Secular Woman Announces Partnership with Women’s Leadership Project

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For more information, please contact:

Kim Rippere, Secular Woman President: 404.669.6727 E-mail

Elsa Roberts, Secular Woman Vice President: 906.281.0384 E-mail

Secular Woman Announces Partnership with Women’s Leadership Project

Secular Woman is proud to announce that we are partnering with the Women’s Leadership Project (WLP).  The WLP is a feminist service learning program designed to educate and train young middle- and high-school age women in South Los Angeles to take ownership of their school-communities. Founded in 2006 by Sikivu Hutchinson, WLP has over 20 active students and alumnae.

Secular Woman applauds the goals of WLP of empowering young women of color to develop their own voice. Promoting the young women who are members of WLP  is consistent with our organization’s desire to amplify the voice, presence, and influence of secular women. Our goal is to increase the exposure of their works in order to connect them to the secular movement as we feature the stories of the young women from this group on our site.

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Secular Woman is an educational non-profit organization whose mission is to amplify the voice, presence, and influence of non-religious women. For more information about Secular Woman visit: www.SecularWoman.org.

For more information about the Women’s Leadership Project, visit: www.womenleadershipproject.blogspot.com/

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Secular Woman Leadership Grows Again

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As we go into the new year there are a few changes afoot for Secular Woman. Mary Ellen Sikes, our Vice President of Operations, is stepping down so that she can concentrate more on developing and growing her project, American Secular Census. Her commitment to Secular Woman is just as strong and we are thrilled that she will be transitioning to our Advisory Council so that her experience and presence will still be a part of Secular Woman.

Mary Ellen has been with us since the inception, where her many years of expertise within the secular movement, not to mention her IT skills, were, and will remain, invaluable. Secular Woman will be forming a partnership with Secular Census to work on projects with them that are of mutual interest. This collaboration will allow us to conduct original research related to the secular community and women. Board member Corinne Zimmerman, whose background is in psychology research, will be a vital part of this endeavor.

We also welcome Soraya Chemaly to the Advisory Council. Chemaly is a well known writer on the intersection of gender in society, uncovering how gender roles and norms function in a patriarchal culture. She writes for a variety of publications, including Alternet, the Feminist Wire, and Huffington Post. Her thoughtful expertise on feminism, gender, and secularism are a valued addition to our advisory council.

Elsa Roberts, who has been volunteering for Secular Woman almost since it began, and who came on to our Board in October, will be stepping into the role of Vice President. She is excited about taking on a more active role in the organization and says she is “eager to advance the cause of Secular Woman and to continue to expand our online presence.”

As Mary Ellen notes “If we really mean it when we say we want more influence and respect as atheists and humanists, then the secular community has to start drawing in its missing voices. Secular Woman may just have the most relevant mission of any organization in the movement today.” We hope to live up to that mission, and we look forward to enacting it this year by giving voice to secular women everywhere!

Secular Woman Leadership Expands By Eight

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For more information, please contact:
Kim Rippere, Secular Woman President: 404.669.6727 E-mail

Secular Woman Leadership Expands by Eight

** Information has been editted for privacy concerns **

Atlanta, Georgia – October 23, 2012. Just shy of its three-month birthday, Secular Woman has more than tripled its organizational infrastructure by welcoming four additions to its Board of Directors and establishing a four-member Advisory Council. Other Advisory Council candidates are under consideration and Secular Woman expects to announce a second expansion before the year's end.

Since its June 28th debut, Secular Woman has grown from a four-member Board of Directors to an organization of 800 supporters in nine countries.

President Kim Rippere commented on the rapid pace of development, "We took the strong response to our launch as nothing less than a mandate from secular women and their allies. Our Board felt a responsibility to commit to certain goals and quickly build the capacity needed to achieve them. We set our sights on a fall expansion, wondering if we were being too optimistic about developing the right relationships in such a short time. We needn't have worried — the fertile ground of our supporter base has yielded leadership, quality, expertise and, above all, enthusiasm. We couldn't be more thrilled to be embarking on this next leg of Secular Woman's journey."

Board of Directors Expansion

Joining Ms. Rippere, Brandi Braschler and Mary Ellen Sikes on the Secular Woman Board of Directors are Monette Richards, Elsa Roberts, and Corinne Zimmerman.

