- Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us here
for this wonderful celebration of the Committee on Women in Psychology, and happy Women's History Month. We're so excited that you're
able to join us here today, but before we get started, I just wanna share a
few housekeeping notes. The only people who will be on the screen will be the panelists. All attendees' mics and
video will be muted. There's a Q&A box located at
the bottom of your screen. We're gonna use that
box to field questions that we
hope to get to at
the end of the webinar. There's a document that contains a participant list for
all of your speakers that I will drop into the chat as we're going along the discussion, and I'll also share that after the event. And we're also recording, so you'll be allowed to
view this recording later on the APA website. And so without further ado, I'd like to introduce a very special guest who's here with us today. She's also a former member of the Committee on Women in Psychology. So please
welcome APA 2023
President Dr. Thema Bryant. - Thank you so much. I am honored to be here and
celebrating with all of us. ♪ We are women ♪ ♪ Rising high like the phoenix ♪ ♪ We are women ♪ ♪ From the ashes we rise ♪ And for our women, our
non-binary siblings, and our men who are here
to celebrate on today, we want to recognize the wonderful work of the Committee on Women in Psychology. I feel a special connection with CWP, not only as a former member, but CWP was born the same year that I was, a
nd so what a gift to be
able to look at the work that has been done over the years. I want to name that I
am joining you on today from the land that has been cultivated by the Tongva Peoples and
other Indigenous peoples, and I invite you to go to the chat box and put the cultivators of the land where you currently reside or
where you work if you know it. It is so important for us to give, not only our land acknowledgement, but also our labor acknowledgement. We recognize often the unseen
labor,
the invisible labor, of women and both professionally
and outside of our field, and know that it is so
important that we identify it, that we name it, and that we honor it. As we gather on today
to celebrate the work of the Committee on Women in Psychology, I want to give us four
Cs, four feminist Cs, that I think have helped
us to be sustainable and that can take us even
further into the future. The first C is celebration. I think many times we do
the work, and never pause. And so we live in a
society that often measures our
worthiness by our busyness, not recognizing that
we are already enough, and so I am so glad that
we are taking this time in order to celebrate, in order to recognize
the work of the sheroes who laid incredible foundation for us, to celebrate the work of
those who are engaged now, and also to recognize and celebrate those who are rising and emerging, who will take the baton and
take us to a whole nother level. So I hope in your own lives, along with celebrating the
work of CWP, that you will pause to celebrate
the women who are working, and allies who are
working on behalf of women in the work that you do. After celebrate, I wanna
name the importance of care, self-care and community care. It is important that we are nourished, that we remember that we
are not just instruments or vehicles for other people's use, that we, even those of us who are working for
justice and for liberation, that it is not just about our service, but for us to know that
each of u
s is a sacred being that is worthy of care
in and of ourselves. And so it is a radical revolutionary act for women to be still. It is a radical revolutionary act for us to tune into our breath. It is a radical revolutionary act for us to resist the pressures to constantly erase or diminish ourselves, and for us to center
ourselves and our siblings. And so I invite you, in this
moment, if it aligns with you, to place one hand on your heart
and one hand on your belly, inhaling in through the nose
and exhaling out through the mouth. Indeed, we are worthy of care. And the third C is courage. When we look at the history of CWP, we see some courageous women, those who are willing to speak up, those who are willing to organize, those who are willing to not
just cope with the status quo, not only to resist, but to work towards
transformation and liberation. And in order to do that work,
we recognize the fourth C, which is collaboration. We cannot do it alone. So it is not one woman in
psycholo
gy who does the work, but it is the collective,
it is the committee, and it is also us working in conjunction with other boards and committees,
as well as our community. And so I invite us to be mindful, as we think about the
past, present, and future, to hold on to our courage,
to collaborate, to celebrate, and to provide care for
ourselves and for others. Thank you so much for joining us, and Happy Women's History Month. - Wow, thank you Dr. Bryant, for those powerful and
inspiring words, cour
age. Yes, we're gonna hold on to
that one as we move forward. I would like to now
introduce the 2023 chair for the Committee on Women in
Psychology, Dr. Marie Mesidor. - Thank you so much, Tanya, and thank you so much Dr.
