SUFFRAGE SUCCOTASH

Local celebrations and observances throughout March mark the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day 

Central New York holds a prominent role, both race- and gender-based, in the history of our country’s civil rights movement. But as the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day approaches on Tuesday, March 8, local artists, educators and community leaders are more focused on the lessons still embedded in that history. There are a variety of exhibits, events and observations locally not only to reinforce the need to keep marking the day, but to help inspire women—and men—to keep the spirit of the day relevant. By learning from the past, modern women can continue to make social, political and artistic contributions worth celebrating.

The first International Women’s Day was born of political strife in Eastern Europe, but its observance today varies from nation to nation. The women involved in this year’s local observances are just as diverse in their motivations and goals. Yet they all agree that the struggles, and accomplishments, of women in society warrant reflection.

Sally Roesch Wagner, author, lecturer and distinguished professor of women’s rights history (she is currently an adjunct faculty member in the Honors and Women’s Studies departments at Syracuse University), has devoted the past decade or so to building interest in the life and accomplishments of suffragist Matilda Joslyn Gage, who was born in Cicero in 1826 and lived in Fayetteville for 40 years. Gage has been described as a forgotten feminist heroine, who, alongside Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, was a driving force behind the 19th-century woman suffrage movement in the United States.

Wagner, who teaches a history of women’s suffrage course at SU, established and is director of the Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation. She’s worked tirelessly to restore Gage’s Fayetteville house at 210 E. Genesee St., which today serves not only as a tribute to Gage’s life and work, but as a center for continuing education and discussion on current social justice issues.

While the Gage house will not have a specific event on March 8, an open house will be held there on March 24, 4 to 7 p.m., to commemorate Gage’s 185th birthday. Wagner hopes the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day will spark interest in the exhibits and activities planned at the center.

“I think the way she lived her life should be celebrated by young people today,” Wagner says. “Matilda said the most important thing for a girl to do is to think for herself. Her parents taught her to question things, to be a critical thinker. I think that’s what would be at the core of Matilda’s message for all young people if she were her to mark this 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day.”

Wagner says even in her time, Gage had the ability to think globally. “She helped organize the first International Council of Women in 1888, and she clearly had a vision of international feminism. Her vision did not stop at our borders.” And, although Gage died years before the first International Women’s Day, Wagner says the proto-feminist would have appreciated the observance. “She would applaud it, and she would say, ‘What took so long?’” In overseeing the restoration of the Gage house, which was also a station on the Underground Railroad, Wagner was determined to create not just a venue to display historical artifacts, but a place that would foster Gage’s legacy in a fluid way. “We’re feeling that the community needs a space where people can come together and talk in a safe environment,” she says.

“We also want community input on how we can continue to develop the center to meet. We are asking people to literally write their ideas on the walls {actually, one wall}. We’ve been able to expand this into the virtual world, with our website, and it is a very active exchange. We want this to be a place that is constantly changing.”

PAC Women

Using the lessons of the past as a pathway for the future is a mission some other local women also hope to implement. Former Cicero Town Supervisor Joan Kesel, and several other women politicians, businesswomen and women community leaders, will gather on Thursday, March 3, for a celebration of Women’s History Month at the Greater Syracuse Association of Realtors, 1020 Seventh North St. The event will mark the launch of a new political action committee, Central New York Women in Leadership.

The gathering will honor Judy Boyke, current Cicero supervisor, and other women currently serving their Central New York communities in government, education and business. Kesel hopes the gathering will evolve into a source of support for women in all aspects of society. “Women today have so many more opportunities than ever before, but we still need to have opportunities to support each other,” she says. “We need to have community, opportunities to share ideas.”

Currently, there is no agenda beyond this celebration, and Kesel, now president of the Cicero Historical Society, says the group may see a need to meet only a couple times a year. “If we see 50 people at this event, I will consider that a success,” she says.

Kesel says when she ran for Cicero town supervisor in 1996, she was fortunate to have support and guidance from other politicians: male and female, Democrat and Republican. She sees this event as a step toward trying to reach out to today’s women who may feel unsure about their roles in the community. “I just want to share what I know,” Kesel says. “I’m very fortunate in that I’ve been fairly successful in my life, and I didn’t do it alone.”

Kesel hopes to encourage participation by women in all aspects of community life—not just politicians or high-powered professionals. “Women who are raising their families and volunteering in their communities need support too,” she says. “They are just as important. It’s about using the tools you have.”

Kesel says young women in Central New York are fortunate because, in addition to the historical work being done by people such as Wagner, there are plenty of living, breathing, thriving role models. Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner and County Executive Joanie Mahoney are just the latest examples of how far women have come in the political arena. (Both women were invited to the Women’s History Month celebration, but have not confirmed).

