The Status of Women: Human Rights Challenges Locally and Globally

To help celebrate Women's History Month, the League of Women Voters Edina will host an evening meeting on Wednesday, March 19 on The Status of Women: Human Rights Challenges Locally and Globally.

LWV Edina welcomes Ellen J. Kennedy, Ph.D., Executive Director of World Without Genocide, and LWVE board member and co-chair of LWVE's Racial and Gender Justice Action Committee, as the featured speaker. 

This event is free of charge and all are welcome.

It has been 105 years since the 1920 passage of the 19th Amendment granting suffrage to White women. Native American, Asian American, Latinx, and Black American suffragists had to fight for enfranchisement long after the Amendment was ratified, and only over successive years did each of those groups gain access to the ballot.
 
Suffrage was one step towards equality. But nearly all women in the US, and indeed almost everywhere, face discrimination and inequality in some form: in access to education, housing, employment, health care, political election and representation, freedom from violence and abuse, fair treatment in the justice system, control over their reproduction, and more. Women of color are disproportionately disadvantaged in almost every area.
 
Kennedy will explore these challenges and consider steps forward both locally and globally.

Kennedy is the founder and executive director of World Without Genocide, a human rights organization located in St. Paul, Minnesota. She has received significant recognition for her human rights work, including the Outstanding Citizen Award from The Anne Frank Center, New York; the Distinguished Alumni Award from Northern Michigan University; the Liberty Bell Award from the Ramsey County Bar Association; the FBI Director’s Community Leadership Award; and the Changemaker Award from Minnesota Women’s Press. She is a representative to the United Nations Department of Global Communications.