 

Monette Richards recently appeared in None of the Above: Political Implications, a PBS series highlighting campaign activism by the "Nones," or religiously unaffiliated. She is a self-taught information technology professional and lifelong feminist atheist who experienced her first taste of sexism when she had to fight her way into the boys' baseball league at age 11. Ms. Richards helped to organize and film the UniteWomen march this past April in her home state of Ohio. She also volunteers for the ACLU, PPAO, and NARAL. Attending the Center for Inquiry's first Women in Secularism conference in Washington, DC inspired Ms. Richards to become even more involved in community-building among non-religious women. She said, "I am looking forward to adding my enthusiasm and effort to the mission of Secular Woman."

Elsa Roberts is the Program Director at Aqua Foundation for Women, a scholarship and granting body that focuses on the needs of lesbian, bisexual, and trans women. She also volunteers with Planned Parenthood and SAVE Dade, a local organization dedicated to promoting pro-equality candidates, and is a proud member of the ACLU. Ms. Roberts' identity as atheist solidified while attending college at Michigan Tech University, where she graduated with a B.A. in Communication and Cultural Studies. After college she worked with victims of sexual assault, providing crisis counseling, doing educational outreach, and forming Michigan Tech’s first peer led crisis response team. Ms. Roberts said, "Secular Woman stands in opposition to the oppressive force of religion, especially the oppressiveness that relates to women. As a woman who is an atheist I find Secular Woman's work to be invaluable and I am proud to be a board member contributing to ending gender based oppression and uplifting women." She makes her home in the Miami area.

Corinne Zimmerman is a professor of psychology at Illinois State University in Normal. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, with a focus on cognitive development, scientific reasoning and literacy, and critical thinking. In addition to her teaching and research, she has been involved in a state-funded project to improve math and science education. Having attained her professional goals, Dr. Zimmerman decided to devote some time to activism, leading her to join and volunteer for Secular Woman. "Secular Woman’s mission involves activism aimed at several social justice and human rights issues like feminism, racism, transphobia, and homophobia," she said. "I am happy to now step up from a volunteer position to serve on the Board of Directors."

Advisory Council Launch

Members of the first Secular Woman Advisory Council are charged with providing input and guidance within their areas of expertise to the Board of Directors. The Council's founding advisors are Trinity Aodh, Mary Bellamy, Noelle George, and Melody Hensley.

Trinity Aodh is a young trans woman.  Drawing from the unique perspective gained from her position within the queer community, Ms. Aodh advises Secular Woman on trans-inclusive membership strategies, outreach and education. She brings to the Advisory Council a passion for social justice and a positive language-focused brand of activism. Ms. Aodh resides in the United States. [Modified 6/1/13 at Trinity's request.]

Mary Bellamy, a former securities lawyer, was more recently the Counsel and Director of Special Projects of the Secular Coalition for America. Currently, she is the Registrar for Camp Quest Chesapeake, the facilitator of a humanist group at her Unitarian Universalist congregation, and a supporter, volunteer, and fan of many other secular groups. Ms. Bellamy also volunteers in her community as a Board Member and Volunteer Coordinator for Vecinos Unidos, an after school homework assistance program and summer enrichment program for children in a low income neighborhood. The legal and non-profit experience Ms. Bellamy brings to the Advisory Council enriches several of Secular Woman's programming and operational areas. "Secular women, from Madalyn Murray O’Hair to Lori Lipman Brown, have been providing leadership to the secular community in the United States for many years.  Now it is time for Secular Woman to amplify all our voices to make sure that we are heard within that community and throughout the land," she said. Ms. Bellamy lives with her family in Northern Virginia.

Noelle George has held leadership roles in the freethought community since 2009, most recently as Operations Manager at Foundation Beyond Belief, a secular charity where she also manages the Volunteers Beyond Belief program. She is a co-host of the Parenting Within Reason podcast sponsored in part by Secular Woman, and is the founder of the 1,300+ member Mothers Beyond Belief group, a private Facebook community intended as an alternative to birth boards loaded with religious posts. Through her professional work as an engineer, Ms. George has gained insights into navigating male-dominated organizations and industries, which she has applied to her work as an atheist and humanist activist. Ms. George's organizing experience and connections within the secular parenting community are helping to shape Secular Woman's outreach to secular families. "Secular families have possibly the most important role of all – shaping future members and leaders of the secular community. I am happy that Secular Woman is committed to creating programs for this important, and often overlooked, demographic within the secular movement," she remarked. Ms. George, a former project manager for the energy industry, lives in Houston with her husband and young daughter.