Throughout the history of women’s suffrage, the arts have served as vital modes of expression and documents of change. This month, there will be a variety of exhibits showcasing female artists, or artists depicting various aspects of the feminine experience. A few are highlighted here.

ArtRage Gallery, 505 Hawley Ave., will feature no less than nine events during Women’s History Month, and is hosting one of the largest local art exhibits marking the anniversary: 100 Years of Rockin’ the World: Celebrating International Women’s Day 2011. The 35 women artists participating—including nine Central New Yorkers—are also activists, and their work depicts their commitments to social issues worldwide.

“Our mission is to focus on and exhibit art that concerns social issues,” says Rose Viviano, gallery director. “This anniversary presented a great opportunity to show a variety of work representing the accomplishments and continuing struggles of women. In addition to women’s issues, the pieces also focus on world issues, racism and the environment.”

Other events include a benefit concert on March 12 featuring Cortland-based singer-songwriter Colleen Kattau and national folk duo emma’s revolution. While the concert will benefit ArtRage, it takes place at May Memorial Unitarian Universalist Society, 3800 E. Genesee St. Tickets are $15 in advance, $20 at the door. Doors open at 7 p.m. for a community reception featuring locals women's organizations and the concert begins at 8 p.m. A Women’s Filmmaker Fest, featuring Syracuse director Courtney Rile, will be held March 19 to 20. The complete listing of events can be found at artragegallery.org .

Viviano says she approached other venues about doing something to celebrate women and is thrilled with the variety of events planned throughout the month. “It seems to me that there is a real community-generated desire to focus on women’s art,” she says, adding that there is still a large disparity between male and female artists when it comes to who is selected for juried exhibitions.

At the Westcott Community Art Gallery, located on the second floor of the Westcott Community Center, 826 Euclid Ave., director Kristina Starowitz tries to find ways to tie in exhibitions with social consciousness. So when Viviano started asking other local galleries to join ArtRage in doing something to mark the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, it wasn’t a hard decision for Starowitz. She enthusiastically set to work planning a group exhibit of mostly women artists: Celebrating Women in Art: 10th Anniversary of International Women’s Day.

“This was just a great opportunity to pair up with ArtRage and the other local galleries in marking this anniversary,” says Starowitz, referring to Third Thursday events slated for March 17. “We already planned on doing something for Women’s History Month, so this just encouraged us to give it more emphasis.”

The show will feature more than 60 pieces from 30 artists, many of whom live in the Westcott neighborhood. Starowitz says the artists were given some parameters: The pieces had to depict or be related to women’s issues or the artists could explain how their piece says something about their own life as a female artist.

In keeping with the community center’s commitment to raising awareness through public education, each of the pieces will be accompanied by a description of the inspiration behind the work, or a biographical description of the artist. “All of the artists are very different,” Starowitz says. “But most of them have very personal reasons for wanting to be in this show. We have broad audiences, and a lot of young people who come in to look at the artwork, so to have the descriptions from the artists will help people understand a little more about International Women’s Day.”

Starowitz says the milestone is also an opportunity to open minds; she hopes the exhibit will do just that. “People will say to me, ‘Well, I’m not a feminist.’ But, if you have exercised any of the freedoms {attained through the suffragist movement}, you are.”

The Petit Branch Library, 105 Victoria Place, will hold an art exhibition in honor of Women’s History Month titled Through the Eyes of Women. Robin Best, an assistant at the library, says more than 20 pieces have been collected for the show so far. Many of the participants have never exhibited before. “We typically have done a show for Women’s History Month, but because of the 100th anniversary, we wanted to do a little more this year,” Best says. Male and female artists will be featured, and there were few criteria aside from depicting some form of “the female experience.”

A reception will be held on Saturday, March 5, 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. The Westcott-based vocal group Harmonia will perform. “Basically, our mission is just that the show gives artists who normally would not have an opportunity to exhibit their work, a chance to do so,” Best says.

Deb Thorna, a clerk for the branch who helped put the exhibit together, says what sets this show apart is that anyone can participate. “Unless we run out of space, I don’t think we will turn anyone away,” she notes. “It’s also a very easy place to come and see art. You don’t have to ‘be’ something to come in here and look. It’s probably not the best place to see artwork; our lighting is not what you’d find at other galleries. But it is probably the most accessible.”

Sister Acts

The Redhouse Arts Center, 201 S. West St., will host the first of two Emerging Women of CNY student gallery shows, March 17 to April 9 in the second-floor Joan Lukas Rothenberg Gallery. The shows, which will feature student work from the five Syracuse city high schools, are being assembled through grants from the Rothenberg Family Foundation. Rothenberg was an artist and founding member of the Women’s Information Center, 601 Allen St., which opened in Syracuse in 1972.

