| 10-14 TABLE of CONTENTS:
Woman Captain of Submarine
No Longer One Female Mother
Riley, English Artist
Another Virgin Woman Sacrificial
Ritual
DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and
EVENTS
QUOTES by
Bella Abzug, Maggie Kuhn, Susan Faludi, and Margaret Sanger.
Woman Captain of Submarine
Although it was well known in other NATO countries,
the U.S. media did not deem it fit news for the American people until a
reader of WOAH sent us the following information (in disgust after failing
to get it noticed in mainline news media). WOAH first published it in its
10-14-1995 edition:
Lt. Commander Solveig Kray of Norway is the new commander
of the submarine Kobben. SHE is the first woman to command a combat
sub or maybe any standard size sub in history. (See confirmation in Jane's
Defense Weekly.)
The column was forwarded to several news agencies
by WOAH readers - and finally small accounts appeared in various news medianewspapers.
The information seemed to disappear from knowledge and in late 1999, the
U.S. Congress continued its debate on allowing women on their submarines
as if no woman had ever served (or captained) aboard a submarine before.
The argument continues into the 21st century in the
U.S. to the wonderment of Europeans.
| PRIOR DATE |
| HOME |
| WOA INDEX |
| NEXT DATE |
| RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE
|
Legally, It's No Longer One Female Mother But Still One Father
In 1994 WOA printed the following article that seems almost mundane
today as the envelope of human reproduction is stretched, and stretched.
One thing remains static, however. There are now all
sorts of qualifiers to go along with "mother" but a father remains
the single sperm.
Get a pencil and paper out for this one ...
James Alan Mack Jr. was adopted by Linda and James
Mack Sr. Linda Mack's sister, Ann Scacco, donated the egg which was fertilized
by sperm donated by James Sr., and the fertilized egg was implanted into
the womb of Katharine Huemann, James Sr.'s sister.
That means young Jimmy has three mothers, genetic,
birth, and rearing ... all related. . .
Other combinations of eggs and sperm and modern medical
technology has mothers bearing children for their daughters or sons, grandmothers
giving birth after menopause, and dead men being harvested for sperm for
their late wives' future pregnancies.
Men suffering from AIDS have their sperm radiated
in various ways to destroy the disease while human eggs are being lasered
to remove all the females' DNA to be implanted with only the male DNA.
Science which started off cloning things like carrots
rapidly graduated to cloning a ewe without male contribution to a pig without
any female DNA contribution.
This all makes the very controversial book Heather
has Two Mommies about lesbian mothers of a little girl seems rather
tame in comparison.
We quote from Heather Has Two Mommies (which
is one of the most popular books in the banned-by-religious-right-movement.)
"After they were friends for a long time,
Kate and Jane realized that they were very much in love with each other.
"They decided they wanted to live together and
be a family together....(They were happy together) except for one thing.
Kate and Jane wanted to have a baby ...they decide the baby would grow
in Jane's womb.
"A womb is a special place inside a woman where
babies grow ...After the (special) doctor examined Jane to make sure she
was healthy, she put some sperm into Jane's vagina.The sperm swam up into
Jane's womb ..."
Read it for yourself. Heather Has Two Mommies may be ordered
from your local woman's bookstore or directly from the publisher Alyson
Publications, Dept. H-80, 40 Plympton St., Boston, MA 02118. They also
publish Daddy's Roommate.
Since the publishing of this classic, a number of prominent lesbian
couples have gone public with their children, including Melissa Etheridge
and Judy Cypher who were featured on the covers of Newsweek and
Time.
The ultra-conservative and religious attacks on them leave one to wonder
why is it right for James Mack (above) to father a baby through what used
to be considered incest by (using his SISTER's womb) and wrong for a loving
lesbian couple having a child with donated sperm?
The ramifications of the legal twilight that hovers over the many children
born with different women and men donating their bodies in unusual ways
to produce a child is almost mindboggling.
However, most thinking people feel the important factor
is the happiness and welfare of the child not the parentage or how a child
comes into the world.
The feminist opinion in all this is that the child
should grow up into a happy well-adjusted person because her parents (whoever
they may be) loved and wanted her - and were able to properly care for
her.
| PRIOR DATE |
| HOME |
| WOA INDEX |
| NEXT DATE |
| RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE
|
Riley, English Artist
Riley, Bridget (Louise) (b. 1931 ) is an English
artist whose "Op art" caused a sensation in the 1960s. She emphasized
3-d effects using color and various geometic shapes. BR's won many awards
and her works are hung in many collections world-wide.
| PRIOR DATE |
| HOME |
| WOA INDEX |
| NEXT DATE |
| RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE
|
Another Virgin Woman Sacrificial Ritual
In the Inca religion, Virgins of the Sun (Chosen Women, Quechua Aclla
Cuna, or Aklya Kona) were women who lived in temples as perpetual virgins.
