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STOPP

Dynamo Amy Siskind and How her “The New Agenda” Helps Women find their Voices

September 28, 2016 by Susan Youngwood

The New Agenda includes Upcoming SToPP Walk/Run events and a National Girlfriends Networking Day-to Raise Awareness about College Sexual Assault and Gender Bias.

amy-profile-picIn mid-October, runners and walkers at several college campuses around the country will lace up their shoes for a 5k walk/run. Their goal will not only be the finish line, but to raise awareness of campus sexual assault.

The New Agenda Foundation, co-founded by Westchester resident Amy Siskind, hopes to draw attention to an epidemic which impacts one in five college women, and one in 16 college men, with their on campus initiative, SToPP.

“The idea of SToPP — Stop. Think. Protect your Peers. — is to empower and educate our kids,” said Siskind. “Fifty-five percent of college students who witnessed a sexual assault didn’t intervene, many because they didn’t know what to do.” Siskind will join parents and students at the main run at Iona College on October 22, and the organization’s young women leaders will host races on their campuses too (register at www.SToPP5k.org).

Her thousands of Facebook and Twitter followers know Siskind as a fierce Hillary Clinton supporter, and turn to her feeds to celebrate, commiserate and criticize the twists and turns of the 2016 presidential campaign. Offline, she’s President and Co-Founder of The New Agenda, a prolific writer and speaker to audiences of college students and professional women.

The New Agenda sprung from the ashes of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.

Shortly after Hillary dropped out, a group of women active in the her campaign gathered in Siskind’s living room in August 2008 to strategize about making change.

“We were upset by how women were treated in the media, by the double standard,” Siskind said. The media treatment opened their eyes, she added, to how far women have to go. “There were very few voices to defend women from the double standard, the sexist treatment.”

The New Agenda decided to be that voice–for all women, no matter what their political party or political beliefs. So when Sarah Palin was named Sen. John McCain’s running mate, The New Agenda got to work.

National Girlfriends Networking Day 2015
National Girlfriends Networking Day 2015

“Our belief was how we allowed any one woman to be treated, is how we should expect all women to be treated,” said Siskind.

Major news organizations, from CNN to Fox News, Huffington Post to the Daily Beast, took note. The New Agenda continued to call out examples of sexism–for all stripes of women, Republican, Democrat, liberal and conservative.

In 2010, with change afoot, The New Agenda shifted its resources and focus.  Vice President and Co-founder, Karen Gerringer, also a Westchester resident, said it was “time to stop just whining about women’s disparate treatment, and time to start doing something about it!”

The New Agenda morphed from its initial role as media watchdog, and now focuses on fostering leadership skills in and creating opportunities for millennial women, especially on college campuses. Every June, it holds a nationwide event called National Girlfriends Networking Day (“NGN Day”).  With events nationwide, NGN Day connects thousands of college and professional women, and last year, according to Siskind,  “hashtag #NGNDay had over 2.3 million Twitter views!” “We pride ourselves on inclusion and diversity.  Since we were founded as a voice for all women, it’s in our organizational DNA,” Siskind said.

National Girlfriends Networking Day 2015
National Girlfriends Networking Day 2015

Siskind worked on Wall Street until her retirement in 2006. She became the first female managing director at Wasserstein Perella at the age of 31, and later ran trading departments at Morgan Stanley and Imperial Capital, where she was also a partner.

"Shep's post debate spin room."
“Shep’s post debate spin room.”

More importantly, she has two kids she adores—and perhaps nearly as dear to her, two beloved dogs too, Arleen and Shep, who serve as perfect foils via Facebook to Siskind’s staunch support for Hillary. Shep, in particular, strikes multiple poses in picture posts as a hapless Democrat foe.

Notwithstanding the occasional levity are Siskind’s pursuit of solutions to dead serious situations. The New Agenda Foundation focuses attention on teen dating violence and campus sexual assault.  Siskind said she was entirely grateful that the Obama Administration had drawn attention to the epidemic of campus sexual assault.

The first SToPP race was held last year, and the money raised went to make a educational videos – “Grey Matters” (www.learn.SToPP5k.org) – which are being used on several college campuses to educate students. The video is a dramatization of a true story about a woman was raped by a dorm-mate while incapacitated – and covers the importance of bystander intervention.

“One of the issues we raise in the video is that young men don’t understand that if you have sex with an incapacitated woman, it is rape. Half of high school boys don’t understand this,” Siskind said.

“Campus assault is an issue that parents are struggling with,” said Siskind, who links campus assault to the sexualization of women today. “This permeates our society.” The way women are depicted, the way girls are bullied in high school and middle school, teen-dating violence–“the genesis is all from the same family… the way girls are portrayed leads to them becoming sexual objects, and so many boys think that if they are passed out they are fair game.”

Eight years after Clinton’s first run, examples of sexism in the media still abound. And many argue that Clinton is running against a blatantly sexist candidate, the Republican nominee Donald J. Trump. Still, Siskind sees improvement and reason for hope.

“The good news is when you look at women voters … Hillary is leading by record amounts,” Siskind said. “Women do see how [Trump] is treating women throughout the campaign and his career.”

Facebook and Twitter have helped enunciate the gender bias. “There’s more accountability on social media,” Siskind said. “Overt sexism gets called out.”

The harder battle is against internal sexism, she said. “That clearly still exists. The issue of whether Hillary can be trusted–that’s as old as Adam and Eve.”

She also reflected on women’s image in the media. “The portrayal of women in the media–videos, television, movies–has really hurt the women’s cause. Women are more sexualized. We’re not judged on how smart we are, but instead by how we look. We still have a long way to go.”

Susan Youngwood is a writer, editor and graphic designer, who recently covered the Democratic National Convention on behalf of the Inside Press.

 

 

 

Filed Under: Cover Stories, Westchester Tagged With: Amy Siskind, College Sexual Assault, Gender Bias, Hillary Clinton, National Girlfriends Networking Day, STOPP, The New Agenda

Join the SToPP 5k to End Sexual Assault on College Campuses, October 17-18

September 29, 2015 by The Inside Press

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On October 17-18 The New Agenda Foundation launches its first annual SToPP 5k walk/run to raise awareness, empower campus peer leaders, and educate college administrators about ways to end campus sexual assault.

The SToPP 5k is a call to action to Stop. Think. Protect Peers against a rising tide of sexual violence on campus.  A Washington Post-Kaiser Foundation survey found that 20 percent of college women (and 5 percent of college men) reported being sexually assaulted.  A Journal of Adolescent Health study found that 19 percent of college women are assaulted freshman year.

The main event run will take place in New York City’s Battery Park, October 18th at 9:00 am.  Other college campuses across the nation will join in satellite local run/walks and awareness raising events, including the University of Rochester, University of Delaware and Cornell University. To join, host your own event or receive more information, go to SToPP5k.org.

The New Agenda president, Amy Siskind, called the recent Association of American Universities survey finding that more than 1 in 5 female undergrads at top schools suffer sexual attacks utterly appalling and hugely motivating. “This isn’t just a wake up call,” Siskind said. “It is a call to action.”

In a Huffington Post op-ed titled “The Secret Your Son Isn’t Telling You About Campus Sexual Assault,” Siskind said parents have largely abdicated their responsibility to have conversations with their sons about sexual consent.

“So instead, our media and social media, of which our teens consume more than 11 hours per day, are doing the teaching,” Siskind said. “Having a talk with our daughters — which of course we should continue to do — is not a solution to this epidemic.  Not to overstate the obvious; but college women aren’t doing the raping!”

Research continues to show an alarming lack of awareness about what constitutes rape and callousness about harm to victims. “There are troubling attitudes and beliefs about sexual violence that must be challenged to ensure colleges are safe places to learn and grow,” Siskind said. I’m pleased to see campaigns like New York’s “Enough is Enough”spread across campuses to educate students, parents, faculty and administrators.”

The legal and political environments are moving toward greater accountability, but faster progress is needed. Affirmative consent laws in California and New York make having sex without clear consent illegal. American Bar Association delegates passed three resolutions advocating for victims of campus sexual assault.

Finally, 124 colleges are under investigation by the Department of Education for mishandling cases of sexual assault, and the list is growing.  Colleges, under increasing scrutiny, are finally rethinking and revising their processes for handling sexual assault. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is sponsoring a bill, the Campus Accountability and Safety Act, which will mandate that colleges create strict guidelines for handing sexual assault.

“The New Agenda Foundation’s SToPP 5k gives us a chance to raise awareness about the harsh realities of campus sexual assault,” said Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. “These alarming rates of campus violence are unacceptable and we have a responsibility to make sure our colleges and universities are safe for students. SToPP 5k has given us the unique opportunity to stand together, unified in our efforts to combat these crimes. As the school year gets underway, lets continue to have an open conversation about campus sexual assault because our students deserve real accountability without fear of their safety.”

Siskind said to underscore the SToPP5k mission, “Our rallying cry is “It ends here. It ends now!” October 17-18 New York City and nationwide. To sign up, host a race on your campus and access social media assets for promoting the SToPP 5k go to www.thenewagenda.net and www.stopp5k.org

 

Filed Under: Happenings Tagged With: College, NYC, STOPP

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