The next session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW67) will take place in the next couple of weeks (March 06-17), and it will bring to the UN Headquarters in New York representatives from all UN Member States and thousands of delegates from civil society and NGOs.

This year is the first time since the pandemic that CSW is meeting in-person. The good news is this year it will use a hybrid format with many meetings open to all who would like to attend and register (free registration) or stream on the UN TV.

SWS would like to encourage all of you to attend some of the meetings online and/or through the UN TV webcasts.

We also hope that your students (please share this with students) will enjoy this opportunity to attend some of the UN CSW67, a global policy-making body dedicated exclusively to promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women, as well as over 700 events organized by incredibly diverse NGOs and grass-roots organizations from all over the world.

Here are some relevant information and links for the three types of main events and the SW panels:

1. UN Official Meetings

2. Side Events organized by various countries (about 100 side events)

3. Parallel events, over 700 events organized by NGOs from all over the world and covering a very wide range of issues and movements.

4. SWS organized two panels – the second one will be virtual on 3/17/23 4:30 pm (see information below).

Please read below the information on how to participate virtually in the three types of meetings: Official Meetings; Side Events and Parallel Events.

CSW67 Themes and SWS Statement to CSW67

The main theme of the CSW67 will be:

Priority theme: Innovation and technological change, and education in the digital age for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls

SWS submitted a Written Statement to CSW67 as a non-governmental organization in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council.

The SWS full Statement can be seen here: SWS2023CSW.

CSW67 documents

You can read CSW67 official documents at https://www.unwomen.org/en/csw/csw67-2023/official-documents

MAIN EVENTS (UN Meetings, Side Events, NGO Forum’s Consultation Day and Parallel Events)

IMPORTANT: In order to enjoy the most of the CSW67, it is highly recommended that you study the lists of the three types of events (UN Meetings, Side Events and Parallel /NGO Events) and build your own calendar. The events take place and you will need to carefully plan in order to prioritize.

The link to CSW67 is: https://www.unwomen.org/en/csw/csw67-2023

1. UN OFICIAL MEETINGS:

Here is the link to the UN Official Meetings in the two weeks of CSW67 March 06 – 17. https://www.unwomen.org/en/csw/csw67-2023/official-meetings

At the official UN meetings with government representatives, you get to hear reports and plans of actions at the highest level.

CSW official meetings will be available via webcast – you can follow these broadcasts live or on demand via United Nations Web TV at http://webtv.un.org/

2. SIDE EVENTS:

This is where you get to hear specific UN sponsored organizations (such as UN Women or UNICEF) and nation-state sponsored events. Many very relevant and interesting panels are organized by individual countries or groups of countries.

A few larger events are also organized by the UN Social and Economic Council.

Here is the link to the calendar of side events (some allow virtual access):  https://www.unwomen.org/en/csw/csw67-2023/side-events

3. PARALLEL EVENTS:

Events organized by civil society/NGOs – over 700 – it’s where you get to hear directly about the work NGOs are doing.

Here is a link to the NGO CSW67 Forum: https://ngocsw.org/

On the link above to the NGO CSW67 webpage you will be able to:

• Register (free) for the NGO CSW67 virtual meetings: https://ngocsw.org/ngocsw67/
• After you register, you will have to create a Whova account to access the Forum Agenda. The NGO CSW 67 Forum Agenda is also available on the Whova Mobile App: Download Link.
• Watch the ORIENTATION VIDEOS. These videos can be very helpful to give you a general understanding of the structure and content of the NGO Forum, especially if this is the first time you are attending it: https://ngocsw.org/ngocsw67/

4. SWS PANELS

SWS will hold two parallel events/panels: the first one will be in-person but the second one will be virtual.

