08-17 TABLE of CONTENTS: Woman Defeats Rapist I'm Not a Women's Libber, But... Historic Native American Female Leaders: Information Survives Judith Arron Supervised Refurbished Carnegie Hall DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS QUOTES by Elizabeth Bishop, Elizabeth T. Kennan, Katherine Mansfield, and Margaret Mead. Jacksonville Woman Defeats Rapists (The following is excerpted from an Associated Press news article that appeared on the front page of the St. Petersburg, Florida Times Saturday, April 17, 1993 and sent to WOAH by our good email friend Elvira Niles. The article was datelined Jackson, Mississippi.       What the hero of this article did is NOT recommended by most authorities ALTHOUGH, at times the passivity so often recommended does not prevent the women being raped from maiming or death. All women should be trained in self-protection methods and educated in the devastating horror of many rapes so that the extreme methods of protection are used.       It is said that one of the first defenses is to urinate or defecate. Believe it or not, most rapists find such actions as a complete turnoff becoming disgusted! But in this case, a woman acted with smarts FOR HER SITUATION. It may not have been the best thing to do in other situations.) In her own words a woman in her 50s awoke to find a man sitting on her stomach demanding oral sex. The woman is quoted as saying: "I grabbed his penis with my right hand, and I twisted and pulled it all at the same time.       "And he hit me with his right hand, a hard blow beside the head, and when he hit me, I grabbed hold of his (scrotum) with my left hand - I was twisting it the opposite way. He started to yell and we fell to the floor, and he hit me a couple more licks, but they were light licks.       "He was weakening some then. Then he leaned over across me and bit me on my right shoulder. While he was biting me, I was still hanging on to him, and then I got his neck with my mouth and started biting it.       "Then I thought, 'Well, he might have AIDS,' and I let go of his neck, still holding onto (his genitals)."       He tried to get her to call police. She refused.       "He said, 'Please, please, you're killing me.'       "... I said, 'Die, then.'       "He said, 'Woman, you got me suffering.' I said, 'Have you ever thought about how you were going to leave me suffering?'       "He was tussling and trying to hit and trying to get out of the way, and I don't know how we managed to get out of the bedroom into the hallway." She continued:       "He was trying to get out, and I'm hanging onto him, and he was throwing me from one side of the hallway to the other... I was afraid if I let him go he was going to kill me." She got him to her porch, where he fell down. That gave her time to go back into the house and get a pistol. She fired two shot as he ran away, but she missed.       "Sheriff's deputies found 29-year-old Dwight Coverson's name written inside a pair of pants he left in the woman's bedroom. They found Coverson at home, in bed, in severe pain."       There's more to the story, but those are the salient points said Ms. Niles who admitted enjoying the article. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | I'm Not a Women's Libber, But...       "One of the founders of HERA (the organization for homemakers' equal rights) is Ann Follis, the organization's first president. Some points she makes in her book. I'm Not a Women's Libber, But ... (1982):       'The biggest shock of my life came when I began to discover the number of legal rights that women lose, depending on which state they live in, when they get married. It is perhaps the greatest betrayal of American womanhood that when a woman becomes a homemaker (which society encourages her to do) in doing so she may have actually lost legal rights and precious legal status that no other group in society is ever asked to (voluntarily) relinquish...'       "I must point out here that Ann Follis (President of HERA, the organization for homemakers equal rights) is a full-time homemaker, the wife of a pastor, and a devout born-again Christian.       "But because of her desire to help homemakers by fighting for equality, she has been called a lesbian, a communist, and a man-hater by other so-called Christian housewives, who have also accused her of 'trying to be like a man' and of not being a 'real Christian' because her carefully studied interpretation of the Bible differs from theirs.       "Ann Follis, it should be pointed out, is far from alone when it comes to being a good Christian woman who is at odds with the ultraconservative interpretation of woman's place according to the Bible.       "The Evangelical Women's Caucus (EWC) is an organization with chapters spread across the United States, and it supports equality for women. The organization's literature states that 'The Scriptures ask both women and men to submit to one another' [emphasis mine]...       "They write:       " 'We see much injustice toward women in our society. The church especially has encouraged men to prideful domination and women to irresponsible passivity. Our purpose, therefore, is to present God's teaching on female-male equality to the whole body of Christ's church and to call both women and men to mutual submission and active disciplineship.'       "The biggest hole in the conclusion that this "housewives' back lash" is the result of career women devaluing the homemaking role centers around one issue alone: freedom of choice. I cannot imagine a housewife being motivated to join the so-called pro-life movement simply because the feminist movement has caused her to feel like a second-class citizen. A majority of traditional housewives are pro-choice.       "The anti-choice activists are fanatical Christian women who are opposed to freedom of choice because their religious leaders have convinced them that abortion is murder and therefore a sin under any circumstances, and that not to work to change the existing legal status of abortion is tantamount to committing that particular sin.       "It has been my experience that activist who hold that view also hold the biblical view of woman's lesser status"             -- Excerpted from an early call to defense against the same kind of religious bigotry that caused the witchcraft purges, Shirley Rogers Radl's THE INVISIBLE WOMAN, Target of the Religious New Right. New York, Dell Publishing. 1983. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | Instances of Historic Female Leaders in Native American "Government" Survive WOAH received the following email:       "Concerning Native American leadership prior to white invasion and conquest:       "Few details were recorded due to white European's complete inability to understand or accept egalitarian or gynarchal society. The conquered nations of America also lost the information in the process of assimilation and survival. Many instances of historic female leaders in NA communities survive. Significant female historic figures exist in the Ohio Valley before and after the 'French-Indian War.'       "More important than the individuals!!!:       "Most Native American cultures have always been based on what white feminists are now calling 'feminist theory' or 'feminist ethics.'       See Paula Gunn Alen, The Sacred Hoop. She does gender analysis of Pueblo Native American society (probably the most intact group of NAs existing today)."             -- Warren Moore, West Virginia Graduate College | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | Judith Arron Supervised Refurbished Carnegie Hall in Its Return to Musical Prominence       Judith Arron, executive and artistic directly of Carnegie Hall from 1986 to her death in 1998 oversaw the refurbishing of the historical music venue to a vibrant addition to the future of music in America.       She oversaw the $60 million rebirth of the venerable hall when it had been rescued from demolition.       Smaller halls were refurbished from rental and practice space to serve as venues for such events as chamber music recitals, jazz concerts, and various other musical events produced by the Carnegie hall composer's chair, now held by renowned composer Ellen Taafle Zwilich.       JA promoted and extended education programs, bringing in noted musicians such as Isaac Stern for workshops.       She increased the Hall's endowment by $87 million even while conducting a courageous 8.5 year battle against breast cancer which her husband described as a "victory of will and heart over doctors and medicine." She lost that battle December, 1998.       Among her works in progress was setting up a cinema/musical venue for operas and experimental works.       JA had distinguished herself as the Cincinnati Symphony's manager and before that was with the American Symphony Orchestra League. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | 08-17 DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS DIED 08-17-1804, Barbara Ruckle Heck - U.S. religious pioneer. Known as the mother of American Methodism, she founded that religions first church in the Americas, John Street Church in New York City. She began class meetings and worship services in 1766 and her first church was erected in 1768 at which time the male ministers took over (for pay).       She and her family moved to upstate New York in 1770 where she again founded a methodist church. However, BRH and her family had to flee the U.S. to Canada because her new neighbors (those who had come to the U.S. for religious freedom) hounded them. BRH was born in 1843 in Ireland, day unknown, and arrived the American colonies in 1761. B. 08-17-1838, Laura de Force Gordon - U.S. attorney and social activist.       LFG, was one of the premier pioneer women's suffragists in California. While a highly successful newspaper editor she filed suit jointly with Clara S. Foltz, against Hastings College of Law in San Francisco that had denied them admission to their school. Reason for the denial? They were women. They won. She successfully practiced criminal law and her defense strategies were widely studied. She went on to be admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court.       