Women’s Conference Seminars Attract 600

About 600 women attended seminars on topics ranging from power-dressing to jump-starting a tired sex life Saturday at the Ventura County Regional Conference for Women in Ventura.

They browsed the booths of more than 65 vendors hawking everything from vitamin sprays to children’s books. And they heard such speakers as television anchor Kelly Lange, who signed more than 60 copies of her novel “Trophy Wife,” to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who urged attendees to get out and vote.

“I came because of my daughter,” Oxnard resident Kathy Burris said during a break between seminars with her daughter Julie, a high school freshman. “I think it was a good opportunity for her to be exposed to women in all fields.”

The fifth annual event was the largest conference yet, Chairwoman Marilyn Woods said. Over the years the popularity of seminars on such ethereal subject matter as self-esteem has given way to the nuts and bolts of positive parenting and home-based businesses, she said. But the conference’s purpose has remained constant.

“It’s a day of growth and inspiration and motivation specially for women,” Woods said. “Women get into the rat race and there’s a lot of demands on your life and this is a day to step down and say, ‘I’m going to do something for myself.’ ”

Mary Connick, a legal secretary from Ventura, embraced that idea as she enthusiastically applied a skin rejuvenation cream at a booth while praising a motivational speaker at one of the seminars.

“I came away, as she promised, feeling enhanced, empowered,” Connick said. “It boosted me up.”

Meanwhile, LAPD officers Michelle Pagan and Debbie Nichols reported a good response from women interested in a law enforcement career. The department, which is 17% female and intends to boost that figure to 43%, offers secure, relatively high-paying jobs, Pagan said.

Women are becoming increasingly accepted in this traditionally macho profession, Nichols said.

Boxer--introduced as “the mightiest of women”--noted that females are making political strides too. But with a woman’s right to choose whether to have an abortion under renewed congressional assault, she urged conference attendees to cast their ballots this fall to keep the pressure on legislators in the nation’s capital.

“The kitchen table issues that we deal with every day as women . . . sometimes are overlooked,” she said. “[But] I think it’s important you not disconnect your lives from what’s happening there . . . . A lot of those things you concentrated on today are being discussed in Washington every day.”