- >> Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the 2025 Women's History Month Luncheon, right?
- My name is Marissa Parscott, and I'm a Program Specialist with the Community and Family Resources
- Department at the City of Bloomington, and I also serve as the City Liaison for the Commission
- on the Status of Women.
- So on behalf of the Commissioners, allow me to say that we are honored to have you all
- here with us today as we recognize our 2025 Women Achievement Award winners and enjoy
- a keynote address from award-winning author Tamara Winfrey-Harris.
- This year also marks the City's 40th Annual Women's History Month Luncheon, right?
- The event was first held in 1985, two years before Women's History Month was officially
- established by an Act of Congress in 1987.
- From its earliest days, the luncheon has served as an occasion to celebrate the work of incredible
- local women, many of whom who have been crucial to the establishment of local organizations,
- businesses, and community resources that continue to improve the quality of life in our city
- to this day.
- The Commission could not be more proud to continue this time-honored tradition, and
- again, we're really pleased to have you here.
- To get us started, I would like to introduce Commissioner Stephanie Samaras, who will be
- reading the City of Bloomington Land and Labor Acknowledgement.
- Thank you, Marissa.
- We recognize that the City of Bloomington sits on native land.
- The city, as well as city buildings, are on the traditional homelands of the Miami, Delaware,
- Potawatomi, and Shawnee people, and we acknowledge they are past, present, and future caretakers
- of this land.
- We also acknowledge that much of the economic progress and development in Indiana, and specifically
- Bloomington, resulted from the unpaid labor and forced servitude of people of color, especially
- enslaved African labor.
- We acknowledge that this land remains home to and a site of gathering and healing for
- many indigenous and other people of color, and commit to the work necessary to create
- and promote a more equitable and just Bloomington.
- We move forward knowing and acknowledging our rich, complicated, and sometimes painful
- past so that we can learn from it and create a true land of opportunity.
- Thank you, Stephanie.
- It is now my pleasure to introduce Mayor Carrie Thompson, a leader deeply committed to building
- a more inclusive, innovative, and vibrant Bloomington.
- With a background in nonprofit leadership and community development, Mayor Thompson brings
- a collaborative, solutions-driven approach to city government.
- Since taking office, she has prioritized housing solutions, economic development, community
- safety, and sustainable growth, all while fostering strong partnerships across sectors.
- Under her leadership, Bloomington is making bold moves, investing in infrastructure, supporting
- local businesses, advancing long-term plans for economic vitality, and ensuring that every
- resident has a voice in shaping the city's future.
- Please join me in welcoming Mayor Carrie Thompson.
- Thanks, Melissa.
- I love this event.
- I just love being in a community that is proud of its women.
- I love the fact that Bloomington has been doing this since before Women's History Month
- was officially a thing.
- And I really love that this is a team effort.
- And on a day that we are supporting lifting up women, I also want to lift up the many
- people who made today work.
- Can we get a round of applause for the people who prepared our food?
- Thank you for the work that you do to keep us fed and help us celebrate in these moments.
- And I know that we have city and county and I don't know if we have state elected officials
- here, but if you're an elected official, could you stand up and be recognized for being here
- supporting the women of our community?
- Thank you for the hard work that you're doing.
- And how about if we can have people, some may be able to stand, others may not be able
- to stand, but past award recipients from this banquet, can you please stand or wave?
- Make this, that's it, awesome.
- We are really honored to be able to host this every year at the city of Bloomington and
- to have at least an hour to celebrate the incredible work that women do in this community.
- Sitting here one year into my first year as mayor, my first term as mayor, I feel both
- the joy of the leadership that I have been offered the opportunity to offer to our community
- and also the weight of the work, the weight of the work that we have done and what is
- still ahead of us.
- And I'm reminded of how powerful a room like this really is.
- Some of you walked in feeling like you were arriving at a much-longed-for reunion today
- and you've been buzzing around the room, networking.
- Others of you perhaps sat in your car for 10 minutes going, "I don't know that I'll
- know anybody.
- I don't know if I'll feel welcome.
- I think I'm going to wait till the last minute, sit at a table, and then just enjoy the program."
- You were wondering if you belonged.
- And I want to tell you, you do.
- You belong here in this room and you belong in Bloomington.
- If you're here for the first time, if you're here with any hesitation at all, I want you
- to know that we need you.
- We need you in this room and we need you in our city.
- This is a room filled with women who care about their community, who are creative, who
- are curious, who value connection, who are called, who are ready, even if you don't know
- that you're ready.
- We all show up here, well-assembled, ready to network, chins up, smiles on.
- This is the work we do during the work we get paid for as women and in our time carved
- out to give back to our community as well.
- But I know that some of you came here today already exhausted from your unpaid work, after
- a sleepless night with an infant waking every hour to breastfeed.
- Maybe you drove here in a vehicle with Cheerios under the seats, graham crackers crusted into
- the car seats, hoping daycare doesn't call you early yet again this afternoon.
