FLORENCE– Florence-Lauderdale Public Library, the UNA Center for Women’s Studies, and the UNA College of Nursing present an exhibit and series exploring how nurses fought to change the way the medical profession addresses violence against women. The exhibit and all events will be hosted at Florence-Lauderdale Public Library.
Confronting Violence: Improving Women’s Lives
An Exhibit at Florence-Lauderdale Public Library
March 1-March 26
Activists and reformers in the United States have long recognized the trauma of domestic violence and sought to improve the lives of women who were battered.
During the late 20th century, nurses took up the call. With passion and persistence, they worked to reform a medical profession that overwhelmingly failed to acknowledge violence against women as a serious health issue. Beginning in the late 1970s, nurses were in the vanguard as they pushed the larger medical community to identify victims, adequately respond to their needs, and work towards the prevention of domestic violence. This exhibit tells their story.
The National Library of Medicine produced this exhibition.
Growing Up in the Right Culture: How Nurses Changed the World for Women
Dr. Patricia Speck, Associate Professor at the UAB School of Nursing
Sunday, March 6, 2:00 pm
Learn about how nurses, beginning in the 1970s, used advocacy and activism to help change laws and protect women against violence. Dr. Patricia Speck will provide a historical perspective to explore why the time was right for nurses to fight for reform.
Dr. Speck is an Associate Professor and Program Director for Global Outreach at UAB School of Nursing. She is an internationally recognized Family Nurse Practitioner, whose research fields include forensic nursing, health policy, global health, sexual violence, domestic violence, and health disparities.
No Longer Invisible: Images of Women and Domestic Violence in 1970s Film and TV
Dr. Brenna Wardell, Assistant Professor of Film and Literature at UNA
Thursday, March 10, 5:30 pm
On small screens and big screens, and in images of women from housewives to cops to super-powered princesses, women, and the problems of domestic violence, were no longer so invisible in the 1970s. Considering TV series from Maude to Wonder Woman and films from Chinatown to The Shining, she will discuss the ways in which women and issues of domestic violence were represented onscreen in this crucial decade.
Originally from Alaska, Dr. K. Brenna Wardell is an Assistant Professor of Film and Literature at UNA. Her work focuses on aesthetics, gender and sexuality, and issues of place/space in film and literary texts.
Incarcerated Women: Domestic Violence and U.S. Prison Writing
Dr. Yaschica Williams, Chair, Associate Professor of Sociology and Family Studies at UNA
Dr. Katie Owens-Murphy, Assistant Professor of English at UNA
Thursday, March 17, 5:30 pm
This talk will examine pathways that lead women who are victims of domestic violence to end up in prison. It will also examine the ways in which the U.S. penal system exacerbates and even replicates the trauma of abuse through a discussion of Kim Wozencraft’s 1993 novel, Notes from the Country Club.
Dr. Yaschica Williams is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Family Studies at UNA. Dr. Williams attended the University of Alabama where she received her Bachelor and Master’s degree, both in Criminal Justice (1996; 1999). She later attended Western Michigan University and receive her PhD in Sociology (2006). Dr. Williams’s research and teaching interests center on juvenile delinquency, intersectionality and crime, and gender-based violence. Dr. Williams currently serves on the board of directors of the Shoals Crisis Center and One Place of the Shoals Family Justice Center.
Dr. Katie Owens-Murphy is an Assistant Professor of English at UNA. Dr. Owens-Murphy earned her Master’s and Doctoral degrees in American literature from Penn State University from 2007-2013. During this time, she also volunteered as a literacy tutor at a maximum-security prison and a county jail in central Pennsylvania. Consequently, one of her primary research and teaching interests is U.S. prison writing—literature produced by incarcerated writers about their experiences in prison.
Confronting Violence in the Shoals: The Creation of Safeplace, the Shoals Crisis Center, & One Place of the Shoals
Sunday, March 20, 2:00 pm
Representatives from local victim services agencies will discuss how they work together to provide help to victims of violence in the Shoals:
-Rachel Cabaniss Hackworth, Executive Director of Safeplace
-Samatha Belville, Executive Director of Shoals Crisis Center/Rape Response
-Angie Hamilton, Founder/Executive Director of One Place of the Shoals
-Panel Moderated by Dr. Lynne Rieff, Professor of History, Director of the Center for Women’s Studies at UNA
