American Progress Events

The Case for Diverse Voices in Public Policy

May 22, 2013, 11:30am ET - 1:00pm ET

While the United States has advanced in remarkable ways over its turbulent history, deep-rooted challenges involving its communities of color still remain. Whether it is health care access, immigration, criminal justice, gender equality, economic opportunity, or education, the development and implementation of progressive public policy that affects communities of color has become vital to our national interest. The county’s rapidly increasing racial and ethnic diversity has only made these challenges all the more necessary to address.

Please join the Center for American Progress and its Leadership Institute as we discuss why diverse voices must lead efforts to legitimize and create sustainable public policy related to communities of color. Our keynote speakers, Sen. William “Mo” Cowan (D-MA) and Laura Murphy, Washington Legislative Office Director of the American Civil Liberties Union, will address how the nation’s leaders must understand the complexity of policymaking in a diverse nation. Additionally, a panel of the CAP Leadership Institute Fellows will address how they are preparing themselves to grapple with these critical issues while avoiding the past traps that marginalized the unique perspectives of people living in the communities that public policies affect.

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Unfinished Business: The Feminine Mystique at 50

May 23, 2013, 12:30pm ET - 1:30pm ET

Fifty years ago, when Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique, unmarried women in more than half of the United States weren't allowed access to contraception. Married women in some states couldn't sit on juries, get a job without their husband’s permission, or keep control of their property and earnings.

That world is now a distant memory. And yet the revolution in women’s lives that Friedan’s controversial book helped launch remains woefully incomplete. Individual women have made great strides professionally, and some have made it to the very top of their chosen professions. But for the vast majority, the larger scope of Friedan’s dream—that our society might evolve in ways that would permit women to reach their “full human potential” at work and at home—remains unrealized.

Please join us on May 23 when Gail Collins and Anna Quindlen-authors of the introduction and afterword to the 50th anniversary edition of The Feminine Mystique-will visit the Center for American Progress. They will speak with CAP Senior Fellow Judith Warner about the unfinished business of the women's movement and discuss Betty Friedan's critical and much-contended legacy.

Copies of The Feminine Mystique: 50th Anniversary Edition will be available for purchase at the event.

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