Bryant for that moving welcome. I definitely echo those sentiments in terms of celebration, care,
collaboration, and courage. Such needed aspects of
our lives right now. I am going to just introduce our speakers. Our theme today is 50 Years of Activism and APA Past meets Presen
t. And so we're going to have a discussion that's gonna include myself as well as, who's the current chair of CWP, and Dr. Lisa Flores, who's the
past chair from 2022 of CWP, as well as our current member,
Ms. Michelle Ritter-Santana, who's gonna be the 2024 vice-chair. We will be asking some questions of these trailblazing,
pioneering psychologists who are so inspirational, and we're so fortunate to
have them with us today. So very lucky. And we're gonna go to the next slide. Today we have with
us
Dr. Lillian Comas-Diaz, who we are so fortunate,
was a past member of CWP, but we know has been so instrumental in leadership throughout
the country and the world. As well as Dr. Gwendolyn Keita,
who is a past CWP member, as well as the director
of APA Women's Programs, and executive director of the APA, Public Interest Director in the past. Also a phenomenal woman,
phenomenal force in psychology. And Dr. Nancy Felipe Russo,
who was for almost a decade the director of the APA
Women's Program
Office, and such a pioneer. So we're so fortunate to
have these wonderful women who we're gonna learn from their wisdom, who are continuing to be so
active in the work that we do, but who were pioneering earlier on. And so next we'll go to the next slide. I do wanna acknowledge that
the work that we do at CWP is work in collaboration
with other groups, and so just wanted to
highlight that on this slide, you'll see that there's a number of groups that some of our speakers
will be mentioning. Did
wanna give acknowledgement to the Association for Women in
Psychology, was formed in 1969. And so they were definitely instrumental in our earlier history, and definitely continue to
be instrumental partners. As well as APA's committee,
I mean, excuse me, APA's Division 35, the Society
for the Psychology of Women, who's a wonderful, phenomenal partner who's working with us a lot
on the 50th anniversary. We've got, as well as APA Caucus, Women's Caucus of Council that
we're so fortunate to have,
that's doing wonderful work
championing women's causes as well as the APA Leadership Institute for Women in Psychology. And this is the 60th anniversary of LIWP, so we want to acknowledge that as well. And if you are able to put in your chat if you are a member of
one of these groups, please let us know,
highlight that you're here. We just welcome you, and we're so thankful that you are here. But as Dr. Bryant mentioned earlier, although we have women so
often in the name of our work, we are an
inclusive committee that does recognize and
celebrate and champion the needs of our non-binary
community members as well. And so just wanted to make that statement. So next we're gonna go to the next slide. Oh, I'm sorry, we're gonna stay
to this slide, I apologize. We're gonna go to the next
part of our discussion where we will really have an opportunity to hear from our three
distinguished speakers. So both, all three of us, myself, Michelle, and Lisa, will
take turns asking questions, and th
en we will hear from
Nancy, Gwen, and Lillian. And I'll start with the first question. So just wanna ask all three of you, what does activism mean to you? How has that changed over time? And we'll get started first with Nancy. - Nancy, you're muted. - Sorry about that, that took 10 seconds. And I have a two minute, what
does activism mean to me? I'm gonna skip all the, you're the many faces of
activism right here on this wall and the Zoom wall here, and try to focus on the history. And in our fe
minist psychology context, we have to look at activism over time, because activism is a general concept and it lives in multiple forms and in multiple goals
and with multiple actors. But the essential goal, I think, for feminist psychology's
activism in the beginning was about reconceptualizing
and actualizing power. So if you recall male power, which is power over,
power to control others, female power is power
to, power to do good. And so all of this stuff is us seizing, reclaiming,
and organi
zing power to do all these wonderful things that we're gonna hear about today. The first step was to
establish power bases in APA, and what did we do, we
did a strategy of the time that was born from the history
and the civil rights movement with all these women who were active, who did a AWP takeover,
rabble-rousing convention takeover. We got a committee, what
a, you know, a task force, a committee, and the rest is history. So understanding the evolution and relation of those power bases will
hopefully be a topic for future generations,
and for future discussions. And that was what that
slide is about in terms of, it's a timeline, first, A, B, C, D, spawning, these, these, these things. And the Women's Institute is the most recent structural thing. And I think that's my two minutes. Ah, don't tell me I wasn't. - Yeah, thank you so much. Next we'll go to Gwen. - Hi, building on what Nancy said, the committee spent a lot of
