The Revolution of Visibility
Story Telling for Change
The Answer is Yes
World Cafe Host 
Retired Programs

The Revolution of Visibility

Let me tell you my stories, share my tools and set you forward with new eyes.
I look and ask the most dangerous question:
WHERE ARE THE WOMEN?

“The Revolution of Visibility” is designed to be tailored to your event.
From a twenty-five minute keynote to an extended event with Q & A,
this program rises from lost history and flies off today’s news. 
Zoe tells her own epiphany of asking that dangerous question, where are the women.  Not rhetorical but actual. 
Dynamic, elegant, topical. 
A perfect talk to open minds and celebrate visibility.  

You have no idea what the world would look like if women had not been systematically erased.  You cannot dream big enough, imagine far enough, dance fast enough or sing loud enough to fill the limits of you.  We have been divided, erased, redacted.  We have been bought and sold with no map to get our lineage back.  We have lost the most important form of ownership, to name.  We don’t even have our names. 

How did this begin?  How is it sustained? What is our defense?  LUCKY you.  I know the answers.  You will know them too and you can teach all women and girls on your path.  Let us refuse to be swept into the bin.  Let us open the cage and sing.  Let us have the courage to change the embedded culture by, “Remembering the Women.” 

Abigail Adams knew the men would intentionally leave women out of the Constitution.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton knew scripture was pivotal.  She wrote the Women’s Bible. 
Carrie Chapman Catt paid The Women ’s History author, Ida Harper to redact Alice Paul and the radicals from the fight for the Vote. 

The invisibility of women is immoral, unethical, criminal and, when corrected, a miracle.  
Let us start a revolution.   See women, see mothers, see elders, see girls, see lesbians, see transwomen
Let us celebrate lifting women out of invisibility.

My commitment to you is
I will not let you fade into invisibility. 
Take my hand, Lets tell the truth. 
I SEE YOU. 
I TRUST YOU. 
From toys, to names, as far as Mother Earth Herself. 
Let us insist on The Visibility of Woman.

 

 

Story Telling for Change 

Zoe has been speaking for over fifty years, collecting wisdom stories and creating new experiences.  Her presentations are dynamic, inspiring and, sometimes, controversial.  Always using her life as a platform, she takes the audience on a pilgrimage through civil rights, feminism, the  LGBTQ movement and lands them on intersection of Equality and Hope. 

 

Hard to believe I have been speaking on Equality this long. My speaking is unusual, effective, insightful and valuable.  The way I know is the fallout long after I have left.  The emails, tweets, blogs, facebook comments and resulting innovations don’t just happen for a week, they never stop.  I am still in touch with people I met in 1972 and a recent tweet, “after hearing you speak, I found the courage to leave the family dinner table when my dad used the word, fag.”   

Zoe Nicholson, radical activist, feminist, bossy, funny, deep and, heard most often, intense.  She is what Eleanor Roosevelt warned about Well Behaved Women.  Aside from Zoe making history, she studies her lineage with heart.  She is an unparalleled Alice Paul scholar and ERA expert.  She founded ERA Once and For All.  She is a lifelong champion of the ERA, an activist and primary resource of current information.  In 2010 she hosted an ERA World CAFÉ for the Veteran Feminists of America which included a summary and Q&A with Gloria Steinem.  2011, Zoe presented an ERA panel for the NWPC National Conference in Washington DC.  Her book, The Hungry Heart, is her 1982 diary about fasting for 37 days leading up to the ERA deadline. 

