The Women’s Resource Center presented “Under Pressure: Women, Oppression, and Leadership” Friday, a daylong conference on feminism that highlighted the history of feminism and where it can lead. The conference had four goals: to set up coalitions between feminist and other campus groups; to be inclusive and focus not just on feminism but also other groups involved with civil rights; to help view how those groups intersect; and to tackle marginalization of women, said Zena Piccolo, who works at the Women’s Resource Center and organized the conference.
WRC hosts feminism insight conference
The Women’s Resource Center presented “Under Pressure: Women, Oppression, and Leadership” Friday, a daylong conference that highlighted the history of feminism and where it can lead.
The conference had four goals: to set up coalitions between feminist and other campus groups; to be inclusive and focus not just on feminism but also other groups involved with civil rights; to help view how those groups intersect; and to tackle marginalization of women, said Zena Piccolo, who works at the Women’s Resource Center and organized the conference.
The day was divided into three rounds of workshops with different sets of workshops for each round. Workshops tackled issues such as racism vs. sexism, what rape culture is, and the modern supermodel and professional anorexia, among others.
One central idea provided the foundation for the conference: The cause of feminism can be intertwined with other civil causes.
Attendees moved from workshop to workshop throughout the Smith Memorial Student Union, listening to speakers and participating in group discussions that served not only as an educational experience, but also as a means to meet others with similar ideals and life experiences.
Kathleen Saadat, director of diversity and human resources at the Cascade AIDS project, gave a keynote speech over the lunch portion of the day to a packed audience in the Multicultural Center.
Her speech was received with amusement, shock and cheers as she tackled controversial and difficult issues, such as the use of the words “bitch” or “nigger,” a subject that brought forth a number of comments and questions from the audience.
“We wanted to get someone involved with community organizing rather than someone who was just an academic professional,” said Piccolo on why they chose Saadat to deliver the keynote speech. “Some of the ways that we phrase stuff in an academic institution is too wordy.”
Saadat gave an overview of the history of feminism, providing interesting stories about figures such as Susan B. Anthony and Sojourner Truth.
But she also echoed the underlying theme of the conference, that feminism is related to other civil rights causes, offering the issues of race and sexual orientation as examples.
“The benefits of any women’s movement should accrue to all women’s groups,” Saadat said. “Can we have an effective movement that ignores gender, race and sexual orientation?”
She further noted that sometimes bigotry and biases of certain groups keep them from working together and in the end making progress.
After her speech Saadat remained to answer questions and to speak with a line of individuals from the audience.
Saadat has been involved with civil rights causes in the Portland area for a number of years, earning her such awards as the Woman of Achievement Award from Oregon State, the Portland Lesbian Community Project’s Spirit of Portlandia Award for Leadership and the Bayard Rustin Civil Rights Award form the Oregon chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, to name a few.
“I don’t know if black women feel more oppressed than any other women,” said Saadat. “But I do know it hurts, and that you don’t need any comparison.”
