On Wednesday, October 30, 2019 at 7:00pm, the League of Women Voters of Newton (LWVN) co-sponsored a Newton Free Library event, together with Historic Newton and the Newton Human Rights Commission, hosted by author and guest Barbara Berenson. The event, “After Suffrage: A 20/20 Perspective on Women’s Rights, 1920 – 2020” was a talk that explored how women have fared politically and legally over the past century; considered how women activists have built alliances and shaped laws in an effort to combat stereotypes, discrimination and gender-based violence at home, at work and in the public sphere; reviewed some of the key developments over the past century including a discussion of the long and ongoing campaign for the Equal Rights Amendment; and discussed the historical connections between women who opposed suffrage and those who oppose women’s rights today. Barbara Berenson is the author of Massachusetts in the Woman Suffrage Movement: Revolutionary Reformers (2018), Boston in the Civil War: Hub of the Second Revolution (2014) and Walking Tours of Civil War Boston: Hub of Abolitionism (2011, 2d ed. 2014). She is the co-editor of Breaking Barriers: The Unfinished Story of Women Lawyers and Judges in Massachusetts (2012).
Please consider joining LWVN for a discussion of Barbara’s book (Massachusetts in the Woman Suffrage Movement: Revolutionary Reformers (2018)) with the author on Sunday, December 1 from 3 pm to 4:30 pm at the Waban Library Center. Please RSVP at info@lwvnewton.org
Submitted by Karen Manning