Meet Dr. Anne Klaeysen, Leader of New York Society for Ethical Culture, and her daughter Emily, who works at the American Ethical Union. Both women found a home inside Ethical Culture and work tirelessly to help spread activism and feminism to society at large to help create a better, more equal world for the next generation.
Having raised both a son and a daughter, Anne recognizes that her two children are not seen as equal in the eyes of the law. Anne did everything in her power to create a better world for Emily and is disappointed in the fact that we still have not passed The Equal Rights Amendment and that sexual abuse and harassment are still prevalent.
We have a long way to go until we achieve equality, but that is not to say that we have not made significant progress so far. If it weren’t for strong female activists fighting for their rights within Ethical Culture, the movement itself would look very different today. Ethical Culture did not have its first female member until 10 years after its founding and didn’t have its first female leader until the 1970s. Today, most of Ethical Culture’s leaders across the country are female and feminism and the fight for equal rights are at the core of Ethical Culture’s mission.
From a young age, Anne instilled in Emily that she can do anything a man can do. Through their work within Ethical Culture, both women are fighting alongside to make the world that Anne dreamed of a reality.
