Group Says History of Women’s Inequity Still Repeats Itself : Rights: Local AAUW branch focuses on educating children. Group’s activities vary, but their common thread is equality.

A young girl’s declaration that “only boys could be doctors” still motivates the Thousand Oaks members of the American Assn. of University Women.

It began innocently enough, about nine years ago, when teacher Sandy Hindy took her 7-year-old daughter to the doctor after she had fallen from the bars on the school playground.

“She said she thought it would be fun to work in a doctor’s office, but when I asked her what she would want to do, she said she would be the nurse because only boys could be doctors,” Hindy recalled. “I was shocked that my second-grade daughter could have such a thought.”

Hindy told the AAUW members about the comment, and it inspired them to begin a program in Thousand Oaks elementary schools in 1985 to educate students about women’s history. Today, Hindy’s story is passed along like folklore, a lesson for members about getting involved and solving problems.

“Women still face discrimination in schools at every level,” said Beverly Khoshnevisan, president of AAUW’s Thousand Oaks branch. “Whether it’s elementary school books which ignore women’s contributions or university professors being held back because of their gender, there is still a lot to be done.”

And AAUW is attempting to do it.

The group, with 335 active members, is one of the largest nonprofit organizations in the Thousand Oaks area and has dozens of programs, ranging from the purely social to the intensely political.

Among the group’s largest and most popular events is an annual, daylong fair called “Creative Options: A Day for Women,” scheduled for Saturday. This year’s seminars, which attract people from around the state, are already filled, organizers said.

The branch has a bridge club and a book club. They run educational seminars and a summer day camp. But there is a common theme for all the programs--equity for women.

“The goal of the organization from the very beginning was the advancement of women,” Khoshnevisan explained.

Of course, much has changed since a group of 17 college women met for the first time at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1881.

“At the time it was impossible for women to find jobs commensurate with their college degrees,” Khoshnevisan said. “Back then it was mostly a matter of networking, but the problems we look at today are a bit more complex.”

The Thousand Oaks branch, which formed in 1966, has focused since its inception on a handful of issues pertaining to the treatment of women and girls in education.

Hindy said her program to teach elementary students about historical contributions of women helps compensate for what she said is the lack of recognition given to women in most history textbooks.

She and a group of AAUW members decided that the best way to inform boys and girls about the role of women in history was to research important women, dress up in costume and role-play.

Each year they visit local schools dressed as different women in history. Past presentations have included pilot Amelia Earhart, astronaut Sally Ride, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and, of course, the first woman doctor, Elizabeth Blackwell.

The program was so well received that the AAUW decided to publish a book including 15 of the scripts it had written for the talks. The book, titled “Profiles of Women, Past & Present,” has sold about 600 copies nationwide, and Hindy said it continues to sell well and is becoming more widely used.

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Another focus of the group is to increase the number of girls who are interested in careers in science.

The group holds a science fair for girls in grades six through 10 that brings together local female doctors, biologists, engineers and scientists from nearby companies such as Amgen and Rockwell International.

“The goal is for the girls to see that there are options for them in math and science,” said Ricki Mikkelsen, the group’s president-elect. “When they meet these women and see what they’ve accomplished, it really opens their eyes.”

This year’s Math and Science Conference, originally scheduled for Jan. 17, was canceled because of the earthquake and has not yet been rescheduled.

In addition to educating young people on the opportunities for women, the group occasionally attempts to tackle political issues.

Although Khoshnevisan calls the group nonpolitical, it has been known to take stands on some controversial issues.

The AAUW caused a stir last year when board members from the Thousand Oaks branch appeared at a Conejo Valley Unified School District meeting to protest a sex-education pamphlet that was proposed for use in the district’s schools.

While hundreds of parents showed up to support the 19-page booklet, the seven members of AAUW stood their ground, arguing that the pamphlet was inappropriate because it tied sexual issues to Christian values.

The AAUW’s objections resulted in the deletion of a portion of the pamphlet, and the booklet was eventually approved only for teacher reference and not for distribution among students.

In 1990, Mikkelsen said, religious groups protested the AAUW’s annual “day for women” at Cal Lutheran University because of a round-table discussion on abortion rights.

“We may not be a political group, but we don’t ignore political issues that are important to women,” Mikkelsen said.

“The stir over abortion was good for everybody because it got us talking,” she said. “Even though people in AAUW don’t all agree on the issue, we all feel like it’s a good thing to be discussing it openly.”

Barb Wilson, a vice president, said the national organization chooses stands on issues by polling its more than 135,000 members.

“It’s not a small group of people at the top saying, ‘You’re going to support reproductive rights,’ ” Wilson said. “This is very much a grass-roots type of organization.”

To keep it that way, she said, AAUW needs to attract all types of people. And to do that means a diverse type of programming.

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Each month, across Thousand Oaks, the women of AAUW meet to collectively read plays, discuss international issues, or participate in a number of outings and athletic trips.

Khoshnevisan said she first learned of the AAUW when she moved to Newbury Park and needed to find a baby-sitter.

“I heard about a baby-sitting co-op run by this group called AAUW, and I had no idea what it was, but I was a desperate mother,” she said.

Through the co-op, she learned about the dozens of other programs, like the investment club, the children’s theater and the positive parenting group.

“That’s how most people get involved,” Khoshnevisan said. “We have so many different things going on that people just get drawn in.”

Much like the group itself, the fair at Cal Lutheran has a diverse program of events, with talks on subjects ranging from women’s spirituality to conflict resolution.

In the spirit of AAUW’s original founders, there will even be a talk about networking.

“We want there to be something for everyone,” said Mikkelsen, who is one of the organizers of the event. “We want to help women get involved and get ahead. It’s what our group has always stood for.”