04-28 TABLE of CONTENTS:
APIOL Produces Menstruation; 19th Century Discovery
More Than 100 Million Women are Missing - Murdered at Birth,
Dead by Neglect, or Murdered
They attribute the Same Functions to Both Sexes
She Flew Atlantic Seven Times, the Last When She was 83,
the First When She was 70 - After She Sailed Around the World ALONE
Feminism: A movement with a long history
DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and
EVENTS
QUOTES by
Gloria Steinem, Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, Gillian Roberts, Judy
Herman, and Jennifer Baumgardner.
APIOL Produces Menstruation; 19th Century Discovery
From the early 19th century, a substance called
APIOL made from the essence of parsley seeds has been used to "produce
menstruation" for women whose periods have stopped.
Small doses proved effective were available openly
in the medical sections of most general stores or pharmacies by the 19th
century as a self-administsered abortifacient. It became the preferred
method of self abortion only second to lead plaster (diachylon, or black
stick). Black stick is quite dangerous to the nervous system and can even
be fatal in large doses.
Of course, in spite of relative safety, APIOL was
withdrawn in the 1950s except by prescription in the U.S.
Apiol was developed by two Parisian doctors searching
for an alternative to quinine.
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More Than 100 Million Women are Missing - Murdered at Birth,
Dead by Neglect, or Murdered
In an article 09-11-95 in U.S. News & World
Report, Susan Dentzer wrote about the "case
of the missing women - MORE THAN 100 MILLION OF THEM, to be exact."
On her way to pointing out that populations
ratio are off in much of Asia, North Africa and parts of Latin America,
she wrote: "It's a curiosity of human biology
that women are hardier than men and thus outnumber Japan."
But in South Asia, females constitute less
than 47 percent of the population when it should be 52.5 percent.
Dentzer then quotes from statements from Harvard economist
Amartya Sen who concludes that well over 100 million women are in effect
"missing" from the planet - the presumed victims of premature
and preventable deaths.
The complex reasons, including poor health care and
outright violence against women and girls, add up to pervasive neglect
of females in many heavily populated nations, Sen concludes.
Also, of the 1.3 billion people living in poverty
worldwide, a staggering 0 percent are women (repeat: 70 percent!), notes
a recent report by the United Nations Development Program. Dentzer goes
on to say, "One of the reasons for the "missing"
(translate that to murdered) girls and women is because worldwide women
earn 30 to 40 percent LESS than men (standards set by the ruling men, of
course).
"That means that poor families spend their few
dollars on educating and taking care of the boys in hopes that their investment
will be returned when they reach earning age. Girls are either neglected
or killed to prevent a drain on the family." [In these primitive
societies women are usually forbidden to work in meaningful jobs which
are limited to the men, therefor their women have no economic (social)
value as they have in developed nations.]
Harvard economist Amartya Sen says that the way to
save women's health and lives is to increase their earning capacities.
He points to the Indian state of Kerala, where property inheritance among
an elite group passes through the female line. Dentzer comments, "Perhaps
it is no coincidence that the state also has the most developed school
system in India, and that the ratio of females to males approaches that
of the United States and Europe. That lesson in the apparent consequences
of women assuming more power translates even to the United States which
ranks well down on the roster of major industrialized countries
in the number of women in the national legislature.
"And women themselves may owe it to the memories
of more than 1million of the missing to attempt no less."
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They Attribute the Same Functions to Both Sexes
"In Europe there are
people who, confusing the divergent attributes of the sexes, claim to make
of man and woman creatures who are, not equal only, but actually similar.
"They would attribute
the same functions to both, impose the same duties, and grant the same
rights; they would have them share everything work, pleasure, public affairs.
It is easy to see that the sort of equality forced on both sexes degrades
them both, and that so coarse a jumble of nature's works could produce
nothing but feeble men and unseemly women... That is far . . .between the
man and woman. They think that nature... learly intended to give their
diverse faculties a diverse employment... The Americans have applied to
the sexes the great principle of political economy which now dominates
industry... In America, more than anywhere else in the world, care has
been taken constantly to trace clearly distinct spheres of action for the
two sexes.
"... inexorable opinion of the public carefully
circumscribes woman within the narrow circle of domestic interests and
duties, and forbids her to step beyond it."