- Or perhaps you came here with the sports equipment in the trunk that you will have to run over
- after school, or your mother's walker that she needed to be able to transport herself
- across our parking lot to join you here today.
- This is the work that doesn't win awards, but it is the work that I bet nearly every
- woman in this room is doing in addition to her official work.
- Fifteen years ago, I stood on this stage to receive the woman of the year award.
- And what the community saw was a nonprofit leader with a vision to house our neighbors.
- What you didn't see was the 5 a.m. wake up to run on a treadmill I had shoved into the
- corner of my bedroom, which was my effort at mental health.
- You didn't see the rousing, loving, and feeding of my 4 and 6-year-old that I navigated alone
- every morning just as I tucked them into bed at night alone.
- Flying solo was the only kind of parenting that I had ever known.
- If you were here 15 years ago, you saw my then 4-year-old Caroline confidently climb
- these very stairs as I received my award, having been told by her many adopted aunties
- that she shouldn't, that she needed to sit down.
- She held the microphone from the comfort of my arms for a few minutes without wanting
- to speak herself.
- That is what you saw, but what you probably didn't see was the many people who were tugging
- at her to sit back down.
- She didn't listen, and I'm glad she didn't.
- Let me tell you what I saw.
- What I saw standing here was you, the crowd, the city that held me up and welcomed me here
- to make my home, the city where someone nominated me for an award that I was certain someone
- else certainly deserved a lot more than I did.
- I also saw the tight-knit tribe of friends that I could call too late at night if I'd
- forgotten milk and the babies were already asleep, or when life just felt heavy, as it
- sometimes does.
- I see the same thing today, but I see it with a different lens this year.
- A year into being your mayor, I once again see a room that is holding me up, but I also
- have the privilege of seeing what you are each doing to hold up our city, to create a city
- that truly welcomes all, that builds bridges, not walls, that challenges your leaders to
- lean into bigger visions of what it means to be the one safe haven in our state for
- so many who are excluded elsewhere.
- Because make no mistake, we need you.
- Not eventually, not once the timing is perfect, not after someone taps you on the shoulder
- or your kids are grown up.
- We need you now.
- In a year when many of us watched a woman once again come up short in a bid for the presidency,
- it can be easy to feel discouraged.
- A barrier was tested and not broken again.
- We find ourselves asking, what will it take?
- We see our voices aren't being truly heard on larger stages.
- We question if our leadership, so often proven, so deeply necessary, is valued.
- And yes, for many of us, that moment felt all too familiar, heavy, exhausting, riddled
- with defeat and judgment and laced with the sting of being second-guessed.
- Let me say this plainly.
- The answer is not to step back.
- It's to step in.
- And the answer is to step in together.
- When women are not at the table, critical truths are not spoken, needs are ignored, solutions
- are short-sighted, and entire communities are left in the margins.
- Mission narrows and consequences widen.
- The question is not if we are ready for more women in leadership.
- The question is how much longer are we willing to live with the consequences of their absence?
- This is the first and only office I've ever run for.
- I did not grow up envisioning myself as a mayor.
- In fact, I did not grow up imagining a future in public office at all.
- I imagined being of service, being useful, and building something that mattered.
- This leadership found me through a persistent pull toward people, toward problems that needed
- solving, toward a city I love.
- There came a moment when I realized that the voices shaping our future didn't reflect the
- hands holding it together.
- The everyday people who carry this city forward in quiet and often invisible ways.
- The world was listening to the loudest voices, not the most essential ones.
- I couldn't keep waiting for someone else to step in.
- I had to become that someone.
- But it took a lot of urging and pestering, namely from Charlotte Zietlow who's here with
- us today and a few others to get me to actually step into the ring.
- That decision was made possible by the women who came before me, by a supportive husband,
- by those who empowered me to believe my leadership could help shape our city in meaningful ways.
- In a moment when our nation is reckoning with whose stories get told, whose voices get heard
- and whose lives are considered valuable, if you're waiting for someone to urge you to run,
- to ask you to step into your next big leadership piece, I'm doing it right now.
- This is your invitation.
- This is your ask.
- I am asking you.
- We need you.
- We need women in every room where policy is debated, in every office where budgets are
- decided, in every seat where justice is decided.
- Our leadership has never been so desperately needed.
- So when you feel that the world is telling you to sit down, I urge you to stand up.
- When the messages come in to tell you to shut up, I ask you to speak up.
- We need leaders with both intellect and intuition, with empathy and efficiency, with courage
- and care.
- We need leaders who know how to navigate uncertainty with equal parts nudge and nurture.
- We need women.
- I don't know anybody else who can shower in four minutes with a two-year-old outside the
- shower door and still get to work on time.
- We are the ones who remember what it's like to sit in the classroom having to muster the
- courage to raise a hand and the confirmation that comes when we are not called on, stealing
- that inkling of a thought that we had that our idea didn't really matter anyway.
- We don't have the luxury of putting our unpaid work on a shelf to only think about what the
- world validates.
- And that means in our leadership, we think about children.
- We think about elders and the consequences not just for five years, but for 50.
- If we want our communities to reflect our values, we must be at the table.
- We've got real challenges ahead of us regionally, nationally, and globally.
- People pay affordable childcare, reproductive freedom, representation, and inclusion are
- the foundations of a just society.
- Now is the time to go bigger and expect more of the systems we live within.
- I love this job and I love this city.
- And no one person can do this work alone.
- Good government, like good community, requires many hands.
- It is a linked chain and you are a critical link.
- You belong here.
- We need you.
- You don't have to be on the ballot to be in the game.
- Like the women receiving awards today, you can lead in healthcare, in mentoring creative
- young women and non-binary people.
- You can lead inclusion in communities that matter to you.
- You can attend a public meeting, lend your voice to a cause, mentor a young woman, nominate
- someone for a role she doesn't yet see herself in.
- Be that friend who will bring forgotten groceries to the single mom in the wee hours of the
- night or simply just say yes.
- There's a place for you in this work.
- And if you came into this room comfortable today, I encourage you, before you leave,
- to meet a woman you didn't know yet before you walked in, because she may have been the
- one that hesitated and didn't feel like she belonged here.
- The women who came before us started somewhere, and so can you.
- This moment demands us.
- All you need to bring is the full weight of your lived experience and the willingness
- to act.
- When I held 4-year-old Caroline on this stage 15 years ago, she was ready to take the stairs
- on her own, but not really the microphone.
- She was ready to silence the voices who told her she didn't belong on this stage.
- Today, she has climbed many more steps and reached for several microphones to lead in
- her own way.
- No matter your gender, you can make our community stronger by supporting and seeing the women
- who have the courage and capacity to step forward.
- Whether you are prepping our next generation of leaders, helping to be their tribe for
- those who are standing on this stage today, or stepping into the ring yourself, we need
- you.
- You have what it takes to make our city and even our world more compassionate and more
- visionary and for that, I offer my very deepest gratitude.
- Thank you for being here and more importantly, thank you for stepping into what's next.
- Thank you Mayor Thompson for your remarks on moving forward together.
- Hello everyone.
- I am Landry Culp and I am the chair of the Commission on the Status of Women.
- Thank you so much for being here today, coming out and supporting what we're doing and supporting
- our award winners here.
- So the Bloomington Commission on the Status of Women is dedicated to advocating for equity
- and improving opportunities for all who embrace a female identity.
- We do this by monitoring and reviewing policies and legislation on the federal, state and
- local levels and engaging with our community to understand the needs of women.
- Our commission welcomes everyone who identifies as a woman and those who feel our women-focused
- environment aligns with their values.
- If you'd like to receive communication from our commission, please scan the QR code on
- your table.
- It's on the little folded piece and you'll fill out a brief survey and then you'll get
- emails and communication from us and get to know what's going on with us.
- So I'm humbled to participate in the awards part of our luncheon where we can learn about
- the incredible work being done by women for our community.
- With this, the commission will recognize the 2025 Women's Achievement Award winners.
- This includes the 2025 Young Woman of the Year, the 2025 Emerging Leader and the 2025
- Women of the Year.
- I'll pass it over to my fellow commissioner, Shay.
- Thank you, Landry.
- My name is Shayla George and I'm pleased to announce the Commission on the Status of Women's
- Young Woman of the Year Award.
- This award recognizes a young woman between the ages of 11 and 18 years who has already
- at a young age impacted girls and women issues in the community.
- This year, the Young Woman of the Year belongs to Jael Davis.
- I first met Jael Davis last year when we were both honored as recipients of the Outstanding
- Black Leader of Tomorrow Award, so it is no shock that she is continuing to impact the
- Bloomington community.
- As a dedicated student at Bloomington South, Jael has achieved academic excellence and
- made significant contributions to the lives of women and girls through her leadership
- and advocacy.
- As the president of the Black Culture Club, Jael has created a nurturing space that champions
- diversity and inclusion, providing a platform for voices that are often too unheard.
- Her commitment extends beyond the school walls, where she's a vital part of the women's empowerment
- politics section, encouraging her peers to engage and lead in areas that affect them
- directly.
- Whether it's improving housing accessibility with Habitat for Humanity or mentoring young
- adults, Jael embodies the spirit of this year's theme, Moving Forward Together, Women Educating
- and Inspiring Generations.
- Please join me in celebrating Jael Davis, a true role model and our Young Woman of the
- Year.
- Good morning, Bloomington, and thank you to the Commission of the Status of Women for
- this incredible honor of being named the Young Woman of the Year, and I am truly humbled
- and grateful to stand before you guys today.
- This recognition not only just belongs to all the women and people who have supported me
- along the way, to my families and mentors.
- I just want to say thank you for your love and encouragement, and your belief in me has
- been a constant source of strength, and then to my friends and community, thank you for
- your kindness and support.
- You've lifted me up in both ways that are good times and challenges, and your belief
- in me fuels my drive to continue making a difference.
- I stand here today not only as an individual who is part of a greater collective that empowers
- and uplift one another, but I also believe that many women before me, that we all each
- have the power to create positive change in a world that's around us.
