The 60 guests at Maggie Kipp‘s home Wednesday evening were there for The Family Place Partners Women’s Auxiliary membership meeting. To entice the gals to attend, a tantalizing ingredient was added to the mix of business and wine — “a secret special guest speaker will take you behind the veil.”
With Jan Harbour making the rounds of serving wine, FP Development Director Melissa Sherrill, who is six months pregnant with twins, was the ringmaster of the evening. She led off with her check list of FP business —
- Hadley Galt updated all on the Oct. 6 Texas Trailblazers Award luncheon at the Hilton Anatole where Pulitzer Prizer winner Sheryl WuDunn will speak and Margot Perot will be the honorary chair.
- Stiletto Stutt will once again benefit The Family Place at Neiman Marcus Downtown.
- Partners Card Co-chair Nancy Scripps reported that the 10-day sale-a-thon will take place October 28 – November 6 and they’re hoping to repeat last year’s success of hitting $1M in sales and selling more than 15,000 cards.
Then it was time for the mystery guest. No, wait! Jan had to make one more sweep of the room with a bottle of wine.
Now, the ladies were ready. In walked a figure in a hijab. It was Gloria Godat Snead-Amarilla, who had helped found the Chiapas Project and had traveled to more than 100 countries. With the veil covering her face, she told the group that she was going to speak on the problems facing Muslim women in multiple countries.
“Ladies, this is not a fashion statement. This is a bondage statement.” She went to say that as an American Christian woman, she had a driver’s license, mortgage, property, etc.
Looking around the room, Gloria then said, “But if I were a Middle Eastern Muslim woman, I’d be the exception, not the rule.”
With that she removed the veil and discussed the limited rights that Muslim women have in this day and age. Gloria reminded the assembled women that as recently as 1967, legislation gave Texas women certain new rights, and that women’s suffrage was passed in 1920 — only 91 years ago.