April is sexual assault awareness month, and for the 12th consecutive year, community members will be gathering at the Women’s Building at 3543 18th St. this Saturday to raise awareness of rape and sexual violence. The annual Walk Against Rape is organized by San Francisco Women Against Rape, a volunteer-based rape counseling center that provides crisis services including a 24-hour hotline and medical, legal...
A career in journalism and advocacy that spans half a century has not only equipped 82-year-old feminist icon Gloria Steinem with a trove of accomplishments and wisdom, but also with a disarming sense of humor. Despite the seriousness of her decades-long fight for women’s rights and gender equality, Steinem drew outbursts of laughter and applause from the some 400 people...
Listen Local is Mission Local’s biweekly radio program. We broadcast live online at BFF.fm every other Thursday morning from 9:30 to 10:00. International Women’s Day is coming up and March is Women’s History Month, so Listen Local invited Laura Pereyra, on the Board of the Women’s Building, to talk about why we need the Women’s Building, why we need feminism, and the...
With 45 years of advancing feminism under its belt, the Women’s Building has more work ahead, but owning its own building has given it a stability that will allow it to continue. “It‘s an anchor of our community, it’s a village tree,” said Erin Sink, a member of the board of directors, who emphasized the organization’s support for nonprofits in...
On Saturday morning at 10 a.m. some 300 to 400 supporters for the March Against Rape gathered at the Women’s Building to march up 18th Street through the Castro and then circling back into the Mission. We talked to some of the marchers along the route. The march is sponsored by San Francisco Women Against Rape, known by its acronym, SFWAR. Among other services,...
Women and girls from Mission nonprofits met at the Women’s Building Friday evening to join in the international movement “One Billion Rising,” and to accept a proclamation honoring local organizations from state senator Mark Leno. The name “One Billion Rising” is drawn from the statistic that one in three women will be beaten or raped in her lifetime, an estimate...
Thirty-five years ago this fall, a small group of women wanted a room of their own. Instead, they got a building. Fifteen years later, they added the iconic MaestraPeace mural, which begins on the façade with the faces of luminaries such as Audre Lorde and Rigoberta Menchú and now continues inside the door, with the image of an indigenous weaver....
Furry skate boots and fully sequined outfits were on display Friday night at the annual Roller Disco party, a benefit for SF Indiefest, a film festival that screens at the Roxie Theater on 16th Street. SF Indiefest is currently in the middle of its run; the last day is Feb. 21. About 100 skaters rolled around the wooden floors of...
A community forum on women, politics and activism brought together a panel of eight female leaders and about 30 community members at the historic Women’s Building on a rainy Saturday night. The panelists, split among two back-to-back sessions, were asked to “speak their mind” and draw from personal experiences to address the status of women in politics and activism. The...
Mission Loc@l hosted its first film festival last night at the Women’s Building. For much of the first part of the show we had to keep adding rows of chairs, because more people turned out than expected. We had an eclectic mix of short films running from 30 seconds to 12 minutes, each either produced by a Mission filmmaker or...
