01-06 TABLE of CONTENTS: France's greatest hero Feminist Economics, excerpt from If Women Counted DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS QUOTES by Karl Kraus and Jodie Foster. Joan of Arc       France's greatest hero Joan of Arc was probably born Jan. 06, 1412, into a peasant family in the province of Lorraine. She was burned at stake 05-30-1431 when she was 19, the judgment reversed by an ecclesiastical commission by the Roman Catholic Church in 1456 when she would have been 44, and was canonized by the church in 1920 when she would have been 508.       When she was 13, she began having visions that she was to free France from the English and crown Charles VII. The townspeople gave her a horse and men's clothing, and she went to Charles. She led victorious battles, but Charles failed to follow up, instead negotiating with the English. The delays, etc., allowed Joan to be eventually captured and then ransomed to the English who interrogated her long and hard in cooperation with the Roman Catholic Church.       Her sometimes humorous and certainly honest answers to the charges of witchcraft and other things infuriated the questioners.       She was convicted of wearing men's clothing, a sin for women in the Catholic Church. Her recanting of her "abjuration" only two days after signing it allowed her to be convicted of heresy and the Church turned her over to the English (the church did not actually do the punishing) who burned her at stake.       One is requested to read several books about Joan before picking to pieces a complicated tale of honest naivete (Joan) and national maneuvering (England and France) and ecclesiastical rigidity (Roman Catholic doctrine), and gross weakness (Charles). It is also suggested that the biographies or biographical sketches be of the post-1975 period for more honesty in dealing with the actuality of women's lives and not the male view of what they should be. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | If Women Counted       Marilyn Waring in her book, If Women Counted, calls for attributing a monetary value on unpaid work, productive and reproductive. This process, called imputation, would make this work visible, influencing politics and concepts, and questioning values. In her book, Waring shows how patriarchal Western governments and institutions render women powerless by refusing to value women's productive but unpaid work within the home, on the farm, or as the unpaid helper in her "husband's business." She writes:       "In 1980 I had another experience that forced me to examine more closely the patriarchal nature of economics. I was a member of the New Zealand delegation to a UN Conference on Women, in Copenhagen. When we fought for the recognition of women's unpaid productive and reproductive work, the counterattacks were fivefold. An extraordinary alinement of the male delegation heads from India, the U.S.S.R. and the Holy See (yes, the Vatican has a permanent seat in the UN), told us:       * An interest in women in any role other than mother is culturally imperialistic, imposing a Western feminist ideology on other quite different cultures.       * Support for women's nonmothering roles must necessarily lead toward destruction of the family.       * Development problems must be solved first, and then we can deal with equal opportunities, rights, and benefits for women.       * Attempts to employ women will necessarily exacerbate employment problems.       * If one takes care of development, women's roles and status will automatically be improved.             -- Waring, Marilyn. If Women Counted, A New Feminist Economics. New York: Harper Collins, Harper San Francisco, 1988. Waring holds a doctorate in economics and was a visiting Fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. John Kenneth Gailbraith said of the book: "A splendid work....No concerned woman (or man) can ignore it." It is still in print. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | 01-06 DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS B. 01-06-1794, Rebecca Lukens, American iron works/mill executive. Pregnant and with four small children, RL took over her late husband's (originally her father's) almost bankrupt steel mill and made it a success. She overcame financial depressions, lawsuits, ambiguous wills which left her heavily in debt to other heirs, adverse court orders - as well as resentment directed toward a woman's operation of such a business. The mark of her managerial style was loyalty to her workers, who were employed through bad times and good. B. 01-06-1857, Charlotte Endymion Porter who with lifetime partner Helen Archibald Clarke (B. 11-13-1860) founded, edited, and published the magazine Poet Lore, that introduced Americans to Europe's leading modern poets. Both were prolific writers and editors of the writings of Shakespeare, Browning, Longfellow, and others. Ms. Porter prepared a 40-volume, First Folio Edition of Shakespeare and was a translator and recognized poet in her own right. Clarke was also a talented musician. They exchanged rings and lived together until Clarke's death at 65. Clarke was also a gifted musician B. 01-06-1880, Alice Hay Wadsworth, president of the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage (1917) which disbanded when the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. B. 01-06-1878, Dame Adeline Genee, ballerina whose classic style and precise technique were especially noteworthy during ballet's general decline in the years around 1900. B. 01-06-1880, Alice Hay Wadsworth, president of the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage (1917), which ceased when the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1920. B. 01-06-1885, Margaret Harding, editor and director of the University of Minnesota Press and noted feminist. B. 01-06-1894, Catherine Brieger Stern innovator in the teaching of elementary mathematics and reading in which she stressed insight and understanding as opposed to memorization. B. 01-06-1913, Loretta Young, American actor, won Academy Award for her work in The Farmer's Daughter (1947), won Emmy for her TV show which carried her name. B. 01-06-1913, Mary Douglas Leakey, paleontologist. Event 01-06-1913, Clara Munson becomes the mayor of Warrenton, Oregon, the first woman mayor on the West Coast of the U.S. B. 01-06-1918, Sylvia Syms, popular music singer. B. 01-06-1944, Bonnie Franklin, actor. B. 01-06-1957, Nancy Lopez, American professional athlete and member of the Golf Hall of Fame. Associated Press named her 1978 Athlete of Year when she set the women's money-winning record of more than $416,000. Her five consecutive tournament wins on the LPGA circuit set a record. NL has lifetimeearnings of more than $3 million from more than 50 tournament wins. Event 01-06-1973, the first vote for a woman in the history of the U.S. Electoral College is cast for Theodora Nathan of Oregan, the vice- presidential candidate for the Libertarian party. Event 01-06-1984: an Australian woman becomes the first Australian test-tube mother in the process now known as in vitro fertilization. She has quadruplets. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | QUOTES DU JOUR KRAUS, KARL:       "Feminine passion is to masculine as an epic to an epigram."             -- Karl Kraus FOSTER, JODIE:       "In terms of history, 95% of women's experiences are about being a victim. Or about being an underdog. Or having to survive.       "So, if I played wonder woman all the time (in my films), I would be betraying where I come from."             -- Jodie Foster, two-time Academy Award actor, producer, and director. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE |