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February 22

02-22 TABLE of CONTENTS: The first woman jockey to win a race at a major U.S. flat track ...from Irene Stuber's 1995 WOAH column DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS QUOTE by Anita Hill. Barbara Jo Rubin       Event February 22, 1969: The first woman jockey to win a race at a major U.S. flat track was Barbara Jo Rubin, a 19-year-old former veterinary student who had learned to ride at Miami academies. She broke into thoroughbred racing as an exercise girl at Tropical Park, then earned her license early in 1969.       Ready to ride, she was named to her first mount at that same track on January 15 of that year (1969). However, male jockeys pelted her dressing room with rocks and threatened to leave the track if she rode, so officials pulled her from the ticket.       Six weeks later, on February 22, she rode in - and won - her first race at Charles Town, Virginia, and within two months of that victory had finished first in half of 22 starts. Already tall at 5 foot-5, Rubin continued to grow. The extra height and weight, plus some serious medical complications resulting from knee injuries, forced her retirement only a little more than a year after her dazzling career had begun.             -- From Joan McCullough's First of All, Significant "Firsts" by American Women, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1980.       An eye-opening and entertaining book. It was one of the "first" to start uncovering women's HERstory so there are some errors (as there are in WOA and every book ever written) as women uncover more of the hidden past. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | -- from 1995 WOAH column In view of some of the stuff that's coming out of the new Congress to role back the Crime Bill and the Violence Against Women Act that is part of it, does anyone remember a Heat In the Night TV show in which a woman is charged with murder for killing her sexual harassing boss?       The telling part was when the husband says to her that he would take the blame for the murder and only serve a couple of years because he was defending his wife's honor. But if she admitted to killing him, she would be charged with murder (for defending her own honor) and go to jail for life. "That's the way the system works," said the husband.       So she was charged with murder. One wonders what the husband have been charged with? Justifiable anger? (As we understand it, a man can protect his property but a woman can't protect herself.)       So maybe the law should be changed?       So maybe the law is on the side of the (male) harasser and rapist?       Was she right in doing what she did? Under the circumstances, when the law let HER down, refused to protect HER, one wonders about the way the laws are written and administered. Who is being protected?       By the way, for those of you who do not consider yourself feminists and won't join any feminist organizations, are you aware that the feminist organizations are the ones who are fighting to right these legal wrongs? The guys who are encouraging you to stay out of the political field are, in fact, guaranteeing the legal prejudices against women.       Remember at the signing of the Declaration of Independence: "We must all stand together, or surely we shall all hang separately?"       They've got women separated - and we're hanging, being beaten, murdered, etc. Don't YOU think it's time to get involved? | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | 02-22 DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS B. 02-22-1822, Isabella Beecher Hooker, a lifelong suffrage leader who died 13 years short of the goal. Event: 02-22-1883: American Anti-Vivisection Society organized by Caroline Earle White. B. 02-22-1887, Marguerite Clark, stage and screen actor. B. 02-22-1889, Lady Olive St. Clair Baden-Powell, chosen chief guide of the world's girl scout movement in 1930 and continued in that post for several decades. Had headed the Girl Guide movement in England from 1917 on. Made Dame of the British Empire in her own right in 1931. Her husband had been the founder of the Boy Scout movement. Her birthday is celebrated as Girl Guides Day in most British Commonwealth countries. B. 02-22-1892, Edna St. Vincent Millay, American poet of lyric verse and sonnets. Won the 1924 Pulitzer Prize. Her first poem Renascence gave her instant fame. Somewhat abandoned by critics following her death and tagged as trivial by some, she is constantly being rediscovered by women who see her rebellion as their voice. An admitted lesbian, Millay did marry and became more and more isolated as alcoholism claimed her. Event 02-22-1912, Thirty-five starving women and children were beaten and arrested at the train station of Lawrence, Massachusetts, when they tried to go to temporary homes in Philadelphia. Workers were striking the lowering of wages and poor working conditions in the textile plants. B. 02-22-1917, Jane Auer Bowles, writer of unusual, haunting fiction. Event: 02-22-1974, the first women's basketball game took place in Madison Square Garden and the management, convinced that the women couldn't draw a crowd, also scheduled a man's game afterwards. Following the women's game, the crowd of nearly 12,000 left and the men played before empty seats. Event 02-22-1994, the Church of England announced officially that it would ordain women as priests. The first ordination of the 1,200 women in line for priesthood occurred 03-12-1994, with the first woman celebrating communion 03-13-1994, British Mother's day. The U.S. Episcopal Church had ordained 1,031 women by the time of the Church of England announcement. Thirty-five Anglican priests announced they would leave the church, some saying they would join the Roman Catholic Church and predicting as many as one-third of the men would leave over the ordination of women. It did not occur. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | QUOTES DU JOUR HILL, ANITA:       "I regret in many ways that it [my testimony] was manipulated or misperceived. And I have my moments when I just wish that I could go back to the way things were before. But that's not realistic.       "When I think of what has happened in a larger sense, beyond myself, then I would not change anything.       "I am really proud to be a part in whatever way of women becoming active in the political scene. I think it was the first time that people came to terms with the reality of what it meant to have a Senate made up of 98 men and two women."             -- law professor Anita Hill, one year after her U.S. Senate committee testimony about the sexual harassment by Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas who was confirmed. There were NO women members on the committee. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE |