SAN FRAN WOMEN WRITE TO CHANGE THE WORLD
Innovative Training Comes to the Bay Area this Weekend
San Francisco– On Saturday, March 15th, SheSource.org is partnering with The Op-Ed Project to bring an innovative Op-Ed training to women of the Bay Area. The nationally recognized seminar, which trains women to become persuasive and empowered Op-Ed contributors, has been instrumental in empowering a diverse group of women to bring their voices to our nation’s op-ed pages. Past participants have credited the training with helping them to obtain media placements in a diverse array of outlets, including the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and Boston Globe.
“Op-Eds offer a powerful platform for women to get their opinions and visions out into the world, and this training provides the encouragement and know-how for women to take that leap,” said Marie Wilson, President of The White House Project, a national organization which partners on the SheSource.org initiative with Fenton Communications and the Women’s Funding Network. According to Editor and Publisher, only 24% of Op-Eds are written by women. Yet the Op-Ed page offers outside contributors a powerful medium for swaying public opinion, demonstrating expertise, and changing the world.
This seminar, which is also supported by the Woodhull Institute, is designed to help women identify the ideas and causes that they care about, and then instructs them in how to write about those topics to make a difference. Participants learn how to generate winning ideas, how to craft a powerful argument, how to use news hooks, how to address or preempt potential critics, how to pitch an idea, and how to frame an issue to make a point and persuade readers. The training explores ways to write more broadly, to think bigger, and to make a bigger impact on the world.
“This seminar is about more than just writing Op-Eds,” said Catherine Orenstein, who founded and directs the Op-Ed Project. “It's about empowering women to find and share their voices on the public stage.”
The Op-Ed Project, an initiative to bring diverse voices - and more women's voices - to the nation's Op-Ed pages, is spearheaded by Orenstein, who is a noted writer and commentator. The seminar is a joint effort by the Project, the Woodhull Institute, and SheSource.org, an online database of female experts which aims to foster a more representative public discourse by increasing the number of women whose opinions are reflected in the news media. SheSource.org is a partnership between The White House Project, Women’s Funding Network, and Fenton Communications. Previous Op-Ed trainings have been covered by The New York Times, among others.
The Op-Ed training will take place on Saturday, March 15th, from 10 AM to 5 PM at 182 2nd St # 400, San Francisco. To register, e-mail Gillian DiPietro at gdipietro@shesource.org.
Catherine Orenstein has contributed to the op-ed pages of the New York Times, Washington Post and Miami Herald. Her opinion pieces on women, power, popular culture, and human rights have run on the Knight-Ridder newswire and appear in anthologies. She has lectured at Harvard, Penn, and Columbia universities, and appeared on ABC TV World News, Good Morning America, MSNBC, CNN and NPR All Things Considered. A graduate of Harvard (BA) and Columbia (MA) universities, she is the author of Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality and the Evolution of a Fairy Tale.
The Woodhull Institute is a not-for-profit, non-partisan, non-sectarian educational organization that provides ethical leadership training and professional development for women.
SheSource.org is an online braintrust of nearly 500 female experts on diverse topics designed to serve journalists, producers and bookers who need female guests and sources. SheSource.org includes spokeswomen from a variety of backgrounds, representing demographic and ethnic diversity as well as expertise in areas, ranging from security, the economy, and politics to law, peacekeeping, humanitarian crisis, and more.
