Mona Sinha Directs Documentary on Trans Representation in Hollywood
The documentary, “Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen,” can be streamed on Netflix.
CSSD Women Creating Change Leadership Council (WCCLC) Member Mona Sinha’s feature documentary, “Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen,” was released on January 27th. “Disclosure” is an “unprecedented, eye-opening look at transgender depictions in film and television, revealing how Hollywood simultaneously reflects and manufactures our deepest anxieties about gender.”
To learn more about the documentary, read here.
Hear commentary from Mona about her documentary and trans representation here.
To learn more about WCCLC, read here.
Mona Sinha Joins Forces with Gloria Steinem in Letter Responding to Trump’s New Rule on Transgender Rights
This piece was published by The New York Times on June 15, 2020.
CSSD Women Creating Change Leadership Council (WCCLC) member Mona Sinha’s op-ed, “Trump and Transgender Rights,” was published by The New York Times as a response to their news article, “White House Eliminates Transgender Civil Rights Protections in Medical Care.” Mona and co-author Gloria Steinem condemn the administration’s decision on transgender rights, asserting that it “erases trans people’s civil right to health care.”
For the full letter, read here.
To read more about WCCLC, read here.
New Netflix Docu-series Inspired by the book 'On Her Own Ground' Reaches Number 1
The show, titled Self Made, was inspired by the work of A’Lelia Bundles, CSSD Women Creating Change Leadership Council member.
The new four part docu-series on Netflix, titled Self Made, chronicles the life of Madam C.J. Walker. The show, starring Octavia Spencer was inspired by the book originally titled On Her Ground : The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker and was written by Walker’s great-great-granddaughter and Women Creating Change Leadership Council member A’Lelia Bundles.
Watch the limited series now out on Netflix.
Safwan Masri Publishes Piece on Tunsanian Democracy in The Financial Times
WCCLC member has article published on January 14, 2020.
Safwan Masri, CSSD Women Creating Change Leadership Council Member and Columbia Global Centers Executive President, published his piece, “Tunisia risks losing its standard as a democratic exemplar,” in The Financial Times, which discusses the delay in implementing a new government in Tunisia three months after “free and fair presidential and legislative elections,” using this essay article as a call to action to Tunisian leadership.
For the full piece, click here.
CSSD Collaboration with Columbia Global Center in Istanbul 2018-2019
CSSD projects and affiliates were featured in the Center’s most recent Annual Report.
The Columbia Global Center in Istanbul’s 2018-2019 Annual Report features project and affiliates of the Center for the Study of Social Difference. The Reframing Gendered Violence working group held four workshops in 2018 as a part of their workshop series hosted by the Istanbul Global Center. These workshops aimed to open up a critical global conversation among scholars and practicioners in order to reframe the issue of violence against women as it is currently discussed in a wide range of fields, both academic and policy-oriented. This series included “Beyond Prevalence: The Next Genderation of Campus Sexual Assault” on February 9th, “Institutionaled Violence and Gender: Innocence-Disposability-Resilience” on March 9th, “Interrogating Culture-Based Explanantions for Violence Against Women” on March 23rd, and “Turkish Students Present on Reframing Gendered Violence” on June 7th.
On September 25th, Women Mobilizing Memory (WMM) fellow and speaker at CSSD’s 10th Anniversary Symposium, Ayşe Gül Altınay, CSSD Executive Committee member and WMM co-director, Jean Howard, and director of the Queer Theory working group, Jack Halberstam, gave a talk entitled “Bridging Academia and Activism Thorugh Gender Studes.” The talk presented a critical reflection of the possibilities of doing feminism and gender studies in contemporary Turkey, with specific examples from the experiences of Sabancı University Gender and Women’s Studies Center of Excellence.
Former CSSD director and co-director of the WMM working group, Marianne Hirsch, delivered a talk entitled “Women Carrying Memory: Stateless Figures,” along with Women Mobilizing Memory co-editor Ayşe Gül Altınay and Aylin Vartanyan. This talk looked at two recent memorial projects by feminist diasporic artists Mirta Kupferminc and Wangechi Muthu, which explored the vicissitudes and vulnerabilities of exile and statelessness, and suggested that stateless memory can open up the possibility of imagining alternative relationships between contemporary subjects and citizenship, national belonging, and home, as well as alternate temporalities of becoming.
