A proud member of BPW since 1985, Jackie Melvin is a lifelong advocate for women and the arts. She’s held several program and organizational positions, including State President of the California Federation. Jackie started her career in 1960 - teaching high school students and championing for educational theatre. Today, Jackie is an attorney.
We are extremely honored to have her join our team as one of our writers who will focus on curated stories about the arts and how it impacts women and the culture around them.
“The arts are prominent toward women’s progress throughout history,” shared Jackie. “Not just by reflecting society, but by motivation of it.”
Her story
An attorney in private practice, Jackie is planning to retire at the end of 2022 after 40+ years as an attorney serving clients in her community in Southern California, USA. Prior to that career, she worked as an educator for 20 years. As a senior high school teacher of drama and English, Jackie directed and advocated for theatre education in the schools.
She served as a volunteer advocate and officer in the California and National organizations of theatre education, from presidency of the Southern California Educational Theatre Association, and the California Educational Theatre Association, to service within the American Educational Theatre Association.
With an education that reflects her commitment to the arts, Jackie majored in drama and language arts at the University of California, Los Angeles, and received her Master of Arts degree from the University of Southern California. Jackie also studied at Stevens College in Columbia, Missouri, the prestigious women’s then 2-year college, and the famous Pasadena Playhouse College in Pasadena, California, then administered by prominent director Gilmore Brown.
Propelled into an interest in Women’s History
Reading Betty Friedan’s classic, during Jackie’s college years deeply impacted her viewpoints as she entered her teaching career in 1960.
It became imperative to address “a problem that has no name”. Her Master’s thesis, focused upon the characterization of women as presented in critically acclaimed plays produced on Broadway during the 1960's and 1970's, and a pretty picture it was not.
It was clear to her that the World War II years of progress for U.S. women during the forties, had slowed, as it had after the Suffragettes inspired the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. A step forward, then two steps back.
An unforgettable moment in Jackie’s life
Jackie briefly left U.S. public school teaching from 1961 to 1963 to become one of the first members of the United States Peace Corps. She traveled to the Philippine Islands where she was a special teacher of English on the island of Negros Occidental.
Jackie also directed community and school theatre. Her actors – a talented group of “city” school children – toured, with the financial assistance of the Coca Cola company, up and down the island to areas that were without entertainment venues. Watching the hillside performances in front of audiences of local community children became some of the most moving moments of Jackie’s life. She stood down front, to the side, to watch the audiences’ joy and delight.
Examples of how art impacts women & culture – by Jackie Melvin
Betty Reid Soskin, America’s oldest active National Park Service ranger at age 100, retired in March of 2022, from the Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond, California. The African American woman headed up an interpretive program for the public, sharing stories of women from diverse backgrounds who joined the civilian war effort. She was interviewed upon her retirement standing beside the Park’s J. Howard Miller’s iconic “We Can Do It” poster from 1943. (1) [L.A. TIMES, (Lila Seidman) April 2, 2022]
Also called “Rosie the Riveter,” the poster was used to promote feminism and other political issues beginning in the 1980's, and as re-worked by an artist in 2010, celebrated the first woman to become prime minister of Australia. Feminists saw in the image an embodiment of female empowerment, and the “We” was generally understood to mean “We Women,” uniting all women in a sisterhood fighting against gender inequality. (2) [ Wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Can_Do_it!]
Thank you, Jackie!
You are the true embodiment of female empowerment – as someone who has walked the walk, and as a role model for all of us. We are you sisters. We stand with you against inequality and join you in your love of the arts!
Jackie Melvin Attorney
