There are many great woman in our community who make important contributions to our daily civic lives, in office and academia. They are mothers, partners, friends and bread winners. They are also published authors.
Here are three favorites.
Dr. Lynn Eckert is a resident of Kingston and former Kingston Alderwoman and Ulster County Legislature. A political science professor at Marist College, Eckert holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Gettysburg College and a master’s degree from Temple University and a doctorate from The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. Eckert can also be heard on KingstonCitizens.org’s weekly roundtable program “What’s the Process” with Rebecca Martin and Jennifer Schwartz Berky.
Her book, “Free Speech Law and the Pornography Debate: A Gender-Based Approach to Regulating Inegalitarian Pornography“ will be available more widely in July, 2020.
“By examining the highly contested legal debate about the regulation of pornography through an epistemic lens, this book analyzes competing claims about the proper role of speech in our society, pornography’s harm, the relationship between speech and equality, and whether law should regulate and, if so, upon what grounds. In maintaining that inegalitarian pornography generates discursive effects, the book contends that law cannot simply adopt a libertarian approach to free speech. While inegalitarian pornography may not be determinative of gender inequality, it does contribute, reinforce, reflect and help maintain such unfairness. As a result, we can place reasonable gender-based regulations on inegalitarian pornography while upholding our most treasured commitments to dissident speech just as other liberal democracies with strong free speech traditions have done. ”
Dr. JoAnne Myers serves on the board of the Ulster County Recovery Resource Authority (UCRRA), is a commissioner on the Ulster County Human Rights Commission and Vice President of the board of the Hudson Valley LGBTQ Community Center. Myers is an Associate Professor of Political Science; Political Science Internship Coordinator; Director of Public Administration Concentration at Marist College.
Her new book “The Good Citizen: The Markers of Privilege in America” was released in early 2020.
“Using applied political theory, JoAnne Myers presents five markers by which citizens become second-class citizens―property, productivity, participation, patriotism, and reproduction. Citizenship is a highly contested status since it grants members political rights and responsibilities. It is contextualized by cultural, political, historical, economic, situational, and place. In the United States, we think of citizenship in principle as democratic, but citizenship is not just a binary status: norms, policies, and laws can mark some citizens as “other.” In The Good Citizen: The Markers of Privilege in America, Myers argues that being marked as not having or achieving these markers is how citizenship is controlled and regulated. To illustrate this argument, each chapter begins with a practical question or myth to ease the reader into the marker being examined. She later articulates the ways in which law and norms and biopower regulates and controls citizens in three policy areas. Myers moves beyond theories of citizen marginalization based on identity politics and intersectionality to provide a new understanding of citizenship practice. The Good Citizen will be of interest to scholars and researchers of politics, sociology, or legal studies of citizenship, and anyone concerned with distributive justice.”
KT Tobin lives in New Paltz and is the Deputy Mayor of the Village. She is responsible for designing, managing, and producing Benjamin Center projects focused on regional issues and concerns. Before returning to work at her alma mater SUNY New Paltz in 2008, she was the Assistant Director at the Marist Institute for Public Opinion. Tobin holds an M.S. in Social Research from CUNY Hunter and a Ph.D. in Sociology from SUNY Albany. Her dissertation research, entitled “Gender: Impacts on Participation in Local Government,” studied elected women in the Mid-Hudson region.
Her recent collaboration “Suffrage and Its Limits: The New York Story” will be available in September, 2020.
“Suffrage and Its Limits offers a unique interdisciplinary overview of the legacy and limits of suffrage for the women of New York State. It commemorates the state suffrage centennial of 2017, yet arrives in time to contribute to celebrations around the national centennial of 2020. Bringing together scholars with a wide variety of research specialties, it initiates a timely dialogue that links an appreciation of accomplishments to a clearer understanding of present problems and an agenda for future progress. The first three chapters explore the state suffrage movement, the 1917 victory, and what New York women did with the vote. The next three chapters focus on the status of women and politics in New York today. The final three chapters take a prospective look at the limits of liberal feminism and its unfinished agenda for women’s equality in New York. A preface by Lieutenant Governor Katherine Hochul and a final chapter by activist Barbara Smith bookend the discussion. Combining diverse approaches and analyses, this collection enables readers to make connections between history, political science, public policy, sociology, philosophy, and activism. This study moves beyond merely celebrating the centennial to tackle women’s issues of today and tomorrow.”
