The fourth annual Jewish Women’s Conference of Southern California, held March 1 at UCLA’s Covel Commons, proved a fertile testing ground for women’s issues today, drawing nearly 200 women of all ages and religious backgrounds to a daylong female-centric confab. Sponsored by the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW), Reshet: The Jewish Women’s Network and NA’AMAT USA, the conference offered a relaxed atmosphere where women of various vocations and affiliations could speak candidly about their lives.
What is it like to be a Jewish woman in the world today? What are her struggles? What are her concerns? How can she forge a meaningful path?
Those were some of the questions raised in sessions offered throughout the day, traversing topics that addressed the body, the soul and the seat of power.
During the opening plenary on leadership (which the conference boldly declared “LeadHERship”) moderated by Journal Executive Editor Susan Freudenheim, panelists from the worlds of government, entertainment, business and the nonprofit sector talked about their career paths and the importance of mentoring other women. They also dished on so-called “female” behavior at work, the benefits of failure and the feminist backlash that followed actress Patricia Arquette’s Oscar-speech clarion call for equal wages.
“It’s not so much that [as women] we are different,” Los Angeles County Supervisor/superfeminist Sheila Kuehl said, addressing gender norms, roles and sensibilities. “It’s that we are treated differently from the moment we’re born.”
The 74-year-old Kuehl, a longtime veteran of politics, said that to get ahead, women should ignore naysayers and critics. “Expect that there will be pushback,” she said of women’s advancement. Kuehl said she practices what she preaches: During election cycles, Kuehl confessed that she refuses to watch negative campaign ads or monitor her own polling. And while she is concerned with equal wages on a societal level, she is less concerned on a personal level: “I would never have gone into government work if I cared about money,” she said, noting that her pursuit of politics has landed her in the top 3 percent of female income-earners in the country, but in the bottom 5 percent of her Harvard Law School graduating class.
Nevertheless, she said, “I’m an optimist: a person who knows how terrible the world can be and is therefore never disappointed.”
More than 200 people gathered for the Los Angeles National Council of Jewish Women's annual Women's Conference at UCLA.
Nancy Kaufman, CEO of the National Council of Jewish Women, also addressed the burden of low expectations. She told of how, in 1893, when Hannah G. Solomon of Chicago was invited to bring a group of Jewish women to participate in the Chicago World’s Fair, a seat at the table was really just an invitation to waitress: “They were asked to pour tea,” Kaufman said. The women walked out, and in response, founded the NCJW.
Addressing the ways in which the feminist struggle is not yet over — particularly in the area of reproductive choice and the still vastly uneven male-to-female ratio in business and politics — nail-polish guru Suzi Weiss-Fischmann, the co-founder and vice president of OPI nail products, offered a morale boost: “A woman is like a teabag — you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water.”
In between panel discussions, women had the opportunity to partake in instructor-led Zumba dancing or shop the collection of pop-up boutiques featuring spring and summer wares. When lunch was served, one Orthodox attendee gushed about the conference’s first-ever kosher lunch offering (tuna salad). “Next year, I’m going to be a sponsor,” she declared.
During lunchtime, American Jewish World Service President Ruth Messinger put things into perspective when she said that no matter how valid the struggles are for American-Jewish women, the women at the conference still have it infinitely better than “billions” of women around the world, who are victimized daily by gender-based violence, child marriage and LGBT hate crimes.
Her leadership advice? “Shema. Listen,” Messinger said. Listen to the voices of others; attune yourself to actual needs over imposed solutions; reach out to those who are distant, and different, and support them in their goals.
True empowerment, the Nobel Prize-winning Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee once said, is about relinquishing some of your own power in order to give it to another.
