According to the Concord Monitor, New Hampshire State representative, Peter Hansen (currently serving his second term) sent an e-mail to the all-House e-mail list on April 1st regarding the bill to repeal the stand your ground self-defense law.  Representative Steve Vaillancourt had delivered a floor speech about the benefits of retreating instead of using deadly force, to which Mr. Hansen replied as follows:

"What could possibly be missing from those factual tales of successful retreat in VT, Germany, and the bowels of Amsterdam?  Why children and vagina's of course.  While the tales relate the actions of a solitary male the outcome cannot relate to similar situations where children and women and mothers are the potential victims."

Apparently, Mr. Hansen has since said he used the word "vagina" to make a point.  "I used it for, number one, as a factor for shock, and I used that word to bring people into the mindset of a perpetrator" - that is, "of a potential rapist," he said.

I only wish that Mr. Hansen's April 1st e-mail was a (completely un-funny) April Fool's Day joke.  Setting aside such minor issues as his politics, which are irrelevant to this discussion, and his improper grammar in the form of an apostrophe-s to improperly indicate the plural, the fact that in this day and age, a man of his stature and his age was willing to refer to women as "vaginas" in an e-mail which he sent to all of his colleagues is horrifying.  He should be ashamed.  Even if he is not ashamed, I am ashamed for him.

So long as there are people like Mr. Hansen, and particularly so long as people like him hold positions of power and authority in our society, we will need women's bar associations.  And even when there are no longer people like Mr. Hansen, we will need women's bar associations to remind us of why we must never return to the dark days when e-mails such as Mr. Hansen's are a part of our public discourse.

For additional coverage, you may visit http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/16/peter-hansen-new-hampshire-vaginas_n_3095135.html.

If you would like to deepen the discussion regarding the need for women's bar associations, please join us at the NHWBA 15th Anniversary Celebration on May 9th, where you can hear Pamela Berman, the current President of the National Conference of Women's Bar Associations, address that topic.  I hope you can join us.

In Spring 2008, we celebrated our 10th anniversary with a gala dinner celebrating women trailblazers in the law.  Our five trailblazer award recipients were:  Maureen Raiche Manning, the first president of the NHWBA and a leader on the issues of gender equality in the legal profession; Judge Jean K. Burling, the first female judge in New Hampshire; Justice Linda S. Dalianis, the first female justice to sit on the New Hampshire Supreme Court; Kelly A. Ayotte, the first female Attorney General and future Senator; and Jennifer L. Parent, the second president of the NHWBA, a highly visible member of the state bar and future Bar President, and a mentor to many young attorneys in this state.

Now, we are set to celebrate our 15th Anniversary on May 9, 2013.  The Celebration will take place at the Currier Museum of Art, 150 Ash Street, Manchester, NH.  We are very excited to have Pamela Berman, the current President of the National Conference of Women's Bar Associations as our featured speaker.  We will also hear from Jennifer Parent, one of our founders, past President, and Trailblazer Award recipient, about the creation and history of the organization.  Please mark your calendars and plan to join us on May 9th.  Tickets are $10 for NHWBA members and $25 for non-members.  To register for the Celebration, click here.