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www.oakvillebeaver.com The Oakville Beaver, Wednesday February 18, 2009 - 3 WHAM Dinner Party Speaker will Peel the Gender Onion By Angela Blackburn OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF Corporate lawyer turned integrity expert Donna Kennedy-Glans will be Peeling the Gender Onion on Thursday, March 5 at the Women of Halton Action Movement's (WHAM) Dinner Party. Kennedy-Glans has been billed a moral compass who has successfully functioned in many, many jobs, countries and personal circumstances. Kennedy-Glans grew up in a tobacco farming community near Tillsonburg, Ontario, became a corporate lawyer for an international oil company before forming her own company facilitating integrity issues in developing countries. She is the lead author of Corporate Integrity: A Tooltkit for Managing Beyond Compliance and has a new book pending publication next fall, Unveiling the Breath: One Woman's Journey into Understanding Islam and Gender. Each year, WHAM hosts a dinner and speaker in celebration of International Women's Day. Proceeds support Sexual Assault and Violence Intervention Services of Halton (SAVIS) locally and Canadians Supporting Afghan Women (CSAW) internationally. SAVIS provides free counselling to victims of sexual assault and violence, 24-hour crisis intervention and an educational outreach program to promote social change. CSAW supports the schooling of 5,000 girls in Afghanistan, a vocational resource centre and libraries. Kennedy-Glans said she is pleased to turn her speaking talents toward assisting women, particularly those in developing nations in the Middle East. To that end, Kennedy-Glans will be Peeling the Gender Onion as she shares her personal experiences in the Middle East and Africa, exploring East-West perspectives on faith and feminism; male and female points of views; ways to reconcile spirituality and patriarchy and issues involved in raising sons. Kennedy-Glans is recognized as a Woman of Influence and is founder of Bridges Social Development, Canada (www.canadabridgges.com) and principal of Integrity Bridges Inc. (www.integritybridges.com). The world is not about neat little boxes, cliche Band-Aids or black and white viewpoints for the pragmatic Kennedy-Glans, who lives in western Canada. Effecting fairness or justice does not always entail leaving one's husband in a family situation, lobbying or picketing corporate agendas in the business world, or abandoning faith in religious patriarchies, according to Kennedy-Glans, who was the first female vice president of a large Canadian energy company. Sometimes change is effected from without, sometimes most effec- Donna Kennedy-Glans tively from within. Each individual must reconcile their own values as they move through their various roles, said Kennedy-Glans who left the corporate world in 2001. Following a significantly lengthy illness contracted while working in Vietnam, she set about founding her own company and a humanitarian organization. Since then, KennedyGlans has, sometimes at the invitation of governments, worked in places like Yemen, Egypt, Oman, Sudan, India and Nepal. Kennedy-Glans will discuss how women -- and men -- function as they move among their various roles, each with its own genderrelated specifics -- and tackle the gender integrity challenges inherent in moving from environment to environment. She will also address how similar issues are negotiated in the West versus the East, and look at the similarities of the issues. Kennedy-Glans said business roles are well defined in the West. In the East, however, issues or dilemmas surrounding gender issues are more readily questioned. Education of girls is addressed decently in the West, but there's lots of room for improvement on issues of violence. "I believe we need to evaluate our continuum of options," said Kennedy-Glans, noting it's up to an individual how they cope with changing environments and roles. "Along the continuum, there are millions of options," she said, noting choices are personal in nature. "We need to see the option and have the ability to choose," she told the Oakville Beaver in a telephone interview from her home in Calgary, Alberta last week. Along the way, KennedyGlans said people are often coopted by different messages and points to the thinking that women will or should vote for a female political candidate. In the East, extremist groups such as the Taliban are corrupting, violent, political extremists that have nothing to do with Islam and incorrectly use and confuse faith issues with control issues for political expediency. Kennedy-Glans said that when she speaks to her Oakville audience, she will be offering different options, forming questions and speaking about the issues genders face. "Change comes from many places," said Kennedy-Glans, noting, "Women are not the only agents of social change." Women do need to be better equipped, said KennedyGlans, but men and women must bring about change together. Kennedy-Glans said her own family consists of a husband and three sons. She said her family wouldn't work if everyone in it didn't respect and agree on her role, at home, at work and in a faith community. Kennedy-Glans describes herself as a pragmatic person, who believes in working with what's in front of her and doing so constructively. She beleives the key to navigating through integrity dilemmas is to ask the right questions, such as what do you intend to do, what do you want to do and what do you do? In relation to her book on corporate integrity, KennedyGlans stated black and white thinking is a "simplistic view that rarely helps individuals or organizations to define or manage the complex integrity dilemmas that we struggle with." Kennedy-Glans hopes she can facilitate others as create their choices in the continuum of options. Entertainment at the Dinner Party will be provided by singer Allie Hughes, an Oakville resident who was a finalist in CBC's How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? competition. The Dinner Party will be held at the Oakville Conference and Banquet Centre, 2515 Wyecroft Rd. It will feature a silent auction, door prizes, book signing and dinner. There will also be sales of Afghan crafts. A cash bar and silent auction will begin at 5:30 p.m. followed by dinner and speaker at 6:45 p.m. Tickets cost $45 and are available 905-825-3622 (SAVIS). Custom cabinetry, stone work and mantles. Update your fireplace. Savings up to $300.00 on select models. See store for details. 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