From left to right: Myra Duran, Tani Ikeda, Morgane Richardson, Miranda Petersen, Melanie Klein, Brie Widaman and Jollene Levid

Thursday night, feminists drove from all over L.A. to be at the Young Feminists Speak Out event in Santa Monica.  While the panel (click here for a list of all featured panelists and their bios) focused on the new generation of feminists, people of all ages were in attendance to talk and listen.  The event was put together by Morgane Richardson, a feminist originally hailing from the east coast, Myra Duran and Miranda Petersen.  Upon moving to Los Angeles and noticing a lack of feminist gatherings in Los Angeles, Morgane was inspired to organize a diverse panel of LA-area feminists  and connected with Myra and Miranda to make the vision a reality. They are already working on more feminist events for the Los Angeles area.  Melanie Klein and Miranda Petersen moderated, and asked questions which ranged from how each panelist “found” feminism, to whether there’s a need for a current mainstream icon for the feminist movement.

One of the questions asked was whether there is an “east-coast/west-coast divide” in terms of organization, issues, and focus in the movement.  I was surprised to hear panelists disagree that a divide exists.  Ever since changing my major to Women’s Studies, I’ve wanted to do work for a feminist-focused company, and while there are some in Los Angeles, or regional offices for larger organizations, a great majority exist in Washington D.C. and New York City.

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…and it ain’t over. The iconic Gloria Steinem reminds us why the rights we enjoy should not be taken-for-granted and the miles we have yet to tread.

(Reuters) – A message to all those confident young American women from pioneering feminist Gloria Steinem: For all the advances in women’s rights in the past 40 years, equality remains a distant hope.

As she turns 76 next week, the woman who walked the front lines of American feminism in the 1960s and 1970s — often in a miniskirt, big glasses and buttons with colorful expletives — celebrates her good health and “huge, huge leaps forward.”

But Steinem has plenty of bones to pick with government and society when it comes to women’s rights.

American women workers still earn only 70 cents to men’s $1, women are barred from combat, women’s health care premiums are higher and raising children is not counted as productive work, she says.

While abortion is legal in the United States, Steinem says the reproductive freedom she fought for is under attack, as seen in efforts to include limits on abortion in the health care reform debate now in Congress.

“I thought if we got majority support around issues, that we would succeed, and that is not necessarily the case,” Steinem told Reuters on Tuesday before being honored by the Women’s Reproductive Rights Assistance Project in Beverly Hills.

For those awaiting a woman president of the United States, Steinem throws more cold water on their hopes, claiming she will likely not see that in her lifetime.

Steinem supported Hillary Clinton in her drive to be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2008 and credits her with “changing the molecules in the air a little bit” by making millions more men and women imagine a woman president.

Yet, she still maintains that the United States is not ready to elect a woman president because “female authority is still associated with a domestic setting and seems inappropriate in a public setting.”

“It will take longer, but when we have someone, she will be more likely to actually represent the majority interests of women,” said Steinem, founding co-editor of Ms. magazine.

Nita Rubio was born and raised in Southern California in a liberal household. Nonetheless, women’s rights, women’s studies, and  female empowerment were not things inherently included in this liberalism. Luckily, spirituality and creativity were highly regarded and served as the pathway for self-discovery and deep personal inquiry. At the age of 18, Nita began to read authors such as Carol Christ, Luisah Tesh, Riane Eisler and more. This impacted her deeply and it was incredibly exciting to know of these women who viewed the personal as political and that even the paradigm of patriarchy needed to be extracted from our spiritual beliefs. Following this new way of perceiving her walk in the world, Nita was formally ordained as a Priestess through Woman Mysteries of the Ancient-Future Sisterhood. Although this mystery school teaches many
spiritual arts, its rare inclusion is that of the need for its Priestess’s to fully explore the extent of misogyny held deeply in the feminine body. Nita has been teaching the core work of the lineage, The Tantric Dance of Feminine Power for the last 13 years. At this time, Nita is passionate about learning and teaching the matriarchal and tribal roots of Tantra and helping women to explore the depths of power viscerally held in their bodies.

My “click” moment: At the age of 17 or 18 I was in a deeply rebellious mode and was down in Mexico with friends and boyfriend. Lots of partying, fun and frolicking. A girlfriend and I had walked to the car to get more beers and were approached by two other guys asking for some beer (but, of course, really looking to pick us up.) Our response of “no” was repeatedly ignored again and again. It got tiresome and irritating as the intensity of the requests increased. Finally I blurted out “We have boyfriends” and those seemed to be the magic words for those guys to leave us in peace.  We returned to the party but I couldn’t engage. I felt uneasy and disturbed by the interaction. About 15 minutes later the answer to my uneasiness came in like a lightning bolt. We had to belong to other men to be left alone. Our simple “no” had not been good enough. I felt sick. And awake all of a sudden. Just after that I read The Women’s Room by Marilyn French which profoundly affected me.

Favorite reading materials: The Great Cosmic Mother by Monica Sjoo, Shakti Woman by Vicki Noble, Passionate Enlightenment by Miranda Shaw and The Women’s Room by Marilyn French.

Feminist icon: Gloria Steinem

Personal role model: All women who have taken the risk of personal loss to no longer compromise the calling of their Spirit.

My issues/concerns: That women don’t know what they don’t know. I am concerned that women’s studies (at least when I went to school) are an elective. I am concerned about the height and frenzy of the media and celebrity that contributes to the disassociation of our bodies and our own internal desires. I am concerned that women are still slaves all over the world and that this seems to be acceptable.

Websites:

www.embodyshakti.typepad.com
www.embodyshakti.com
www.greatgoddess.org

Favorite quote: “Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.” ~Cheris Kramarae and Paula Treichler