- To the young people here today, you are the future.
- Your ideas, passions, and determination will shape the world we believe behind.
- With everything happening politically, from policies that impact our rights, to global
- challenges we face, we need to be the next generation more than ever.
- We need your voices, your energy, your leadership to navigate these times and make a meaningful
- impact.
- Never forget that the power to make a difference lies within you, and to keep pushing boundaries,
- keep questioning, and keep striving to make the world a better place.
- The future is yours to create, and I have no doubt that you will make it something extraordinary.
- One of my role models, Michelle Obama, once said, "There is no limit to what we as women
- can accomplish."
- Those words resonate deeply within me, and they serve as a reminder that our potential
- is boundless.
- And as women and individuals, we must continue to strive for greatness and support one another.
- Thank you once again for this incredible honor, and I promise to continue to work hard and
- to create a change in my community.
- Thank you.
- Congratulations on a well-deserved award.
- Hello, everyone.
- My name is Nicole Bennett, and I'm excited to introduce to you the 2025 Emerging Leader.
- The Commission on the Status of Women's Emerging Leader Award acknowledges a woman with a
- relatively
- short history of significant achievements and recognizes the potential for future contributions.
- This year, the Commission is pleased to present this award to Amy Olsner.
- In the mid-2010s, Amy Olsner moved to Bloomington to become the Assistant Director of Rhino's
- Youth Center.
- At this beloved after-school program for teens, Amy led the zine writing program, encouraging
- youth to share their own stories and engage with the public in creative ways.
- Following her passion for creating safe, creative spaces for youth, Amy produced the first Girls
- Rock Bloomington summer camp for girls, trans, and non-binary youth in the summer of 2019.
- Today, Girls Rock Bloomington is a music education nonprofit empowering youth ages 8 to 14 to
- engage in music in a space created by and for them.
- Through summer camps, workshops, and after-school programs, Amy, the Girls Rock team, and a
- dedicated collective of community partners teach girls, trans, and non-binary youth the
- skills they need to write, record, play, and market original music.
- To date, Girls Rock Bloomington has served over 150 girls, trans, and non-binary youth
- in the Bloomington area.
- To ensure that all young people interested in joining could afford to attend, Amy established
- the BIPOC Community Fund in 2019.
- This fund provides free and reduced prices for the programming for BIPOC girls, trans,
- and non-binary youth in Bloomington.
- The Commission on the Status of Women is very proud to award the 2025 Emerging Leader Award
- to Amy Oelsner.
- Congratulations.
- Thank you.
- Thank you so much.
- I didn't really prepare anything, just thought about it a little bit, but this is just such
- an honor and I'm really moved by what everyone has said and I feel like Bloomington makes
- it really easy to be a leader.
- As soon as I moved here, even before I started Girls Rock Bloomington, I just felt immediately
- embraced within the music community as well as the non-profit community and then, yeah,
- once I had the idea to start a non-profit, I was quite intimidated by it, really didn't
- know a lot about it, and I just felt like so many people gathered around and lifted me
- up so this is a very special, supportive community and if you're thinking of starting something,
- I'm sure there's a lot of support out there for you, yeah, and I think being a leader
- is often just noticing who is not being invited or included and just doing the work to get
- them in there, you know, whatever barriers are keeping them there, just going out of
- your way to invite everyone in.
- So thank you so much.
- All right.
- I am Marsha Lovejoy. I had the honor of receiving the 2024 Women of the Year Award last year,
- and I am thrilled to announce the 2025 Woman of the Year today.
- Danielle Benedict is a founding member of the Pediatric Sexual Assault Forensic Medical
- Exam Program, serving child victims of abuse and crime in Monroe and surrounding counties.
- Through Danielle's nearly decade of partnership with Suzy's Place and support of this program,
- hundreds of child victims of sexual abuse have received trauma-informed care and opportunity
- to heal and recover from unimaginable experiences.
- Under her visionary leadership, Suzy's Place has conducted over 1,000 child abuse exams
- and has received national recognition, inspiring similar programs across the country.
- Danielle has also pioneered the first advanced practice provider leadership structure for
- the South region of IU Health, giving advanced practice providers a voice and a seat at the
- table alongside physician.
- Danielle is a difference maker who has chosen to dedicate her gifts and talents to improving
- the lives of children and women in the community.
- I like to say, and I've heard this quote many times, you can tell who the strong women are.
- Strong women lift each other up, and Danielle has dedicated her life to doing just that.
- So now, please welcome Danielle Benedict, one of my close friends, to the stage.
- It's 2025, City of Bloomington, Woman of the Year.
- Gosh, I do child abuse exams, not public speaking, so you're going to have to forgive me here.
- But I am humbled beyond words to accept this award.
- I want to take a moment to thank my biggest fans.
- First, my husband is my biggest supporter.
- I truly believe that one of the most important decisions we can make as women is the partner
- that we choose, and I chose really well.