Melody Hensley is the Executive Director of Center for Inquiry-Washington DC and the organizer of the CFI sponsored Women in Secularism conference. Ms. Hensley has a background in volunteering and community organizing. She has been involved with church-state separation and secular activism, as well as reproductive rights and progressive issues, in the DC area for over a decade. Prior to her latest role, she served as the CFI-DC event and volunteer coordinator. Ms. Hensley's leadership initiating gender dialogue in the secular movement contributes to Secular Woman's mission of expanding opportunity for women in secular identity organizations. She told Secular Woman, "The secular movement has a great challenge ahead. We must commit ourselves to gender equality on every level, from the members that sit on our national secular organizations' boards to those who participate in our meetings and conferences. We must make women's concerns a priority within our community. Secular Woman is at the forefront of this mission and I am proud to be a part of its Advisory Council."

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Secular Woman is an educational non-profit organization whose mission is to amplify the voice, presence, and influence of non-religious women. For more information about Secular Woman visit: www.SecularWoman.org

Secular Woman Supports Justin Vacula’s Resignation From Secular Coalition for Pennsylvania

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For more information, please contact:

Kim Rippere, Secular Woman President: 404.669.6727 E-mail
Mary Ellen Sikes, Secular Woman VP of Operations: 404.669.6727 E-mail

Secular Woman Supports Justin Vacula's Resignation From Secular Coalition for Pennsylvania

Atlanta, Georgia – October 4, 2012. In a Web blog posted earlier this afternoon, activist Justin Vacula announced that "[f]ollowing a lengthy period of self-reflection and deliberation" he was leaving his position as co-chair of the Secular Coalition for America's newly launched Pennsylvania chapter. Secular Woman views Vacula's resignation as a positive move for Pennsylvania's non-religious women and the entire secular community.

Vacula had come under intense criticism in recent months for posting complaints about a Secular Woman supporter, Amy Davis Roth, on A Voice for Men, a site dedicated to combating feminism and "the threat of feminist governance." Vacula had also published Roth's street address and a photo of her home on the Slyme Pit, an Internet discussion forum.

The Southern Poverty Law Center classifies A Voice for Men as one of a dozen leading misogyny websites and notes its affiliation with Register-Her.com, an Internet listing of women alleged to have falsely accused men of rape.

Secular Woman President Kim Rippere contacted the Washington office of the Secular Coalition for America (SCA) on Monday to express concerns raised within the Secular Woman community following the announcement of Vacula's new position. "Our members felt that Pennsylvania women could not trust Mr. Vacula to represent their interests or protect their privacy, at the very least," Rippere said of the conversation with Eliza Kashinsky, SCA Chief of Staff. Secular Woman members and leaders reacted appreciatively to the SCA's attentive response.

Although Vacula's resignation blog acknowledged some wrongdoing ("I have indeed made some mistakes and handled some situations poorly in past months. These mistakes were errors of judgment and were not, by any means, coupled with malicious intent…"), he was also sharply critical of those who had protested his SCA position. "The Secular Coalition for America was founded in order to 'formalize a cooperative structure for visible, unified activism to improve the civic situation of citizens with a naturalistic worldview.' Unfortunately, some persons in this community who have been quite vocal in objecting to my appointment – and many who were quick to dismiss me — do not seem to be interested in that."

Rippere disagreed. "How can any church-state movement succeed without the contributions of women? At state level, our issues are the theocrat's first playbook.

"And besides," she continued, "Secular Woman objects to the idea that some sort of 'greater good' is served by women's silence. Still, we appreciate Justin's fundamental understanding that his leadership was an impediment to the secular community at this time, and we look forward to a more thoughtful brand of activism from him in the future."

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Secular Woman is an educational non-profit organization whose mission is to amplify the voice, presence, and influence of non-religious women. For more information about Secular Woman visit: www.SecularWoman.org

Secular Woman Welcomes Atheist Students With Free Memberships

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For more information, please contact:

Mary Ellen Sikes, Secular Woman VP of Operations: 404.669.6727 E-mail
Kim Rippere, Secular Woman President: 404.669.6727 E-mail
Jesse Galef, Secular Student Alliance Communications Director: 614.441.9588
[E-mail: jesse AT secularstudents DOT org]

Secular Woman Welcomes Atheist Students With Free Memberships

Atlanta, Georgia – October 1, 2012.  For two weeks beginning today, student members of the Secular Student Alliance (SSA) and its campus affiliates are eligible for complimentary Secular Woman (SW) memberships. Open to all genders, the memberships entitle students who identify as women to benefits like conference travel grants and participation in the SW speakers bureau. Campus activists will receive the private membership link starting today in a series of e-mail updates from the SSA campus organizing team.