______________________________________

A Few Responses

Zoe Nicholson has had a profound impact on my students. Each year, she provides real life testimony to the readings and feminist theories that my students study. Zoe has an incredibly rich activist history. She is a champion of the Equal Rights Amendment, GLBTQ rights and human rights in general. Zoe is a humanist who cares about injustices to all persons. She isn’t just a one issue activist. 
Linda M. Perkins, Associate University Professor and Director of Applied Women’s Studies and Africana Studies Certificate Program, Claremont Graduate University

I was first introduced to Zoe Nicholson through the amazing and powerful film “March On” which documented the 2009 National Equality March in Washington, D.C. Her insight, passion for social justice, and profound wisdom stood out to me and my students, and following the screening of the film, the decision was made that she would be our keynote speaker for GLBT Awareness Week at Texas A&M University. As a campus programmer, I frequently work with speakers, and I can honestly say that Zoe Nicholson was both easy and a pleasure to contract! Furthermore, her message is highly impactful and empowering for people regardless of their exposure to social justice issues. Zoe is a smart, fun, engaging, and inspiring speaker whom I recommend enthusiastically.
 Lowell Kane, Program Coordinator, GLBT Resource Center, Texas A&M University
  
I am writing this endorsement for Zoe Nicholson because I attended her presentation at the NOW Prairie States Conference in MN in May 2012.  Since hearing her, buying and reading her book, I think her message and herstory should be shared especially with the younger generation, but also old folks like me who just learned about her activism late in life.  She gets my vote!!!
Jocelyn “Joyce” Morris  NOW National Board Member, Chair, NOW Combating Racism Committee

 

The Answer is Yes

Zoe’s New Engaging Presentation: The Answer is Yes

Zoe Nicholson, master storyteller, presents her life’s highlights.
The route from insight to action;
sharing historic events, and sending off everyone inspired,
and ready for change.

 

Activist, feminist, artist, performer, Zoe Nicholson is prolific, radical, magnetic and controversial.  Central to Zoe’s her feminism is the Equal Rights Amendment which has called her to study Miss Alice Paul, activism, creating change and the ERA.

The Answer is Yes is a multi-media presentation combining the PBS program, We’ll Meet Again with Ann Curry featuring Zoe which zeros in on her 37 day fast for the ERA in the summer of 1982.  After the video, Zoe shares her experience leading up to the show, the shoot itself and the aftermath. 

It began with just one simple word, Yes.  Zoe’s preference to say yes and get details later has led her through fantastic highs and lows with many miracles unfolding.  It started early in her life and continues today.  Risk, commitment to change, paying the price and reaping the winter wheat. 
60 minutes with Q&A.

 

Unforgettable, Inspiring, Historic. 

Role-model: Daring and Funny.

Visionary with a wide rearview mirror,

Headlights set on the future.

 

At 70, it is easy to see it has been one extraordinary life.  A life well spent with no end in sight.  It appears she is just getting started.  You ask her how it happened.  You will hear one simple answer; she said, “yes.”  Mostly, she said, yes.  Occasionally, a no came after a life-changing yes. 

Not sports, not travel, not property, not votes, not money. 

Zoe said yes to an inner adventure, to an unknown destination without a map.

• Yes in risk
• Yes in conscience
• Yes in equality. 

Always yes in equality.  The only thing that wounded repeatedly was the slow reveal that others did not feel the same way.  In fact, she always invited others to feel the same way, daring them to be their very best. 

Standing alone has never stopped her from staring down the edge of a cliff.  One that spot, she has raised many flags; Labor Rights, Peace, Feminism, LGBTQ Rights, Equity and always, Equality. 

As Somerset Maugham warned, it is easy to be a holy man on a mountain but, in the world, it is as difficult as a razor’s edge.  For Zoe this was not a challenge but a directive; never relying on consensus or permission.

Zoe’s fundamental insistence on justice, unvarnished truth, unleashed observation is both magnetic and repelling.  It is loud and quiet.  It is clear and strident. 

Equality and nothing less.  

“THE ANSWER IS YES”

Zoe’s presentation is her life story and what happened with many times she said, “YES.”

Engage Zoe for your club, organization, school, or community.
For more information click their pages above.
See Book & Contact page for details.
Special Consideration for non-profits

 

World Cafe Host 

Have you heard of the World Café conversation architecture?  It is the perfect format for creating change within a group;  World Cafe?  Take 20+ people who need to see a combined solution and the World Café will empower them to find it, invent it, embrace it through the art of Positive Inquiry.  The process can uncover bad practices or unearth different points of view but, much more importantly, holds a structure where all can see it and craft a common solution. 

