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Nadia Shahram is an Iranian mediation attorney, author, and women's rights advocate. She is the founder and president of the Coalition for the Advancement of Moslem Women, an organization promoting equality for Muslim women. [1] Shahram unveiled the first Declaration of Equalities for Muslim Women during the 2014 Convention Days in Seneca Falls, New York. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] One year later, Shahram presented the Declaration to the Women's Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls, where it hangs on permanent display in the Visitor's Center. [7]
Shahram is a board member of the Family Justice Center of Erie County, [8] a member of the Women's Bar Association of the State of New York, [9] and a board member of the New York State Council of Divorce Mediation. [10]
Shahram was born in Tehran, Iran. She was one of six daughters. Her parents had an extensive library and as a child she was encouraged to read the classics. Her father was an activist for civil and human rights. He was jailed by the Secret Police (SAVAK) for his outspoken views, and Shahram recalls her father being taken from their home in the middle of the night. [11]
Shahram traveled to the United States with the ambition of becoming a broadcast journalist. She received her B.S. in Business Administration in 1988 and her J.D. in 1997 from the State University of New York at Buffalo. [12] During these years Shahram married and had two daughters. [13]
Shahram trained as a family mediator at the Rochester Mediation Center and has been a practicing mediator in the field of Matrimonial Mediation since 2001. [12] She focused her legal practice on matrimonial mediation after observing and studying alternative dispute resolution methods, especially the success of family mediation as practiced in European and Asian countries. [14]
Shahram was an adjunct professor in the Law and Government Program at Hilbert College from 2001 through 2007. [13] She continues to teach as an adjunct professor at the Buffalo State University Law School. [12] She has organized and chaired conferences and symposiums on Divorce Mediation in western New York. [15]
Shahram has received the "Women of Influence" from Business First, [16] and the "Legal Elite" Award of Western New York in 2013. [17] Shahram is the founding member of "Raising Hope", an annual fashion show fund-raiser to benefit the Family Justice Center. [18] During the years 2012 through 2014 this project raised over $100,000 for women victimized by domestic violence in the Western New York area. [18]
After the events of September 11, 2001, Shahram re-examined her faith of Islam, the role of Muslims in the international arena, and the perceptions of Islam in the West. [13] She later developed a course at the University of Buffalo Law School, "The Effects of Religion and Culture on Family Laws." [12] Shahram is a critic of the inequality and misogyny in Muslim culture and frequently writes op-eds and letters-to-the-Editors. [19]
Shahram unveiled the first Declaration of Equalities for Moslem Women on July 19, 2014, during Convention Days in Seneca Falls, New York. [20] [21] Seneca Falls Convention is the birthplace of the women's rights movement, where the first Women's Rights Convention was held in 1848. [22]
Shahram's Declaration is written in the spirit of Elizabeth Cady Stanton (a "calls to arms for female equality") and aspires to address laws and cultural practices which are unjust, and discriminatory to women in Islamic countries. [23] Shahram's goal is to raise one million signatures and present the Declaration to the United Nations. Once presented, the goal is to encourage the UN to assist in gender equalization in Muslim countries in the courts. [24] [25] [26]
Shahram has a number of small groups of graduate students making ongoing presentations throughout the New York State University system informing and securing additional signatures on the Declaration. [1] Shahram herself continues to promote the Declaration and educate people around the State of New York. She presented the Declaration at the "Declaration of Sentiments: The Remix, A Celebration of the 200th Birthday of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the Women's Suffrage Centennial" on November 12, 2015, [27] and again at the High Falls Film Festival in High Falls, NY on November 15, 2015. [28]
While visiting her native country of Iran in 2004 and 2005, Shahram conducted hundreds of interviews and attended Islamic courtrooms as part of a research project. [13] Shortly after Shahram returned from her trip she was the focus of a feature article in the Hilbert College quarterly "Connections" Magazine. [13] Shahram published her first novel, "Marriage on the Street Corners of Tehran" in 2010. [29] This book was based on research and the true stories of Iranian women, with whom she conducted interviews during her time in Iran, and who shared in detail their experiences. [13]
As an expert in family law and Islam, Shahram has been interviewed by local as well as national radio and TV stations, and numerous print media sources. [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] [35]
Shahram lectures and gives presentations across New York State [36] and is often interviewed by media sources for her informed opinion. [37] She contributes frequently to the Buffalo News, the Erie County Bar Association newsletter and other regional publications.
The Declaration of Sentiments, also known as the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments, is a document signed in 1848 by 68 women and 32 men—100 out of some 300 attendees at the first women's rights convention to be organized by women. Held in Seneca Falls, New York, the convention is now known as the Seneca Falls Convention. The principal author of the Declaration was Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who modeled it upon the United States Declaration of Independence. She was a key organizer of the convention along with Lucretia Coffin Mott, and Martha Coffin Wright.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an American writer and activist who was a leader of the women's rights movement in the U.S. during the mid- to late-19th century. She was the main force behind the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, the first convention to be called for the sole purpose of discussing women's rights, and was the primary author of its Declaration of Sentiments. Her demand for women's right to vote generated a controversy at the convention but quickly became a central tenet of the women's movement. She was also active in other social reform activities, especially abolitionism.
