The Women's Funding Network and the Council on Foundations awarded Barbara Dobkin, the co-founder and funder of Ma'yan,  the LEAD Award, one of the highest honors in philanthropy.
 
The Leadership, Equity And Diversity Award is presented annually to a philanthropist recognized as an outstanding risk-taker and innovator in the philanthropic community who, through determination and leadership, has increased funding for programs that promote gender equity and diversity.  

 Reflecting on the process of being a Ma’yan Political Theater Apprentice gives me the opportunity to realize how much I took for granted and how much I have changed since hearing the lessons that Rabbi Alissa taught us. The first lesson we learned was about power and oppression. Who has power and who is oppressed as a result of that power?

Last night, the Ma'yan Political Theater Apprentices opened their show --That's Not Fair!-- to over 70 adoring fans. The first review is in and by all accounts it was a hit! Check out the review here.

If you were at the show, please post your own review below in the comments section!

When we saw this ad from the Dockers website, part of us was thrilled and part of us was appalled. We were psyched because this is a great tool for us to use to demonstrate intersecting oppressions (sexism + ageism, for example). On the other hand, we are kinda disgusted that it exists.  While we are tempted to write reams unpacking all that is happening in this ad, that seems less fun than all of us having our say about it. So, don’t hesitate…give it to us… the comment field is just below…

Ma’yan has now twice convened a group of Jewish educators to explore issues of privilege (which we define as a system of unearned advantages that benefit some at expense of others). Ma’yan has long been interested in and doing work around privilege—our feminist work is also work that is around confronting male privilege and straight privilege, our work on women and philanthropy in the early days of Ma’yan in the 90s was thinking through how women with economic privilege understood themselves.

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog post about Jonathan Escobar, a teenager who was recently expelled from school because of the way that he dressed. This past week in the Sunday Styles section of the New York Times, an article by Jan Hoffman entitled "Can a Boy Wear a Skirt to School?"  discusses cross-dressing and gender-bending and educational institutaions' responses.

How often is it that you go to a day-long workshop and leave feeling energized and not exhausted? I am a tough critic of workshops, having facilitated or attended hundreds in my short 30 years. A few weeks ago Ma’yan was lucky enough to be invited to a unique day-long workshop called Real Girls, Reel Change organized by Working Films, The Fledgling Fund, and Chicken & Egg Pictures that was magnificent.