05-21 TABLE of CONTENTS:
Mary Robinson
DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and
EVENTS
QUOTE by
Mary Robinson.
Mary Robinson
Born
05-21-1944, Mary Robinson is the former president of Ireland (1990-97),
and United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (1997-).
While president of Ireland she visited famine- racked
Somalia and with unashamed tears streaming down her face angrily denounced
the West for not helping. She was traveling as the Irish president for
a country that had a well established foreign policy of peace-keeping and
third world relief.
Today, as the UN commissioner she has the world authority
to expose abuses as she find them.
Shortly after assuming her UN position she pointed
out that women constituted the overwhelming majority of people living in
poverty and represented the majority of the world's illiterates. She said
that women worked more hours than men with their work still terribly undervalued.
She said a priority of her position would be to end discrimination based
on gender. One of her first battles was within the UN itself as many male-
dominated governments opposed almost everything she did, including moving
to better quarters for her division.
In Ireland, MR changed the traditionally ceremonial
office of president into a strong advocacy (albeit without legal authority)
favoring birth control and divorce in opposition to the majority Roman
Catholic Church, and instituting help for the long- term unemployed and
others marginalized by a previously backward-looking government. The economy
boomed.
When she resigned the Irish presidency to assume the
U.N. post, her approval rating in Ireland was 80%. A news report read:
"A white-haired lady sighs with satisfaction
and breathes, 'Isn't she someone to be proud of?' "
MR is an attorney and
married with three children.
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05-21 DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS
B. 05-21-1780, Elizabeth Fry - English prison reformer and philanthropist,
and a Quaker minister. Shocked, appalled, and disgusted at the treatment
of women in the Newgate prison, she campaigned for the separation of the
sexes, classification of prisoners according to age and crime, more food
and clothing, women supervision for women prisoners, and education and
training for future gainful employment.
She testified before British parliamentary bodies
and took her campaign to all the heads of state in Europe. (Male-directed
governments since time immemorial often put male and female prisoners together
so that female rapes and sexual abuse were commonplace. The policy, the
men explained, kept the "prison population" calmer!)
B. 05-21-1856, Grace Hoadley Dodge, U.S. heiress who donated
about $1.5 million a year to her various organizations. With amazing energies,
and organizational abilities, she also gave freely of her time.
Among her accomplishments were encouraging domestic
training programs in schools, a college to train teachers, an association
of clubs so working women could network, and uniting two rival factions
into today's YWCA which she headed for several years.
She organized a travelers aid society to protect and
aid women immigrants and migrant workers.
B. 05-21-1867, Frances Theresa Densmore, the foremost authority on
the songs and music of the Amerinds (Native Americans) and a ranking
authority on Indian culture.
An American ethnomusicologist, she collected nearly
2,500 recording of the songs of more than 30 native American Indian tribes.
She continued making recordings as well as taking photographs and notes
until almost 88.
B. 05-21-1888, May Aufdeheide, an almost forgotten U.S. composer
of ragtime, one of the few women in the field. Her best known works were
"Dusty Rag" and "Richmond Rag," both published in 1908.
B. 05-21-1928, Adele Wiseman, Canadian novelist won the Governor
General's award for her first book The Sacrifice (1956) about a
Jewish immigrant family adapting to the Canadian life.
Event 05-21-1975: Oregon enacted pioneering legislation that
forbids the introduction of a rape victim's prior sexual history into the
evidence.
Event 05-21-1980: Ensign Jean Marie Butler became the first woman
to graduate from a U.S. service academy, the Coast Guard Academy.
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QUOTES DU JOUR
ROBINSON, MARY:
In her inaugural address after being elected the
first president in Irish history who was also a woman, Mary Robinson (the
only woman on the platform surrounded by suits) credited women with electing
her:
"(Irish)
women who (before) had rocked the cradle, have rocked the system."
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