"Secular Woman is very excited about this new strategic partnership with the SSA," said SW President Kim Rippere. "We are eager to tap into the energy and passion of these secular students as we build programs to increase diversity in the secular movement. We're also hopeful that cooperation between Secular Woman and the SSA will help campus groups to attract and retain more women members."

Secular identity organizations, both on- and off-campus, have struggled to expand women's involvement. The 2009 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey of the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life found women to be more religious than men in an analysis of responses about god-belief, church attendance, and prayer. The American Secular Census, an independent demographic and viewpoint survey of Secular Americans, reports that 41% of its registrants identify as women and that their involvement in secular identity organizations is more limited than men's.

Secular Woman addresses this imbalance by providing resources and community to women seeking a higher level of engagement in secular activism. Since its launch on June 28th, the group has grown from a four-member board of directors to an organization of more than 650 supporters in nine countries. SW elected to reach out to students in this first membership drive because of SSA's culture of opportunity for women and other minorities. Women's participation in the SSA's 373 campus affiliate groups has risen with the number of women serving as student leaders, according to SSA Director of Campus Organizing Lyz Liddell. Rippere says this finding adds conviction to SW's vision of women "participat[ing] openly and confidently as respected voices of leadership in the secular community."

SSA Executive Director August Brunsman agreed. "Students are shaping the future of the secular movement, and they're shaping it toward gender parity. Can you picture a social movement succeeding without gender parity?  Because I can't. Secular Woman is an organization whose time has very much come."

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Secular Woman is an educational non-profit organization whose mission is to amplify the voice, presence, and influence of non-religious women. For more information about Secular Woman visit: www.SecularWoman.org.

The Secular Student Alliance is an educational non-profit organization whose mission is to organize, unite, educate, and serve students and student communities that promote the ideals of scientific and critical inquiry, democracy, secularism, and human-based ethics. For more information about the Secular Student Alliance visit: www.SecularStudents.org.

Secular Woman Signs 30% Coalition’s Corporate Board Representation Letter

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Institutional Investors, Leading Women’s Organizations Urge S & P 500 Companies to Add Women to Their Boards

“Thirty Percent Coalition” Wants Women to Hold 30% of Corporate Board Seats By 2015

Boston, MA – June 29, 2012 – A large number of institutional investors with approximately $1.2 trillion in assets under management, along with representatives of some of the nation’s leading women’s organizations, yesterday sent a letter to the 41 companies within the S & P 500 Index that do not have any women on their boards of directors, urging them to embrace gender diversity by adding women to their boards. The Thirty Percent Coalition, a coalition that includes senior business executives, statewide elected officials, national women's organizations, institutional investors, labor unions, corporate governance experts, board members and others, which was formed in late 2011 to address the lack of gender diversity in corporate boardrooms, organized the initiative and letter.

The Coalition has set a goal of women holding 30% of board seats across public companies by the end of 2015. According to reports by Catalyst, ION and Governance Metrics International, women only hold roughly 12 – 16% of corporate board seats today. “We must do better,” say the signatories in their letter, which asks companies to work with them to bring the number of women on corporate boards from where it is today – with women holding somewhere from 12 to 16 percent of board seats – to a point where women will hold 30 percent of board seats by the end of 2015.

The letter was sent to the 41 companies within the S & P 500 that do not have any women on their boards (see attached list), a group that includes such nationally-known companies as Chesapeake Energy, Urban Outfitters, Expedia, Teradyne and Federated Investors. In the letter, the signatories cite studies demonstrating a correlation between greater gender diversity among corporate boards and management, good corporate governance and long-term financial performance. According to the Thirty Percent Coalition, this is the first time that large institutional investors and national women’s groups have joined forces to press companies to improve their governance by adding gender diversity to their boards.

“Women’s groups across the nation have long fought for gender equality, and institutional investors have long been interested in good corporate governance and long-term investment returns,” says Thirty Percent Coalition Project Leader Charlotte Laurent-Ottomane. “What’s new today is that substantial research underscores the correlation between gender diversity, good governance and positive long-term corporate performance. We are urging the business community to embrace this elemental truth.”