The annual report also features a photo from a WMM Memory Walk conducted in Turkey. Columbia University President Lee Bollinger, joined WWM fellow, Silvina Der-Meguerditchian, and Global Center Director and CSSD Women Creating Change Leadership Council member, Safwan Masri, for this insightful tour of Istanbul.
To view the entire 2018-2019 Annual Report from Columbia’s Global Center in Istanbul click here.
WCCLC Welcomes Jewelle Bickford
Women Creating Change Leadership Council (WCCLC) welcomes its newest member, Jewelle Bickford.
Women Creating Change Leadership Council (WCCLC) welcomes its newest member, Jewelle Bickford, Partner and Wealth and Fiduciary Advisor at Evercore Wealth Management. In addition to joining WCCLC, she is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the founder of Women and Foreign Policy, the Council's task force on the role of women in economic and political development in the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
To learn more about WCCLC and its members, visit here.
Street Named After Madam C. J. Walker and A’Lelia Walker in Harlem
WCCLC member A’Lelia Bundles is the biographer of the two civil rights champions.
This summer, 136th Street in Harlem was unveiled as Madam C.J. Walker and A’Lelia Walker Way. The two Walkers are the great-(great-)grandmothers of A’Lelia Bundles, their biographer, who is also a member of the Women Creating Change Leadership Council, as well as a Columbia University Trustee.
Bundles has released a book on Madam C.J. Walker under the title On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker. C.J. Walker was a self-made millionaire who developed hair products specifically for black hair. Bundles is currently working on a book of Walker’s daughter, A’Lelia Walker, who was an activist during the Harlem Renaissance.
On Twitter, Bundles writes, “It still is sinking in that thousands will pass this Harlem street sign each year. If even just a few are curious enough to google @MadamCJWalker & A'Lelia Walker aka @JoyGoddessHarlm our work will be worth it.”
Read an interview with Bundles on the occasion of the street unveiling here.
A’Lelia Bundles Featured in Essence Magazine
The WCCLC member is releasing a haircare line with Sephora to celebrate the trailblazing work of her great-great-grandmother Madam C.J. Walker.
A’Lelia Bundles, part of the Women Creating Change Leadership Council, is featured in Essence discussing the work of her great-grandmother, an activist, and great-great-grandmother, a self-made millionaire who developed hair products specifically for Black hair. In collaboration with Bundles, Sephora is now releasing its new Madam C.J. Walker line.
Last year, Bundles participated in the WCCLC fifth-year anniversary celebration. She is currently working on her fifth book, a biography of her great-grandmother entitled The Joy Goddess of Harlem: A'Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance. She has also written On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker, on her great-great-grandmother, A’Lelia Walker’s mother C.J. Walker.
Read the full Essence interview with A’Lelia Bundles on “the Walker legacy of sisterhood and philanthropy, and its current impact on the natural hair movement taking place today.”
Janice Ellig and Melissa Fisher Speak on ‘Corporate Feminisms’ Panel
The event, which took place in the spring semester, was organized by Women Creating Change.
A round table entitled Corporate Feminisms and Its Discontents took place on March 13, 2019 to discuss the persistent gender and racial disparities in the higher echelons of the corporate sector despite significant gains in recent years. Two members of the Women Creating Change Leadership Council participated in the event: Janice Ellig and Melissa Fisher.
Read more about the event on the CSSD blog here.
Watch the Video for the ‘#MeToo: One Year After Christine Blasey Ford’ Panel
The event, organized by Women Creating Change, was moderated by WCCLC member Davia Temin.
On October 9, Women Creating Change, along with CSSD, hosted an event entitled #MeToo: One Year After Christine Blasey Ford—the almost two-hour-long panel discussion is now available for viewing on YouTube.
The event was moderated by Women Creating Change Leadership Council member Davia Temin. It featured multiple contributors to the recent volume Indelible in the Hippocampus: Writings from the Me Too Movement, as well as Columbia Law Professor Olatunde Johnson.
Rebecca Traister pens “Don’t Give Up on the Women’s March” in The Cut
A panelist at the Women Creating Change five year anniversary, Traister discusses the most recent Women’s March in a new article.