She was one of the founders of the California Woman Suffrage Society (1870). B. 08-17-1846, Marie Jaëll-Trautmann - French composer, pianist and piano teacher. LETTER 08-17-1851: Paulina Wright Davis, the indomitable women's rights fighter wrote to Emma R. Coe, that she does not intend to attend the upcoming Bloomer Festival in New York.       "Though the reform in dress is important it is but a fragment of the great work." Davis then refers to Elizabeth Oaks Smith who was due to preside over the meeting and whose beauty, Davis said, "will give grace and elegance to our movement."       However, Smith was prevented her from presiding over the 1852 Syracuse convention by Susan B. Anthony who may or may not have been impressed by Smith grace and elegance but who certainly objected to Smith's attire which was a fancy low-cut, white dress. B. 08-17-1858, Caroline Julia Bartlett Crane - U.S. minister devoted to social activism.       As a Unitarian minister she formed the People's Church movement which had a public kindergarten as well as conducting manual and domestic training in a nonsectarian atmosphere.       After marriage she became involved in sanitation reform and got laws passed in Michigan to regulate meat inspections and require sanitary conditions for food preparation. She then branched out into public sanitary services, operating visiting nurse and family counseling services. She became a noted national figure in the field. B. 08-17-1863, Gene Stratton Porter - U.S. author. Several of her books sold more than a million copies including Freckles (1904) and The Harvester (1911) but never gained critical acceptance because of her "womanly" sentimental style. Her books centered around nature and her fiction books combined good plots with natural observations. She intensely disliked the realism of many of her contemporaries such as Edith Wharton and was in the process of filming some of her books to be used in schools B. 08-17-1866, Julia Marlowe - English-born U.S. Shakespearean actress, She was ranked one of the greatest of her day. Event 08-17-1870: Mrs. Esther Morris of South Pass, Wyoming, becomes the first woman magistrate in the U.S. She was the moving force in getting the Wyoming Territorial government to approve woman's suffrage - the first in the world - and campaigned to retain women's voting rights in its constitution when it joined the U.S. Her statue is in the Statuary Hall of Congress. B. 08-17-1872, Bessie Potter - U.S. sculptor. BP is best known for her intimate figure groups in spontaneous poses. Many of many fountains featurer life-size children. B. 08-17-1892 (or 93), Mae West - U.S. burlesque, stage, radio, and movie star who specialized in double-entendres and sensuality. She had a regal bearing and her wisecracks were legend. She was sexual and was proud of it.       She was once arrested for "corrupting" youth for her stage work. One of the problems was not the throw of the hips or the sexual commons, but her very strong woman roles. She was in charge of her life, her sexuality, and men went to her. Her personal life mirrored her public presentation.       During World War II the inflatable life jacket was named after her because of its large curves. She starred in vaudeville and on Broadway for a number of years. She made 11 motion pictures including She Done Him Wrong (1933) and My Little Chickadee (1940). She was pure camp. Her autobiography is Goodness Had Nothing to Do With It (1959.)       Force yourself to watch one of her movies on old tyme TV - try to get beyond the poor lighting, the old-style acting - and let her personality came through. She was a wonder!       She was a proud, independent woman - a woman's libber in action!       She invested in real estate, especially in Hollywood and became a very, very wealthy woman.       Some of the famed "wise-cracks" of Mae West who never married: "Give a man a free hand and he'll run it all over you." "He who hesitates is last." "I only like two kinds of men: foreign and domestic." "I feel like a million tonight, but one at a time." "It's not the men in your life who count. It's the life in your men." "So many men, so little time." "I've been in more laps than a napkin." "Come up and see me sometime when I've nothing but the wireless on." "To err is human - but it feels divine." "Between two evils, I always pick the one I haven't tried before." "I used to be Snow White... but I drifted." "One figure can sometimes add up to a lot." "I always say, keep a diary and some day it'll keep you." "When I'm good, I'm very, very, good, but when I'm bad, I'm better." "I've been things and done places." "She's the kind of girl who climbed the ladder of success wrong by wrong." "When a girl goes bad - men go right after her." "I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it." "I've been rich and I've been poor. Believe me, rich is better." "It ain't no sin if you crack a few laws now and then. As long as you don't break any." "It's better to be looked over than overlooked." "I wrote this story myself, It's all about a girl who lost her reputation, but never missed it." Hatcheck girl: "Goodness, that's a beautiful diamond!" Mae West: "Goodness had nothing to do with it..." B. 08-17-1894, Clara Gooding McMillan - U.S. Representative to Congress from South Carolina.       