Women’s History, Women’s Lives

Each film will be followed by a discussion led by a speaker with expertise in the film’s subject matter. The film series is free and open to the public.

2/21 My Name Is Pauli Murray  

Speaker: Emerald Christopher-Byrd, Women & Gender Studies, University of Delaware

Pauli Murray was a trailblazer - an American civil rights and women’s rights activist, lawyer, author, poet, and Episcopal priest.  Her legal ideas—encapsulated in the term “Jane Crow” -- influenced both RBG’s fight for gender equality and Thurgood Marshall’s quest for racial justice. This is a portrait of a non-binary Black luminary who transformed our world.

2/28 Jane: An Abortion Service

Speaker: Ruth Lytle-Barnaby, CEO of Planned Parenthood of Delaware

When abortion was illegal in most states, where could desperate women turn for help? Jane: An Abortion Service tells the story of a Chicago-based clandestine abortion-referral network that helped thousands of women in the years before Roe v. Wade. Between 1969 and 1973, a group of feminist activists, calling themselves "Jane," challenged the status quo and secured women’s access to safe – though illegal – abortions.

3/7 The Codebreaker

Speaker:  Debra Yarrington, Department of Computer and Information Science, University of Delaware

Girls and Women can Code, and de-code, and have done so for ages.  Meet Elizebeth Smith Friedman, a groundbreaking cryptanalyst whose decoding skills sent infamous gangsters to prison in the 1930s and brought down a massive, near-invisible Nazi spy ring in WWII. Only when secret government files were unsealed decades after her death did her remarkable contributions come to light.  The Codebreaker chronicles Elizebeth’s role in creating the powerful new science of cryptology.

3/14 Feminism Inshallah

Speaker: Amy Young Evrard, Anthropology Department, Gettysburg College 

The century-old history of Arab feminism is too often ignored or forgotten. This groundbreaking documentary examines Arab feminism in all its complexity, in countries as diverse as Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia.  Whether covering the work of feminist pioneers or the social media campaigns carried out by Arab Spring activists, Feminism Inshallah charts the advances and setbacks shaping women’s rights in the region.

3/21 Sisters Rising

Speaker: Dante S. Pavan, National Vice President of the Nativ American Law Students Association

One in three Native women reports having been raped during their lifetime and 86% of the crimes are committed by non-Native men.   These perpetrators exploit gaps in tribal jurisdictional authority and target Native women as “safe victims.” The film follows women who refuse to let this pattern of violence continue in the shadows. Their stories shine an unflinching light on righting injustice on both an individual and a systemic level.

Sponsored by: Departments of Africana Studies, Anthropology, History, Women and Gender Studies, Faculty Senate Committee on Cultural Activities and Public Events (CAPE) and the University of Delaware Library, Museums and Press.