Hundreds of girls from middle and senior high schools across Middlesex County filled the Newton War Memorial Auditorium on Thursday morning, November 13, for the Empowering Girls Conference produced by Marian Ryan, Middlesex County District Attorney and Massachusetts’ sole woman district attorney, who has produced the conferences since 2015. This year’s eight presenters, all female, included a set designer, a television broadcaster, a sculptress, sports managers, business leaders, the first Black woman Clerk of the Supreme Judicial Court for Suffolk County, and the first woman Mayor of Newton, Ruthanne Fuller.
The District Attorney introduced the program and participants by explaining that our perspectives vary depending on where we’re tending, or the season of the year or our time of life, and she illustrated the point with a variety of slides showing different seasons, or time of day, or generations. She emphasized that there are countless life paths, and one may start down one, but circumstances and opportunities may change over time and experience, and that it is important to be open to those changes. To illustrate the role of changing perspectives, DA Ryan gave each attendee a small kaleidoscope to experiment with changing scenes.
Leading the lineup of women in unusual professions was Janie Howland, who has designed sets for hundreds of shows all over the United States and London and is a professor of Theatre Arts at Wellesley College. Among her designs are the sets for the New York production of Bonnie & Clyde. In describing the process, Ms. Howland used slides of the photographs and sketches defining and authenticating the different historical and geographical “textures” that influenced her production. Ms. Howland created scenery set in the Dust Bowl era, in Texas, based on actual photographs of Bonnie & Clyde and their surroundings, which she carefully researched. Set design was Ms. Howland’s early and lifelong passion and an inspiring presentation for her young audience.
Meredith Bergmann is another artist, whose sculpture emphasizes significant historic events. Her tribute to significant women who contributed to arts and letters – including statues of Abigail Adams, Lucy Stone, and Phillis Wheatley – are a prominent feature of the Mall on Commonwealth Avenue, Boston. New York’s Central Park’s Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument also honors three women – suffragettes Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. In 2012, Ms. Bergmann’s September 11th sculpture was installed and is part of the permanent collection in New York’s historic Cathedral of St. John the Divine. New York’s Roosevelt Island features Ms. Bergmann’s FDR Hope Memorial. And in Lexington Center, in time for the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, her Lexington’s Women’s Liberty sculpture depicts Abigail Harrington’s April 19th call to the local militia. In addition to her contribution to applying her talents as a sculptor to honor extraordinary women, Ms. Bergmann is an essayist and poet, thereby illustrating the many roads people may take to share their many talents. Her commitment to producing work honoring women engaged in advancing social causes sparked response in her young audience.
Allison Cartwright, Clerk of the Supreme Judicial Court for Suffolk County, presented another life path, working as a public defender with the Committee for Public Counsel Services, and then spending some of her career in private practice before becoming CPCS Attorney-in-Charge of the Roxbury Defenders Unit and the Managing Director of offices in Suffolk and Norfolk counties. She was elected to the office of Supreme Judicial Court Clerk for Suffolk County in November, 2024, and sworn in in January, 2025.
When she was introduced by DA Ryan, Ms. Cartwright came dancing to the podium, full of energy and good humor, carrying her message that anything is possible in life. Hers was a message of perseverance and service and being afraid of nothing. It was clear that she was at ease speaking to young students and happy to take questions about her career in fighting to protect poor people.
Committed to offering the broadest range of life choices, DA Ryan introduced Danielle Marmer, General Manager of the Boston Fleet in the Professional Women’s Hockey League…where she cleared her own path as the first woman to develop a team from its beginnings. Her resume includes Player Development and Scouting Assistant with the Boston Bruins, and she was the first woman to work with potential draft candidates to evaluate their skills and help in developing their performance. A Division 1 ice hockey player, skating for Quinnipiac University, she graduated summa cum laude with a BA in legal studies and an MA in strategic communication. Her young audience was enthralled by her story and her achievements, which she delivered in an easy, accessible style.
State Rep. Amy Mah Sangiolo was a member of the audience and told Fig City News that she was so inspired by the DA’s introduction and the message about unpredictable life paths. Rep. Sangiolo had expected to pursue a career as a pianist and was planning to attend the prestigious Juilliard School of Music. But before applying there, she was admitted to and attended Barnard College, where a class in political science led her to a change of passions and a career of advocacy, enhanced by a law degree from Rutgers University Law School. Her political career began when a large development threatened to alter her neighborhood. Since no one else seemed prepared to lead the community response, she volunteered to lead the successful community resistance. After her accomplishment, neighbors urged her to run for the then-Board of Aldermen, She won and served for 20-years, twice as its vice president.
Coincidentally, her predecessor, former State Representative Kay Khan, was a dedicated student at the Boston Ballet, in her teens – even taking a class with George Balanchine. Realizing that ballet was not a long-term career path, she chose to study nursing and became a psychiatric nurse practitioner. Much of her Newton community involvement centered on school-based arts programs, but when there was a vacancy on the Board of Aldermen from her ward, she encouraged John Stewart to run and became his successful campaign manager. When State Representative Susan Schur decided not to run again, she tapped Ms. Khan to run for her State House seat, which she won and served for 30-years.
DA Ryan told Fig City News that she thought the all-girls conference provided essential space and opportunity for the audience to consider new opportunities in arts, in sports, and in the widest possible range of careers. If boys were present, DA Ryan suggested, they might have dominated the discussion. “We try to have people girls can identify with,” she said, noting that Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell came to the program to talk about her deeply deprived, traumatic early years. Hers was a story that resonated with her young audience. She noted that it’s important that girls know there are other options besides college, and free community colleges allow some girls to explore more possibilities. At the same time, girls who are athletes don’t have the same financial opportunities at colleges and in sports careers.
As for her own unique position as Massachusetts’ only woman DA, she explained that to become DA one needed to try hundreds of criminal cases, and the Middlesex County DA’s office was her training ground. In twice electing Marian Ryan DA, Middlesex County voters have expressed their confidence in her ability and experience.
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