The Florida Commission on the Status of Women is hosting a listening tour that will come to Tallahassee on January 16. The top five issues trending statewide include: financial security, healthcare, workplace issues, violence against women, and a lack of women in leadership positions.
Commission Chair Dhyana Ziegler is driving around the state. She’s hearing what women have to say and compiling their voices in a report for the Florida legislature. Her efforts fall in line with a nation-wide initiative to understand what issues women face every day. One of Ziegler's next stops is Tallahassee.
“We are in an age where women’s issues are at the forefront. It’s important that we are brave enough and bold enough to say ‘this is what we want, this is what impacts our lives, and this is what we need to do about it,'” Ziegler says.
She’s hoping the women of Tallahassee will come out to the event.
“I really want them to be bold, to be safe, to be open and honest,” she says. “In Lakeland for example, we had the mayor attend who was a male—who loved the fact that he was able to hear in his community the voices of women talking about specifically what is important to them.”
The commission will host a listening session on January 16 at noon inside the Challenger Learning Center and at 5:30 p.m. the same day at Bethel AME Church.
