Equality for Women in the Construction Industry: Using Art to Create Interest in a Stalled Issue

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color photo of decorated hard had, with text "On Equal Terms"
Speaker: 
Susan Eisenberg, Poet/Artist, Activist, Electrician
Event Date: 
October 25, 2016
Event Time: 
4:00pm to 5:00pm
Location: 
2239 Lane Hall
Event Accessibility : 
Ramp and elevator access at the E. Washington Street entrance (by the loading dock). There are accessible restrooms on the south end of Lane Hall, on each floor of the building. A gender neutral restroom is available on the first floor.
Event Tags: 
cosponsored event
color photo of decorated hard had, with text "On Equal Terms"

Women entered the union construction industry with a burst in 1978, when President Carter issued regulations opening jobs & apprenticeships to women. Those regulations should have led to women holding roughly 25% of these good "middle-class" skilled trades jobs. But despite women's demonstrated enthusiasm and ability -- and four decades of organizing, sometimes at great personal cost -- women have been stuck at 2.5% of the construction workforce since President Reagan took office in 1981.

Eisenberg asks: How do we jump-start an issue that's flat-lined for almost forty years and has no obvious "hook"? Come see & discuss how art and bearing witness can catalyze public and political attention toward social justice goals. Refreshments will be served. 

This event is free, but please RSVP here!

Presented by the Center for the Education of Women. Co-sponsored by the Institute for Research on Women & Gender, Women in Science & Engineering, Women's Studies, and the CEW Twink Frey Visiting Social Activist Program.

Susan Eisenberg is a 2016-17 Twink Frey Visiting Social Activist with the Center for the Education of Women.

A multidisciplinary artist and educator, Susan Eisenberg re-imagines the everyday, playing with scale and juxtaposition to investigate issues of power and social policy. She is a Resident Artist/Scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University, where she focuses on projects that address patient-centered medical care and employment equity.  Her latest book of poetry and photography captures the full array of emotions experienced by patients with chronic illness in the modern health care system.
Ms. Eisenberg directs the On Equal Terms Project, a traveling exhibit that celebrates the craft and experiences of women in the male-dominated construction and skilled trades industries.