PANEL II: Feminist Confrontations with Patriarchy in STEM, Education & Community Networks

DATE & TIME: 3/17/23 4:30 PM EST

ZOOM REGISTRATION:  https://csus.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_U9v1AYqfSsec8nLSoaUnVA

• Assata Zerai, Ph.D., “Deploying the principles of feminist decoloniality as care (FEMDAC) to confront experiences with racial and intersectional microaggressions (RIMAs) among Black women faculty members in the U.S. and South Africa.”
• Karine Lepillez, MA, “Technology & pandemic adaptations for girls’ education: Centrality of mentoring relationships & situated learning.”
• Yasemin Besen-Cassino, Ph.D. “Gender Inequality in STEM education: A longitudinal study of interdisciplinary internships.”
• Meghna Dutta, Ph.D. Student, “The war on gender discrimination & Witch hunting in Assam, India.”

5. THE US WOMEN’S CAUCUS AT THE UN

In the last few years, SWS members and ECOSOC and CSW representatives have been instrumental in starting up the US Women’s Caucus at the UN. The aim of the Caucus is for progressive US-based NGOs to have a larger, louder, smarter voice at the United Nations. Membership in the US Women’s Caucus is open to US-based NGOs and individuals who are committed to the principles of CEDAW and the Beijing Platform for Action.

IMPORTANT: This year, SWS and the US Women’s Caucus were invited by US UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield to participate in a meeting with the US Mission at the UN to discuss the US priorities for CSW67. This meeting took place prior to CSW67 as the objective was to inform and get questions from US civil society/NGOs with consultative status at the UN. I would like to point out that the US – unlike other countries that include NGOs representatives in their delegation – had not engaged with civil society representatives in discussions about the US priorities – as far as I know these meetings have only been organized by the current US government and US UN Ambassador, Linda Thomas- Greenfield.

· For more information, see the Caucus website: uswomenscaucus.org

· The Caucus CSW67 virtual “The Gender Digital Divide in the US: Problems, Promises and Progress” event will be held on March 14th 2:00 pm EDT.

6. SWS CSW67 delegation

Solange Simões, Lead Delegate; Nicky Fox; Mollie Pepper; Andre Boyles, Natascia Boeri; Fumi Showers; Susan H. Lee; Jennifer Brown; Rianka Roy; Diana Papademas; Kristy Kelly; Özlem Altiok; Cecilia Idika-Kalu; Katie Kiacz ; Zhanar Tuleutayeva; Monioluwa Ogunleye; Autumn Martin; Meghna Dutta; Monica Blaisdell; Neisha Terry Young

SWS hopes you take this opportunity to engage in CSW67!

 

SOCIOLOGISTS FOR WOMEN IN SOCIETY PRESENT TWO PANELS AT THE: UNITED NATIONS CSW67 NGO PARALLEL EVENT

PANEL I: Global Lessons of Feminist Resistance and Coping During Turmoil
PANELISTS:

• Ӧzlem Altıok, Ph.D. “Digital learning, organizing and coping in the time of the pandemic: Lessons from Turkey.”
• Cecilia Idika Kalu, Ph.D. “Information technology & gender equality as tools of political empowerment in Africa.”
• Amanda DeLaby & Daria Quintero MS Students, Hollie Nyseth Nzitatira, Ph.D., Nicole Fox, Ph.D. “Political invisibility, mother-work and rural women: Rescuers in Rwanda.”
• Maro Youssef, Ph.D. “Transitional feminist coalitions: How activists cooperate beyond differences in Tunisia.”
• Andrea S. Boyles, Ph.D. “The Technology Dichotomy: Black women’s push for advancement in the age of digital misogynoir.”