- Thanks to my four kids who motivate me daily to be a role model, my two oldest kids, Jude
- and Kate, sitting over here ecstatic that they got to miss school today and secretly
- hoping I don't embarrass them, and my four and one-year-old, Alex and Chloe, who are at
- daycare because I wanted to enjoy a meal today.
- And then special thanks to my amazing mom sitting here in the front row.
- She adopted me from foster care, and I have been so fortunate to have such an incredible
- woman to look up to all my life.
- And then a huge thank you to the amazing leaders I've worked with at IU Health and Susie's
- place, many of who are sitting in this room today, who have never said no to all the times
- I said, "Hey, so don't kill me, but I have this idea."
- Emily Perry, Dr. Mesher, Dr. Malone, Olivia Sarche, and Stacey Tinsley, who are the backbones
- of this child abuse work.
- The world is a better place because of all of you.
- And thank you to all the Rockstar physicians and nurse practitioners, my friends and family
- who have been alongside of me supporting me throughout this journey.
- I remember vividly the day I had an idea to start a child abuse medical clinic.
- I remember going home as a nurse frustrated by the fact that we had to send these kids
- to Indianapolis for exams post-child abuse.
- As I laid in my bed that night, I thought, "This has to change.
- I'm going to bring this service here to our community, and it's going to solve a lot of
- problems."
- But getting from that idea to now standing here with all of you was no easy task.
- It was full of roadblocks, triumphs, and hurdles.
- It houses some of the most wonderful moments of my career and also some of the most heartbreaking
- ones.
- There have been many days where I drove home after a long day of child abuse exams, and
- I cried the entire way home.
- I pulled into the driveway, and like many of you have probably done at some point in
- your careers, I wiped the mascara stains away from my eyes, I blinked a few times, and I
- walked into the house to my kids who needed my smile.
- And I'm here to tell you that as women, our ideas matter, and that with those ideas, we
- can really improve the world that we live in one small step at a time, and we can look
- back and be really proud of what we have accomplished.
- Our clinic, Riley Physicians at Susie's Place, has now helped thousands of children who have
- been victims of physical and sexual abuse.
- We recently raised over $100,000 to expand our clinic to build an entire suite dedicated
- to the medical needs of abuse victims in our community.
- Our clinic is the first in the state to be affiliated with a large healthcare organization,
- but then co-located in a child advocacy center where kids feel the most comfortable.
- Someone recently asked me, "How in the world have you done this job for 10 years?"
- And what I'm here to tell you is that what I actually do is surprisingly quite happy.
- By the time they get to us, it's the end of abuse for a lot of these children and the
- start of a new path.
- Because once they arrive and they walk through our doors, they are already starting to get
- the help and healing they need, and now there is a team of professionals surrounding them
- who have one thing in common, we believe them.
- As I close, I wanted to share with you a passage that I read recently that really inspires
- me.
- "I don't think we talk enough about the in-betweens, the part where you know you want to change
- something but you don't yet know how, don't yet feel strong enough, don't yet know what
- your first step is, please don't be disheartened, don't give up, you've done the hard part,
- now just take it one small step at a time.
- To every incredible woman in this room, including my daughter who's watching me with big bright
- eyes, go do something that makes you proud."
- Hello Bloomington.
- Thank you, thank you.
- I'm here to congratulate again our 2025 Women's Achievement Award winners.
- As you heard and saw here today, those were stories that were inspiring and I hope that
- it puts something in you in lights of fire to do exactly what all of our winners and
- our mayor said today and get involved.
- Your voice is obviously very needed.
- Anyway, my name is Ashley Hazel Rigg and I'm pleased to introduce our 2025 keynote speaker,
- Tamra Winfrey-Harris.
- If you want to look in your program, her entire bio is there, but I'm going to read a little
- bit about her for you.
- Tamra is a writer who specializes in the ever evolving space where current events, politics
- and pop culture intersect with race and gender.
- She's the author of many books and essays, including Dear Black Girl, Letters from Your
- Sisters on Stepping into Your Power, A Black Woman's Guide to Freedom, and her multi-award
- winning first book, The Sisters Are Alright, Changing the Broken Narrative of Black Women
- in America.
- Tamra's essays can be found in national publications like the New York Times and the Atlantic and
- have been immortalized in a number of anthologies, including The Lemonade Reader, Beyonce, Black
- Feminism and Spirituality and Black in the Middle, and Anthology of the Black Midwest.
- Winfrey Harris is the co-founder of Centering Sisters LLC, an organization that unapologetically
- addresses the needs and issues of black women, girls and femmes.
- She's recently named president of the Women's Fund of Central Indiana.
- Please give a warm welcome to our keynote speaker, Tamra Winfrey Harris.
- Hello.
- Happy Women's History Month.
- You know, there have been many days recently where I have worried about our future, but
- the women who preceded me on this stage make me feel like we're going to be okay.
- We're going to be all right.
- Because of that, if you do me a favor, can I get you to close your eyes?
- If you can't close your eyes, maybe soften them.
- And I would like us to just take a moment to feel the energy of this space.
