Ellen Goodman

Featured Keynote Programs

Longtime journalist, Ellen traces how civility was shattered, who is winning and who is losing in the media mud wrestling. She shows how incivility is tearing us apart and how to call a truce.
“Civility means that we need to be able to talk about things we disagree about, leave our minds and ears open and stay in the same room with the people we disagree with.”

The year 2020 will mark two momentous landmarks in the experience of American women: the 100th anniversary of woman’s right to vote, and a presidential election that is likely to hang on the use of that vote.
Goodman will celebrate and connect both of these events in an engaging and memorable talk dedicated to passing the torch to a young and diverse generation.
“Women who have been through a half a century of change can pass along to our daughters and granddaughters a belief in the ability to change the country through collective and political action. The belief that we can do it. Again.”

A veteran journalist, Ellen takes us from a time when the press sheilded the private lives of an FDR and a JFK to the time when the personal has become public with a vengeance. What do we make of cable TV food fights and scandals of the day? Ellen argues for the importance of balancing and deepening the media.

Ellen and Patricia O'Brien, authors of the New York Times Best Seller "I Know Just What you Mean: The Power of Friendship in Women's Lives" have treated audiences to a lively discussion on the importance of this under-rated relationship in women's lives. As a duet, they show as well as describe this connection.

Women play many roles in the evolving story of health care in America. They are family caregivers, the intermediaries between children and doctors, husbands and doctors. They make the most of the family decisions about medical care. At the same time, women are patients and research subjects, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse.
In the past decades we've seen enormous change in all these areas. We've seen women becoming half the medical students. We've seen nurses struggling to gain more respect for their roles. At the same time, we've seen women as patients coping with the research on hormones. The magic pill that was supposed to keep them young forever now appears to be a danger more than a help.
All of this fits into the pattern of social change that Ellen Goodman has expertly tracked.

Ellen offers a witty and insightful "progress" report from the turbulent front lines of social change. From the myth of Supermom thru the myth of Superwoman, from the halls of Congress to the privacy of the bedroom, she talks about changing American values and analyzes what's happening with men, women and families in today's society.