time on strategic actions. There were so many things
that need
ed to be done, but so what's the most
important thing to do now? And one of the things they felt
strongly about was modeling, for instance, they felt it was
critical to be inclusive to, diversity was an important
part of CWP's focus throughout. So they made sure that they had diverse
women on the committee, and they didn't just
leave it up to chance, they built it into their mission. So who was on the committee,
they'd have a slot for this, you know, seat for that and so forth. And to try to pus
h that throughout APA. Our activism did change over the years. And one of the things that I remembered was in terms of being strategic,
what is our value added as we looked outside of
APA for broader issues, for instance, with reproductive rights. At first, it was a woman's right, and we participated
with a number of groups that this was a woman's right
between her and her doctor. But then it became clear that we were not adding major value. So we then focused on the research. And so if you reca
ll, there were about three
or four different reports on the research on reproductive rights. And whereas many other groups that were focusing on the rights were not listened to per se, APA's position was clearly listened to because of the research showing there were not negative situations for the women who had abortions as one of the major Supreme
Court cases was about. And we did a lot of work
with our legal office to have briefs before the Supreme Court. So our activism was very broad, and we
tried to be very strategic. - Thank you so much,
and we'll go to Lillian. - Thank you, it's an
honor to be here today, and sharing with my other colleagues. Activism for me, is
struggling against oppression, all kinds of oppression. And I know that Nancy
presented a historical view, and that's important for us to know the transformation of CWP. And I wanna talk about now, I think it's important that
we continue to struggle against any oppression within a social political perspective. And going
beyond that,
and this is a concept I'm going to present from
the Indigenous perspective, (speaks Spanish) which is not
translated as living well, it's living a full life. And I think that's where we are now, where we are examining
so different dimensions of what it's like to be a feminist, and addressing the issue of
what are the sources of hope. I think there are just
paramount to activism, because without hope, there's not gonna be energy to
struggle against oppression. Thank you. - Wow, thank
you so much. Such wonderful comments and thoughts that I wish we could explore further. In the interest of time, I definitely will have to turn
it over to Michelle, however. - Hello, I'm in awe. Sources of hope is gonna
stick with me for a while. So the question that is next is really looking at
your biggest successes and greatest challenges
while either working with CWP or in correlation with APA. I know we had talked, sometimes it's hard to figure out where those successes and
those challenge
s start and end. So with that in mind, Gwen,
would you start for us? - Yes, my biggest success was when I was director of
the Women's Programs Office. The Women's Programs Office in CWP worked together to address the issue of psychosocial and behavioral
factors in women's health. Before that time, if you recall, most of what we knew about health was about white men's health. Most of the research was
about white men's health. And when we worked with other
major organizations to form, to get funde
d the Office of
Research on Women's Health. And at that first major
meeting when it was announced, and the new director was named, Pat Kobar, I remember well,
from the science directorate, got up and said, remember, APA
psychology is very important. And the response was, we're
not talking about NIMH, that belongs there, we're not
talking about mental health, we are talking about health. And at that point, I said to myself, I'm not going to go to another meeting and hear anything like that. And s
o at the next CWP meeting, 'cause several of the members were there, we talked about what we could do. And so we decided to have a conference on psychosocial and behavioral
factors in women's health. And it was more successful
than we had even imagined. More participation,
funding from NIH, NIMH, and all the other major
groups within the NIH system. And after that conference, we had two more because
it was so successful. But we came out with a research agenda, which the Office of
Research on Wom
en's Health included much of in their research agenda. And they became a staunch ally for us in including psychosocial
and behavioral factors in women's health. And even though our
focus was women's health, it was more, it was broader
than that, it was about health. And so many women researchers who had been working in
different areas of women's health participated in that, and coalitions were made across areas. So that was one of my greatest successes. And I know the other part of that was my,
was it what, not my failure, but. - Your challenges, any.
