Environmental activist and former VP candidate to speak at Feminist Symposium

Winona LaDuke, a Native American environmental activist and two-time Vice-presidential candidate for the Green Party, will give the keynote speech at Cornell College’s annual Feminist Symposium on Saturday, March 13.

LaDuke will speak about Women and the Environment at 4 p.m. in the Hedges Conference room at The Commons on Cornell’s campus. Her talk will focus on the history of native women protecting the environment and mother earth, and the way the confront today’s environmental problems. The Feminist Symposium will  include other talks, as well, and runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Other topics scheduled for the symposium include “Dubuque and Abortion: Institutional Influence of Religion, Family, and Gender,” “Cloistered Women: Nuns and Their Slaves in Late Medieval Spain” and “Gender Subversion and the Power of the Other.”

LaDuke is an Anishinaabekwe (Ojibwe) enrolled member of the Mississippi Band Anishinaabeg who lives and works on the White Earth Reservation. As Program Director of the Honor the Earth Fund and the founding Director of White Earth Land Recovery Project, she works on a national level to advocate, raise public support and create funding for frontline Native Environmental groups. In 1996 and 2000, LaDuke ran as the Vice-Presidential candidate for the Green Party with Ralph Nader. She organized substantially to increase Native American and progressive voter registration and activism. In 1994, LaDuke was nominated by Time magazine as one of America’s 50 most promising leaders under 40.

The aim of the Feminist Symposium is to raise awareness of the academic, interdisciplinary nature of Women’s Studies programs. This forum will serve to highlight work that supports the philosophies of Third Wave Feminism.