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April 2

04-02 TABLE of CONTENTS: Robin Miller in The Demon Lover DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS QUOTES by Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova. Excerpt from The Demon Lover       "What cannot be totally erased must be controlled.       "So he made her his object, his thing. He reduced her to her relation to him, as consort or rib or offspring, as he reduced Athena from 'she who is for herself' to a warrior-goddess daughter sprung from his brain...       "It has taken him all of "civilization's" history to reinforce that message, day after night, year after decade after century, life after death after generation.       "And she still refuses it.       "Bound, hobbled, silenced, battered, raped raw, starved, exhibited, bought and sold and traded, pedestaled or guttered, derided, trivialized, dismissed, erased - something there is in her that refuses it.       "He has told her for eons that she has no self. Even when she has believed him, she has not stooped to seek that self in his ways of the hero. She may have sought it in the very churches and temples which institutionalized her supposed lack of it.       "She may have sought it in her children, only to lose it as they grew away from her. She may have sought it in consciousness raising groups or with therapists. She may have sought it in the anterooms and corridors of his palaces and legislatures and corporations, his juntas and courts and intellectual brothels.       "But something there is in her that knows that she - in her poverty of flesh, knowledge, means, at times even spirit - has never lost that self.       "... and she has always known that the sum of herself is greater than genitalia and womb... If she can give life, than he will give death. But much as he can conquer her, possess her, own her, kill her - he cannot become her."             -- Robin Miller in The Demon Lover. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1989 . | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | 04-02 DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS B. 04-02-1860, Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews, author of The Pefect Tribute (1906) which sold more than 600,000 copies. It recounts the fictionalized meeting of Lincoln and a dying Confederate soldier during which Lincoln finds out the popularity of the Gettysburg Address. Her son became dean of the College of Law of Syracuse University. B. 04-02-1935, Georgia Geyer, distinguished recipient of many journalistic and writing awards, was even imprisoned at one time because of her reportage. Her autobiography is part of the distinguished Racliffe College series of outstanding American women. B. 04-02-1948, Barbara Caine, feminist scholar, associate professor University of Sidney, Australia. Authored Victorian Feminists, Oxford University Press, 1992. Event: 04-02-1985, A. H. Robins sets aside $615 million to settle claims over Dalkon Shield, contraceptive device. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | QUOTES DU JOUR KING, BILLIE JEAN:       "Be bold. If you're going to make an error, make a doozy, and don't be afraid to hit the ball."             -- Billie Jean King NAVRATILOVA, MARTINA:       "Just go out there and do what you've got to do."             -- Martina Navratilova | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE |