Marianne Schnall · Women's Rights and Economic Development Expert

A Time magazine cover story and a week of programming on NBC immediately followed the release of The Shriver Report. This week, California’s First Lady will use the findings to engage participants in her annual conference on women. If the continuing activity fails to “ignite a national conversation,” it won’t be for lack of planning and effort.

October 26, 2009

A new report about women’s changing roles in society that has been sparking conversations across the country will be at the center of Maria Shriver’s California Women’s Conference on Tuesday this week. As one of the threads thr…

Consider these four women:

Helen Thomas — 89 years old, a first-wave feminist who broke into the men’s club that was the Washington DC press corps, and has since covered every President since JFK.

Gloria Steinem — 75 years old, a prominent second-wave feminist, co-founded the National Women’s Political Caucus in the early ’70’s, founded Ms. Magazine, and became a leading feminist icon, campaigning vigorously for the Equal Rights Amendment.

Dr. Ana Nogales — 58 years old, an Argentine-born health and human rights activist who immigrated to the US in 1979, founded Casa de la Famili…