The Seneca Falls Convention was the first women's rights convention. It advertised itself as "a convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman". Held in the Wesleyan Chapel of the town of Seneca Falls, New York, it spanned two days over July 19–20, 1848. Attracting widespread attention, it was soon followed by other women's rights conventions, including the Rochester Women's Rights Convention in Rochester, New York, two weeks later. In 1850 the first in a series of annual National Women's Rights Conventions met in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Seneca Falls is a hamlet and census-designated place in Seneca County, New York, United States. The population was 6,681 at the 2010 census. The 2020 census population of Seneca Falls CDP was 6,809. The hamlet is in the Town of Seneca Falls, east of Geneva. It was an incorporated village from 1831 to 2011.
Islamic feminism is a form of feminism concerned with the role of women in Islam. It aims for the full equality of all Muslims, regardless of gender, in public and private life. Islamic feminists advocate for women's rights, gender equality, and social justice grounded in an Islamic framework. Although rooted in Islam, the movement's pioneers have also utilized secular, Western, or otherwise non-Muslim feminist discourses, and have recognized the role of Islamic feminism as part of an integrated global feminist movement.
Gender roles in Islam are based on scriptures, cultural traditions, and jurisprudence.
Martha Coffin Wright was an American feminist, abolitionist, and signatory of the Declaration of Sentiments who was a close friend and supporter of Harriet Tubman.
Amelia Jenks Bloomer was an American newspaper editor, women's rights and temperance advocate. Even though she did not create the women's clothing reform style known as bloomers, her name became associated with it because of her early and strong advocacy. In her work with The Lily, she became the first woman to own, operate and edit a newspaper for women.
The National Women's Rights Convention was an annual series of meetings that increased the visibility of the early women's rights movement in the United States. First held in 1850 in Worcester, Massachusetts, the National Women's Rights Convention combined both female and male leadership and attracted a wide base of support including temperance advocates and abolitionists. Speeches were given on the subjects of equal wages, expanded education and career opportunities, women's property rights, marriage reform, and temperance. Chief among the concerns discussed at the convention was the passage of laws that would give women the right to vote.
Lucretia Mott was an American Quaker, abolitionist, women's rights activist, and social reformer. She had formed the idea of reforming the position of women in society when she was amongst the women excluded from the World Anti-Slavery Convention held in London in 1840. In 1848, she was invited by Jane Hunt to a meeting that led to the first public gathering about women's rights, the Seneca Falls Convention, during which the Declaration of Sentiments was written.
The Women's Rights National Historical Park is a United States National Historical Park in Seneca Falls and Waterloo, New York, United States. Founded by an act of Congress in 1980 and first opened in 1982, the park was gradually expanded through purchases over the decades that followed. It recognizes the site of the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, the first women's rights convention, and the homes of several women's rights activists.
Edreys Wajed, also known as Billy Drease Williams is an American hip hop artist, emcee, singer and producer from Buffalo, New York; known for his uptempo production, clean lyrics, and motivational messages. Billy Drease Williams started as part of a short lived hip hop group called The Elements and later was one half of a duo known as Raw Intel. Acclaimed Music critic Jeff Miers has described him as “the most promising, adventurous, nigh-on-visionary hip hop artist Buffalo has yet produced.”
Jane Clothier Hunt or Jane Clothier Master was an American Quaker who hosted the Seneca Falls meeting of Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
The Rochester Women's Rights Convention of 1848 met on August 2, 1848 in Rochester, New York. Many of its organizers had participated in the Seneca Falls Convention, the first women's rights convention, two weeks earlier in Seneca Falls, a smaller town not far away. The Rochester convention elected Abigail Bush as its presiding officer, making it the first U.S. public meeting composed of both sexes to be presided by a woman. This controversial step was opposed even by some of the meeting's leading participants. The convention approved the Declaration of Sentiments that had first been introduced at the Seneca Falls Convention, including the controversial call for women's right to vote. It also discussed the rights of working women and took steps that led to the formation of a local organization to support those rights.
Mary Ann M'Clintock or Mary Ann McClintock (1800–1884) is best known for her role in the formation of the women's suffrage movement, as well as abolitionism.
White feminism is a term which is used to describe expressions of feminism which are perceived as focusing on white women but are perceived as failing to address the existence of distinct forms of oppression faced by ethnic minority women and women lacking other privileges. Whiteness is crucial in structuring the lived experiences of white women across a variety of contexts. The term has been used to label and criticize theories that are perceived as focusing solely on gender-based inequality. Primarily used as a derogatory label, "white feminism" is typically used to reproach a perceived failure to acknowledge and integrate the intersection of other identity attributes into a broader movement which struggles for equality on more than one front. In white feminism, the oppression of women is analyzed through a single-axis framework, consequently erasing the identity and experiences of ethnic minority women the space. The term has also been used to refer to feminist theories perceived to focus more specifically on the experience of white, cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied women, and in which the experiences of women without these characteristics are excluded or marginalized. This criticism has predominantly been leveled against the first waves of feminism which were seen as centered around the empowerment of white middle-class women in Western societies.
Charlotte Woodward Pierce was the only woman to sign the Declaration of Sentiments at the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention and live to see the passing of the 19th Amendment in 1920. She was the only one of the 68 women who signed the Declaration to see the day that women could vote nationwide. On July 19, 1848, 19-year-old Pierce travelled to Seneca Falls with 6 of her closest friends by wagon upon hearing about the Convention. It was not for many years, until 1920 when Pierce was 91 when she was able to witness the first election in which she was eligible to vote.
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