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COLUMNS Honor Women’s History By Championing The Heroes In Your Organization

Supporting The Well-Being Of All Mothers And Babies

March is Women’s History Month, a time to acknowledge all the contributions women have made to American history. If you visit www.womenshistorymonth. gov, you’ll see photos of female heroes as we traditionally envision them: Billie Holiday, whose voice shaped popular music; suffragettes picketing for equal voting rights in 1917.

You’ll also see photos of women living everyday life: assembling the engine cowling of a WWII bomber; working at a cotton mill in Georgia while pregnant; doing their best to thrive after being placed in an internment camp merely for being JapaneseAmerican. These are the heroes I celebrate when I think about women’s history. They are people I know, like my mom or my gram, who supported her family after her husband died; women who have faced a challenge and overcame it.

As the first female director at the newly formed PSEG Long Island, I have done my best over the past eight years to honor the example set by these heroes by helping more women reach leadership positions and achieve their true potential.

In so doing, I hope to emulate one of my earliest heroes: my sixth-grade teacher in North Babylon. She was an extremely strong, confident, independent woman who believed in her students. She made sure you knew that you could accomplish anything.

My professional path brought me together with more heroes, women who overcame sometimes life-threatening challenges. After getting my undergraduate degree at Hofstra, I obtained a law degree from Touro and spent several years representing women who were victims of domestic violence.

One individual had been beaten by her husband in front of her preschool-aged child. After that traumatic experience, she had the courage to stand up to him in court, move out of state and get the career she wanted, all the while knowing the violence she risked. To me, she’s a hero because she had the courage and strength to do better for herself and her child.

After practicing law for 12 years, I took a chance and accepted a position as a collections supervisor at PSEG Long Island’s predecessor company. As a working mother, I appreciated the more favorable work-life balance of a career away from the courtroom. Time passed, and I was promoted to manager. When PSEG Long Island was formed, I was chosen as director of Revenue Operations—and became the very first woman to hold a director-level role in the new company.

I never felt the weight of being the first, because it was never about me—it was about pulling other women up with me and I made it my mission to champion high-potential women for leadership positions.

Fortunately, PSEG Long Island has been fantastic with their support of women. They offer a number of development programs for women. I have had opportunities to be able to transition into three different director roles and that’s been invaluable. Today, I am proud to be one of five women directors working to make things better for our 1.1 million customers.

Women’s history is defined by strength, courage and mutual support. The nation we have today is the product of heroes like the women I have known, who found that strength to overcome.

And to the women who will help build the nation of tomorrow: I encourage you to take chances, to never think you don’t have enough skills or abilities to try something new. (If you’re interested in joining us at PSEG Long Island, you can browse our latest job openings at https://jobs. pseg.com/LI.) Blaze a trail for yourself—and then don’t forget to bring other women up behind you. Do that, and our nation will never run short of heroes.

Suzanne Brienza

(Photo courtesy of PSEG Long Island)

Suzanne Brienza is PSEG Long Island’s director of Customer Experience and Utility Marketing. She lives in Farmingdale.

At the North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center, our mission is to bring hope and healing to children and families experiencing depression, anxiety and other challenges. Although we are a children’s mental health organization, we know that emotional well-being and physical health are inexorably tied, each deeply impacting the other.

The Guidance Center has several programs that promote the health of mothers and children. One is our Good Beginnings for Babies program, which aims to promote healthier pregnancies that will result in healthier babies and to nurture relationships between parent and child. Good Beginnings for Babies supports teen and young adult mothers prior to the birth of their child and throughout the first year of the child’s life with support, counseling and advocacy.

Through our Diane Goldberg Maternal Depression Program, we provide a rapid response and diagnosis for mothers suffering from postpartum depression and other perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, which are estimated to impact one in seven women.

As part of our educational and advocacy work, the Guidance Center partnered with Hofstra University’s Public Health Program, School of Health Science and Human Services to create Birth Justice Warriors, an initiative born out of the crippling bias and injustice faced by Black mothers in the United States in general and in Nassau County in particular.

According to the New York State Department of Health, a Black woman is up to four times more likely to die in childbirth than a white mother. In Nassau County, the infant mortality rate per 1,000 live births is 9.4 for Black babies versus the 2.2 reported for white non-Hispanic babies.

Birth Justice Warriors are volunteer advocates from many professions and backgrounds, working with community members, pediatricians, nurses, health care professionals, elected officials, members of faith-based institutions and others to bring education and awareness to this inequality. Ultimately, one of Birth Justice Warriors’ goals is to have legislation written that guarantees that this crucial information is delivered to all women of child-bearing age.

In late January, I joined with Dr.