MODERATOR: Nicole Fox, Ph.D.
DATE & TIME: 3/15/23 4:30 PM EST
LOCATION: CCUN, 777 United Nations Plaza, New York, NY 10017 (on the corner of 44th St. and 1st Ave.) on the 8th Floor
ZOOM REGISTRATION: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwudu2sqzMtG9Fu1JNpMEE1dte1Zi3UD43b

PANEL II: Feminist Confrontations with Patriarchy in STEM, Education & Community Networks
PANELISTS:

• Assata Zerai, Ph.D., “Deploying the principles of feminist decoloniality as care (FEMDAC) to confront experiences with racial and intersectional microaggressions (RIMAs) among Black women faculty members in the U.S. and South Africa.”
• Karine Lepillez, MA, “Technology & pandemic adaptations for girls’ education: Centrality of mentoring relationships & situated learning.”
• Yasemin Besen-Cassino, Ph.D. “Gender Inequality in STEM education: A longitudinal study of interdisciplinary internships.”
• Meghna Dutta, Ph.D. Student, “The war on gender discrimination & Witch hunting in Assam, India.”

MODERATOR : Nicole Fox, Ph.D.
DATE & TIME: 3/17/23 4:30 PM EDT
ZOOM REGISTRATION: https://csus.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_U9v1AYqfSsec8nLSoaUnVA

 

Zoom Registration for Panel II on March 17. 

Learn more about the SWS International Committee HERE

 https://socwomen.org/about/international-committee/

Join Us for Can I Apply? Demystifying The SWS Awards Process – Focus on Student Awards

Hear from:

• Karina Santellano, University of Southern California as a Past Chow Green Honorable Mention
• Emily Castillo, University of New Mexico as a past Beth Hess Awardee
• Katherine Maldonado Fabela, University of California, Santa Barbara as a Past Chow Green Awardee

When: Mar 7, 2023 12:30 PM Eastern Time
Register in advance for this meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIqceGqrD4sHdc_4JrAN-TlZmMCMtxyIdj_
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Thursday, March 2, 2023 from 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm EST

Register in advance for this meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYocuyqpz8tGtEKDHSVUcguYXz9wahH9COL

This presentation will offer an introduction to African heritage traditions and their long legacy within the Americas and the Caribbean. Although they share many features with all the major world religions, within the context of slavery and its aftermath, African heritage traditions have experienced an extensive history of violent repression, legal criminalization, and colonial persecution. Hucks and Stewart will provide an overview of the salient features of African heritage traditions; their uses for spiritual defense and healing; their connection to diaspora movements of ancestral reclamation; and the contemporary phenomena of white participation and presence within them.

Tracey Hucks is a nationally known and esteemed scholar of Africana Studies and American Religious History. She has served most recently as Provost and Dean of the Faculty at Colgate University where she has been James A. Storing Professor of Religion and Africana and Latin American Studies. Hucks previously taught at Davidson College, where she was the James D. Vail III Professor and chair of the Africana Studies Department, and at Haverford College. In 1995, she was a resident graduate scholar at Obafemi Awolowo University in Nigeria. A graduate of Colgate University, she earned her AM and PhD from Harvard University in 1998. 

Hucks is the author of Yoruba Traditions and African American Religious Nationalism, which was published in 2012 and was a finalist for the American Academy of Religion First Book Award and the Journal of Africana Religions Albert J. Raboteau Book Prize. Hucks is currently at work on several book projects, including, Obeah, Orisa and Religious Identity in Trinidad: Volume One: Africans in the White Colonial Imagination  which was published in October 2022 by Duke University Press. Working with Dr. Dianne Stewart, (Emory University) who authored Volume Two, the two-volume study theorizes the prominent role of Africana religious cultures in the shaping of diaspora identities. Hucks has conducted research in several countries, including Brazil, Cuba, Nigeria, England, France, Trinidad, Jamaica, Kenya, and Tanzania. In addition to her numerous awards, fellowships, and distinctions, she was also an elected member of the Program Committee of the American Academy of Religion, elected member of the Executive Committee of the Society for the Study of Black Religion, and is currently a member of the Corporation of Haverford College.

Dianne Marie Stewart is the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Religion and African American Studies at Emory University, specializing in African heritage religious cultures in the Caribbean and the Americas. She was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and grew up in Hartford, CT, USA.  She obtained her B.A. degree from Colgate University in English and African American Studies, her M.Div. degree from Harvard Divinity School, and her Ph.D. degree in systematic theology from Union Theological Seminary in New York City, where she studied with well-known scholars such as Delores Williams, James Washington and her advisor James Cone. Dr. Stewart joined Emory’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences in 2001 and teaches courses in the graduate and undergraduate programs.