- To feel the joy of being in connection with other women and allies.
- To feel the power of people coming together to celebrate womanhood.
- I never feel more loved and inspired and energized and affirmed than when I am in the company
- of women.
- So let's all take a deep inhale, exhale, and let that feeling sink in.
- And now I ask that we collectively take a moment to acknowledge the women who are not
- in this room.
- Because it's important to say out loud that being able to gather on a Thursday afternoon
- at a delightful luncheon, those potatoes were good, is a privilege.
- There are many women who cannot be here because they started their work shift early this morning,
- because they don't have transportation, because they don't have child care or adult care,
- because they lack access to feminine hygiene products, because they're unsure if their
- language will be spoken here, because they're unsure if they will be accepted as women here,
- because they are enduring the effects of war or other violence, because they are incarcerated.
- So let's take a few seconds to send all the wonderful energy of this space to them, wherever
- they are and whatever challenges they are facing.
- Thank you.
- I am so honored to be in this space with you today.
- So you may not know this, well, actually did share this.
- I am a writer, yes, but I am also the president of the Women's Fund of Central Indiana.
- And at Women's Fund, we invest in systems change, advocate for women and girls, and
- build collective power for women and girls.
- We do that because we want women and girls to have the full power to decide how they
- want to live their lives.
- We're not there yet in Indiana.
- We are, in fact, I think, far from it.
- But what gives me hope is that I know history and I know women.
- I know Marie Curie and Mamie Till and Grace Lee Boggs and Toni Morrison and Martha P. Johnson
- and Frida Kahlo and Coretta Scott King and Susan B. Anthony and Belle Hooks and Bella
- Abzug and Pauli Murray and Shirley Chisholm and Madeline Albright and Harriet Tubman and
- Helen Keller and Malala and Melinda French Gates and Fannie Lou Hamer and Greta Thunberg
- and the Grimke sisters.
- I know the power of women and I will bet on it every time and twice on Sunday.
- Now, I'm going to say something that might sound shocking, but bear with me.
- I believe the women whose names I just mentioned are quite ordinary.
- You heard that right.
- Toni Morrison, a single mom with a nine to five, Madeline Albright, an immigrant, Helen
- Keller, a woman living with disabilities, Fannie Lou Hamer, a working class woman who
- was sick and tired of being sick and tired, see, ordinary.
- I bet there are countless women, even in this very room, that fit some of those descriptions.
- But oh, those women did some uncommon things.
- They were moved by passion, by lived experience, by need in their communities, by the unfairness
- they saw visited on other women to do the extraordinary.
- You've already heard that once today, do the extraordinary.
- So Toni Morrison won a Pulitzer Prize and a Nobel Prize for her ability to render the
- joys and the challenges of life, particularly African American life, through her art.
- She is known as one of the world's most gifted and enduring writers.
- Madeleine Albright became the first woman to serve as United States Secretary of State
- and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
- Helen Keller, I hope everyone in this room knows that she is more than the young woman
- and the miracle worker.
- She wrote 14 books and hundreds of speeches and essays.
- She campaigned for people with disabilities, for women's suffrage, for labor rights, for
- world peace.
- She was a founding member of the ACLU and an early supporter of the NAACP.
- Fannie Lou Hamer was extorted and threatened and harassed and shot at and assaulted by
- racists including members of the police while she was trying to register to vote.
- She later helped and encouraged thousands of African Americans in Mississippi to become
- registered voters and helped hundreds of disenfranchised people in her community.
- She ran for Senate and was the vice chair of the Freedom Democratic Party which she represented
- at the 1964 Democratic National Convention.
- These women, all of them, are history makers and I only say that they're ordinary so that
- you know, the women in this audience and the men know, that you have the capacity to do
- extraordinary things too.
- As Toni Morrison herself said, "I get angry about things and then go on and work."
- Right?
- And if you are in this room and you value women and girls, you have ample reason to
- be angry.
- And women and girls across the state of Indiana desperately need you to get to work and do
- something extraordinary because we are in trouble.
- The Institute for Women's Policy Research, they keep a report card for each state judging
- the health and well-being of the women there.
- In our state, Indiana has a D. Last year, Women's Fund commissioned a State of Women
- in Central Indiana report from the Polis Center at Indiana University.
- And the report featured data and community voice and makes the reasons for that near
- failing grade quite clear.
- Indiana has the third worst maternal mortality rate in the country.
- Almost half of black and Hispanic women don't have access to first trimester care during
- pregnancy.
- Hispanic barriers prevent about 10 percent of women from seeking medical care, especially
- Hispanic women, at 21 percent.
- The gender wage gap is eight cents worse for Hoosier women than the average American woman,
- and the gap widens significantly if you're a Hoosier woman of color.
- Only four of Indiana's 20 most common occupations pay at least $26 an hour.
- That's the minimum housing wage for the Indy Metro area.
- Women make up the majority of workers in fast food and retail, making less than $15 an hour.
- Young women are more likely to live in poverty than any other age group.
- 17 percent of young women in central Indiana, age 18 to 34, live in poverty, compared to
- 11 percent of the overall population.
- Local mothers in Indiana are more likely than other households to fall below the Alice threshold.
- That's asset-limited, income-constrained, employed.
- They are working poor and less likely to have a bank account.
- They are likely to pay half of their income in rent.
- Sixty-one percent of evictions in Marion County are filed against women.
- A hundred thousand women live in food deserts.
- Nearly one in four women in Indiana provide care to someone with health issues, including
- me.
- Black women make up 26 percent of women caregivers, and 31 percent of those are providing care
- for someone more than 40 hours a week.
- Child care needs in central Indiana far exceed available licensed spots.
- Unless you think that's an urban problem, Marion County can meet 84 percent of demand,
- while Hancock County can only meet 46.
- Indiana is among the 10 states with the highest domestic violence rates.
- One in five Indiana women have been sexually assaulted, and physical violence starts early.
- Seventeen percent of Indiana high school girls reported experiencing sexual violence in 2021.
- Indiana ranks in the bottom quarter of states in terms of female representation in our state
- house. We are one of only five states that have never elected a woman as a governor or
- a U.S. Senator.
- I'm almost done.
- Future Forward Women just released their 2025 U.S. Women's Power and Influence Index.
- Indiana is among the bottom 10 states for protecting women's rights and well-being based
- on four factors, economic status, civic engagement and political inclusion, health and public
- policy, and legal protections.
- Here's the thing. You and I, all of us in this room, we're making history right now.
- Actually we're making women's history, but actually we're making history full stop because
- As women are not a special interest group, we are the global and American majority.
- We are half the population in Indiana.
- We are 52% of the population in central Indiana.
- As the mayor said, if a community is not working for us, it isn't working.
- And any workplace, any boardroom, any hospital, any site of education, any city, any state,
- any country, any place, is not doing its job if women's well-being is not valued, proactively
- supported and protected.
- Someday, someone's going to stand here addressing another room for Women's History Month, and
- they're going to tell the story of this moment.
- And if we don't take extraordinary action, it won't be good.
- The state of women in our state is extremely vulnerable.
- And I think that's unconscionable.
- And I think it must change.
- And here are some things that you can do.
- I hope you will go to womensfund.org and download the State of Women in Central Indiana Report
- and get smart about the experiences of Hoosier women.
- And I hope you will share the information you heard today with civic leaders and healthcare
- providers and parents and educators and anyone who makes decisions that impact women and girls
- in our state.
- You also need to listen to women as they tell their own stories.
- This is really important.
- I can't stand here and represent every woman.
- And data can only reveal so much.
- And this -- because the same can be said for our personal experiences, right?
- To borrow from American poet and essayist Walt Whitman, womanhood is large and it contains
- multitudes.
- Some of us are in the C-suite and some of us are barely making it.
- Some of us are fresh faced with a lifetime ahead.
- And some of us are defiantly embracing wisdom wrinkles and elegant gray.
- Some of us have skin that is brown, some pink, and some mahogany.
- Some of us are city girls, and some of us are suburban girls, and some of us live down
- on the farm.
- Some of us learn to speak English as our first language.
- Some of us learn to speak Burmese or Spanish or Tagalog.
- Some of us are trans women.
- Some of us are cisgender.
- Some of us are mothers.
- Some of us are caregivers.
- Some of us are not nurturers at all.
- Some of us love men, some of us love women, some of us love both or neither.
- Some of us show our devotion in church on Sunday, some do it just by chanting or standing
- by the ocean, and some of us sleep in.
- Some of us are healthy, some of us are healing, others of us are dying.
- Like I said, multitudes.
- My personal hero, writer Audre Lorde said, "It is not our differences that divide us.
- It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.
- Difference is that raw and powerful connection from which our personal power is forged."
- So because of all the richness and diversity within womanhood, some of our joys are different,
- and many of our challenges are different, too.
- And we don't build a better world for women without understanding that.
- Lastly, you must advocate for women and girls.
- Now is not the time to be silent or turn away because the news is too unsettling.
- If what you heard about the lives of women in Indiana today upsets you, and it absolutely
- should, I need you all to do something.
- I need you to know what is happening at City Hall and the State House and the White House.
- Go to school board meetings, call your legislators, be a citizen, be engaged, be loud, be
- determined.
- Your sisters are counting on you.
- So on Tuesday, I was in this meeting unrelated to anything happening here today, and a woman
- named Andrea handed me this photo -- it's elephants, if you can't see it -- she handed
- me this photo and this slip of paper.
- Turns out it's an excerpt from a story by a woman named Jen Hatmaker.
- She's an author.
- I don't know anything about her, but I believe in giving women their credit and their due,
- so not my story, her story.
- Here's what Jen says.
- She says, "In the wild, when a mama elephant is giving birth, all the other female elephants
- in the herd back around her in formation.
- They close ranks so that the delivering mama cannot even be seen in the middle.
- They stomp and kick up dirt and soil to throw attackers off the scent and basically act
- like a pack of badasses.