Elected to fill the unexpired term of her late husband she only served for a little more than a year. According to her official biography, "McMillan made clear her support of military preparedness and spoke in favor of the Burke-Wadsworth Selective Service Bill, which established the nation's first peacetime draft. She also introduced legislation to provide for the designation of individual domiciles in income tax returns and to allow local police officers to mail firearms for repairs. McMillan declined renomination for a full term in the face of the candidacy of L. Mendel Rivers, who went on to represent the district for nearly thirty years.       " McMillan continued in governmental service with the National Youth Administration, the Office of War Information, and from 1946 to 1957 as information liaison officer with the Department of States." B. 08-17-1895, Dame Caroline Haslett - British engineer, the only woman listed in Who Runs Britain? that was published in pre-World War II England.       CH was director of the Electrical Association for Women with 90 branches and 10,000 members. She encouraged women to enter light engineering work. Under her prodding, finally, in 1943, the Amalgamated Engineering Union accepted women members.       She was an advisor in training women for industry in WWII and was active in the woman's suffrage movement. B. 08-17-1896, Lotte (Johanna) Jacobi - German trained photographer who fled the Nazis to become an American citizen and noted photographer of the influential. She posed her subjects in life-like situations rather than formal protraitures. Her sitters ranged from Eleanor Roosevelt to Albert Einstein. Her landscape work was highly praised. B. 08-17-1897, Charlie May Simon - U.S. author of juvenile books that took place in Arkansas mountain country, B. 08-17-1906, Hazel Gladys Bishop - U.S. inventor, chemist, business tycoon, and Wall Street genius - then an educator.       While employed as an organic chemist for Standard Oil she conducted a series of home experiments to develop a lipstick that stayed on the lips and didn't smear to everything else they touched.       In 1950 she formed the Hazel Bishop, Inc. Later she formed Hazel Bishop Laboratories which developed a series of home care products.       Still later she turned to Wall Street investments and was just as successful.       It is ironic that she is most easily recognized by her first product, a kissproof lipstick that she parlayed into her Hazel Bishop, Inc., cosmetics, - and yet she couldn't use her own name in her subsequent careers.       A partner forced her out of the $10 million company she created and then, through court action, forbade her from using her own name in her future careers or in personal appearances.       HB's lipstick grabbed 24% of the lipstick market within a few months: "Never again need you be embarrassed by smearing friends, children, relatives, husband, sweetheart," the early advertising said, pointing out that older formulations tended to leave greasy marks on glasses, cigarettes and teeth. And the new brand did not have to be applied several times a day.       When she was appointed to the Revlon Chair in Cosmetics Marketing in 1980, Michel Bergerac, chair of Revlon, said: "It is really quite an achievement to carve one outstanding career in a lifetime. To succeed in business, in finance, and in academics in only part of a life is truly an amazing thing."       HB had been financial analyst for Evans & Company and Bache and Company with her opinions actively sought on matters of the burgeoning cosmetics business. In 1978, she became an adjunct professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan specializing in training students for careers in cosmetics.       During World War II, as senior organic chemist with Standard Olil, "she discovered the cause of deposits affecting superchargers of aircraft engines." She never married. B. 08-17-1920, Maureen O'Hara - statusque Irish- American actor of the red-hair.       Her best known movies The Quiet Man (1952) and Miracle on 34th Street (1947).       Although a noted beauty, she didn't shy away from cameras as she aged and became, surprisingly, a role model for older women. She is scheduled to make another TV movie shortly after her 70th birthday.       As a Roman Catholic she stayed in a disastrous marriage with an alcoholic for many years until his death. Her remarriage was happy but again she was widowed and returned to acting. B. 08-17-1920(?), Georgia Gibbs - U.S. pop singer. GG had a mellow pop and rythym and blues singing style. She had 15, top-40 hits in the mid-1950s including "If I Knew You Were Coming I'd Have baked A Cake," and "Kiss of Fire." (Penguin Encyclopedia of Popular Music. Viking, 1989.) B. 08-17-1952, Kathryn C. Thornton (Ph.D.) - U.S. astronaut.       The mother of three girls who proved motherhood does not destroy the body and mind, KT took a number of space walks in her four space missions. One of her missions was to help repair the Hubble space telescope.       