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November 22

11-22 TABLE of CONTENTS: Women's Rights Are Young and Tender... DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS QUOTES by Marianne Williamson and Mrs. Wolstenholme-Elmy. Lest we forget:       Event 11-22-1971, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Reed v Reed that it was unconstitutional to give preference to men as executors of estates. Argued by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who herself would become a Supreme Court judge 22 years later, the decision marked the FIRST*time a high court decision overturned a law based on sex, according to Justice Ginsburg.       Event 11-20-1961, the Supreme Court upheld the Florida law which exempted women from jury duty, unless they volunteered. In all, 18 states allowed the jury duty exemption while three states - Alabama, Mississippi, and South Carolina - outright barred women from jury duty. However, on 02-07-1966, a federal court ruled that such laws should end on June 1, 1967, because such laws "deny to women the equal protection of the laws in violation of the 14th amendment."       In January of 1975, the Supreme Court ruled that a Louisiana law forbidding women serving on juries was unconstitutional. (Louisiana continued its Napoleonic Code "Lord and Master" laws for another five years. It was not until 1981 that married women were legally permitted to manage their own marital property.)       As President, Bill Clinton nominated more women and minorities to federal positions in his first two years in office than Presidents Bush and Reagan did in all their TWELVE years combined.       Clinton nominated 58% minorities and women, Bush 13% and Reagan 8% in the first two years of their administrations.       The American Bar Association ranked a full 63% of Clinton's judiciary nominees "well qualified," while Bush's ABA "well qualified" went to only 52% and Reagan 53%. Carter had 57%.       Clinton nominees were 31% female as opposed to 10% female for Bush, and 5% female for Reagan. Twenty-two percent of Clinton's judiciary nominations were black and 8% Hispanic as opposed to 2.5% for Bush and 1% for Reagan in both divisions.             -- source, U.S. Department of Justice. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | 11-22 DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS B. 11-22-1819, George Eliot, one of England's foremost novelists of the 19th century, Mary Ann (Marian) Evans, wrote under the masculine penname of George Eliot. She wrote realistically of English country and village life in her novels Silas Marner and The Mill on the Floss. Her Middlemarch explored new ideas that were changing the English lifestyle. Raised mostly in boarding schools, she took charge of her home, the Griff House. Relations with her family were never good and when she began to openly live with G. H. Lewes (who could not get a divorce), her family stopped all contact and many of her friends were alienated. After Lewes' death, she married a man 20 years her junior. Died 11-22-1825, Ann Bailey, (1742-1825). Legend has it that after her husband was killed, this former indentured servant changed to male dress and became a noted frontier scout, messenger, spy, and Indian fighter. Known as the White squaw of the Kreanawha, her exploits became the stuff of legends. In 1791 she broke through a siege of Fort Lee by Indians, rode 100 miles, and returned on the third day with gun powder. Widowed a second time, she retired to live with her son. B. 11-22-1844, Abigail Adams - She was born 11-11 under the old calendar and 11-22 under the new. See 11-11-95 Women of Achievement. B. 11-22-1857, Marian Griswold Nevins MacDowell, patron, musician who spent a great deal of her inheritance in supporting her husband composer Edward MacDowell. After MacDowell's death from syphilis, she created the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire, where artists could live and work inexpensively. Among those using the facilities were Willa Cather, DuBose Heyward, Thornton Wilder, and Elinor Wylie. Her close companion Nina Maud Richardson (1885-1969) served as her assistant and was her heir. B. 11-22-1883, Ruby Claudia Davy, the first Australian woman to receive the degree of Ph.D. in Music, pianist, conductor, and composer. B. 11-22-1889, Dorothy Tuckerman Draper won the largest decorating contract ever awarded a woman before the feminist movement of the 1970's, that of New York's Hampshire House. B. 11-22-1898, Sarah Gibson Blanding. After 85 years, Vassar, the all- female college, got its first women president. She served 1946-64. B. 11-22-1924, Geraldine Page, actor, won a long-deserved Academy Award for her performance in A Trip to Bountiful (1985.) B. 11-22-1943, Billie Jean Moffitt King, American tennis player. The first woman professional athlete to be paid more than 100,000 dollars in a single year (1971). A feminist, she helped to organize the Women's Tennis Association and to establish a women's pro tour in the early 1970s in which women insisted on equal prizes to those paid men. Gained personal notoriety when a female lover sued her for palimony. Event 11-22-1963, Federal Judge Sarah Tilghman Hughes swears in Lyndon Banes Johnson as President of the United States following the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Event 11-22-1971, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Reed v Reed that it was unconstitutional to give preference to men as executors of estates. Argued by Ruth Bader Ginsburg who herself would become a Supreme Court judge 22 years later, the decision marked the first time a high court decision overturned a law based on sex. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE | | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | QUOTES DU JOUR WILLIAMSON, MARIANNE:       "If [women] knew how to moan, they would hear us on the moon."             -- Williamson, Marianne. A Woman's Worth. New York: Random House, 1993. MRS. WOLSTENHOLME-ELMY:       "When you have enthusiasm for a great cause you know you have discovered eternal youth. I have been fighting for this cause half my life, and yet I am as enthusiastic as when I started."             -- Mrs. Wolstenholme-Elmy, VERY elderly and frail in 1906, reaffirming her devotion to woman's suffrage in Britain when faced with prison and police violence when she allied herself with the Pankhursts. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE | | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE |