1,000 Gather for Women’s Conference

There were no girls, dears, honeys or sweethearts among the more than 1,000 women who took over Cal Lutheran University on Saturday for the school’s 17th annual women’s conference.

Only women who--if they listened to therapist Gina Giglio--won’t allow themselves to be slighted in the workplace with such disguised terms of endearment again.

They might, for instance, try a variation of Giglio’s retort to a former boss.

“Excuse me,” she said. “That’s Dr. Honey to you.”

After the laughter died down, Giglio made her point.

Any time a man calls you anything other than your name, he is asserting his power over you.

And compliments on how you look? Thinly veiled attempts to put you in your place.

“The purpose is to reduce [you] to a body,” she told the women.

As one of more than 70 speakers at the daylong “Creative Options,” Giglio, director of a family counseling center, went on to tell participants how to get what they want by being assertive.

The key, she advised, is to demand respect. And don’t look to society or a man to tell you what you want or how you should look.

“Invite yourself to take back your life,” she said, summing up the theme of the daylong Thousand Oaks conference, which draws women from throughout Southern California.

“It has a theme that women are not just objects, that we have a mind,” said 21-year-old Tammy Palafox, a student at Mount St. Mary’s in Brentwood.

“We can’t let society run our lives,” chimed in her friend, Maria Duran, also a student at Mount St. Mary’s.

For some, however, the popular event has less to do with solidarity among women than self-education.

“The woman thing isn’t a big theme for me,” said 55-year-old Nada Ronning of Pasadena. “It’s all about the opportunity to share and learn and grow.”

Ronning, who has attended several of the annual conferences, said one thing that makes the event unusual is the diversity of topics.

Workshops ranged from understanding the feminine spirit, to the impact of AIDS on families, to an examination of American literature and Puritan women.

Judith Lichtman, president of the Women’s Legal Defense Fund, kicked off the event, and Polly Schack, a humorist teaching ways to relieve stress through laughter, ended it.

As the event came to a close, many women said they would return next year.

“It’s just a day for yourself,” said 24-year-old Shayna Yellin, a Ventura College student. “And you walk away with a feeling of strength.”