| 10-15 TABLE of CONTENTS:
Five Years Since Beijing - What was
the Result?
Pregnant Men, Practice, Theory, and
the Law
Ilona Elek was Probably the World's
Greatest Woman Fencer.
En Heduanna
Jamie Tarses First Woman Head of
TV Entertainment Division
Dr. Nancy Vickers Heads Bryn Mawr
College
Lieutenant Nun - Memoir of a Basque
Transvestite in the New World
DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and
EVENTS
QUOTES by
Felice N. Schwartz, Marie Carmichael Stopes, Martin Duberman.
Five Years Since Beijing - What was
the Result?
By Irene Stuber
The Chinese media honestly
blacked it out with a big silence.
The "free" American media colored it out
with entertaining bits masquerading as news. Instead of substance, Americans
were treated to spiffy articles and tv snippets about buses, mud, dancing
troupes, meeting-place defects, and Chinese human rights violations.
In both China and the United States - as well as the
rest of the world - the largest gathering of women in the history of this
world went into oblivion as a non-happening with hardly a whimper because
of the attitude of those - primarily men - who control news coverage.
Virtually nothing about the substance of the Fourth
U.N. Conference on Women held in Beijing and Hairou, China, September,
1995, was published in the U.S. More space was given in the weekly news
magazines to the Miss America Pageant than to a meeting of the most powerful
and influential women of this world, including many of the women who head
nations.
More words were spent quoting CongressMEN on the non-right
of an American citizen, Hillary Rodham Clinton, to travel to China to give
a speech than to reporting her words which were stirring and hard-hitting.
Rodham-Clinton, speaking as the wife of the President
of the United States, stated unequivocally, "As
long as discrimination and inequities remain so commonplace around the
world -- as long as girls and women are valued less, fed less, fed last,
overworked, underpaid, not schooled and subjected to violence in and out
of their homes -- the potential of the human family to create a peaceful,
prosperous world will not be realized.
Let this conference be our -- and the world's -- call
to action."
Rodham-Clinton dared in undiplomatic language to list
the wrongs:
"The voices of this
conference and of the women at Huairou must be heard loud and clear:
"It is a violation of human rights when
babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken,
simply because they are born girls.
"It is a violation of human rights when
women and girls are sold into the slavery of prostitution.
"It is a violation of human rights when
women are doused with gasoline, set on fire and burned to death because
their marriage dowries are deemed too small.
"It is a violation of human rights when
individual women are raped in their own communities and when thousands
of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war.
"It is a violation of human rights when
a leading cause of death worldwide among women ages 14 to 44 is the violence
they are subjected to in their own homes.
"It is a violation of human rights when
young girls are brutalized by the painful and degrading practice of genital
mutilation.
"It is a violation of human rights when
women are denied the right to plan their own families, and that includes
being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against their will.
"If there is one message that echoes forth
from this conference, it is that human rights are women's rights... And
women's rights are human rights.
"Let us not forget that among those rights
are the right to speak freely. And the right to be heard."
(The complete text of HRC's speech can be found in
the library section of this site.)
At the Beijing-Hairou conferences women did
speak freely, but their right to be heard outside the conference
was - as usual - seriously curbed by the standard news media coverage.
Our daily newspaper and TV news programs determined a T&A contest or
the number of games a multi-millionaire plays was more important than women's
right to life.
Tragically, after the brief flurry of sisterhood
at these meetings, the conference women would ordinarily have also been
muzzled when they got back home because - other than communicating with
a few friends or members of their particular organization - there was no
way for them to stay in touch, no way to form cheap easy ways of networking
about their growing knowledge, experience, and plans. the women of old
before the invention of the printing press, women's information was controlled
to suit the controllers.
Friendships and common goals that were formed by women
across political boundaries, across oceans and continets, across racial
divides would soon evaporate like the smoke of a dying fire... or so those
who guard the old ways thought.
But that isn't what is happening.
The women of Beijing and Hairou are still communicating,
plotting, and planning.
For the biggest story to come of Beijing and Hairou
wasn't in any document, or in any news story.
It was the networking that developed among the thousands
of STRONG women who met and saw the same gleam in each other's eyes and
recognized the steel within each other, all those women commitment to the
betterment of their sisters... they were women leaders and women everywoman
from grassroots level to heads of state, brown, yellow, white, and black.
