Soapbox Inc: Speakers Who Speak Out

rosalind wiseman

Rosalind Wiseman is the co-founder and President of the Empower Program, a non-profit organization that empowers youth to stop the culture of violence. Reaching over 5000 youth and educators each year, Empower recognizes that children live within a culture where they are socialized to be perpetrators, bystanders, or targets of violence. Empower's revolutionary approach teaches boys and girls to transform their silence into effective action.

She is the author of Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends and Other Realities of Adolescence published by Crown in May 2002 and Queen Bee Moms and Kingpin Dads. In 1995, she published Defending Ourselves; A Guide to Prevention, Self-Defense, and Recovery from Rape published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.

Ms. Wiseman speaks throughout the country at universities, corporations, schools, and associations including the American Association of University Women, the Millennium Conference on Domestic Violence, the National Educational Association, the National Crime Prevention Conference, the Young Presidents Organization, the Congressional Youth Leadership Conference, the National Capital Girl Scout Council, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, and the National Football League.

In March 2002, she was profiled in a cover story of the New York Times Magazine on girls' aggression. She has been featured on Oprah and interviewed on national television and radio including CBS Evening News with Dan Rather, Montel Williams, the G. Gordon Liddy Show, CNN, and National Public Radio affiliates throughout the country. She has been featured in USA Today Weekend, Ms. Magazine, 17 Magazine, the Washington Post, and Shape, Seventeen, among others.

She is an advisory member of the Corporate Alliance to End Partner Violence, and was a liaison to the American Bar Association's Domestic Violence Committee. Ms. Wiseman was a member of the Violence Against Women Act's Subcommittee on Girls and School Violence. She has been recognized as a "Who Cares" Visionary Leader, a national finalist for the Jefferson Award for Greatest Public Service by an Individual 35 Years and Younger, and was a recipient of the Donner Foundation's 21st Century Fellowship.

Ms. Wiseman is certified through Harvard University's "Program for Young Negotiators. " She holds an advanced Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Occidental College, Los Angeles, California, and a second degree black belt in Tang Soo Do Karate.