This is not a hearing or a grievance but a format for casual and constructive dialog which has no leader, no opponent, no advocate; only a skilled host.  All participants are on equal footing.  With the experienced host, the group organically discovers no sole person knows what all of them know.  The real truth of the matter is in the collective thinking, not the loudest voice. 

Through non-linear seating, changing table partners, guided inquiry and positive outcomes; participants see as never before. Zoe has hosted cafes with astounding results.  Not mediation but rather an invitation to discover mutual benefits, common ideas and establish a plan as a community.  From world hunger to assigned parking to civil rights, World Cafe conversation architecture is always dazzling.  For your organization, group or class, any group of 20+ people who are working to craft an agreement.

Zoe’s Introduction hosting a World Cafe;

Some of you may be asking yourself why you are here

• I believe in holy coincidence. 
• Someone here needs to hear you
• Someone here needs you to listen.

Something unexpected will happen today.

• All of us know more than one of us
• Today something is going to be said that was never said before. 
• You are going to ask a question that no one has asked before   
• The answer will have never been heard before 

*The World Cafe: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter.

__________________________________________

Retired Speaking Programs

The Heart of an Activist

What does an activist have in their heart & soul that sets them on their path? From Alice Paul to getEqual, what do fasters, hecklers, marchers have in common?  Why are they so relentless?  What is the source of their resolve? Demonstrating the lineage of activists and inviting the audience to join the ranks, The Heart of an Activist changes lives. 

The Heart of an Activist is the companion presentation to her new book, The Engaged Heart.  90 minutes and unlimited Q & A. 

The Provenance of Change

Now I am thinking that (the r)evolution is in full swing and we only need to learn the language, focus on unity, get out of the way.  It is bursting from within and waiting for us to listen.  It is all in the conversation, in the question, in the mindful regard.  There is something on the horizon, surfacing and telling its secrets all over the world.  It is the provenance of change.

PowerPoint as a backdrop, Zoe discusses how change occurs.  Focusing specifically on the LGBTQ movement but applicable for all seeking equality.

Activism, A Passionate Life

Using her life as an example, Zoe Nicholson, Equality Activist, takes her audience on a pilgrimage through the evolution of her reaching for liberation.  Starting with Liberation Theology, discovery of American Feminism, outspoken on LGBT Civil Rights, Zoe will land the audience at the complex intersection of EQUALITY. 

Zoe shares her story, insights and hard won lessons about the life of an activist; addresses the principles of Gandhi, Satyagraha, Civil Disobedience as well as burnout, inspiration, balance and ethics.  From civil rights, the ERA and LGBT, Zoe has fasted, marched, organized and rallied for social justice. At 63 Zoe will tell you she has not peaked yet as her life seems to be a steady climb.

Rich, multimedia PowerPoint includes the Lineage of American Feminist Waves calling for one unified intertected movement for full equality under the law, great story telling from The Hungry Heart about Zoe’s 37 day water fast and love for the Equal Rights Amendment, comprehensive presentation of current day efforts for Civil Rights. “People are informed and involved but, more importantly, some are inspiried for the rest of their lives.  I know, they stay in touch with me.”                   Zoe Nicholson

 

Women, Not Angels

The most fundamental right any American has is Constitutional equality but as Abigail Adams, Alice Paul, Rep Carolyn Maloney and Rep Tammy Baldwin have pointed out, it has yet to include women.  The Equal Rights Amendment; first written in 1923, extension signed by President Carter in 1978, failed by 3 states in 1982 awaits ratification.  It is a complex history about a simple idea: Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.

Every women’s studies & women’s history class should be including historical and current information on the ERA.  Women’s and Gender Centers on campus should be celebrating Alice Paul, Women’s Equality Day, International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month.