Women Who Made Us

In this project, a fundraiser for the Southwest Women's Law Center, an artist, Courtney Angermeier, asked powerful women to pick and write about the impact of a powerful, public woman in their lives. The artist painted portraits to accompany each woman's writing. The portraits and writing will be for sale in this auction. All proceeds will go to the Southwest Women's Law Center.

The mission of SWLC is to create opportunities for women to fulfill their own personal and economic potential by: (1) eliminating gender discrimination (2) lifting women and their families out of poverty and (3) ensuring that all women have access to comprehensive reproductive health services and information.

The SWLC is an advocacy organization that seeks systemic change. Their programs fall under our three broad categories of work:

I. Gender Discrimination:

(1) ensuring that public high schools throughout NM comply with the federal law known as "Title IX" by providing equal athletics opportunities for girls and boys;

(2) advocating for elimination of the wage gap between men and women and preparing research on the gender wage and poverty gap in NM.

II. Anti-Poverty Work:

(1) promoting job security and housing opportunities for survivors of domestic and sexual violence;

(2) advocating for regulations that maximize public benefits programs benefiting women and their families, particularly health programs.

III. Reproductive Health:

(1) advocating for policies that increase access to family planning services;

(2) supporting age-appropriate medically-accurate comprehensive sex education for our youth;

(3) protecting women's right to choose under federal and state law.

The Southwest Women's Law Center serves children and youth, families, immigrants, Latino/Hispanic communities, low-income communities, and women and girls statewide in New Mexico. Thank you SO much for supporting the work of the Southwest Women's Law Center!

In this project, a fundraiser for the Southwest Women's Law Center, I have asked powerful women in my life to pick and write about the impact of a powerful, public woman in their lives. I painted portraits of the public women that, here with the writings of the selectors, are up for sale.