-- From Democracy in
America (De La Democratie en Amerique) published in 1835 by
Frenchman Alexis-Charles-Henri-Maurice Clrel de Tocqueville who attributes
the prosperity and growing strength of the American people to "the
superiority of their women."
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She Flew Atlantic Seven Times, the Last When She was 83,
the First When She was 70 - After She Sailed Around the World ALONE
She flew solo across the Atlantic Ocean seven times
- the last when she was 83 year old which really wasn't a matter of spacing
her trips out since she didn't learn to fly until she was 54.
She didn't make her first non-stop from Newfoundland
to Ireland until she was 70 and that wasn't even solo. Seven solo trips
in 13 years, plus one with a navigator.
But before she took on the Atlantic by air, she had
sailed her own 71-foot ketch around the world, most of it alone, during
the years 1936-39.
Marion Rice Hart was referred to as a sportswoman
and author when she died in 1990 at age 98 although she was the first woman
to graduate from Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a chemical
engineering degree and a masters in geology from Colombia University. During
World War II she served with the Army Signal Corps.
In 1976 she was awarded the coveted Harmon International
Trophy for "her consistently outstanding performances as a private
pilot operation small aircraft on a global scale. She continued to fly
alone to every and all parts of the world until she was 87, logging more
than 5,000 air hours.
'Tis said that when she finished her first transatlantic
flight she calmly walked in the bar at the Irish airport and downed a large
glass of whisky and said, Ah, now I feel better. I was a bit fatigued."
Her autobiography is I Fly as I Please (1953)
which unfortunately leaves out the very busy later years.
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Feminism: A movement with a long history.
Three basic propositions of feminism during 1400-1789:
(1) a conscious stand in opposition to male defamation and mistreatment
of women; a dialectical opposition to misogyny. (2) a belief that the sexes
are culturally, and not just biologically formed; a belief that women were
a social group shaped to fit male notions about a defective sex. (3) an
outlook that transcended the accepted value systems of the time by exposing
and opposing the prejudice and narrowness; a desire for a truly general
conception of humanity.
-- Joan Kelly 1982, 6-7. Kelly,
Joan. 1982. "Early Feminist Theory and the Querelle des Femmes, 1400-1789."
Signs, 8:1 (Autumn), 4-28.
Has as its goal to give every woman "the
opportunity of becoming the best that her natural faculties make her capable
of."
-- Millicent Garret Fawcett 1878,
357. Fawcett, Millicent Garrett. 1878. "The Future of
Englishwomen: A Reply." Nineteenth Century, 4, 347-57.
Feminist :
"I myself have never been
able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call
me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from
a doormat..."
--
Rebecca West, 1913, The Clarion, Nov 14. West,
Rebecca. 1911-17. Selections of Rebecca West's Writings. In The Young Rebecca.
Ed. Jane Marcus. London: MacMillan, 1982.
"Mother, what is a Feminist?"
"A Feminist, my daughter,
Is any woman now who
cares
To think about her own
affairs
As men don't think she
oughter."
-- Alice Duer Miller 1915;
in Redstockings eds. 1975, 52. Redstockings of the Women's
Liberation Movement, eds. 1975. Feminist Revolution. New York: Random
House.
All above from: A Feminist Dictionary, by Cheris Kramarae and
PaulaTreichler, Pandora Press, 1985 p. 161.
-- Submitted by Laura X, noted
feminist activist.
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04-28 DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and
EVENTS
Event 04-28-1429: Joan of Arc, entered besieged city of Orleans
to lead the French to victory over English.
Event 04-28-1788: Maryland becomes the seventh state in what
will become the United States of America. It is named in honor of Queen
Henrietta Maria, wife of King Charles I of England.
B. 04-28-1882(?), Frances Elliott Davis - U.S. nurse and community
leader.
FED broke the color line of the American National
Red Cross nursing staff and administration.
B. 04-28-1907, Angna Enters - multi-talented mime, painter, and author
who founded her own touring company.
B. 04-28-1912, Odette Hallowes, G. C., M.B.E. - One of the most renowned
of the British wartime heros of the Special Operations, World War II.
Excerpts from The Times obituary, 17 March, 1995:
"Of all the women who took
part in special operations in France, Odette . . . perhaps best symbolised
the indomitable spirit of resistance to Nazism.
"Captured by the Gestapo in France and consigned
after being cruelly tortured in Paris's notorious Fresnes prison, to Ravensbr^Á
Ück concentration camp, she emerged emaciated, weak and gravely
ill at the end of the war.