- My challenges. - Yeah. Yeah. - I couldn't think of any. I mean, there were a number of challenges, however, working with CWP
and so many of the divisions, Division 35, and so many of
the other women across APA, the challenges just, I mean, what we didn't accomplish seemed small, because eventually we tended to get there. So it was hard to think
of challenges per se. - That's an awesome way to look at it. Thank you, thank you so much. So
I think we have, is it Lillian next? - Yes, thank you. - Sure. - The biggest success, and I think this is still
ongoing, that I witnessed, was how the women in CWP were able to welcome feminism of color. And as we have seen the
transformation of feminism of color, it continues to evolve and
it continues to transform. In terms of the challenge, I may have to say that, in my experience, I was able to maybe pre-consciously sense some kind of inertia in terms of feminism, mainstream feminism, ackno
wledging
racism within ourselves and also being too Eurocentric. I mean, women hold half of the world, and therefore extending
not our brand of feminism to international women, but actually learning
from international women, how feminism is contextualized, historicized, and politicized. Thank you. - Thank you. Nancy. - Okay, well, my biggest success, it's hard to define mine
because I was a team, and I played a team member. I organize us as a collective together. I played big roles, and
key role
s, for example, in the publication manual, and the non-sexist language guidelines. But I've written about that
and published about that. And that was a very
sophisticated campaign, if I say so myself. But the most important story
that nobody knows about is that I, where I was most central, it happened because of me, was the establishment of
the Women's Program Office. The story behind that is that I was working as
a staff associate liaison in the Educational Affairs Office for the high school ps
ychology. And I had a full-time job
in Educational Affairs, and they gave me the Committee on Women on top of the full-time job. And I am a failing. I am constitutionally incapable
of not doing the job right. I don't get sleep, I'll
stay up all night, whatever, I'll do it and do it right. And so basically, and that's my failing. Basically, I was killing myself. Alan was coming, I mentioned
it before, to someone. Alan, my husband, was coming and staying on my couch at 10 o'clock at night. And we
wouldn't go home,
and I'd come in at seven because I couldn't get it all done. And it was ridiculous. And so I thought about it,
and Tina Cummings was a chair. And so I quit. I resigned from APA, I went to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and Tina Cummings and I wrote the proposal for the Women's Program Office. Nothing was getting done. All of a sudden the who
was gonna do the work, et cetera, et cetera. Everybody was up in arms, and et cetera. The council passed th
e
Women's Program Office, you have to have a Women's Program Office. And I came back and headed it 14 months. And that's how we got the
Women's Program Office. And I can say, I think,
I mean, they took a risk. I may not have been hired back, whatever, but I had to do that. And I figured that is a personal thing. So that's what I did
in the women's program. My greatest challenge is my personal ethical
code and philosophy. I define who hurts me. And I am very high on keeping
secrets and having int
egrity and never saying a bad word about anybody. That is really tough. And it became a job, because
it became a difficult job because I did have a person who was very active in feminist movement, who I blocked because my
job was pros and cons. She didn't want the cons
of things mentioned. She wanted to give a story. And so I locked horns with her,
but I couldn't tell anybody, you know, I was just straight with people. I didn't realize what was going on until I discovered it later when she tried
to get me fired. And, you know, and Florence
Denmark took care of her. Anyway, but I can't talk about that. And I ethically, but that is, that is one of the things
that is very frustrating about this whole thing, anyway. I don't know who'd wanna fire me. - Thank you for sharing,
Nancy, thank you so much. Okay, all right. Thank you all for sharing
your highlights and lowlights, and challenges in your advocacy. We're so fortunate to be
hearing about your experiences and learning from your experie
nces. And we benefit from the fruits
of your labor and advocacy over the years in so many ways. We are interested in
just the words of wisdom that you can give to us based on your experiences in advocacy that can inform generations to come, current generations and future generations as we help to advance and move forward and build upon the work that
you all have set for us. So what words of wisdom can we learn from your past experiences
in advocating for women? And start with Lillian. - There's
a saying, (speaks
Spanish) in Spanish, (speaks Spanish) united, we're stronger. So I think that's something
that we need to remember. However, within that context, it's important that we
celebrate our similarities, and, and this is important, and, recognize, honor, and
respect our differences because this is a process
where feminism will continue not only to evolve, but
to thrive, thank you. - Thank you for those words, Lillian. Nancy, can you share your
words of wisdom for us? - Well, I think t
hat there's
not an appreciation today of the social context. I think that there's lessons from the past that are forgotten. If you ever want, people
need to ask questions like, have you ever wondered why
every single task force and committee on women since
the very, very beginning has had an ethnic minority on it? That Black women were involved, at least, in everything we even had, I thought we had a task
force on Black men. It was one of Black women wanted
a task force on Black men. But you don
't notice that. We were born in the '60s, the agenda was forged, and
tactics were forged in the '60s, in the Civil Rights movement. And the feminist consciousness was born because of the way the women were treated in the civil rights movement. So understanding how that happened, understanding the social context, and understanding the strategy of you do it in a way where you're sneaky. You don't have any idea about all the different things that we did in order to make things happen, because the s
tory hasn't been told. So spaces where we can tell that story, so we tell you what
happens, I think would be, would be something you
really, really need. Today, I think personally, there's too much focus on the individual. We are a person, situation, interaction. The context is critical. And in the beginning we
focused on the context 'cause it was so bad. But today, and I think it's
because we've lost science, and now it's all what can
we do for the individual? And the focus has been how
do you
feel, see me, see me. And it seems from the point
of view of an old timer, it's so self-centered, and, you
know, take care of yourself. Yes, yes, it's absolutely right. But you can be lopsided and
only thinking about yourself. So balance, how do we
get the balance back? And that is a question I
don't have the answer to. - Thank you Nancy. Gwen. - Let me follow up on what
Nancy and Lilian just said, in my first comment about activism, I mentioned diversity that
wasn't as clear as Nancy was. I mea
n CWP felt very clearly that we had to have diverse women, and we had slates for
African-American women, Latino women, Asian women, women
with disabilities so forth. And also in the conferences on psychosocial and behavioral
factors in women's health, it was clear that we needed
to look at all women, and not just lump women. There were specific
issues of minority women, African American women and Hispanic women in their rates of death
in childbirth, et cetera. But in terms of what I would like t
o leave with the committee and
others going forward, I keep coming back with
Sweet Honey in the Rocks. We who believe in freedom cannot rest. I don't know if you've heard that, but I think it's very
important to remember 'cause when you look back
over where we've been, and you look at some of
the issues we addressed, and felt that we had
made serious progress, for instance, look at just what just happened
with reproductive rights. Pay equity is still something
we are fighting for. Sexual harassm
ent, sexual
violence, still major issues. I mean, so we need to be ever vigilant. And again, we who believe
in freedom cannot rest. Saying that to yourself every
now and then and look around. - Thank you Gwen, for those words and for putting it to song as well. For those participants here today, if you wanna hear more of the details about our panelists' experiences, we will be hosting a discussion
panel at APA in August, and inviting past members of
CWP to highlight and share some more details o
f their experiences. So keep an eye out for
the APA program for that. - So yeah, thank you all so much. There's just been so much wisdom shared, I've noticed in the chat just how people have been so grateful for all that's been shared. And also just noticed in the chat, we've had a lot of people identify groups that they're a part of. So a lot of people representing AWP, CWP, LIWP, Women's Caucus,
other divisions within APA as well as Division 35. So, so happy you're all here. We do wanna open u
p for questions, so please put questions in
the Q&A box or the chat, whichever you feel more comfortable. Wanna highlight, we have two additional current members of CWP, Dr. Meghna Patel, as well as Dr. Elizabeth Terrazas-Carrillo who are monitoring the chat,
and who are with us here today. And will be helping with the Q&A, but definitely put questions in the chat. I know we have one already,
and this is from Eliana. I hope I said your name correctly. Eliana asks, how do you
deal with microaggre
ssions as a feminist, woman, and with
the women spelled with the X. So really highlighting, you know, this importance of recognizing
that not everyone is binary and that we need to make really, we need to advocate for
those who are transgender as well as non-binary. So that question once again is how do you deal with microaggressions as a feminist woman
professional in psychology? And open that up to anyone
who'd like to answer. Thank you so much, Nancy. - Okay, well this is really a test on how
long can a person stay in silence, and also, it's my hobby horse because I think it was a
terrible, terrible thing that Derald Sue did with
this microaggression. Calling it an aggression takes out intent. And the most important thing
you can do as a change agent is understand the intent. And if a person is just a clueless idiot, then how you feel about
it's gonna be very different than if you interpret it
as an actual aggression where they're trying to undermine you, they're trying to make you
uncomfortable, they kind of put you off your game. So the first thing I say
for me is, I think about, people say something that I
