The California Federation of Business and Professional Women will hold a Public Policy Conference Saturday, February 21st at the Ontario Airport Hotel, 700 N. Haven Avenue, Ontario, CA. The theme of the Public Policy Conference is the “4th Wave of Feminism.” The meeting is open to interested members of the public. The Conference will start with registration at 8:30 A.M. with the Conference starting at 9:00 A.M. The cost for registration, breaks and lunch is $55 (students pay $45). Registration information can be found at http://bpwcal.org/winter-board-directors-meeting/ or by contacting Katherine Winans at jkw@gbis.com or (775) 267-0539. For additional information contact Linda Wilson (626) 307-5650 or lindalwilson@juno.com. The conference will end at 4:30 P.M.

The morning speaker will be Dr. Dionne Espinoza, who is the Director of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA). She and her students from the Feminist Majority Leadership Conference will be discussing the “4th Wave of Feminism: Where Do We Go From Here?” Dr. Espinoza was raised in the San Gabriel Valley. She received her B.A. with honors in English Languages and Literature from the University of California, Berkeley and her Ph.D. in English with emphasis on postcolonial and feminist theory and women studies from Cornell University. She has taught at UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, and, more recently, was a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She has served on the board of director’s of the East Los Angeles Women’s Center and California Latinas for Reproductive Justice and as the Director of CSULA’s Center for the Study of Genders and Sexualities (2004-2008). She has published on the topic of Chicana activism and feminism in the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Her current areas of research and teaching interest center on contemporary feminist theories, the activism of young feminists of color and reproductive justice.

The mid-morning speaker will be D’Marie Mulattieri from the California Clean Money Campaign, who will be discussing how women’s issues would be affected by the California Clean Money Campaign. California Clean Money Campaign is a 501 (c) non-partisan, non-profit whose mission is to remove the influence of special interest money in state election campaign advertising. California Clean Money Campaign sponsored Senate Bill 52 – the California DISCLOSE Act designed to disclose the top three funders in any election campaign so that voters know who’s paying for the advertising. SB 52 passed the Senate and both Assembly Committees in 2013 with bi-partisan approval, but was defeated 48 hours before reaching the Governor’s Desk. Mulattieri has brought people together to create awareness and brainstorm on solutions to problems exasperated by the economic crash of 2008. She ran for Congress in District 39 during the 2012 election cycle as an Independent. Her primary aim was to discuss issues that neither side wanted to talk about. She is excited to be part of the process of bringing positive change to election campaigns through her speaking and training.

The luncheon speakers will be Jenn Witte and Dawn Finley, who adapted a tricycle to
create a triple-decker shelf of books on feminism, which they then took around Los Angeles checking out books to people on feminism. Their goal is to bring these books to a diverse audience in Los Angeles to check out and read. Finley says “It doesn’t tell you what feminism is — it gives you a tool to figure that out for yourself.” Witte says, “I would like to change a lot of minds about what the word means.”  Witte and Finley started their project on October 5, 2013. Witte works at Skylight Books in Los Angeles where she co-manages Children’s books. Finley works in Beverly Hills as a full-time caregiver to a retired literature professor from the University of Southern California.

The afternoon speaker will be Carol Calandra, Veteran Center Specialist from Pasadena City College (PCC). She is the only “veteran’s case manager” within the community college systems. The Veterans Resource center at PCC has been ranked #1 in the State for the last three years and currently ranks #2 in the nation. She is also a fierce advocate for homeless veterans.  She sits on numerous Homeless Veterans Task Forces and was able to house 10 homeless student veterans within a 16 week period.  In addition, she has taken a special interest in advocating for female veterans and currently sits on the L.A. Mayor’s Committee on Veterans Affairs. She recently graduated with a Master’s Degree in Counseling from California State University, Los Angeles, with a concentration in Rehabilitation. She will discuss what PCC is doing to help veterans and in particular women veterans.

The Business and Professional Women is the oldest organization of its kind in the world; devoted entirely and actively to the interests and needs of all women irrespective
of their occupations and of their status. Our mission is to achieve equity for all women in the workplace through advocacy, education and information. Our founders fought for women’s rights by securing commissions for nurses who served in World War I and ensuring that both men and women could take civil service exams for government positions. Today, we continue the fight for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, the ratification of the CEDAW treaty and equal pay for women.