Race AND Gender: Intersectional Approaches to Equity

Decades of research have found that young people who buy into rigid gender norms have lower life outcomes in a cluster of related areas that include basic and mental health, intimate relationships, education, and economic empowerment. That’s why international donor institutions like CARE, USAID, WHO and others have all embraced “gender transformative” initiatives that challenge narrow masculine and feminine norms. Yet the U.S. has tended to lag behind, especially when it comes to improving equity for youth of color. Gender impacts every issue funders and grantees address; health, education, the arts, and juvenile justice. But programs either don’t address gender norms, silo them as an LGBTQ issue, or disconnect them from race and class. Join this interactive, open presentation about the terms, ideas, and findings behind “intersectional” approaches that reconnect race, class, and gender to improve life outcomes for at-risk youth. Toolkits and leave-behinds provided.

Participants will master:

1. Main gender terms
2. Basic concepts around gender
3. Understand “intersectionality”
4. Key findings around race and gender
5. Work being done in the US and abroad on gender norms
6. Concrete ideas for doing race- and gender-responsive giving in their own funding.

Our speaker will be Riki Wilchins, Executive Director of TrueChild.

About Riki Wilchins

Riki Wilchins is the author of five books on gender theory and politics (Read My Lips; GenderQueer; Queer Theory-Gender Theory; TRANS/gressive, Burn the Binary!),  She has written on philanthropy for the Council on Foundations, GrantCraft, GuideStar, eJewishPhilanthropy, Philanthropy NY, Philanthropy Ohio, and the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy.

Riki has conducted trainings for such institutions as the White House, CDC, Office on Women’s Health, and Office on Adolescent Health and philanthropic networks likePhilanthropy NY, Jewish Women’s Fund Network, Women Donors Network, Women’s Funding Network, and Women Moving Millions.

Here newest book, “Gender Norms & Intersectionality: A guide for funders, policymakers, and nonprofits” will be published by Roman & Littlefield in Spring of 2019. Riki's work has been profiled in The New York Times; TIME Magazine selected her one of "100 Civic Innovators for the 21st Century."

This program is for Maryland Philanthropy Network members only.