This month, we're spotlighting women whose professional and personal contributions help shape our collective future — women who are making points we should all listen to. The people you will read about are remarkable, but this is not a contest or a ranking. Rather, we present women whose contributions, just like those of so many other people of all genders, warrant our attention. Listen up.
PHOTOGRAPH BY CATHERINE TURNER
The first challenge with any advocacy organization is making people know you're there,” says Deborah Clubb, executive director of the Memphis Area Women's Council (MAWC) since 2004.
In the early 2000s, the founding board of the council had researched issues that were at the top of women’s minds. Its members wanted action in areas as diverse as health, education, economic independence, and more, so the board called on Clubb, who had started the annual Women of Achievement event here in Memphis, to make it happen.
With no shortage of concerns, the new executive director was determined to find ways to be as effective as possible. “My approach all through this has been to be as collaborative as possible and to absolutely try not to duplicate anything,” she says. Other groups were already providing certain services as well as essential work in research and philanthropy, so Clubb sought to get involved in areas that needed attention and build on the work already being done.
A key issue is what she says is an epidemic level of violence against women and girls. The strategic focus of the council is on the needs of survivors, on more effective prosecutions of batterers and rapists, and to provide better resources and community involvement.
At the time, there was no voice aimed at animating action, so the council sought to “take the research and create strategies and communications for change,” she says. MAWC would raise that voice as strategically as possible.
“We continue to research and understand all we can about women’s needs and identify solutions in policy change or institutional change or simply wider awareness and community action in Memphis and Shelby County,” she says.
To that end, Clubb says, MAWC has a mantra: “Convene. Collaborate. Communicate = Change.”
A key issue driving that is what she says is an epidemic level of violence against women and girls. The strategic focus of the council is on the needs of survivors, on more effective prosecutions of batterers and rapists, and to provide better resources and community involvement.
These and other areas of concern have given rise to an impressive list of initiatives that MAWC has created or is part of.
Clubb is coordinator of the Memphis Says NO MORE campaign to raise awareness and prevention of domestic violence and rape, and to connect victims and survivors to help and healing.
She also created the campaign, “Violence at Home. Victims at Work. Employers Confront Domestic Violence,” which provides corporate training. Some 100 employers so far have participated and become better able to “recognize, respond, and refer” when domestic violence among co-workers and employees is present.
The council has also partnered with CHOICES and Planned Parenthood in getting the word out about reproductive rights issues and events.
And there’s the annual Walk a Mile in Her Shoes event that gives local men an opportunity to rally against domestic violence and rape.
In 1984 — well before her involvement with MAWC — Clubb was key to starting what would become the annual Women of Achievement event that celebrates remarkable women. The categories include Courage, Determination, Heritage, Heroism, Initiative, Steadfastness, and Vision. The Covid pandemic has limited the presentation of the event, but it will return next year in all likelihood. A project linked with Women of Achievement is the Memphis Women’s Legacy Trail, an endeavor to document, remember, and celebrate local women.
Before becoming executive director of MAWC, Clubb worked at The Commercial Appeal. She’d enjoyed writing assignments since elementary school and found that journalism had a distinct appeal for her. She says, “Being a part of daily journalism would be like writing history every day. And I had loved history.”
She was in charge of the school newspaper when she attended Transylvania University in Kentucky, and would go to Northwestern for her master’s degree. She moved to Washington to cover the U.S. Department of Agriculture before taking the job at the CA. “I was very interested in and involved in whatever way I could be as a working journalist in women's issues,” she says.
It is a constant struggle to maintain that necessary voice for women in Memphis. “It can feel sometimes like the boulder’s falling on us and we’re not really pushing it uphill anymore at all,” she says. “But then I get a call from somebody who’s out in the suburbs trying to do this work and thinks I’m just the baddest ass she’s ever heard of and says, ‘Come on, help me do what I want to do.’” — Jon W. Sparks
