CEO of National Women’s History Museum to speak Monday in metro Detroit

• The Nationwide Council of Jewish Ladies, Michigan will host an occasion to deal with the erasure of girls from historical past.
• Keynote speaker Frédérique Irwin argues that omitting ladies’s historical past contributes to the gender equality hole.
• The Nationwide Ladies’s Historical past Museum has launched an academic marketing campaign to spotlight the achievements of girls.
• The occasion will even current an Advocacy Award to former NCJW|MI board member Jeannie Weiner.

Historical past has usually been unkind to ladies in American society, and lately this tactic has grown at an alarming fee. On Monday, November 10, the Nationwide Council of Jewish Ladies, Michigan (NCJW|MI) will deal with the problem with its Fall 2025 focus occasion, “The Erasure of Ladies, A Name to Motion.”

Frédérique Irwin, president and CEO of the Nationwide Ladies’s Historical past Museum, will function the keynote speaker on the occasion from 7 to 9 p.m. on the Adat Shalom Synagogue in Farmington Hills.

“The erasure of girls we see immediately is deeply troubling,” Irwin mentioned, “on prime of the erasure/omission of girls and their tales that has existed for years. From early childhood training, we all know that solely 15% of what’s taught is even about ladies’s historical past or achievements. If you happen to ask your self the consequence of leaving ladies’s historical past or ladies’s tales out of the story, the consequence is that younger women and boys in class are turning towards themselves saying, or assuming, that this should occur.” as a result of they’re secondary, or maybe they weren’t essential. That thought sadly stays with them, evolves and follows them over the course of their training, their profession and their lives.

“The best way that is exhibiting up immediately in the long run is thru this gender equality hole that we nonetheless have in america. And the gender equality hole is measured by the World Financial Discussion board in Switzerland; yearly they take a world take a look at how far ladies in every nation are from equal illustration. Based on them, in america we’re nonetheless at the least 100 years away from equal illustration. And if we’re nonetheless 100 years away from that, then we’re doing ourselves an ideal job as a rustic. service.”

Irwin mentioned lots of people are very stunned to listen to that.

“A few yr in the past,” she mentioned, “we did a Harris ballot and requested, ‘What number of years do you assume america is from equal illustration of girls?’ It was stunning as a result of greater than 75% of respondents assumed ladies had been already equally and absolutely represented. We realized we wanted an consciousness marketing campaign, so we began one known as “She’s Not a Footnote.” And neither are you.’ It is meant to be a bit tongue-in-cheek; we wish to assist educate folks about what ladies have finished and the truth that they weren’t footnotes – in lots of circumstances they had been a part of the entire story.

“However we did not wish to do it with anger; this setting will not be conducive to extra anger. So we wished to do it with a humorousness. We began making a number of quick movies. For instance, one in every of them is named ‘WTF’ by the Nationwide Ladies’s Historical past Museum: ‘The place are the females?’ It is about ladies in STEM.”

Irwin inspired everybody – not simply ladies – to take part.

“The decision to motion is to get entangled in no matter means works for you. It could simply be doing all of your half and telling tales to the folks round you in regards to the ladies in your life or that you understand or work with. Simply assist us improve the variety of tales we inform. If you happen to like this marketing campaign, manage a small salon. We’re making an enormous grassroots effort. Be a part of us as a member of the Alliance. Or, in the event you assume this issues however you do not have the time, help the prices in order that we are able to do extra of what we do as a result of the reality is, we’re not federally funded. We’re privately funded, and that features the Nationwide Ladies’s Historical past Museum.

“We’re one of many few nationwide organizations documenting, recording, sharing, and educating the general public about ladies’s historical past—and have been for practically three many years—and due to what’s taking place round us and the erasure of a few of these tales, we really feel like we have to act quicker than ever.”

Irma Glaser, co-chair of Fall Focus, mentioned it was essential for Michiganders to know the present pressures on ladies’s efforts to realize, whereas additionally recognizing the previous achievements of girls.

“Frédérique Irwin will expose us to the alarming impression on the way forward for ladies’s rights, one thing we should always all be involved about, and provides us the chance to debate potential options and the following steps we are able to take,” she mentioned.

And what about males? How can they be part of this marketing campaign?

“Most guys I do know are all in on it – they perceive it,” Irwin mentioned. “They’ve sisters, wives, moms, and so on., who’ve finished issues, are very succesful, and it has by no means occurred to them that a part of the rationale why society assumes we should always have a male president, for instance, is due to what we’ve all been culturally fed with. Allyship, truthfully, simply looks like curiosity and a need to study extra. Perceive that we’re not right here to be offended, we’re simply right here to soak up extra of what none of us have discovered.”

NCJW|MI President Amy Zeskind agreed.

“Life applies to males too,” Zeskind mentioned. “We’re not all simply passengers right here on this world. You’ll be able to clearly see that issues are altering, and it’s important that we’re all advocates.”

Honoring a group chief

Throughout Monday’s occasion, former NCJW|MI board member Jeannie Weiner will obtain the group’s Advocacy Award. Weiner was a dedicated advocate for Soviet Jews within the Nineteen Eighties and have become chairman of the Soviet Jewish Committee in Detroit. From 1991 to 1994, she served as president of the Jewish Group Council (later referred to as JCRC). She served on the boards of Jewish Household Service, the Anti-Defamation League and Hillel of Metro Detroit and was a founding member of the Arab Jewish Associates group. She presently serves on the board of administrators of the Jewish Federation of Detroit, an advisory member of Ladies’s Philanthropy and a trustee of the Jewish Ladies’s Basis. Weiner is a former president of the Jewish Historic Society of Michigan, the place she works to protect the historical past of Michigan’s Jewish communities. She describes herself as an “ambassador” for Detroit and Southeast Michigan.

The erasure of girls, a name to motion

• Monday November tenth
• 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
• Adat Shalom Synagogue
• 29901 Middlebelt Highway, Farmington Hills
• Tickets $18 (college students free with faculty ID)
• Pre-registration solely, no walk-ins
• Register and buy at ncjwmi.org or name 248-355-3300 ext. 0