Dr. Stewart’s research and teaching interests cover a wide range of topics under the umbrella of Africana religions with attention to religious thought and practices of African-descended people in the Anglophone Caribbean and the United States; womanist approaches to religion and society; theory and method in Africana religious studies; and the impact of African civilizations upon religious formation in the African diaspora. Dr. Stewart’s first monograph, Three Eyes for the Journey: African Dimensions of the Jamaican Religious Experience (Oxford University Press, 2005), offers a historically and ethnographically grounded theological analysis of the motif of liberation in Jamaica’s African heritage religious cultures from the 18th to the 21st century.

Inspired by her pedagogical investment in Black love studies and her widely celebrated courses, The Power of Black Self-Love, (co-taught with Dr. Donna Troka), Black Love and Black Women, Black Love and the Pursuit of Happiness, Dr. Stewart published Black Women, Black Love: America’s War on African American Marriage (Seal Press in 2020) to inspire a new national conversation about love in the African American experience.  Her public scholarship and interviews on the subject of Black love, partnership and marriage have also been published in The Washington Post, Oprah Daily and disseminated through prominent media outlets such as APM’s Marketplace, KBLA Talk’s Tavis Smiley, Ebony, TheGrio, The Root and WGBH’s Basic Black.

Dr. Stewart’s third monograph (Duke University Press, 2022) is part of a two-volume project with Dr. Tracey Hucks.  Obeah, Orisa and Religious Identity in Trinidad, Volume II, Orisa: Africana Nations and the Power of Black Sacred Imagination, examines the Yoruba-Orisa religious culture as a meaning-making tradition in the afterlives of slavery and colonialism with attention to the affective mode of religious apprehension, the salience of Africa as a religious symbol, the sacred poetics of Black/Africana religious imagination and the prominence of Africana nations in projects of Black belonging and identity formation in Trinidad and the wider African diaspora. In so doing, the book emphasizes how Orisa spiritual mothers’ leadership and collective activism have helped to resituate their tradition from its location on the margins of society (folk religion) to its position alongside other religious traditions such as Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam at the center of civil society.

Beyond her work in Trinidad and Jamaica, Dr. Stewart has studied and lectured in several African, Latin American, and Caribbean countries, including Nigeria, The Benin Republic, South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, Guatemala, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Bermuda.  She spent a year and a half conducting archival and field research as a Fulbright Scholar in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where she focused on the history of religions in Central Africa during the slave period and prophetic religious movements in Congo today.  Her current book project, Local and Transnational Legacies of African Christianity in West-Central Africa and the Black Atlantic World, builds upon this research to explore how 18^th-century Kongolese Catholicism inspired the formation of Afro-Protestant institutions among African descendants in the wider 18^th– and 19^th-century Atlantic world.  From the southeastern coastal Afro-Methodist/Baptist traveling and seeking rites to the rise of cognate Native Baptist, Revival Zion, and Spiritual Baptist traditions in Jamaica and Trinidad, the book demonstrates how a Kongo Christian heritage lent central ingredients to this African Atlantic terrain of religious exchange and innovation.

Dr. Stewart has won several awards and fellowships over her career at Emory, including the Emory Williams Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award, Emory College of Arts and Sciences’ Distinguished Advising Award, Emory University Laney Graduate School’s Eleanor Main Graduate Faculty Mentor Award, a Senior Fellowship at the Bill and Carol Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry and an Emory College of Arts and Sciences Chronos Faculty Fellowship.  Among her service contributions, Dr. Stewart is most proud of her leadership of Emory’s Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program. This international initiative aims to diversify the academy by helping students from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups to earn a Ph.D. degree and secure teaching positions at tertiary institutions across the United States and South Africa.  Dr. Stewart has also served on several committees within the American Academy of Religion, and she is a founding co-editor, with Drs. Jacob Olupona and Terrence Johnson, of the Religious Cultures of African and African Diaspora People series at Duke University Press.  Among its most recent titles are Kincraft: The Making of Black Evangelical Sociality by Todne Thomas, Chosen Peoples: Christianity and Political Imagination in South Sudan by Christopher Tounsel, and Rage and Carnage in the Name of God by Abiodun Alao.

