Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski told UCLA women Sunday that they
need to break boundaries.
“You have the skills and the tools … if you feel
passionate about something, explore and knock on those
doors,” Miscikowski said in her keynote speech at the 9th
annual Women’s Leadership Conference, put on all day Sunday
by the Bruin Belles Service Association.
The two other keynote speakers were Anne Firth Murray, who
founded the Global Fund for Women, and Toni Yancey, an associate
professor at UCLA’s Department of Health Services.
The three women, along with other panel speakers and workshop
leaders, examined various aspects of life as a woman in the
professional world. A major theme throughout the conference was
problems that face today’s professional women.
“Even women like those of us in this room still face
obstacles because of our gender,” Murray said, citing issues
like sexual discrimination, choosing whether or not to have
children, and domestic violence and rape.
Other speakers talked about self-esteem, eating disorders,
stereotypes, unsupportive mates, conflicts between women, and the
difficulties of balancing family and work.
Rebekah Fleischaker, who has worked as a car mechanic for the
past 21 years, ran a workshop called “Women Who Work in a
Place Filled with Dudes.” She spoke for nearly an hour about
coping with the challenges of working in a male-dominated
field.
“If you ever pull the girl card and use your cleavage or
your butt, you will forever have lost the one power that you
have,” Fleischaker said. “And if you want to be a
hard-ass, you’re not going to get very far. You’re
going to hit the same glass ceiling as with the boobs and butt
thing.”
Fleischaker started as a secretary in an auto shop after high
school, but said she got bored quickly and started teaching herself
mechanics at home. Like many of the conference speakers,
Fleischaker urged her listeners to find something to be passionate
about and to take risks.
“Never worry about money. Money will come if you find the
thing to do that you love,” she said. “We all need
security, but if you’re willing to risk making a mistake and
failing, you’ll get so much more out of life.”
Other workshops included a performance of “The Vagina
Monologues” and a discussion of healthy ways to handle
disagreements.
Jessica Weiner, who ran a workshop called “How to be an
Everyday Actionist,” is an author and motivational speaker
who coined the term “actionist” to describe someone who
“inspires people to take action in their lives.”
“When I talked to young women about (being an) activist,
it fell on a par with feminist,” Weiner said. “It meant
that you had to be anti-something.” To avoid that negative
connotation, Weiner started calling herself an actionist, and urged
others to do the same. Before beginning her career, Weiner
struggled with eating disorders, addictions, low self-esteem and
depression. She discussed these issues during her workshop, as well
as people’s tendencies to “live five pounds from
now.”
Weiner said that people create obstacles for themselves by
saying “”˜I’ll be happy when…’ fill in the
blank. “˜I’ll be happy when I’m thinner. My life
will be great when I have a great boyfriend or husband. My life
will be great when I graduate.'”
“The thing to remember is that there will never be a
guarantee of what it’s going to look like for you,”
Weiner said, echoing one of the conference’s main themes
telling women to be flexible and take opportunities.
In addition to the speakers and workshops, the conference
offered a lunch-time resource fair, with tables from organizations
like the Clothesline Project, which works to raise awareness about
sexual violence, and the UCLA Center for Women and Men.
The conference was directed by Joanna Robson, a second-year
Spanish and psychology student and Bruin Belles member who attended
the conference last year. “I was completely empowered,”
Robson said of her previous experience. “I just walked out of
the workshop thinking “˜I just have to be director of this
next year.’ It was that amazing.”
Robson and the BBSA committee in charge of the event started
having weekly meetings in October to plan everything.
“It’s on a much grander scale than anything else we
put on, so it’s pretty impressive to me; the organization
that went into it,” said Shawna Benard, a fifth-year
psychobiology major and president of Bruin Belles.