MotherWoman would also like to thank the Zonta Club of Northampton Area for raising money for MotherWoman!

To find out more about Zonta and the Zonta Club of Northampton, please visit their website!

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NORTHAMPTON, Mass. (WWLP) - More families are relying on the wives’ and mothers' paychecks. 

They're calling it a consequence of the recession.  University of New Hampshire researchers say more families continue to struggle to make ends meet and are relying on the incomes of working wives.

“It's happened to my family, my husband is a builder, I'm a hairdresser and he lost work, there was no work for him,” said Colleen Bolger of Hanover. 

Bolger's story is shared by millions of women.  A recent Carsey Institute study found that from 2007 to 2009 more working married women contributed close to half of total family earnings.

“I was working my full time job hairdressing and then I picked up extra hours at a boutique just to make ends meet and it was a really hard time.  We were really nervous we were going to loose our house,” said Bolger in Northampton on Tuesday.

Researchers trace the trend to job losses across several sectors, including construction and manufacturing.  But Annette Cycon of Motherwoman , a Hadley support group, says employment policies also have a lot to do with it. 

“We're the only developed country in the world that does not offer any guarantee maternity leave. In Afghanistan, there's 100% maternity leave for 90 days for a working woman,” said Cycon inside her Russell Street office.

And that puts into question paycheck fairness as working mothers also make less than their male counterparts.  Cycon says it's a dynamic that shifts gender roles and adds a level of stress to the relationship.

“Without flexible work options, without earned paid sick time, these kinds of situations continue to increase the stress for working families. And keep families in a cycle of low paying hourly jobs,” Cycon said. 

The study says family poverty rates have also gone up, to the highest level recorded in the past fifteen years.

NORTHAMPTON — “If we don’t get serious changes in our gun laws on a federal level now, we will never get them,” said state Rep. Ellen Story, D-Amherst. “Assault rifles are not guns, they are weapons of mass destruction.”

Story joined about 75 others Friday morning at Edwards Church of Northampton to remember the victims of last week’s shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., where 20 children and six adults were gunned down by a lone intruder.

The group gathered to remember, to console each other, express outrage at the level of violence exhibited last Friday — and to call for change to the country’s gun policies.

“We feel rage that our political leaders have been so impotent in the face of pressure from the National Rifle Association,” Story said while addressing the crowd. “It is not to be tolerated anymore.”

“There is no excuse for anyone who is a civilian to have an assault weapon,” Story said.

Story said the exposure of the shooting and the ages of most of the victims, and the underlying issues it brings up about failures in gun policy and mental health care in the U.S., provides a needed platform to have a nationwide discussion in the hopes of preventing future tragedies.

“Mental health costs money, and we don’t want to pay for it,” Story said. “We have to pay for it. We have to do better than we are doing now.”

Rabbi Nancy Flam said the Newtown attacks brought “shock, cold horror, deep sadness and bright outrage” in their wake, but also awakened the “fierce, ferocious love of the mother who comes to protect,” and hoped a renewed call to strengthen gun laws would help put a stop to a nationwide “idolatry of gun worship.”

Flam said the excuse of not changing existing gun laws because doing so wouldn’t prevent all future gun violence doesn’t carry any weight.

“To save one life is to save an entire world,” she said.

Liz Friedman, program director of MotherWoman, a Hadley nonprofit that organized the event, said it wasn’t just an opportunity to try and encourage gun law changes, but a chance to express collective grief and, perhaps, by doing so, relieve some of the burden from those directly affected by the violence in Newtown.

“Grief turned inwardly isolates us,” she said.

Marianne Winters, executive director of Safe Passage, an anti-domestic violence agency, said such gatherings can have a therapeutic effect.

“When hope is in short supply, we have to come together,” she said.

The Rev. Andrea Ayvazian led the group in a brief prayer in which she asked for “the gentleness to be healers and the wisdom to be counselors.”

Those present filled out copies of letters to President Obama and Massachusetts legislators demanding a plan to end gun violence in the U.S.

“What we need from our nation’s leaders is more than just a moment of silence, we need a moment of courage,” part of the letter reads.

“It’s every parent’s worst nightmare to lose a child,” said Liz Bigwood of Northampton. “To lose a child in a violent way is probably the worst imaginable.”

Bigwood said she felt compelled to attend not only to help assuage her own grief, but to support the families of the lost children in any way she could.

“It’s a sense of feeling we are a community and it’s OK to cry and to come together,” Bigwood said. “It’s the most natural thing in the world to need to be with other mothers.”Bigwood said she is preparing to travel to Africa to visit her daughter, who is serving with the Peace Corps in Senegal and whom she hasn’t seen for about 10 months.

“I’ve felt lately that I’ve wanted to hug her so intensely,” Bigwood said.

The 90-minute ceremony also featured music from local women’s choir Wings, singer-songwriter Nerissa Nields and vocalist Moonlight Daniels.

Bob Dunn can be reached at bdunn@gazettenet.com.

Denise M. Hurst, MSW, LICSW, Springfield School Committee Member, Department of Mental Health Child/Adolescent Supervisor

Denise (Rosemond) Hurst was born and raised in the City of Springfield, MA. She is a graduate of the Springfield Public Schools. Denise graduated from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, and a Masters of Social Work from Springfield College.

