The Women's Conference (also known as the California Governor & First Lady's Conference on Women) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan US organization and annual forum for women. The event first began in 1986 as a California government initiative for working professionals and women business owners. Since 2004, The Women's Conference has become a large event at which people such as the Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso, former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, Oprah Winfrey, Barbara Walters, Jane Fonda, Martha Stewart, Tyra Banks, Sarah, Duchess of York, Tim Russert, Deepak Chopra, Tom Brokaw, Queen Rania of Jordan, Maureen Dowd, Sandra Day O'Connor, Thomas Friedman, Anna Quindlen, and Billie Jean King have spoken.
Restructured by Shriver in 2010, The Women's Conference reportedly became the "largest meeting of women in the country" and a celebration of "lives and lessons". Now known as the California Women's Conference, its main stage presentations and seminar sessions have addressed personal topics such as work-life balance, service and volunteerism, healthy lifestyles, spirituality and families, professional issues such as professional development, financial planning, entrepreneurialism and communications, as well as social issues like women's maternal health, global poverty, climate change and emergency preparedness.
The event is staged at the Long Beach Convention Center in Long Beach, California, usually in the fall.
Every year, substantial portions of the event are made available free through a live streaming webcast at The Women's Conference's web site.
Read more about The Women's Conference: History, From 2010, Event Highlights, Organization Highlights, Minerva Awards
Famous quotes containing the words women and/or conference:
“Women are taught that their main goal in life is to serve others—first men, and later, children. This prescription leads to enormous problems, for it is supposed to be carried out as if women did not have needs of their own, as if one could serve others without simultaneously attending to one’s own interests and desires. Carried to its “perfection,” it produces the martyr syndrome or the smothering wife and mother.”
—Jean Baker Miller (20th century)
“Politics is still the man’s game. The women are allowed to do the chores, the dirty work, and now and then—but only occasionally—one is present at some secret conference or other. But it’s not the rule. They can go out and get the vote, if they can and will; they can collect money, they can be grateful for being permitted to work. But that is all.”
—Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876–1958)