think that's a little strange, and I go, what do you mean by that? Are you trying to say X? If I really wanna up the
up the game a little bit. Are you trying to say, are
you saying, wait a minute. And I found that is very effective. And also for the people who are clueless, they have an education, and the minute you make
a person defensive, they're not gonna learn any
thing, we've gotta teach them how to interact. And as a person who's had
plenty of people yell at me or something because I was insensitive, because I was from a small town, I was raised by a, I
have a list, da da da da. And people would misunderstand
what I was saying a bazillion times, and I've insulted people
that I never intended to. So I understand what it's
like to be on the other end. So that would be my comment. - Thank you so much Nancy. Yeah, think your points are
so well taken that, y
ou know, many times we ask people to
speak up and to let people know, but that takes a lot of courage, and when somebody has,
you know, been hurtful. So we really need to own our intention as well as the impact. And so that's an important piece. But I don't know if anyone else would like to answer
this question and share, but I know that one of the things that I've been grateful for is people who've just continued to stay within psychology to make a change despite how challenging
it has been per
sonally when dealing with, you know, things that are directed at their identity and their worth as a human being. - Yeah, I definitely like what Nancy and what you, Marie, are saying, as a feminist multicultural psychologist, of course this could be a
daily bread for many of us. My perspective is that nurturing yourself and keeping your ties to your
village, to your community, so you can see yourself not in the mirror of who is microaggressing you, but in the mirror of your community helps. And
that gives you fortitude,
it gives you strengths, it gives you value to sustain and address
the microaggression. Thank you. - Yeah, I think it's so
important at this point to have courage as Dr. Thema
Bryant was mentioning earlier. Because there's so many
ways in which, you know, I can imagine, you know,
CWP was founded in 1973, so I can imagine, you know, starting without a map or a roadmap, and how much courage that took. And we're at this place in 2023 where many of the things
that were fough
t for that were achieved are under attack, and many of us are struggling with how to pull that courage from within. How to tap within that courage. I wonder what advice you
have, you all have for us, especially those who are, you know, newer to the field and
newer to professional life. - Oh god, here I go again. This is really something that
I always told my students, you give people the power to hurt you. You don't have to be hurt by every little slight that happens. You know, if you have
your
own reference group, if you have your support group, if you have people you could talk to, people can say anything
they damn well please, it doesn't hurt you. Your power is what
determines what hurts you. And that's just very helpful when a lot of people may not
be liking what you're doing. - In addition to that, when I said that you have to
connect with your community. - Yes, yes exactly. - I actually include ancestors. I think the whole process
of this microaggression and the way we are oppres
sed
has to be due to the power, if I may say, the colonizing
power of mainstream society. So engaging in a process of decolonization of yourself and your circumstances is crucial in the way you combat micro and macroaggressions, thank you. - I grew up in the segregated south. Where I can't believe I have returned to after retirement but, and attended a Black undergraduate institution, and Howard University
for some graduate work, and in each of those situations, and had Carolyn Payton for a
boss
for a number of years. So for those of you who
know Carolyn Payton, I guess I learned early how
to deal with aggression. I didn't see much as micro, but much of it did have to deal with, as Nancy and Lillian said, your community, always being able to
remember where I came from and what I have in me,
what I have to offer, and not to let other
people's insecurities affect what I did and who I thought I was. And so I guess I go back to these things when I have these threats, and I don't let them t
ake over
who I am and what I'm doing. I continue on my way. 'Cause it would be easy to, you know, let some of these things stop you. - Yeah, I think that's so powerful. It would be easy to let some
of these things stop you. And I think for me that's
something to really meditate on, to remember not to stop and remember that we have a right to
act, to live, to be here regardless of what we believe in, and regardless of our identities. And so I think that's
such an important piece. I know we've got
in the chat
many people or some people have put in what activism
means to them as well. So feel free to continue
to put that in the chat if you would like, to our audience. We do have one question from Lenore. What do you know now that you are older that you didn't know
when you were younger? - Well, as the oldest person in the room. I know now that I'm playing
three-dimensional chess and not checkers. And I see a lot of today's folks playing maybe the first level of chess, but people are not t
hinking
enough steps ahead. For example, a good example of this is some of the quotes we
use, think critically. Oh, that was a great thing,