Dr. thornton's biographical data as well as other astronauts may be found at http://www.infinet.com/~iwasm/nasa.htm B. 08-17-1954, Ingrid Daubechies - Belgium- American mathematician.       ID who won the 1997 Ruth Lyttle Slatter Prize in Mathematics. This prize "was established in 1990 using funds donated to the AMS [American Mathematical Society] by Joan S. Birman of Columbia University in memory of her sister, Ruth Lyttle Sootier." In part, the prize notice reads: "Daubechies' best-known achievement is her construction of compactly supported wavelets in the late 1980s... she has continued their development on the theoretical level and to applications in physics and signal processing. Her continuing research... provided the first clues to the existence of cosine packet libraries of orthonormal bases as well as Gaussian bases... "       Daubechies has a homepage at Princeton where she now teaches.       The prize's was named after Ruth Lyttle Ruth Lyttle Slatter who although did not receive her Ph.D. until 43 gained worldwide fame for her on the biological clocks of plants. The prize also is aimed at encouraging women to enter science.       ID's biographical sketch reads: "She was awarded a Leroy P. Steele prize for exposition in 1994 for her book Ten Lectures on Wavelets. From 1992 to 1997 she was a fellow of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Mathematical Society,the Mathematical Association of America, the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and the Institute of Electrical and Electronica lEngineers. She is married and has two children." B. 08-17-1959, Lynette Woodard - U.S. basketball legend.       LW scored the most career points in the history of women's college basketball to her era, was the first woman to play with a man's professional team (the Harlem Globetrotters), in 1984 she captained the U.S. team to its first gold medal in basketball, was one of the first drafted in 1997 at the beginning of the Women's National Basketball League, but at 38, time had passed her by and she retired from active competition to coaching.       "You prepare, you work hard at it, you practice. You shoot your best shot," Woodward said.       Woodward who is one of the marvelous group of women who layed the groundwork for today's athletic stars. We all owe her a great debt. B. 08-17-1975, Loretta Harrop - Australian Triathlon athlete.       When she didn't make the swimming team cut for Australia's nationwide competition, LH turned to her brother's sport, the triathlon and became a world champion.       Her winning edge in the taxing event remains the swimming lap but she is tops in her nation in the cycling portion also. She carries Australia's hopes in the 2000 Olympic games. Event 08-17-1990: Phyllis Polander sues Mike Tyson for sexual harassment, the first time his biting when frustrated was publicized. The biting habit was not given any credence until he bit a man in the boxing ring when he was frustrated. Tyson was convicted of the rape of a woman other than Ms. Polander and served time in prison. He was allowed to resume professional boxing and earn untold millions of dollars after his release from prison. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE | | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | QUOTES DU JOUR BISHOP, ELIZABETH:       "Women should use makeup to accentuate their most attractive feature. After the age of 25 or thereabouts, personality becomes an increasingly more attractive feature."             -- Hazel Bishop KENNAN, ELIZABETH T.:       "I do think that women benefit enormously from an environment which understands their ambitions, the circumstances of their lives and which also builds the confidence that they need to take on the many roles that they have in life after they graduate."       "I hope society does some day reach a point where there is no violence against women...where women are treated with openness and fair evaluation in every circumstance in business, where there is no need for the extra ability to come back form either hidden or open discrimination, no need to be able to rebound after sexual harassment or sexism. I hope so, but that's not the world we live in now."             -- Elizabeth T. Kennan, president of Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, one of the oldest institutes of higher education for women in the U.S. MANSFIELD, KATHERINE:       "Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinion of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth!"             -- Katherine Mansfield, author. MEAD, MARGARET:       "Throughout history the more complex activities have been defined and redefined, now as male, now as female - sometimes as drawing equally on the gifts of both sexes. When an activity to which each sex could have contributed is limited to one sex, a rich, differentiated quality is lost from the activity itself."             -- Margaret Mead (1901-1978) | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE | | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE |