Previous Speaking Engagements

The corks were really popping at the official book launch of No Excuses! The store was packed, and we had a lively panel discussion with young feminists talking about how they are integrating the 9 Ways into their lives. A big thank you to Jan Goldstoff for taking such lovely photos at the event, and to Shelby Knox for live tweeting the discussion.

Left: No Excuses officially launches! My reading at Barnes and Noble Lincoln Triangle in New York.

Center: (Left to right) author of Black Women’s Lives, Kristal Brent Zook; media commentator Keli Goff; and Feed Fund co-founder Lauren Bush share their stories and discuss the 9 Ways power tools with me at the launch of No Excuses, Barnes and Noble Lincoln Triangle on 10/5.

Right: Surrounded by fabulous young feminists: Elizabeth Camuti, Jamia Wilson, and Shelby Knox

WomenGirlsLadies made a return visit to UMKC last week, thanks to the invitation from Women’s Center Director Brenda Bethman. Rather than a single event, this year’s Starr Symposium featured a series of community conversations about the “Work/Life Balance in a Woman’s Nation. Deborah Siegel, Courtney Martin, Kristal Brent Zook, and I kicked off the event with our WomenGirlsLadies panel, where we provided intergenerational perspectives on work and life choices. “Nobody loves you better because you have used yourself up for them,” was just one of the points that resonated with the crowd.

Immersed in conversation about when we felt powerful

Here’s what Rita Arens has to say about the event over on BlogHer:

I tend to lack a governor. I would write myself into an early grave if it weren’t for my family.

Balance, which I’ve written about before, is tough whether or not you live with other people. I don’t think for one minute that single people don’t have balance issues — in fact, if I were living alone, I would actually have more balance issues than I do now, because I would have to depend on myself to tear me away from the blinking screen . . . I am trying lately to avoid using myself up.

Rita came up to me after the panel and told me that she wished she had had someone like me to talk to when she was 15. I told her that I wish I had had Gloria Feldt to talk to when I was 15!

Here’s what Talyn Helman has to say in her Young Feminist’s Point of View.

I love Blog Talk Radio, and Jay Ackroyd has had me on his show before. This time, we were talking about the 9 Ways discussed in No Excuses. You can listen to the broadcast here, or download the transcript here.

The Burlington Book Festival was the second stop on my book tour. It was an honor to appear with authors like Peter Galbraith and Ann Hood. You can read more about it in the Burlington Free Press.

Left: Signing books after my presentation at the Burlington Book Festival, I met this amazing women who told her “power to” story: younger sister to five brothers, she told her mother she wanted to be a scientist. Her mother told her her brothers could become doctors and she could be a nurse. She persisted and became a scientist, one of few women in scientific research at the time. Her power to moment came when the men she worked with attempted to take the credit for her findings. She insisted that they give her equal billing–and they did.

Center: This woman is unlimited. She’s founder and CEO of a wind power company. Maybe the female Bill Gates is on the way?

Right: You can’t get there from Burlington except by Greyhound. After speaking at the Burlington Book Fair, I took the bus for Boston to attend a Jewish Women’s Archive board meeting.

Left: Michelle Robson was a rock star when I interviewed her at the Northern Trust book event about starting EmpowHer.com. Read more about the interview at EmpowHer.com.

Right: My first No Excuses book signing!

At the 2010 Blogher Conference, I was a keynote speaker on closing panel, called “How to Use Your Voice, Your Platform and Your Power.” Need to Know PBS anchor Alison Stewart moderated a powerhouse panel: Marie Wilson, Founder and President of The White House Project (and creator of Take Our Daughters to Work Day), and P. Simran Sethi, Emmy Award-winning journalist, blogger and environmentalist.

Empowerment is a constant theme at and on BlogHer. All signs point to others recognizing our power – as a group and as a demographic. How are we leveraging that power as individuals? How should we be?

Now that we know marketers and advertisers seek the opinions of women (who make over 80% of consumer purchases) and their blogs, how can we control what we are being sold? Now that we know having a unique presence online has turned us into “personal brands,” how can we use it to our best professional advantage? Now that we’re each part of the large BlogHer community and many sub-communities, how can we harness and strategically focus that collective power? How and when and for what can and should we turn on the power spigot?

Netroots Nation is the premier conference for progressive bloggers. So I’m totally thrilled that they accepted my proposal to facilitate a panel on “Why Women Are the Key to the Future of Progressive Election Victories.”

As the GOP has garnered victories in Massachussetts, Virginia and New Jersey since the 2008 presidential election, progressives are looking for a new path to keep the seats they have and win back the ones they’ve lost. Standard playbook assumptions about where, how and why progressives can win campaigns have been turned on their head as increasing numbers of voters feel disaffected and Tea Partiers throw wild cards into many races. Progressive women can embrace this moment to help move the progressive agenda forward. But too often the Democratic Party fails to recruit and support the very women candidates who could be game changers for progressive politics. We’ll discuss how the growing numbers of activist women—and organizations devoted to helping them participate in politics and political leadership—can help reconnect voters with important progressive economic and gender issues. And we’ll analyze how to access the untapped power of women who want to make a difference for progressive issues and what it will take to get them elected.

Three of our WomenGirlsLadies inter-generational panel members, Deborah Siegel, Courtney Martin, and I (we were missing Kristal Brent Zook, who couldn’t change her teaching schedule to appear on the show) had a chance to talk with Eldridge and Co. host Ronnie Eldridge on her CUNY television show.

Click the photo above to see the video. We covered the inter-generational waterfront, from the state of the women’s movement, what happens when feminists disagree about political candidates, how we’re going to get work-life balance policies and actual practice, and what we all have in common to how the women’s movement has changed men too.

Our next public event will be Sept. 28 at the University of Missouri Kansas City. We’d love to come speak to your group too! Contact me and I’ll be delighted to give you more information.

It was a real treat to speak at the National Association of Broadcasters Radio Show in Charlotte NC on one of my favorite topics, “Sister Courage.” Women’s advancement to the executive offices in radio has stalled. There are many women and men who want to change that, so they asked me to address how women can make it to the top once and for all. We had a spirited conversation about fresh solutions for getting ahead personally while breaking glass ceilings for all women using principles of movement building.

“This was not a speech, it was a conversation, a story-telling, a wake-up call and an inspiration. I can’t tell you how many people came up to me afterward and said ‘she should be our keynote speaker to several thousand broadcasters!’”
–Joan Gerberding, President, Local Focus; Founder, Mentoring and Inspiring Women in Radio

What’s a WomanGirlLady? Each member and (plural) the whole intergenerational panel that goes on the road together. Last week it was Courtney Martin and Kristal Brent Zook plus the amazing Maria Teresa Peterson (head of Voto Latino, who stepped admirably …