we gotta think critically. That doesn't mean criticize everything. That means think, stop and
think, and then you assess. You may agree or disagree
or modify or whatever. But one of the things that
you did on a previous one was you asked questions about
what's your favorite saying. And I was trying to, I thought
we might be asked this, I'm gonna just say it
'cause I wanted to answer
the question so, so much. And that is, what's your
favorite quote or something? And it's Victor Frankl, the
humanistic psychologist, who said that basically to
boil it down and saying, yeah, we're all Pavlov's dogs, and they're gonna be jerking our chains. So take a breath, take a breath so that humanistic
higher level can kick in, and then you can be full
and have your power. But if you don't take a breath,
you're just Pavlov's dog knee-jerking and oh, this
is not poli
tically correct. Oh, you can't say that, oh this or that. And your emotion could jerk you around. So take a breath, that's
one of my favorite sayings. So there, I got that out of my system. - Thank you Nancy. That was, I'm sorry, go
ahead Gwen, go ahead. - I was just going to say this is probably based on where
I am right now in my life, what I've been going through
more than just being older. But because since I retired from APA, I've lost the person that I
grew up with, like a sister, my only
sister, my mother, and my aunt. So I am the, I guess I'm the matriarch
of our family now, and I always call myself the younger. And so I'm feeling right
now that life is short. And when I say that, I say, I mean you need to value
the people in your life and the things that are important to you. And I remember one of the things, a couple of things my mother
and my grandmother used to say, pray about it, which I do more nowadays. And you were put here for a reason. You know, you are not here
just
to serve yourself. You need to do something
for somebody else, and to make a difference in this world. And that's what I still try to do at this late stage in my life. But I feel very strongly about it. And as I say, appreciate those around you 'cause they're not gonna be here forever, and neither are you, you know. - I just love what you just said. I resonate and echo what you're saying about the fragility and the
meaning, the purpose of life. And for me, one thing
that I have learned now in th
is stage of my life, is that trusting my gut is so important. I mean we are taught to be cerebral, and we are taught to just
use parts of our entity, of who we are. And we need to use all of the gifts and the blessings that we have. So that's my lesson in this
stage of my life, thank you. - We have another question on
the chat from Gionni Lewis. She says, what advice do you have for how CWP and feminist psychologists can leverage our unique
role as psychologists to push for women's rights today,
which is very relevant
to today's environment. - I don't know if all of the
questions are just for us, for Nancy, Lillian, and me, or if others of you who are on CWP now could also think about some of this. - Yeah. - We thought it might be for you all 'cause Gionni's a CWP member. So that was one of the
reasons for that question. But I think in terms of that question, what advice do you have for CWP and how feminist psychologists
can leverage our role as psychologists to
push for women's rights
? I think that one I think
is really about connection, for me anyway, as well as
learning from the past. So one of the things, the reasons why I was so
excited about this webinar is because there's been so many people who have laid a foundation,
we're fortunate in that. And so we can really not
only connect with each other because isolation kind of
contributes to oppression, but also reach back to the
past, those that came before us, those who are with us still, as well as those who
are no longe
r with us. We can learn a lot, and
use what's been already set as a foundation to move forward. - I would add to that
from the point of view of looking at what CWP is doing. And I think if CWP is
really so self-reflective on how important it is as a power-base and catalyst
for these other groups, how it's in a position to know things, to work with the various APA staff, to make sure that other people
know what kinds of strategies and then to develop the
mechanisms of the communications, whether
it's webinars,
whether it's things like this. And what you're doing now
is very, very sophisticated. Just it's reframing, voting, and saying, focusing on the topics and stuff. You've gotta structure
it, you just have to, I think with a little tweaking, you could become a real
powerhouse, create archives. I mean you just do a
brilliant job right now, and you could, you could
just apply it, I think. - I would add just very quickly that I think it's also really important to assess where your streng
ths are and how you can contribute
to the movement. And to recognize that we have just a range of skills that are represented within the feminist
psychologist community. You know, some of us are the
teachers and the presenters, and some of us are the researchers
and others are organizers and connectors with the community. And so finding what skills you have, the ways that you can contribute, and then getting involved
with AWP, CWP, Division 35, and find a community of
other feminist psychologist
s that share your interests. And you know, in the area there's so many different
areas that you can work to improve the lives of women. So find some of those people in those professional communities. - And I'm sorry.
