Association for Women in Psychology AUSTIN AWP 2020 MARCH 5-8TH 1 Acknowledgements As co-chairs for AWP Austin, we are indebted to our tireless committee of students and professionals who have given generously of their time and talents to help make our conference a success. We offer our heartfelt, enthusiastic thanks to the following folx: Dena Abbott Abigail Baer Kenna Bolton Holtz Sara Bonilla Madeline Brodt Katie Clonan-Roy Rachel Dyer Ellen Halpern Emily Keener* Julie Koven Ginny Maril Mallaigh McGinley Maureen McHugh* Clare Mehta Madison Natarajan Mike Parent Noelany Pelc* Sandy Ramirez Tangela Roberts Rakhshanda Saleem Riddhi Sandil Christine Smith Sally Stabb Lindsey White Celina Whitmore Advisors: Kat Quina, Mary Zahm, Sharon Siegel, Elizabeth Bennett, Nik Houston, Mindy Erchull Special thanks to our Keynote Speaker, Loretta Ross and our Plenary Speakers, Laina Bay-Cheng, Alexandra Rutherford, and Deborah Tolman In solidarity, with reproductive justice for all— Sharon Lamb and Debra Mollen *Program Committee Diversity and Inclusion Statement What happens in our organization is a reflection of the larger world. AWP is a living space. Although we strive to create a safe and empowering environment, we are aware that we are not immune to interpersonal, organizational, structural, and cultural forces of oppression. Our feminist methods and responsibility are to address racism, classism, sexism, and all other forms of injustice in the moment-to-moment interactions of every part of our conference experience. To be conscious, to be thoughtful, to be mindful, to be reflective, to make mistakes, to be open to feedback and dialogue from others’ lived experience that differs from our own. This is the essence of feminist practice. The Implementation Collective feels strongly that feminism is an integration of both Doing (engaging in community activism, mentoring, building alliances, influencing policy, teaching, research) and Being (maintaining a feminist consciousness and intentionality around issues of privilege and oppression). This ongoing intersection is how we collectively nourish all of our members in the shared space of our conference that is the lifeblood of our organization. (Written by the Implementation Collective, June 2015) Gender Inclusivity Statement The Association of Women in Psychology acknowledges that language is gender-inclusive and non-sexist when we use words that affirm and respect how people describe, express, and experience their gender. Just as sexist language excludes women’s experiences, non-gender- inclusive language excludes the experiences of individuals whose identities may not fit the gender binary, and/or who may not identify with the sex they were assigned at birth. Examine your assumptions. It is common for people to make assumptions, often subconsciously, that others share the same background, perspectives, or experiences (e.g. everyone at this conference identifies as a woman). These assumptions can make conference attendees with minority identities feel marginalized while at AWP2020. It is important to develop an awareness of these assumptions and to replace them with inclusive language and behavior. Conference attendees with have their name and pronouns listed on name badges. We expect that all attendees will use the pronouns chosen to affirm one’s identity (e.g. they/them, ze/ zir, she/her, he/him). If someone’s pronouns are not clearly stated, the best policy is to ask someone which pronouns affirm their identity, rather than assume the correct pronouns to use. You may slip up and use the wrong gender pronoun when referring to another person. This is okay. However, don’t pretend you didn’t use the incorrect pronoun. If you make a mistake, take accountability for your error by correcting yourself before continuing your conversation. Everyone in the space will appreciate your effort. 1 Land Acknowledgement: the Tonkawa Indians We would like to acknowledge the traditional, ancestral, unceded territory of the Tonkawa Indians on which we are learning and teaching today. Indigenous people are often talked about in the past tense. It is easier to deny Indigenous people their rights if we historicize their struggles and today we honor the people who stewarded the land on which we in the present gather and the remaining Tonkawa here in the US. We want to acknowledge the history of genocide and forced removal from this land. And in connection with the conference, we especially acknowledge the forced sterilization as one of the many forms of genocide of a people enacted upon indigenous and other racialized female bodies as the history of our colonial settler. As activists and scholars, we can commit ourselves to the struggle against all systems of oppression especially those that dispossessed Indigenous people of their lands. Colonialism is an ongoing and current process and we need to examine our participation in it. Select HERstory of the Tonkawa Indians The name Tonkawa is a Waco term meaning “they all stay together.” (The Tonkawa Indians were actually a group of independent bands.) It is interesting to hear as we begin our meetings that maternal clans were the basic unit in Tonkawa society. Children became members of their mothers’ clans, and men lived with their spouses’ clans. Because each clan saw itself as a family unit, marriage within the clan was discouraged. The same kinship relation carried over to the female side of the family (as was common on the male side) where sororate, the practice in which a sister married her dead sister’s husband, was followed. Following this same pattern, when a man died his property was distributed among his siblings’ children, rather than to his own in order that the property might stay within his clan. Orphans became wards of the mother’s clan. The system was designed to insure that widows and orphans would be cared for. Little is still known about the Tonkawa and their time here in what is now called Austin, on the land where the AT&T Conference Center sit. But the death rites have received the greatest attention in existing written records. When a person neared death, their friends would gather and form concentric rings around the dying, chanting and swaying until the individual passed away. The deceased was then buried, along with many of their prized possessions. Like other plains Indians, a horse was sometimes shot over the grave of a prestigious warrior. The band mourned for three days, relatives more deeply than others, and then carried out a four-day smoking ceremony that was meant to purify those contaminated by death. This ceremony also allowed the society to realign and reintegrate itself following the loss of a member. The Tonkawas had a plains Indian culture, subsisting on the buffalo and small game. When the Apaches began to push them from their hunting grounds, they became a destitute culture, living off what little food they could scavenge. Women wore short skin skirts, with additional accoutrement as weather dictated. Males wore earrings, necklaces, and other ornaments of shell, bone, and feathers, and both sexes tattooed their bodies. https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/bmt68 2 WELLNESS Thoughts On Your Well-Being Academic and professional conferences offer great opportunities to network, share expertise, and learn from leaders in the field. However, they can also be environments that produce feelings of stress and pressure. Conference Stress/Typical Feelings Conferences are often busy settings, filled with new faces and noise. It is common to experience the following feelings, and more: • Stress related to getting the most value from a compressed and frenetic experience • Loneliness, especially if you have traveled to the conference without peers from your own institution • Jealousy, insecurity, or anxiety, related to comparing your own work to others’ These feelings can be intensified or made more complex if you also experience things like depression or anxiety. Nurturing Wellness AWP recognizes that conferences can be stressful and is deeply committed to promoting the wellness of our community. At AWP 2020, we want to support you in maintaining such balance and comprehensive wellness. AWP offers the following recommendations for nurturing these dimensions of wellness: • Emotional: create time to stay on top of your typical work responsibilities and ask for help when you need it. • Intellectual: make sure to make time for presentation sessions that you will enjoy (even if they are unrelated to your research); take breaks for yourself in between presentation sessions • Physical: move your body (exercise); be mindful of nutrition; get eight hours of sleep • Social Support: take advantage of the social opportunities we have planned throughout the conference, the receptions, Friday night’s dance instruction, Saturday night’s comedy show • Financial: If the conference is a financial splurge for you, make a spending plan. Use buses or share rides. Eat well at the breakfasts and receptions provided by the conference and choose the inexpensive options near the hotel which is situated in a university district Resources In the hotel: a 24-hour fitness center; hotel heated outdoor saltwater pool 6 am- 10PM What the conference offers: Check out the next page for a summary of our conference programming around wellness. 3 4 SPEAKERS Keynote Speaker Loretta Ross Loretta J. Ross was a Visiting Professor of Practice in the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University teaching “Reproductive Justice Theory and Practice” and “Race and Culture in the U.S.” for the 2018-2019 academic year. Previously, she was a Visiting Professor at Hampshire College in Women’s Studies for the 2017-2018 academic year teaching “White Supremacy in the Age of Trump.” She was a co-founder and the National Coordinator of the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective from 2005-2012, a network founded in 1997 of women of color and allied organizations that organize women of color in the reproductive justice movement. She is one of the creators of the term reproductive justice coined by African American women in 1994 that has transformed reproductive politics in the U.S.