Marriage and Pregnancy
Pages: 1 [2]
2008 - Seven Who Soar With Open Wings
mirror to the Center"s growing influence. Sister organizations in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic have now been established. Anucha Browne Sanders, Challenger of Personal Fouls Anucha Browne Sanders, the basketball executive who was fired for speaking up about sexual harassment on the job, took on one of the most powerful sports organizations in the country and scored a major victory for working women. "It is my hope that all women will be able to work in an environment that is free of discrimination and harassment and that any women who stands up for her rights will be taken seriously by her employer rather than retaliated against," Browne Sanders said after settling her lawsuit against the New York Knicks in December. The agreement followed an October jury verdict that awarded Browne Sanders $11.6 million in punitive damages for being sexually harassed by Knicks coach and former NBA star Isiah Thomas. Under the agreement, she will receive $11.5 million. Browne Sanders emphasizes that what happened to her at the Knicks isn"t endemic to the U.S. athletic community. A former college basketball star at Northwestern University, she felt that as a female athlete she had always gotten respect. "It isn"t the sports world," she says. "It"s leadership. If leaders say no from the start, that message is sent directly to the organization." "This could have been avoided," she adds. "All they had to do was tell him to behave." Browne Sanders says it wasn"t hard to speak up. "I was so taken aback that the way they responded was to fire me," she says. "I"d never been fired in my life. The feeling--I can"t describe it. To be fired for something you wanted support on, that you knew you were right about. It gave me the resolve to say, "No, I"m not going to put up with this."" She recalls walking in with three lawyers to see a Knicks legal staff that far outnumbered hers. Then one day in a parking lot she encountered a woman who said, ""Anucha, I want you to know that you"re fighting for every working mother." She was almost in tears, she was so proud of me," she recalls. Browne Sanders hadn"t contemplated what a victory would mean, but at that point she realized how many faceless women were in her corner. "It was something that deeply affected me. I wanted justice." Now working in Buffalo, N.Y., Browne Sanders ultimately hopes her victory sends a message to companies to "take control of the working environment and make sure it"s free of harassment, free of discrimination, and that people are not going to be retaliated against." Lorraine Drammer Serena, Dreamer Outside the Box In 1991, Lorraine Drammer Serena of Santa Barbara, Calif., realized that the act of sharing an artistic endeavor with others had a particular power. The insight came while discussing with several female friends who were artists how to "connect with women around the world, honor their voices and visions." They felt women"s oppression created a poignancy and potential for triggering change. This was the beginning of Women Beyond Borders. A plain wooden box--"the size of a human heart, very big in expression but small in dimensions," as Serena describes it--became the vessel for women to make an artwork, to be free to create whatever they want in, around or with it. To spread the idea, they contacted other artists and curators they knew around the world and asked women to contribute by word of mouth. One even put the boxes in their children"s and friend"s backpacks as they prepared to travel. Boxes came back transformed into miniature works of art from places as diverse as Israel, Singapore, Argentina and Austria. Some boxes are enameled or painted; others have been cut up to make figures. One artist wrapped hers in rubber bands to express the tension of being a woman. Another fashioned her box into a face with a long tongue bearing a quotation about the power of women"s words. Participants in the project are "doing what women do best," says Serena. "The act of collaboration itself is what made this project possible." Over 5,000 women and children have contributed from 50 nations. In Kenya, Women Beyond Borders had the first all-woman exhibition in the national museum"s history. The project has received boxes from women in Afghanistan to Zambia and from every continent. The boxes add to a group dialogue about the place of women in society and nurture alliances with other women, expressing truths about relationships, sexism, poverty and more. Many women write about their pieces, which become a part of the artwork and discussion. After 15 years collecting hundreds of boxes and showing them in temporary exhibits, Serena and the Women Beyond Borders staff and board are searching for a permanent home. Serena considers the community she"s built to be a work of art in itself, and says that, paradoxically, many say that the box project has "allowed women to think outside the box." Lekha Singh, Focused Image-Maker In Lekha Singh"s photographs, both in print and on gallery walls, women are brought from the margins of society into sharp focus. Singh creates dramatic images that raise awareness of global crises, with a particular focus on poverty and its effect on women. Singh grew up in India, where she recalls seeing great respect for women alongside terrible abuse. "What my photographs do is bring the commonality up front," Singh says. "Who are you seeing: your sister, your mother, your daughter?" In October 2000, Singh founded and became the first CEO of Aidmatrix, an international organization with a mission to bring help and hope to peoples" lives in times of disaster and situations of poverty by mobilizing "the right aid to the right people at the right time." Aidmatrix connects aid--in the form of surplus products and goods including cash and food, clothing, building supplies and medical and educational supplies--by using technology to enable a speedy and efficient delivery of aid to people in need. In this way, Aidmatrix links together more than 35,000 charitable organizations on five continents. Through Aidmatrix partnerships, food aid is distributed each year to more than 25 million Americans, 67 percent of whom are women. To date, Aidmatrix has distributed more than $50 million dollars" worth of aid to over 1 billion people globally. Singh now serves as a board member and advisor for many major nongovernmental organizations that are led by or support women, including Women for Women International and the Green Belt Movement. "Helping women has wide reverberations," she says. Singh has also supported development programs in sub-Saharan Africa for women, many of whom are HIV-positive and in need of medicine and treatments. "If I help 100,000 women who have 10 kids to prolong their life with drugs, I"m helping over a million kids." "When you help a woman, you help a whole family," she says. "You help generations to come." Singh"s photos of Afghan women rebuilding their lives after years of devastating conflict are published in National Geographic"s "The Other Side of War: Women"s Stories of Survival and Hope." Her second book, "The Making of an Activist," is a wake-up call for young activists around the world and her third book, "Call to Love: In the Rose Garden with Rumi," was published in 2007. Sarah Seltzer is a writer for Women"s eNews in New York City. For more information: The National Council of Jewish Women: http://www.ncjw.org/ Center for Studies in Applied Sciences in Gender: http://www.csaga.org.vn/default.en.asp Acciona Energy: http://www.acciona-energy.com Dominican Women"s Development Center (El Centro) : http://www.dwdc.org/ University of Buffalo Athletics: http://www.ubathletics.buffalo.edu/ Women Beyond Borders: http://womenbeyondborders.org/ Aidmatrix Foundation: http://www.aidmatrix.org/ Note: Women"s eNews is not responsible for the content of external Internet sites and the contents of Web pages we link to may change without notice.Pages: 1 [2]