She was completing a doctorate in women’s studies at SU when she died in 1990.

Laura Austin, artistic director of the Redhouse, says while there certainly has been a great deal of progress made over the past 100 years, there are still many parts of the world where women do not have the freedom to express themselves. The student shows are a symbol of emergent creative confidence.

“As history has shown, women have not had equal voice in the ways of the world,” Austin says. “I have a daughter and I know there is still some leftover fear and anxiety. Even in the arts, women have historically had fewer opportunities than men, so to do something like this, to nurture confidence in creative expression in young people, that’s inspiring.”

The first Emergent Women show will feature artists from Fowler and Nottingham high schools and the Institute of Technology at Syracuse Central. Corcoran and Henninger high schools will be featured in the second show, opening on April 21. All the works are student-selected, and include a variety of media. Each school will submit 10 pieces, and was given a stipend through the Family Foundation to defray some of the costs of the project.

The Redhouse has a similar program to support emerging musicians. Austin notes that, through programs like these, the community builds upon the legacies of trailblazers—like Rosenberg.

The importance of the anniversary of International Women’s Day has not been lost on faculty at the area’s colleges and universities. Onondaga Community College will feature a historical display all month in the Gordon Student Center. The film I Was a Teenage Feminist will be shown on Thursday, March 3, with Know Your History being screened on March 22. Discussions on topics such as domestic and sexual violence and sexism will be held at the end of the month, and the college will hold an essay and creative writing contest with the theme; “What Is a Feminist Today?” A March 30 panel discussion titled “Sexism is Over, So Who Needs Feminism?” will feature four of the college’s most prominent educators, including English professor Christine Braunberger. She says the anniversary, and Women’s History Month, offer appropriate opportunities to admit that education and events are not enough. Diversity must be reflected in our political representation, and economic equality has to remain a goal.

“We can’t miss the importance of role models in all lives, nor can we dismiss the need for descriptive representational government: Even at his most sympathetic a white man in America does not know what it means to be a black woman in America. Only if we have diverse faces and voices in power can a younger generation find the power in themselves in join those ranks,” Braunberger says.

“While we can—and should—applaud the women leaders in our community who are leading us to an equity that we don’t yet have, the most recent statistics show that women make 82 cents for every man’s dollar, 17 percent of elected officials on the federal level are women, and 22 percent of elected officials on the state level {averaging all states} are women.”

Braunberger also warns that this anniversary finds the United States still lagging in championing issues affecting mothers. “International Woman’s Day is particularly important to raise our awareness of who needs help, but it also highlights which countries we might learn from,” she says. “Americans profess to care about motherhood, but our mothers are among the most beleaguered in the developed world. The United States ranks rock bottom in maternal policies, which considers such factors as access to child care, parental leave and pediatric attention.”

In her own efforts to make sure that the Gage house is a true community resource, Wagner says she has already seen how the early feminist’s story has inspired young people who visit. Contributing to that kind of empowerment is clearly inspiring, and she hopes the Gage house will be able to expand its educational programming in the near future.

“The work that began with the international nature of the holiday will never be forgotten, and it’s not finished,” Wagner says. “There is much to be learned, and young people today have new goals to work toward.”

Seneca Falls streetscape: The National Women’s Hall of Fame, 76 Fall St., was created in 1969 to honor America’s finest females from all walks of life.

Art and soul: Singer-songwriter Colleen Kattau headlines a benefit concert March 12 at ArtRage Gallery; at Petit Branch Library, Deb Thorna (left) and Robin Best prepare a Women’s History Month art exhibit, which will be feted at a March 5 reception.

Fayetteville’s feminists: Sally Roesch Wagner, executive director of the Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation, shows off some of the artifacts she has collected and now displays at Gage’s home, converted into a museum, at 210 E. Genesee St., Fayetteville.

Art and soul: Singer-songwriter Colleen Kattau headlines a benefit concert March 12 at ArtRage Gallery; at Petit Branch Library, Deb Thorna (left) and Robin Best prepare a Women’s History Month art exhibit, which will be feted at a March 5 reception.

Ballot shocks: The struggle to attain suffrage colors a good deal of the early women’s rights movement. Once the 19th Amendment to the Constitution passed in 1920, focus shifted to gaining equal rights to women in all aspects of American life. For a primer on the struggle, head to Seneca Falls, where the first women’s rights convention took place in 1848. Among the sites worth visiting are various displays at the National Women’s Hall of Fame, including the inductees as well as life-size models of important early feminists, such as Sojourner Truth (left).

Cady did: Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s Seneca Falls home opens each year when the weather warms.