The letter references quotas being adopted in numerous countries around the world to increase the number of women on corporate boards but proposes instead that companies in the U.S. voluntarily embrace more ambitious diversity goals because it makes business sense. ”We are not advocating for quotas,” says Joe Keefe, President and CEO of Pax World Mutual Funds and Chair of the Coalition’s Institutional Investor Committee. “We are simply urging companies in general, and these 41 companies in particular, to do better when it comes to inclusiveness and board diversity. Three years from now, we would like to see 30% of corporate board seats held by women. This is a modest, reasonable goal when women comprise over half of the workforce, a majority of college graduates and grad students, own 40% of American businesses and are the breadwinners or co-breadwinners in two thirds of American households.”

Signatories to the letter include several statewide elected officials on behalf of public retirement and pension funds in California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania and Washington, mutual funds and other asset managers, the AFL-CIO, non-profit foundations, religious institutions and many of the nation’s leading women’s organizations, including the National Council for Research on Women, the National Council of Women’s Organizations, the American Association of University Women and Feminist Majority. The Thirty Percent Coalition promises not to stop with this letter. “We intend to follow up and engage with each of these 41 companies, asking them to join the rest of the S & P 500 in welcoming women to their boards,” says Anne Sheehan, Director of Corporate Governance at the California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS), one of the signatories to the letter. “Whether it’s in dialogue with management, through shareholder resolutions, or related strategies, we intend to press for change. And then we’ll move beyond the S & P 500 to other companies as well. Our goal is to continue engaging companies until women hold at least 30% of corporate board seats across the United States.”


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About the Thirty Percent Coalition The Thirty Percent Coalition is a group of industry leaders, including senior business executives, statewide elected officials, national women's organizations, institutional investors, corporate governance experts and board members who believe in the power of collaborative effort to achieve gender diversity in public company boardrooms, and in the necessity of attaining at least 30% multicultural female representation across public companies by the end of 2015. For more information visit www.30percentcoalition.org

Contacts: Charlotte Laurent-Ottomane Thirty Percent Coalition [email protected] (561) 395 4581

Steven Grossman Treasurer and Receiver General Chairman of the Pension Reserves Investment Management (PRIM) Board Commonwealth of Massachusetts (617) 620-9980

Justin Ordman Solomon McCown [email protected] (617) 933-5281

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First National Organization for Atheist Women Mobilizes

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For more information, please contact: Kim Rippere, President: 404.669.6727 E-mail

First National Organization for Atheist Women Mobilizes

Leadership Development Drives Mission

Atlanta, Georgia – June 28, 2012. Secular Woman, Inc. makes its debut today as the first national membership organization dedicated exclusively to advancing the interests of atheist, humanist and other non-religious women. The organization’s stated vision is “a future in which women without supernatural beliefs have the opportunities and resources they need to participate openly and confidently as respected voices of leadership in the secular community and every aspect of American society.”

Secular identity organizations often struggle to attract and retain female members, lending weight to surveys which typically characterize women as more spiritual than men. Secular Woman will offer its members conference travel grants, profiles of secular women, achievement awards and other programming designed to add gender diversity to secular events and bring more nonbelieving women out of the closet and into roles of leadership.

Through strategic partnerships, Secular Woman will also advocate for equal pay, reproductive choice, and marriage equality, addressing political trends the group sees as ideologically-motivated threats to its members’ freedom of conscience. “The ‘War on Women’ dovetailing with the rise of secular activism showed us the time had come for secular women to form our own distinct organization to support our vision of the future,” said Kim Rippere, a Secular Woman founder and the organization’s first president. “Secular women have always been at front and center of the feminist quest for equality and autonomy.”

Rippere is joined on the group’s first Board of Directors by co-founders Brandi Braschler, Vice President of Programs; Bridget Gaudette, Vice President of Outreach; and Mary Ellen Sikes, Vice President of Operations. The four women bring a combined total of more than forty years’ activism in secular and women’s issues to Secular Woman. “With this organization we plan to focus on promoting the secular female voice, but anyone who supports our mission can join,” said Gaudette. “All are vital to the success of Secular Woman and to the overall secular movement.”


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Secular Woman is an educational non-profit organization whose mission is to amplify the voice, presence, and influence of non-religious women. For more information about Secular Woman visit: www.SecularWoman.org.