- And I, you know. - I'm sorry. - No, go ahead, sorry. - Yeah, I will just add that we need to exercise
our political muscle. We need to get elected, we need to have that power to change laws. This, I mean, being a
psychologist is great, but at the same time we live in times during
an epoch that politics are just deciding our
present and maybe our future. - You know, I agree with that. And one of the things that we tried to do more
of when I was still at APA was to get people to try
to use their research to make a difference. Use it on the Hill, in your
respective states, et cetera. Not just to do the research
and publish it in journals, but to use it to make a difference so the people better understand
what psychology has to say about this, that, and the other. And to mak
e sure that the
politicians understand, and be a face and a voice. And I think we don't do
that as much as we need to. So I would encourage CWP to
continue to work in that area to encourage more other
members to do that. - So just as an example would be for at the upcoming convention, we're in Washington DC, and that means there are
politicians all over the place. Now again, they go home in August, but there's local types like
in Virginia and Maryland, and sometimes people stay. And we used to h
ave receptions, and we had women psychologists
legislative action that CWP was an importance, you know, but you don't have to do that. We used to have receptions, Kennedy had the Women in Science bill, Joe Biden did the task force
on violence against women, supportive on the Violence
Against Women Act. There were major politicians that we honored for what they did, and having a DC reception to meet or go and visit the congressional
folks, and use that power and have CWP be an organizer
of variou
s events and stuff. That kind of role, capitalizing on the network
and the connection then. Plus, I don't know about what happened to Federation of Organization
of Professional Women, but that is a force that
is unique almost at CWP, to be able to do that. - I remember when Bonnie Strickland had the task force on
women and depression, and not only did they
present at convention, but they had sessions for the
community doing convention, and presented on the Hill. And I'm trying to remember who we
re the major
congress folk and senators who took up that banner
and did more with that. But I think there, I mean there is still so much to be done, and just have to use our
knowledge in more creative ways. - I wanna just echo that sentiment along with us influencing legislators, a theme for this year's
Psychology for the People, and for us to get this
psychological knowledge into the hands of those
who are underserved. They are often sampled in our studies, but there is not often the circle bac
k in terms of dissemination. And for those who are thinking about educational tools that can be used, or how do faculty members prepare this generation of students to understand policy
implications of their work. And also in June, we're having
an advocacy day, APA is, and it will be wonderful to
have that representation. And I do wanna acknowledge Jennifer Kelly, our past president is here as well. Past past president, and
grateful for your presence. - Thank you all so much. Wonderful insights t
hat were shared. We are a minute over time, and we also have an additional question in the chat, in the Q&A, so I apologize we won't
be able to answer that. But definitely encourage
everybody to reach out to CWP. Definitely our APA liaison will be a really wonderful source. Tanya Burrell, as well as Division 35, and other divisions
for the continued work. We have had so many wonderful participants who are pioneers and
trailblazers who are on, and we won't be able to
acknowledge all of them. But
I do wanna say that
another former APA president is on as well, Dr. Sandy
Schullman, I believe is on. So I just wanna say
thank you for being here. We've got other wonderful leaders like Deborah Kawahara, who's here, and so many other wonderful names. But since we are over time, we won't be able to shout out everybody. But thank you so much for being with us. I wanna thank all of our
speakers, Dr. Bryant, Dr. Keita, Dr. Russo, Dr. Comas-Diaz, as well as all of our CWP current members, and former
members, and our APA partners. So thank you all, and we hope you'll continue
with us at APA Convention to continue to celebrate
the 50th anniversary. - And a commercial for the
Division of Social Justice. We're having a wonderful
series of programs. Watch for those critical conversations. - Thank you.
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