The virgins would prepare food for various religious
functions, weave the clothing for the emperor, and fulfill other duties
consistent with temple maintenance and privilege for the priests.
The Spaniards estimated there were several thousand
temple women at the time of their conquest in the 16th century.
The women were shut into the temples as young girls before puberty and
were often used in the religious sacrifices (always virgin women were used
in the religious sacrifices). Certain of the girls - probably chosen on
beauty - were make concubines of the male nobility or sometimes their wives.
| PRIOR DATE |
| HOME |
| WOA INDEX |
| NEXT DATE |
| RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE
|
10-14 DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and
EVENTS
B. 10-14-1499, Claude of France - French Queen. Claude choose
to marry the future King Francis I of France to guarantee that Brittany,
the rulership of which she inherited from her mother, became part of France.
Her mother Anne of Brittan was married to French king
Louis XII (Claude's father). Claude had been betrothed to the future ruler
of Austria, but that marriage was blocked for political reasons and she
was forced to marry Francis. (Another happy princess! Were there any real
princesses who lived happily ever after?)
B. 10-14-1630, Sophia, Electress of Hanover - almost queen of England.
Sophia died two months before she would have ascended the British throne
and so her son became George I of Great Britain. She was the 12th child
of Elizabeth, daughter of England's James I who was married to the German
electorate of Palatine.
She was named successor to Queen Anne because she
was the nearest Protestant in the line of succession. Sophia died only
two months before Anne.
B. 10-14-1845, Laura Askew Haygood - U.S. missionary. LAH was
an important Methodist missionary who made Shanghai a center of education
and religious outreach. Among other things, she founded the McTyeire Homes
and School in 1892 as a girls high school and home for training missionaries
to match the boys school that had been in existence for several decades.
It continued as an important institution for girls and training center
for missionaries until closed by the communist regime in 1949.
B. 10-14-1856, Eliza Scidmore - U.S. traveler and photographer.
ES was a pioneer travel writer and photographer, and prominent member of
the National Geographic Society who developed a world-wide reputation for
accuracy and insight.
Her articles appeared in many magazines of the times
as well as that National Geographic and were illustrated by her own photographs.
She spent a great deal of time in Japan not only reporting on the geography
but also the people and their customs.
Her work was so admired by the Emperor of Japan that
her ashes were carried to Japan and buried there at his request.
B. 10-14-1856, Violet Paget (Vernon Lee) - English writer.
 B.
10-14-1863, Winifred Sweet Black (Annie Laurie) - U.S. journalist.
An ingenious reporter, WSB who wrote under the name of Annie Laurie was
able to infiltrate Mormon life and expose polygamy in an 1898 series of
articles in the Hearst newspapers.
But her greatest accomplishment was disguising herself
as a boy and becoming the ONLY woman reporter on Galveston Island after
the terrible hurricane in 1900.
She, unlike others, didn't only report. Using funds
donated by Heart's readers, WSB opened and administered a hospital on the
island to aid the displaced and injured.
Another time she faked a collapse to expose graft
and mismanagement in San Francisco's receiving hospital. She got an exclusive
interview with President Benjamin Harrison, and even get into a leper colony
in Hawaii.
She also reported on World War I and the Versailles
treaty negotiations. She continued reporting on world events well into
her 60s. She died in 1936.
B. 10-14-1879, (Stella Maria Sarah), Austrialian novelist known as
Miles Franklin. Her first novel was My Brilliant Career (1901 - film
1979). She lived in Britain and U.S. much of her life. Most of her novels
were not successful although several books about Australian settlers in
the 19th and early 20th century (and written under the pseudonym "Brent
of Bin Bin" were not recognized as having been written by her until
after her death. {academic American Encylopedia}
B. 10-14-1888, Katherine Mansfield, New Zealand-Anglo short story
writer. Her style can best be described as prose-poetry.
B. 10-14-1893, Lillian Diana Gish - U.S. actor. A film superstar,
Gish's characters were usually portrayals of fragile beauty that hid the
heart of a lion in a series of epics that earned her the title "First
Lady of the Screen." The movie <EM>Birth of A Nation</em>
(1915) established her as a star and she continued to act and win acclaim
on the stage, in movies, and on radio and television for more than 60 years.
Her father deserted her mother and Lillian and her sister Dorothy were
left so poor that their furniture was repossessed. Under such financial
pressure, their mother allowed the girls to go on the stage at ages 4 and
6.
