmonia community women’s chorus
• Ceremonial Bell Ringing — Remembering the 32

Registration is free; Donations appreciated

**Limited seating available**

Register Now! http://www.workhousearts.org/event/nightofterror/

The Turning Point Suffragist Memorial Association is a 501(c)(3)non-profit raising funds to build a national suffragist memorial at NOVA Parks’ Occoquan Regional Park, in Lorton, Va.
Mission: To educate, inspire, and empower present and future generations to remain vigilant in the quest for equal rights.

Join Susan Swecker to Support Women Running in Rural Districts

Tuesday, October 17, 2017
Time: 7:00PM – 9:00PM
Location: the home of Melissa Harrison, 110 E. Braddock Rd. Alexandria, 22301. Open street parking, residential neighborhood

Please join DPVA Chairwoman Susan Swecker, Alexandria City Councilman John Chapman, and House of Delegate candidates Stephanie Cook (HD-09 – Franklin, Henry, and Patrick Counties), Natalie Short (HD-23 – Lynchburg, Bedford, Amherst Counties) and Angela Lynn (HD-25 – Augusta, Albemarle, and Rockingham Counties).

This election cycle is seeing unprecedented Democratic energy on the ground all across Virginia. But reaching constituents in rural districts takes a lot more effort and resources. The purpose of this event is to show solidarity and raise money for three women candidates running in rural areas of Central and Southwest Virginia. Let’s show rural Virginia Democratic voters that we stand with them!

Host committee: Ashkan Bayanpour, Jill Caiazzo, Jessica Church, Leo Cruz, Marvin Figueroa, Bishop Garrison, Marj Signer, Terron Sims, Monique Alcala

Contribution levels: $250.00, $100.00, $75.00, $25.00
Event link: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/nova4ruralvawomen

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/393255111106361/?ti=icl