In addition to their many publications, they have collaborated on the monograph, Obeah, Orisa and Religious Identity in Trinidad — Tracey wrote volume I (Obeah) and Dianne wrote volume II (Orisa).

SWS Social Action Committee Presents

Sustaining Activism Gatherings

Join the Social Action Committee for Generative Conversation about Activism and Supporting Each Other.

Meeting Dates: February 8, March 8, April 12, and May 10.

Meeting Times: 3:00-4:00 PM EST

Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81694864269?pwd=ZU9KQlFJeFlMaE5OdkZjTDFnM1NDQT09

Meeting ID: 816 9486 4269

Passcode: 076814

For more information about the Social Action Committee visit: https://socwomen.org/about/social-action-committee/

Questions?
Contact SAC Co-Chairs Heather Hlavka and Evonnia Woods

FLYER PDF 

 

 

 

Refusing Death: Immigrant Women and the Fight for Environmental Justice in LA, by Nadia Kim

“An innovative and close-up look at the ways in which Latin@ and Filipin@ activists mobilize bodies, emotions, and gendered caregiving in their struggle for environmental justice.”—Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, University of Southern California

Nadia Y. Kim is Professor of Sociology at Loyola Marymount University. She is the author of the award-winning book Imperial Citizens (Stanford, 2008).

 

Seeking Western Men: Email-order Brides under China’s Global Rise, by Monica Liu

“Seeking Western Men shows how vicissitudes of global economy can be registered in the relative value of men and women seeking relationships. Liu’s masterful analysis shows readers how to rethink gender, race, and class within a rapidly changing world order.”—Eileen Otis, author of Markets and Bodies

Monica Liu is Assistant Professor in the Department of Justice and Society Studies at the University of St. Thomas.

 

Academic Outsider: Stories of Exclusion and Hope, by Victoria Reyes

“An urgent, candid, and path-breaking book. Academic Outsider uncovers the hidden curricula of academic gate-keeping practices and demonstrates how they are upheld by racial capitalism and racialized gender inequities.” —Ghassan Moussawi, author of Disruptions Situations

Victoria Reyes is Assistant Professor in the Department of Gender & Sexuality Studies at University of California, Riverside. She is the author of multi-award-winning book Global Borderlands (Stanford, 2019), which was named a 2020 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title.

 

Forbidden Intimacies: Polygamies at the Limits of Western Tolerance, by Melanie Heath

“Forbidden Intimacies provides an outstanding and much-needed  map of the many forms that polygamy takes across borders of nation, race, language, culture, law, policy, and time period. Melanie Heath’s innovative methodologies, extensive data set, and analysis make the book an essential tool for historical, sociological, and legal investigations of family, and also for work on gaps between law-on-the-books and law-in-action.”– Martha Ertman, University of Maryland Law School

Melanie Heath is Associate Professor of Sociology at McMaster University. She is the author of One Marriage Under God: The Campaign to Promote Marriage in America (2012) and co-author of The How To of Qualitative Research, second edition (2022).

Conference attendees can receive a 30% discount on these titles when ordering on the Stanford University Press website, www.sup.org, and using the promotional code SX23SWS-FM, from January 12 through January 26, 2023.

The College of Liberal Arts at the University of Mississippi

Congratulates Kirsten Dellinger,

The 2023 SWS Feminist Activism Awardee

For more information about the College of Liberal Arts and the University of Mississippi visit: https://libarts.olemiss.edu