AAUW

Yes, you read that correctly. A couple of weeks before my bar mitzvah, my parents and I went to our rabbi’s home to discuss the big day. One of the honors for the bar mitzvah boy is that members of his family can get called up to read certain prayers during the service, so we gave him our list of names. When the rabbi saw our list, he informed us that we had a problem: We had more women readers than our conservative temple would allow.  Read more >

The Pearls of Wisdom campaign, a global effort to prevent cervical cancer and to encourage women and girls to protect their health, is taking big steps this week to reach 4,070 pledges by Mother’s Day, Sunday, May 9. Why 4,070? According to Pearls of Wisdom, in 2010 alone, more than 11,000 American women are expected to be diagnosed with cervical cancer. The number of women expected to die from this illness is 4,070. AAUW is a proud partner of Pearls of Wisdom, and we would like to encourage our members to take the pledge and help reach this goal.  Read more >

March 1 marks the start of National Women's History Month, and AAUW has strong ties to this annual celebration of women history makers. AAUW is an established historic organization that has helped — and continues to help — women make history.With that in mind, AAUW is excited to partner with the National Women's History Project in its 30th anniversary year, which has the theme "Writing Women Back into History." There will be many ways for AAUW members and supporters to get involved this year, and AAUW's Women's History Month celebrations will include the following: A Flickr stream of photos If you have photos of a Women's History Month event to share, please upload them to AAUW's Flickr stream by e-mailing the photos to mess90zap [at] photos.flickr.com*. Please be sure to include a short caption for each photo in the subject line or in the text of your e-mail message and indicate that the photos are for National Women’s History Month. Women's History Month-related photos will be available for viewing directly on the Flickr account. A YouTube video campaign AAUW staff members will be filming short videos about women they are honoring during Women's History Month that will be uploaded to AAUW's YouTube channel. If you would like to share a Women's History Month-related video that you’ve made, just upload it to your own account and send in the link via e-mail. We will collect videos from AAUW branches and members and online supporters and share them through the blog and/or Facebook.  Read more >

A lot of people within the social media world describe Twitter as a way to have a conversation and engage people. And while I agree with that, I think that’s a bit vague — what does it mean to “engage” people on Twitter? How do you have a “conversation” on Twitter? I’d like to piggyback on Christy’s post from Tuesday, which talks about finding and exchanging information via Twitter. That’s one good way to use the site, and I do it too. I did, however, want to draw attention to another example of a great way to use Twitter that happened to me last week.  Read more >

AAUW staff and members were among the 1,200 people who descended on the corridors of Capitol Hill yesterday as part of the “Stop Stupak” coalition. Stupak, of course, refers to Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI), the Michigan congressman who inserted an amendment into the House-passed version of health reform legislation that would jeopardize women’s access to complete and safe reproductive health care coverage. The day’s events on Capitol Hill, which included meetings with congressional offices, briefings, and a rally attended by several members of Congress, were matched by various events taking place around the country as people took action in individual states. From Washington, DC, to the state of Washington, friends and allies united as one in our common cause to ensure that the Stupak amendment does not become law.  Read more >