"But in the years that followed, her undiminished
mental and moral energy, combined with a complete absence of bitterness
towards her tormentors and the nation that had spawned them, became a beacon
to others who had suffered disfigurement, pain or bereavement.
"Indeed the theme of her postwar working life,
with its service to various charities and help for the underpriviledged,
was the healing of those wounds, both physical and mental, which had been
inflicted upon individuals by the war,
"Her George Cross, she always maintained, was
not to be regarded as an award to her personally, but as an acknowledgment
of all those known and unknown, alive or dead, who had served the cause
of the liberation of France.
"Her wartime experiences had taught her two great
truths; that suffering is an ineluctable part of the human lot, and that
the battle against evil is never over.
"Fame came to her - notably, through the film
'Odette' which celebrated her life - but she never sought it. In her entry
in 'Who's Who' she styled herself simply: housewife."
She married and has three daughters - and then
came World War II.
"After the catastrophe
to French arms in the early summer of 1940, she longed to do something
more active than looking after her young ones. By a stroke of luck she
got in touch with the independent French section of the Special Operations
Executive.
"Yet when she was first interviewed there were
some doubts about her suitability as a clandestine SOE courier. Would she
be able, as a mother of three young daughters who might be constantly on
her mind, to undertake missions requiring steely nerves and an ability
to concentrate on the task in question to the exclusion of all else? On
the other hand, from certain points of view she seemed an ideal candidate.
She was young, attractive, vivacious. She knew France, she had a winning
manner. Furthermore, she had a burning desire to redeem by direct action
the disgrace her country had suffered in its capitulation of 1940."
Accepted and after training,in such matters
as driving, wireless operation, etc.) "she returned
to France secretly, by small boat... October 1942, with orders to join
a new circuit in Burgundy.There she got on so well with Peter Churchill,
SOE's organiser on the spot, that he secured London's leave to keep her
on the Riviera.. . (betrayed by a member of their groups) Odette was sent
to Paris where, at the notorious Fresnes prison, she endured excruciating
torments, including having her toenails pulled out (for a year after her
homecoming she could not wear shoes and had to walk on her heels until
several operations restored her to normal mobility).In June 1943 Odette
was condemned to death and eventually sent to Ravensbrück Concentration
Camp, north of Berlin. The sentence was never carried out but for the remainder
of her stay there her lot was one of alternate molly-coddling and beating
which is the traditional procedure of the interrogator."
She made no admissions of importance.
"At the end of the war,
when the Red Army's advance approached Ravensbr^Áck, Fritz Suhren,
the camp commandant, drove in a sports car with Odette beside him into
the American lines in the hope that he could use her charms to save himself.
She at once denounced him and he was hanged after trial. Odette became
a national heroine, subject of innumerable newspaper articles, a book by
Jerrard Tickell and the film Odette which starred Anna Neagle in the title
role. She was appointed MBE in 1945 and in the following year awarded the
George Cross. In 1950 she was made an officer of the Legion d'Honneur.
She believed that the George Cross had been given to her, not because she
had been especially gallant, but because she had had the good fortune to
survive, unlike 11 other women in her section who had died in German hands,
some of them shot within earshot of her cell."
B. 04-28-1926, Blossom Dearie - U.S. supper club style singer, pianist,
and recording artist. Her mother, a Norwegian immigrant, also played the
piano.
B. 04-28-1926, Harper Lee - U.S. author. HL wrote only one novel,
To Kill A Mockingbird which won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
and a cash prize of $500.
It was made into a successful Hollywood movie that
still reruns on TV today.
B. 04-28-1934, Lopis Duncan - U.S. author, primarily of children's
books.
B. 04-28-1937, Jean Redpath - renowned Scotts folksinger.
B. 04-28-1938, Beverly F. Albert - U.S. architect.
B. 04-28-1941, Ann-Margaret (Olsson) - Swedish-born American actor
and singer. AM received a 1971 Academy Award nomination for her work
in the cult film Carnal Knowledge.
AM developed a popular cabaret act. A stage accident
almost ended her life but she fought back and returned to films, seamlessly
changing from femme fatales to older women roles. Her family moved
to the U.S. when she was five,
B. 04-28-1942, Ghislaine Hermanez - U.S.architect.
Event 04-28-1945: Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and his mistress,
Clara Petacci, were executed by Italian partisans as they attempted to
flee the country when U.S. and allied forces conquered the fascist army
in World War II.
