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Who Are We?
The fourth year of
operation, 1997-1998 saw the club reaffirming its basic goals:
- to help young women assume positions of
leadership in the high school and in life
- to provide a forum for discussion of problems
that face young women in school, the home, society and work
- to assume an active role in implementing changes
- to join forces
with other women's groups in Union County in an intergenerational approach to women's issues
- to make Cranford High School
aware of contemporary problems through a plan of action.
These dynamic females organized
and presented a school-wide forum on gender equity with the members
(they now have enlisted males to join their ranks) leading discussions on
pertinent topics. The topics ranged from the way females are overlooked
in school, the causes for anorexia, bulimia and depression in adolescent
girls, and strategies to engage males and the faculty in recognizing the
need for change. Last year over one-fourth of the school, male and female,
voluntarily attended the forum that was held after-scool. The group has been
honored by the school three times as the "Club of the Month."
In the fifth year of operation,
the Visible Woman Club worked hard to change the way that females are
treated in high school and in life. That year's forum took on an exciting
new direction. What we aimed to do was promote greater female success in
mathematics by combining our efforts with the Douglass College Project
for Women in Math, Science and Engineering. On March 24, as a fitting
conclusion to Women's History Month, the group garnered the services
of three outstanding New Jersey women in mathematics and science to address
the school. Chief among our plans was the formation of the "Technofilles,"
an adjunct to our club. Mentored by Cranford High School faculty member,
Ms. Joan Puma, they will
develop skill in computer technology through
instruction in the design, graphics and maintenance of Web sites.
The group continues to support other
women's organizations in other ways too. Each year it enlists the
help of another club and the senior class to hold a brunch, the profits
of which go to the Battered Women of Elizabeth.
Thirteen of its members attended the Gloria Steinem presentation
sponsored by the Summit Resource Center for Women, with two of our
members braving an audience of over a thousand to explain the club's work.
In response to a request by Director Susan Chase of the Resource Center, the
club presented a program to help young women in schools
throughout the state to form similar clubs. No wilting Ophelias,
these hard-working young women are making themselves VISIBLE IN LIFE.
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