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Dr. Nellie Taylor-Walthrust

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WORLD AFFAIRS This Russian Denounces The Ukrainian Invasion

One hundred years ago, the predicament of the Russian in America was very different than it is today. Rampant discrimination was abound. Russians, among other Slavic peoples, were used as a pawn against organized labor, baselessly smeared as Communists and anarchists based on the actions of a few, culminating in blankcheck raids by the Attorney General of the time against tens of thousands of Eastern European immigrants. Five years later, Congress would pass the Quota Act: officially capping the amount of immigrants from Eastern Europe, relegating Slavs to the “uncivilized” category.

A century later, much has changed. Immigration quotas have been abolished, the Cold War is over and Russians are no longer being profiled. And yet, something continues to linger under the surface: the assumption I’m somehow not a “real” American. Despite being born in America and speaking perfect English, countless individuals throughout my life have assumed I am a foreigner when I say I am Russian or asked me where I’m “really” from.

Stereotypes? I’ve heard them all. No, I don’t drink vodka. I don’t wear an ushanka all the time, and I do, in fact, smile.

The most popular stereotype of all is that we Russians unconditionally support Vladimir Putin or that we yearn for a return to Communism. I’m here today to set the record straight: I, along with the majority of Russians and Russian-Americans, do not support Vladimir Putin. In addition, xI utterly denounce the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian government.

Vladimir Putin is a lawless dictator, crook, robber and tyrant who has continued the 1,200-year streak of autocratic rule in Russia. He has assassinated opposition leaders, suspended due process, rigged the judicial system and looks the other way as his vassals set up LGBTQ+ concentration camps. His is a regime of restricted civil liberties and Russian people languishing, while he and his fat oligarch cronies loot the treasury, and it goes without saying that his invasion of Ukraine is illegal, unjustified and atrocious.

So who do you think you are, assuming this young, progressive Russian has some kind of “allegiance” to a regime he

CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

Martine Hackett, my Birth Justice Warrior co-founder and an associate professor in the public health and community health programs at Hofstra, at a press conference held by New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. The senator, along with Representative Alma Adams of North Carolina, are the sponsors of the Maternal CARE Act, which would provide funding for evidence-based training programs to reduce bias in maternal health and establish programs to bring health care services to pregnant women and new mothers in an effort to reduce the disproportionate rate of maternal death and other poor health outcomes among Black women and their babies.

In her statement, Gillibrand said the following: “Health equity for Black women can only happen if we recognize and address persistent biases in our health system and do more to ensure women have access to culturally competent, holistic care to reduce preventable maternal mortality.”

Both North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center and Birth Justice Warriors support this important legislation, and we hope that you will join us in spreading the word so that all women receive the care they need and deserve.

Matthew Adarichev

(Photo courtesy of the Adarichev family)

Dr. Nellie Taylor-Walthrust is the director of North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center’s Leeds Place and is a co-founder of Birth Justice Warriors, a collaboration of the Guidance Center and Hofstra University. To learn more about Birth Justice Warriors, contact Dr. Walthrust-Taylor via email at NTaylorWalthrust@northshorechildguidance.org or call 516-997-2926, ext. 229.

despises, based on a genetic happenstance?

Unfortunately, these harmful assumptions are already spreading throughout the American and European body politic. Like anti-Asian sentiment during the pandemic, and like antisemitism during the 2021 Gaza war, a rise in anti-Russian sentiment is already being documented across the West. Russian restaurants and stores owned by Russians are being boycotted, including those whose owners have aided the Ukrainian relief effort. In Europe, some businesses refuse to cater to Russian customers and countries like Czechia have stopped issuing immigration visas to Russians altogether.

Why must ordinary Russians be punished for the actions of a rogue government? This war has devastated Ukraine, but the citizens of Russia have suffered too. Well-meaning sanctions meant to target Russian oligarchs have led to rapidly deteriorating living standards for Russians (I should know; ask my close relatives).

Russian soldiers have been forced to fire on ethnic Russians living in Eastern Ukraine. Russian soldiers have broken down in tears, questioning the purpose of their fighting, and thousands of Russians have been arrested inside Russia for protesting the war, including a 77-year-old survivor of the Nazi siege of Leningrad. Many Russians outside Russia, including my own family, have protested against the Russian invasion.

We want to see the Russian people unshackled and flourishing and we want the boundaries of Ukraine to be respected. We want a swift and peaceful resolution to the current conflict, with the priority being a minimization of civilian deaths. What we do not want is for ordinary Russians like myself to be added to a long list of individuals who have been scapegoated for the actions of systems of power.

Until this conflict is over, I urge anyone who can to donate to charities working on the ground to avail the growing Ukrainian humanitarian crisis. I recommend Save the Children Ukraine, UNHCR, or the Salvation Army as reputable charities; otherwise, avoid scams by verifying charitable organizations listed on the Federal Trade Commission’s website. For now, though: the world stands with Ukraine.