Local Dems to hear Emerald, Fink, Weber and Mattingly
Discuss Gender Politics
In our second installation of STARK CONTRASTS, La Mesa Foothills Democratic Club will hear from a stunning panel of experts delve into the differences the parties have to offer voters this November about women’s issues. Beyond the fact that Democrats are looking to elect the first woman President in our nation’s history, and Republicans are running a man who is a serial misogynist, famous for insulting women, is losing even the support of Republican women, who’s being advised by Roger Ailes of all people, recently fired from his Fox News fiefdom for habitual sexual harassment, tells part of the story. We’ll also examine the platforms of the respective parties out of their national conventions.
Democrats support a woman’s right to choose, pay equity, raising the minimum wage, paid family leave, debt free higher education, access to family planning and affordable health care, middle class tax relief, higher taxes for the 2%, and equal opportunity for executive promotion, while Republicans offer as regressive a platform on women’s issues as we have seen in decades. Trump would name judges that share his economic and social views, while Clinton would look to further our judicial gains in social justice and equal treatment under law, preserving and extending voting rights, gender and racial equality, and economic regulation that works for our middle class, not just for the very wealthy.
Did you know that while women comprise 33% of the Democratic caucus in Congress, Republican women number less than 9% of electees. And their numbers are shrinking.
At our September 7th meeting, we’ll have a star studded panel discuss these issues and much more.
We’ll be honored to entertain 9th Dist. City Councilperson Marti Emerald, Assemblyperson Shirley Weber, SDSU Assoc. Professor Doreen Mattingly and local political analyst and strategist, and one of our repeat favorites, Laura Fink. The panel will be moderated by longtime club member Carol Perkins, herself a long time Women’s Studies professor at SDSU and elsewhere. These 5 women have a keen sense of the growing role of women in politics, business, education, and media, and will each offer a unique and personal perspective on their own struggles and achievements, the current political landscape, and how important it is that we share and educate voters this cycle of the consequences of choosing the wrong candidate and party, and the affect for future generations of all Americans and women in particular.
Doreen J. Mattingly is Associate Professor of Women’s Studies at San Diego State University (SDSU). She holds a PhD in Geography from Clark University, and MA from UCLA, and a BA from UC Berkeley. Dr. Mattingly regularly teaches courses titled: Women’s Work, Sex, Power, and Politics, Women in International Development, and Women’s Movements and Activism, and has led SDSU travel study trips exploring women’s lives in Asia, Latin America, and Europe. Her academic publications are on a range of topics, including women’s employment, domestic work, immigration, urban politics, feminist research methods, and women’s activism in the 1970s. She is the author of A Feminist in the White House: Midge Costanza, the Carter Years, and America’s Culture Wars.
Laura Fink is founder of the consulting firm Fink & Hernandez Consulting, LLC and assists political candidates and groups, corporations, nonprofits, and labor unions with communications, civic engagement, and public policy endeavors. Her experience includes facilitation of multi-million dollar campaigns for state and national political candidates. Her client list includes Speaker Toni Atkins, Congressperson Susan Davis, Councilmember Todd Gloria, Senator Marti Block and many others, including her fellow Wellesley College alum Hillary Clinton.
Laura more recently, and more visibly has become the political analyst of choice for several San Diego and national news outlets. It’s hard to watch a local news program during an election cycle without seeing Laura Fink prominently featured giving her views on an issue, candidate or political story.
When she isn’t directing a campaign or analyzing a political contest, Laura is very involved with San Diego Grantmakers. Laura developed statewide public policy outreach, strategy and communications collateral and executed plans for foundations, Grantmakers & nonprofit organizations to collaborate with elected officials to provide critical community services. The implementation phase included meeting with every state and federal elected official’s office in San Diego County, consolidating existing research and developing messaging and communications pieces for statewide use.
La Mesa Foothills Democratic Club serves members from the communities of San Carlos, Allied Gardens, Del Cerro, College Area, La Mesa, Mt. Helix, Santee, Casa de Oro, and other nearby East County communities. We meet the first Wednesday of every month at the La Mesa Community Center, 4975 Memorial Dr., La Mesa. Our meetings begin with a social 1/2 hour at 6:30 PM and all members and guests are welcomed. Please find us on Facebook or visit our website: Lamesafoothillsdemocraticclub.com
Carol Perkins after graduating from the University of Missouri in 1963 with an English major and Spanish minor, Carol went to Washington University in St. Louis as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and earned an M.A. in English. She earned a Ph.D. in Claremont Graduate University’s and San Diego State University’s joint doctoral program in higher education.
Carol’s professional career began at Grossmont College where she taught English for many years, and served on the committee that initiated the first Women’s Studies classes. Carol taught for 14 years at San Diego State University in the first department of Women’s Studies in the U.S. From 1987 to 1989, Carol was an administrator in the College of Education at SDSU. Leaving San Diego in 1989, she chaired the Women’s Studies program at Stephens College in Missouri, and then completed her career at Minnesota State University in Mankato where Carol became full professor and chaired the Department of Women’s Studies.
Carol has published in the fields of feminist theater; racial and ethnic factors in women’s educational histories; Mary McLeod Bethune and other Black women educators in the post-Civil War era; the impact of immigration on rural communities in Minnesota; English language learning strategies employed by Spanish speaking children in public schools; and the influence of pre-Columbian goddesses on the religious life of Colonial Mexico.
Carol was a founding member of Sisters On Stage, a feminist theater group that performed throughout Southern California in the late 1970s; I served on the boards of Heartland Human Relations Association, Charley Brown Preschool in La Mesa, and the Mankato (Minnesota) Coalition Against Domestic Abuse. For the past 6 years, she has coordinated La Mesa-El Cajon AAUW’s Women in History program, which brings living history presentations to elementary schools
Linda Armacost, President
Jeff Benesch, VP, Programming
La Mesa-Foothills Democratic Club 