B. 10-14-1897, Dorothy Katherine Wright Liebes - U.S. artist.
DKWL was a noted American textile designer and businesswoman who was called
the mother of modern weaving
B. 10-14-1904, Marty Mann - U.S. executive. MM was best known
as the executive director, National Committee for Education on Alcoholism
(1944).
 B.
10-14-1906, Hannah Arendt, German-born American political scientist and
philosopher.
HA was the first woman professor at Princeton (1959)
and lecturer/professor at many major American universities. As a teacher,
writer and political philosopher, she condemned the separation of moral
thought from political action as well as condemning the ethics of scientists
who developed things they could not control.
HA's philosophy - she called herself a political theorist
rather than philosopher - is considered original, unorthodox, and cannot
be categorized with any standard outlooks such as conservative or optimistic.
Her work, generally, have yet to be absorbed by the
mainstream. HA believed that any government that ignores grassroots groups
do so at its own peril.
Her mother, widowed when HA was seven, supported her
highly intelligent and spirited child alone.
HA fled the Nazi twice, once in Germany in 1933 and
then in 1940 in France where she had taken refuge. Taken as a Jew when
the German's invaded France, she was held for six-weeks in a German concentration
camp but managed to escape. She then fled to the United States in 1941
with her husband.
After coming to the U.S., she supported herself and
her husband with writings in Jewish papers and when her husband opened
a small factory, she did its ledgers and worked on the line doing piece
work.
Her best known works are The Origins of Totalitarianism
(1951), The Human Condition (1958), and On Revolution (1963).
Her 1972 Crises of the Republic (1972) is dedicated to her closest
American friend, the writer Mary McCarthy. Her biography by Elisabeth Young-Bruehl
is Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World (1982).
B. 10-14-1944, Mary Ruthsdotter - U.S. feminist. MR is one of
the founders of the National Women's History
Project .
B. 10-14-1949, Katha Pollitt - U.S. journalist. KP is an outstanding
American liberal columnist and feminist philosopher who is featured in
The Nation magazine.
B. 10-14-1950, Sheila Young - U.S. athlete. SY is the first American
to win three medals in the winter Olympic games, a gold, silver, and bronze
in speed skating.
 B.
10-14-1959, Jennifer Gagliardi - OUR HERO! Jen operates the email subscriptions
for both Women of Achievement and Herstory and Catt's Claws. Out of the
blue in 1992 she volunteered to take care of the madding subscription list.
We owe her a deep debt of gratitude for taking time out of her very busy
schedule to see that those who wish to receive WOA and CC through email
get them.
She is also co-moderator (the end that does all the
grunt work) or Abigail's Rebels email discussion list. Deepest thanks,
"kid" - reach her at gagliajn@netcom.com
to say thanks, happy birthday- or subscribe.
Event 10-14-1970: a bomb that exploded in a Harvard University
building was claimed by a group of radical women.
Event 10-14-1979, the first ever national march for lesbian and gay
rights was held in Washington D.C. with more than 100,000 marchers.
| PRIOR DATE |
| HOME |
| WOA INDEX |
| NEXT DATE |
| RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE
|
QUOTES DU JOUR
ABZUG, BELLA:
"Our struggle today is not to have a female Einstein
get appointed as an assistant professor. It is for a woman schlemiel to
get as quickly promoted as a male schlemiel."
-- Bella Abzug, noted feminist,
attorney, and U.S. Congressional Representative
KUHN, MAGGIE:
"Retirement communities "are nothing but
big playpens for wrinkled children."
-- Maggie Kuhn, founder of the Gray Panthers, the senior citizens activist
group with a social conscience, reflecting on the modern trend to self-isolation
by affluent older Americans.
FALUDI, SUSAN:
"If establishing masculinity depends most
of all on succeeding as the prime breadwinner, then it is hard to imagine
a force more directly threatening to fragile America than the feminist
drive for economic equality"
-- Susan Faludi in Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American
Women, 1993.
SANGER, MARGARET:
"Many times I studied Section 211 of the Federal
Statutes, under which the Post Office was acting. This penal clause of
the Comstock Law had been left hanging in Washington like the dried shell
of a tortoise. Its grip had even been tightened on the moral side; in case
the word obscene should prove too vague, its definition had been enlarged
to include the prevention of conception and the causing of abortion under
one and the same heading. To me it was outrageous that information regarding
motherhood, which was so generally called sacred, should be classed with
pornography."
-- Sanger, Margaret in her Autobiography
| PRIOR DATE |
| HOME |
| WOA INDEX |
| NEXT DATE |
| RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE
|
|