- They surround the mama and incoming baby in protection, sending a clear signal to predators
- that if they want to attack their friend while she is vulnerable, they'll have to get through
- 40 tons of female aggression first.
- When the baby elephant is delivered, the sister elephants do two things.
- They kick sand or dirt over the newborn to protect its fragile skin from the sun, and
- then they all start trumpeting a female celebration of new life, of sisterhood, of something
- beautiful
- being born in a harsh wild world despite enemies and attackers and predators and odds.
- Scientists tell us this.
- They normally take this formation in only two cases under attack by predators like lions
- or during the birth of a new elephant.
- And this is what we should do as women, when our sisters are vulnerable, when they're giving
- birth to new life, new ideas, new ministries, new spaces.
- When they are under attack, when they need their people to surround them so that they
- can create and deliver and heal and recover, we get in formation.
- It sounds like Beyonce said that, right?
- Yeah.
- We close ranks and literally have each other's backs.
- You want to mess with our sis?
- Come through us first.
- Good luck.
- 40 tons of female aggression.
- I want people to talk about me that way.
- When delivery comes, when new life makes its entrance, when healing finally begins, when
- the night has passed and our sister is ready to rise back up, we sound our trumpets because
- we saw it through together.
- We celebrate, we cheer, we raise our glasses, and we give thanks.
- Let's be like elephants, like this.
- Let's stomp and kick up dust and close ranks around our most vulnerable and help them thrive.
- And let's channel our very ordinary foremothers, Marie Curie and Mamie Till and Grace Lee Boggs
- and Toni Morrison and Martha P. Johnson and Freda Kahlo and Coretta Scott King and Susan
- B. Anthony and Belle Hooks and Bella Abzug and Paulie Murray and Shirley Chisholm and
- Madeline Albright and Harriet Tubman and Helen Keller and Malala and Melinda French Gates
- and Fannie Lou Hamer, Greta Thunberg, the Grimke sisters, and the women you saw on this stage
- today.
- Let's do the extraordinary.
- Thank you.
- And I stand in solidarity with you.
- Thank you so much for your words and your wisdom, Tamara.
- We appreciate you.
- We're grateful that you're here.
- And may we all be elephants to each other and our creations.
- I'm Hannah Chudley.
- I'm on the Commission for the Status of Women.
- And I'm Carrie Stilions, also a commissioner.
- Before we close, I have one last announcement that I wanted to make.
- At the end of this inspiring program, I wanted to let you all know that Resilience Productions
- has a new play that they're doing.
- It's called "More Than Your Honor," an exciting evening with Judge Viola Taliaferro.
- Judge Taliaferro was a previous honoree of these awards, and three of her four daughters
- are here with us today, if they'd like to stand up.
- We're very grateful for Judge Taliaferro's legacy.
- And if you'd like to learn more, the play opens tonight, closes Sunday night.
- You can get tickets at the Monroe County History Center, or you can also pick up one of these
- flyers at the middle wayhouse table over there on your way out.
- So thank you so much for being here today.
- And we wanted to once again congratulate our awardees and thank all of the speakers.
- We are so grateful for the supportive environment that we've created here today.
- We would like to take a moment to recognize the sponsors who helped make this event possible,
- because it certainly doesn't happen without your support.
- Our 2025 presenting sponsor is the City of Bloomington Community and Family Resources
- Department.
- Our platinum sponsor is the City of Bloomington Office of the Clerk.
- Our 2025 gold sponsors are the City of Bloomington Office of the Mayor, the South Central Community
- Action Program, and Cook Medical.
- Our 2025 silver sponsor is Girls' Inc. of Monroe County.
- And our bronze sponsor is Girl Scouts of Central Indiana, who also donated all the Girl Scout
- cookies that you see on your tables today.
- So please take a box with you before you leave.
- Thank you so much for your contributions, and thank you for making today possible.
- We could not do this without you.
- We'd also like to express our sincere appreciation for our event partners, who made this day
- such a success.
- Thank you to Monroe Convention Center staff and caterers, Marquis Rental and Staging,
- Able Nursery, and the City of Bloomington Community and Family Resources Department staff.
- We appreciate your support and collaboration.
- I'd like to close our wonderful event today with a quote from Madam CJ Walker.
- She was a black woman who became the first female self-made millionaire.
- When she moved away from Pittsburgh, she was not finding the opportunities there that she
- had wanted.
- She ended up moving to Indianapolis and decided that Indiana was going to be the place where
- she made new opportunities for herself.
- And the quote I want to leave with you today said, "Don't sit down and wait for the opportunities
- to come.
- Get up and make them."
- We've seen some amazing examples today of women who have gone out into our Bloomington
- community and made opportunities happen for themselves and for others.
- I hope each of you goes home today feeling strengthened, inspired, and supported by the
- women and others around you in order to go out into your community and make opportunities.
- May the messages of today empower us to continue advocating for the causes we care about and
- making opportunities for ourselves, our daughters, and our future.
- Thank you.
- (orchestral music)
- (upbeat music)