Feminists To Occupy Nashville Friday-Sunday - NOW Conference

It's not too late to register for the annual NOW convention which begins this Friday - here in Nashville. Just click on the NOW conference button over there in the sidebar. It's amazingly easy to register.

Kudos to the Nashville City Paper for being the first local paper to cover this historic event:

Nashville hosts NOW

Nashville will host the National Organization for Women's annual convention at the Loew's Vanderbilt Plaza. The convention, with the theme of "Unbought and Unbossed," will run Friday through Sunday.

"We picked Nashville because we like to have conventions in cities where activism is low," said Jenny Thalheimer, press secretary for NOW. "Last year's convention was in Las Vegas. We choose cities where we can introduce new options to women."

Topics such as establishing equality for women in multiple arenas and ensuring reproductive rights amid a hostile political climate are on the agenda, along with a prestigious list of speakers. Tennessee's own Hon. Martha Craig Daughtry, the first woman elected to the State Supreme Court, is a scheduled speaker.

Among the speakers joining Daughtry are Katie Hnida, who spoke out against sexual harassment at the University of Colorado, and Dr. Martha Burk, who gained national attention when she led the effort to open the Augusta National Golf Club to women. Kakenya Ntaiya, from the Maasai Tribe in Western Kenya, is the first woman in her village to receive an education, and will address her personal struggle and her hopes to found a school in her village.

In addition to the conference's regular schedule of events, NOW will hold its national officers elections on Saturday from 7-9 p.m. The officers are elected every four years.

For more information on the event, visit www.now.org. To contact the Nashville chapter of NOW, call (615) 269-7141.