The execution of a wife or mistress along with that
of an evil leader is common, even in cases of women who did nothing wrong
and probably had no choice but to submit to the tyrant.
Petacci was exhibited to the crowds hung upside down
with her skirt hanging over her head as a mark of contempt.
DIED 04-28-1953, Sara Adler - Russian-born Yiddish theater actor
who with her second husband revitalized Yiddish theater in America.
She had performed as part of the Heine troupe in Russia
but left during the pogroms of the 1880s when Jewish plays were banned.
She was an extremely moving, realistic actor who could have easily starred
on Broadway.
DIED 04-28-1957, Belle Baker - U.S.-Yiddish vaudeville entertainer.
She introduced Irving Berlin's "Blue Skies" on Broadway (1926).
Event 04-28-1981: The National Academy of Sciences declared that
the idea that life begins at conception has no scientific validity.
The statement was made in answer to a bill proposed
by Senator Jesse Helms and Congressman Henry Hyde that would have had the
U.S. government define life as starting at conception, or, as it is informally
known, the sacred sperm theory.
Life, the scientist said, evolves gradually as the
physical body develops.
Event
04-28-1992: Betty Boothroyd, 62, is sworn as the first woman speaker
in the 700-year history of Britain's House of Commons. She was a onetime
dancer and a Labour member of Parliament since 1973 and has a record of
support for women s rights. Only 60 of Parliament's 651 members were women
in 1992.
When she retired her picture is placed in another
area than her all-men predecessors because of space constraints - that
was changed!
Event 04-28-1993: Take Our Daughters to Work Day, sponsored by
the Ms. Foundation for Women, is observed by some U.S. companies as part
of the campaign "to make girls visible, valued,
and heard," One hundred and fifty girls crowd into the cattle
pit at Chicago's Mercantile Exchange to trade mock pizza- future contracts,
but Beverly LaHaye president of Concerned Women for America, says "Noticeably
missing from the Ms. Foundation's definition of the workplace is the home,
where mothers do their most important work... This is another example of
feminists denigrating motherhood and the choice of many women to remain
in the home."
Mrs. LaHaye - who probably hasn't seen the
inside of her kitchen for years, now a multi-millionaire from her ultra-conservative
campaigns - forgets that most girls are ACTUALLY in the kitchen 364 days
a year with their mothers because real mothers take their daughters (and
sons) to their home work place EVERY day (the kids and mom live there)
- so maybe one day out ain't so bad.
Mrs. LaHaye's quote, which was and is widely printed,
fails the common-sense-logic test but that never stopped the anti-human-rights-for-women
people.
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QUOTES DU JOUR
STEINEM GLORIA:
"I have met
brave women who are exploring the outer edge of human possibility, with
no history to guide them, and with a kind of courage to make themselves
vulnerable which I find moving beyond words."
-- Gloria Steinem
WOOLF, VIRGINIA:
"I would venture
to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often
a woman."
-- Virginia Woolf
BEAUVOIR, SIMONE DE:
"For him she
is sex -- absolute sex, no less. She is defined and differentiated in reference
to men and not he in reference to her; she is the incidental, the inessential
as opposed to the essential. He is the Subject, he is the Absolute -- She
is the Other..."
--Simone de Beauvoir
ROBERTS, GILLIAN:
"I wished there
was a tribal council waiting under a tree in the village. A council of
elder women, good and hardened souls who'd have accumulated more wisdom
than I, who together would know things about the world and how this powerless
girl could fit into it and save herself.
"The closest thing I could imagine to that village
council was my book group, with all its good-natured disagreements and
detours that lay atop years of hard-won knowledge about how it was to be."
-- Gillian Roberts in her novel Helen Hath No Fury, an Amanda Pepper
mystery (2001).
HERMAN, JUDY:
"It is very
tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks
is that the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire to
see, hear and speak no evil. The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander
to share the burden of pain. The victim demands action, engagement and
remembering."
-- Judy Herman
BAUMGARDNER, JENNIFER:
"Women can rarely
get political asylum in the United States based on crimes (domestic violence)
that happen within the home (or even that which happens when a woman is
a visitor to the U.S. and in a hotel,etc.) Women make up only 10 percent
of requests for asylum each year."
-- Jennifer Baumgardner
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