While studying at UMass, Denise became involved with the Counselor Advocate program through the Everywoman’s Center. She was trained to staff a 24-hour hotline for sexual assault, domestic violence, lesbian battering and ritual cult abuse. She also received training through the Legal Studies Department as a mediator and mediation trainer in Multicultural Conflict Resolution. Denise’s volunteer work and training led her to take a position as a Victim/Witness Advocate for the Hampden County District Attorney’s Office. Denise cites this particular position as the foundation of the social and civic work she would engage in for the years to come.   

A strong commitment to professional development and the ability to better serve those in need inspired Denise to return to graduate school and obtain her MSW, while working full time for the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families as a child protection worker. Denise also traveled overseas to London, England, to work as a child protective supervisor.  

For nearly a decade, Denise has committed herself to working with children and families in various capacities. She has worked as a crisis clinician and an independent therapist in the Pioneer Valley. In 2008, Denise became a Child/Adolescent Supervisor for the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health, providing direct supervision to case managers, and psychiatric and educational advocacy for children with mental health issues. She also serves as a member of the DMH Western/Central Region Diversity Committee. Most recently, Denise became an adjunct professor at Holyoke Community College in the Human Services Department. 

Denise is passionate about serving families, children, underserved and underrepresented communities. She is an Inaugural graduate of Leadership Institute for Political and Public Impact, Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts, a member of the Sixteen Acres Civic Association, the Puerto Rican/Latino Leadership Collective, and an active member of St. John’s Congregational Church.  

In 2009, Denise was elected to the Springfield School Committee At Large. She has served as vice-chair, and a two time delegate at the annual Massachusetts Association of School Committees conference. 

Denise resides in Springfield with her husband, Atty. Justin J. Hurst, Sr. and their 16 month old son, Justin Jr. 

UMass alumna Madeleine M. Kunin ('56) will speak about her new book, The New Feminist Agenda: Defining the Next Revolution for Women, Work and Family. The event will be followed by a reception and book signing in the Gordon Hall Atrium.

Kunin was the first woman governor of Vermont and later served as ambassador to Switzerland under former President Bill Clinton. In her book, Kunin argues that while the feminist movement in the 1960s and 1970s made great advancements for women, progress has stalled significantly since then, in large part because the social structures surrounding family and work in this country have remained static. By examining the history of women's rights in the U.S. and the state of women's rights in other countries,Kunin looks ahead at what will be possible when women and men together demand government and workplace reforms that will improve the lives of women and their families.

For more information about the event and Kunin's book, click here.

This event is hosted by the Center for Public Policy and Administration and co-sponsored by the Center for Research on Families, the Five College Women's Studies Research Center, and MotherWoman. 

A more detailed article on the subject, published by PoliBlog, August 22, 2012:  

The Honorable Madeleine Kunin to Speak about Next Phase of Women’s Progress

UMass alumna Madeleine M. Kunin (’56) will speak about her latest book, The New Feminist Agenda: Defining the Next Revolution for Women, Work and Family, on Sept. 18 at 5 p.m. in Gordon Hall 302-304.

Kunin served as governor of Vermont from 1985 to 1991, and during the Clinton administration was deputy secretary of education, then ambassador to Switzerland and Lichtenstein. She is now a Marsh professor of political science at the University of Vermont and is a commentator on Vermont Public Radio.

In The New Feminist Agenda, Kunin highlights the advancements that feminists made in the 1960s and 1970s and shows how those have allowed for improved rights and freedom for women in the United States today: Women now comprise nearly 60 percent of college undergraduates and half of all medical and law students. Most women today work outside the home, and families with two wage earners are the norm. While women have changed, though, social structures surrounding work and family have remained static. Affordable, high-quality childcare, paid family leave, and equal pay for equal work are still out of reach for most women....

Kunin — the first woman governor of Vermont and the only female in U.S. history to be elected governor three times — believes it’s time to usher in a new social revolution that will make it possible for all women to move forward. By examining five decades of women’s history in the United States and the current state of women’s rights in other countries, Kunin looks ahead at what will be possible when women and men together demand government and workplace reforms that will improve the lives of women and their families.

A reception and book signing will follow Kunin’s talk.

For the full article, please click here. 

Also on the subject, an article covering our award, published by the Amherst Bulletin, Friday, July 13, 2012.

MotherWoman, a health and human services organization based in Amherst, recently earned the 2012 Nonprofit Excellence in Advocacy Award from the Massachusetts Nonprofit Network.

The organization was selected for its support of policies to address the risk of perinatal emotional complications for mothers and for promoting, with the western Massachusetts political leadership, the adoption of earned sick time legislation.

MotherWoman worked with State Rep. Ellen Story, D-Amherst, on advancing a bill, since signed into law by Gov. Deval Patrick, focused on postpartum depression and requiring providers and insurance plans to provide annual data on perinatal screenings.

Story said in a statement that all women benefit from the work of MotherWoman and she is proud the organization is being recognized. "They started quietly in 1999 and have had an unusually powerful impact in the arena of women's health," Story said.

The earned sick time bill, still in committee, seeks to assist an estimated one-third of workers in the state who can't risk losing wages and work while they are sick. MotherWoman is advocating for legislation that will benefit and save money for both employers and employees.

"This award honors the extraordinary work of many dedicated staff, board members and volunteers over the past several years," said MotherWoman Executive Director Beth Spong.

In addition to the advocacy award, MotherWoman received certificates of recognition signed by Sen. Stanley Rosenberg, Senate President Therese Murray and State Treasurer Steven Grossman.

- SCOTT MERZBACH