St. Louis Branch Launches Screwnomics Project

A St. Louis Branch Screwnomics Book Club project supported by a WILPF US mini-grant aims to develop leadership skills among young women.

By Lynn Sableman
Chair, St. Louis Branch
December 10, 2019

The St. Louis branch of WILPF took on the Screwnomics project as a means of bridge-building to the local community. The project means to offer a free, fun, feisty, feminist intro. to macroeconomics. It also aims to be an act of public service with the project’s built-in dimension of developing leadership skills in young women who serve as facilitators for the meetings.

Our branch has been in decline for many years now. This seemed like a good opportunity to attract younger members.

I am writing this at the end of October, after the first offering and midway through our second five-session “Screwnomics Meet-up.”

This project was sparked by a visit from Marybeth Gardam in her position as Development Chair for the national WILPF board. She presented a program called WINGS to our St. Louis Branch board, which is meant to encourage and develop leadership skills in younger women. The project involves introducing a free book club that would be an intro to feminist economics through Rickey Gard Diamond’s textbook Screwnomics. Gardam also informed us of the possibility of receiving a mini-grant from WILPF to do this work.

Marybeth provided templates for program flyers and letters to professors requesting their help in finding a course facilitator/intern, as well as a step-by-step process to follow to disseminate information about the program.

A team of three, made up of myself and two new board members, friends of mine before I joined WILPF, sprung into action to plan a projected five meetings lasting two hours each. Marybeth suggested three hours of intern preparation time for each session in addition to class contact time.

Marybeth’s  “organizer” instructions, with a detailed ‘how to,’ was followed precisely. The search was on for the college student or recent grad as well as for participants. By posting on social media, joining appropriate FB groups, directing emails to social justice groups in town, and reaching out to acquaintances, we found our intern eventually. She ‘got’ WILPF because she was an active member of Amnesty International from her high school days forward.

We received four unproductive inquiries before finding an applicant from Webster University who was an International Relations major, with a minor in International Human Rights, and who had a lot of experience as a facilitator from these classes. She was perfect.

We set up some tabling opportunities for outreach through the Women’s March. Then we scheduled meetings for first Saturday of the month for five consecutive months. We had our core group of five people from our WILPF Branch and seven others, all people I knew from work or life.

The book was challenging reading but it was fun to have a relaxed book club atmosphere to grapple with terms that are a very relevant part of today’s news. One participant,  a fossil fuel professional, left after we started talking about how much the fossil fuel industry is subsidized by the US ($20 billion annually) and also by the EU (55 billion euros annually).

In the current session, condensed into two months, the meetings are being held on alternate Saturdays at the Ethical Society, which granted us free rent and heavily promoted the meetings to their groups. It was there that we found our second facilitator, a woman getting her PhD in literature and gender studies at St. Louis University. She, too, is excellent.

We all worked hard to attract new attendees. Marguerite Adelman from WILPF Vermont has been a wonderful help managing the posts on Meetup, announcing our meetings. Additionally, we’ve publicized the sessions through social media and the Meetup app. Unfortunately, so far we’ve attracted only one person new to us. However, our facilitator has joined WILPF.

We are now discussing a bookstore-based effort, which requires a group size of twelve before it can be offered. The concept of these gatherings has appeal and merit. To be continued...

Feel free to contact me with questions: lynnsableman@att.net