Women's Conference

This is a free event and open to students, faculty, staff, administrators, and community members of all genders.

No, participants can choose to attend some or all of the sessions offered throughout the day.

Space is limited so it is strongly recommended to register in advance if you will be attending any part of the conference. Pre-registered attendees will be given priority admission to the keynote lunch.

Yes! Please inform your students to register in advance.

A panel of women from various industries and backgrounds will discuss their experiences working in their field, navigating professionalism with an intersectional perspective, and combating imposter syndrome.

This session is sponsored by Women Success Alliance, a student organization committed to supporting motivated women in accomplishing their professional and academic goals through student-to-student mentorship. They create a space that allows women to learn and explore their identities, and build community on campus.

Facilitated by Kimberlee Tellez & Mia Yamamoto, National Lawyers Guild of Los Angeles

Learn about civil disobedience and what to keep in mind if you're considering engaging in this type of activism!

Kimberlee Tellez is an NLG Board Member, who has participated in both sides of civil disobedience—as a participant who has gotten arrested at multiple protests, as well as being a legal observer at many CD actions.

Mia Yamamoto is a legendary criminal defense lawyer and civil rights activist, with numerous awards for her work in the community.

Facilitated by Barrio Mobile Art Studio

Artists from the Barrio Mobile Art Studio (BMAS) program from Self Help Graphics & Art will teach participants how to create stencils centered around empowerment, feminism, and social justice themes. The stencils will be silkscreened onto posters and shirts that participants can keep. Following the workshop, BMAS artists will provide a drop-in space for silkscreening until 5 p.m., or while supplies last.

Founded in 1970 in the heart of East Los Angeles, Self Help Graphics & Art is dedicated to the production, interpretation and distribution of prints and other art media by Chicana/o and Latinx artists. Our multidisciplinary and intergenerational programs promote artistic excellence and empower our community by providing access to space, tools, training and capital. The Barrio Mobile Art Studio was founded as a program that works towards equity and social justice through art.

Roxane Gay is an author and cultural critic whose work garners international acclaim for its reflective, no-holds-barred exploration of feminism and social criticism. Her collection of essays, Bad Feminist, is universally considered the quintessential exploration of modern feminism. In 2017, Roxane released her bestselling memoir, Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body, as well as her collection of short stories, Difficult Women. In 2018, she released Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture, a valuable and searing anthology that has been described as “essential reading” and a “call to arms” by its readers.

Roxane co-hosts Hear to Slay with Tressie McMillan Cottom—a podcast with an intersectional perspective on celebrity, culture, politics, art, life, love, and more. She is also a contributing op-ed writer for The New York Times, and she was the first black woman to ever write for Marvel, writing a comic series in the Black Panther universe called World of Wakanda.

The keynote will be followed by a book signing in LSU Ballroom B.

Roxane Gay on social media:

Facilitated by Gloria Lucas, Nalgona Positivity Pride

This workshop will discuss the connection historical trauma has with eating disorders and the way colonialism has impacted the way people of color and indigenous people view their bodies. Furthermore, participants will have the opportunity to learn about the dominance of the white-thin-cis-hetero industrial complex and how it influences the way marginalized people get seen and treated in overall society. This workshop is coming from the perspective of a woman of color and welcomes people from all backgrounds to participate.

Gloria Lucas is a body-positive activist, entrepreneur, and a public speaker. In 2014, Gloria started Nalgona Positivity Pride—a Xicana-brown-indigenous body-positive organization that focuses on the link between historical trauma and eating disorders—after personally struggling with an eating disorder. Gloria’s work has been featured in the Huffington Post, NPR, Bitch Magazine, and The Body is Not an Apology.

Nalgona Positivity Pride on social media:

Facilitated by Tia Koonse, Labor Studies

Session details coming soon.

Facilitated by La Loba Loca

In this session, we will be talking about how mainstream understandings of reproductive health enforce cisheteropatriarchy. We must begin to think about the cisheteropatriarchal system as a political regime that affects all of our relations, including our body sovereignty. We will also discuss how body autonomy can look, centering interspecies relations and thinking beyond the human.

Loba is a University of California, Berkeley and University of California, Los Angeles graduate, whose thesis focused on the forced sterilization of Quechua women. Learning about reproductive justice and being heavily influenced by autonomous health and free abortion movements in South America, Loba decided to create trainings and talks that touch on healing justice, autonomous health, and radical politics. Loba has deepened into this work, and currently offers several talks on the topics of herbal medicine, sustainable living, the impact of the witch hunts in the modern world, decentering white supremacy in healing, and the many ways that social justice intersects with it all.

La Loba Loca on social media:

Facilitated by Karama Blackhorn, Queer Culture & Resource Center

A conversation about dating online and navigating the joys and struggles we face in putting ourselves out there. This dynamic discussion will be shaped by participants’ interests, questions, and experiences. Participants will walk away with safety and safe care tips and more ways to understand and process the complex and often confusing world of online dating. LGBTQ+, non-monogamous, colorism, and non-sexual experiences are welcomed and integrated into the conversation.

A panel discussion about what feminism and social justice work can look like in the real world. Speakers include Gloria Lucas of Nalgona Positivity Pride, La Loba Loca, and others to be announced.

Facilitated by Magdalena Diaz & Michelle Pereira-Henriquez

Empowerment Self-Defense (ESD) is a holistic, trauma-informed approach to self-defense. The goal of ESD is to give individuals the power to choose how to respond to dangerous situations, without judgment or victim-blaming. The training aims to build confidence, aids in providing de-escalation practices, and leaves individuals feeling empowered.

Magdalena Diaz is a Level 1 ESD trainer with over seven years of experience working with survivors of interpersonal violence. She obtained her BA in Psychology from California State University, Long Beach, and is currently working on her MA in Education with a concentration in Counseling at San Diego State University. Magdalena obtained her Graduate Certificate in Mental Health Recovery and Trauma-Informed Care, and she is also a certified Restorative Justice Facilitator.

Michelle Pereira-Henriquez is a Trauma Therapist at the East Los Angeles Women's Center and works closely with survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, and stalking. She holds ESD workshops for both survivors and staff alike as a trained ESD Instructor. She obtained her BA from California State University, Los Angeles, and received her MSW from California State University, Long Beach with a specialization in Community Mental Health.

Co-sponsored by Toro Guardian Scholars

Today, there are still twice as many male short-film directors as female directors. Since 2000, the LUNAFEST® traveling film festival has been flipping the script, creating opportunities for more than 150 women filmmakers to share their untold stories. This screening features seven short films including: Purl, Ballet After Dark, There You Are, X-Mas Cake—This American Shelf-Life, Game, Lady Parts, and How to Swim.

LUNAFEST will also have repeated screenings from 10 a.m. – 5:15 p.m. in LSU 328.

Co-sponsored by Hollywood by the Horns and the Women’s Studies Program.

Facilitated by Toddy Eames, Communications

Talk with directors B. Monét (Ballet After Dark), Erin Rye (Lady Parts), and Jessica Sherif (Lady Parts).

Co-sponsored by Hollywood by the Horns and the Women’s Studies Program.