Good and Mad author and panelist at the Women Creating Change five year anniversary celebration and roundtable event, Rebecca Traister addressed the continuity of the Women’s March in a recent article for The Cut.
The full article can be found here.
For a review of the Women Creating Change anniversary click here.
CEO and CSSD Leadership Council Member, Davia Temin, highlighted by Bloomberg
Davia Temin, through her company, Temin and Company supports the #MeToo Movement through the creation of a database of documented perpetrators.
Davia Temin, a member of CSSD’s Women Creating Change Leadership Council and founder and CEO of Temin and Company, a boutique management consultancy, was recently featured in Bloomberg for her ongoing efforts to support the #MeToo movement. Temin and her all-female staff are responsible for what they refer to as “the index”, a database of individuals previously documented as perpetrators of sexual misconduct, violence and abuse.
To read the Bloomberg article click here.
To learn more about the Women Creating Change Leadership Council click here.
Women Creating Change Celebrates 5th Anniversary
The Women Creating Change program at the Center for the Study of Social Difference celebrated five momentous years on Thursday, September 27th at the Penn Club, NYC.
The Women Creating Change program at the Center for the Study of Social Difference celebrated five momentous years on Thursday, September 27th at the Penn Club, NYC. Speakers included President Lee C. Bollinger, A’Lelia Bundles, Rebecca Traister, Nina Berman, Aly Neel, Margo Jefferson. The focus of the event was on Telling Women’s Stories and Creating Change. The group discussed current events as well as stories of abuse and resistance.
Click here to read more.
Click here to view photos from the event.
Rebecca Traister featured in New York Times Sunday Review
Panelist from the fifth anniversary celebration of Women Creating Change at the Center for the Study of Social Difference publishes feature in advance of release of her book Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger.
“Fury Is a Political Weapon,” an Opinion piece by Rebecca Traister, is featured on the front page of the September 30, 2018 print New York Times Sunday Review. The full article can be read here.
Rebecca Traister, whose new book Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger will be published by Simon & Schuster on October 2, 2018, was panelist at the 5th anniversary celebration of Women Creating Change at the Center for the Study of Social Difference last Thursday evening.
A’Lelia Bundles Featured in book Journeys: An American Story
Women Creating Change Leadership Council member A’Lelia Bundles writes about immigration and American greatness in Journeys: An American Story.
A’lelia Bundles, member of the Women Creating Change Leadership Council and vice chair of the Columbia Board of Trustees, is one 72 individuals to be featured in the book, Journeys: An American Story. The book is a collection of essays about immigration and American greatness. It tells the stories of the people who came to this country and made it what it is today.
A full summary of the book can be found here.
Women Creating Change Leadership Council meets for the second time
The Women Creating Change Leadership Council met for the second time in New York on April 12, 2018.
The Women Creating Change Leadership Council met for the second time in New York on April 12, 2018. Professors Anupama Rao and Ana Paulina Lee presented on their work on the Geographies of Injustice: Gender and the City project. Lila Abu-Lughod presented on her work on the Religion and the Global Reframing of Gender Violence project. Marianne Hirsch discussed new CSSD projects which will launch in 2018 and 2019. Bindu Bansinath, a student in a course inspired by WCC called “Narrating Rape,” spoke about her published essay in the New York times.
Participants included:
Ann Kaplan
Annette Anthony
Lisa Carnoy
Isobel Coleman
Deborah Jackson
Safwan Masri
Molly Mathews Multedo
Cynthia Moses-Manocherian
Alyson Neel
Philippa Portnoy
Marianne Hirsch
Meera Ananth
Carolyn Ferguson
Lila Abu-Lughod
Catherine LaSota
Ana Paulina Lee
Anupama Rao
Bindu Bansinath
S. Mona Sinha
Selena Soo
A’lelia Bundles
Esta Stecher
Melissa Fisher
Amal Ghandour
Jacki Zehner
Davia Temin
The Women Creating Change Leadership Council is comprised of individuals who are committed to the exploration of issues which affect women and the ways in which women address global gender challenges. The mission of the Council is to promote interdisciplinary collaborative research and to sponsor events that publicize this important work.