Can you imagine the absolute power surge that hit
every woman delegate when she saw that she was part of such a POWERFUL
GROUP OF WOMEN from every continent, of every nationality, of every race,
of every hue and size and age?
That deep in each woman's heart is the truth that
the Sisterhood is alive, well, and strong - and getting stronger.
What is almost certainly the most lasting result of
this conference won't be the platform - although it is the glue that holds
ideas in one place - the most lasting result will be that most of these
powerful women are (or will soon be) In-computerized (Internet-computerized)...
Yes, the lasting result of the Women's Conference
in China is that millions of women are being networked by computers via
the Internet and their words, ideas, documents and ideas can be exchanged
inexpensively and quickly sent out to thousands of women.
No longer are women limited to what they can write
or publish by the patriarchy that exacts a fearsome cost of money and groveling.
The Internet, cheap, fast, and almost uncensorable
is networking women from all over the world.
And don't think it is just Western, high-income women
who are involved. African women were particularly interested in the online
computer technology where one computer and one phone line can connect an
entire village to knowledge.
One computer can help teach the women of that village
birth control as well as economics and enough technology to guarantee a
safe water supply.
It is ironical that China should be the scene of the
largest birth in history: the baby is effective world-wide feminist communication.
"If there is one
message that comes forth from this conference,"
said the U.S. first lady, "it is that
human rights are women's rights and women's rights are human rights --
once and for all."
And the fact that women from every nation have clicked
onto this website and read about their foremothers - and contributed information
- is proof that the future belongs to women who will reshape the world
to their own, more caring selves.
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Pregnant Men, Practice, Theory, and the Law
Pregnant Men: Practice, Theory, and the
Law by Ruth Colker of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law was
published by the Indian University Press and available in papberback.
The book focuses on developing a feminist jurisprudence
that works in practice, not just in theory.
The two theoretical issues considered are "anti-essentialism"
and "equality." She shows how one can use equality theory in
the reproductive health context despite the nonexistence of pregnant men
to which we might compare pregnant women.
Through practical, legal examples, she answers the
counterfactual question of how men might be treated if they could get pregnant.
Colker says, "I tried to
write the book in a way that would make it accessible to a women's studies
audience as well as a legal audience because, no matter what our areas
of feminist practice, I think we all face the question of how to make our
theory work in practice. I believe strongly in the importance of a practical
feminism."
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Ilona Elek was Probably the World's Greatest Woman Fencer.
Hungarian fencer Ilona Elek was only woman to
win two Olympic gold medals: 1936 and 1948. No games were held between
1936 and 48 because of World War II.  Amazingly
at age 45 she won her first 20 Olympic matches in 1952 but tired in her
final three and "only" won the silver.
She was the world foil champion in 1934, 35, and 51.
Her closest rivals were American Maria Cerra and Danish Karen Lachmann.
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En Heduanna
En Heduanna (c. 2350
BCE) was the chief priestess of the Moon Goddess at whose temples the movement
of the Sun and Moon were closely observed and recorded. The Moon calendar
established is still used to date Easter and Passover - among other holidays.
She was the daughter of Sargon who established the
Sargonian Dynasty in Babylon. The position of chief priestess of the moon
made her one of the most powerful personages in Sumeria and the temples
she headed were centers of learning.
The temples, in keeping with the agrarian society,
were also centers of trade where they raised their own food and kept livestock.
Their primary Forty-eight of her poems remain. It appears that the tradition
of powerful women priestesses and "scientists" were common for
the period leading up to her lifetime when "recorded" history
more-or- less began.
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Jamie Tarses First Woman Head of TV Entertainment Division
After three years of being
constantly bombarded by unbelievable pressures by the men who wanted her
job, Jamie Tarses, 35, the first woman to run a network entertainment division,
resigned June, 1999.
Officially, she mouthed platitudes about change in
the business, etc., but in private she spoke about the "never-ending
rumors" of her firing, resignation, etc. In a New York Daily News,
Tarses sounds a similar theme: "The constant
unrest meant you were not able to put your head down and just do your work."
During her tenure, ABC was reorganized, bought, and
bought again. Her resignation, she said, has made her a very happy woman.
Her salary was in excess of $1 million a year.
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Dr. Nancy Vickers Heads Bryn Mawr College
In 1997 Dr. Nancy Vickers
has been chosen unanimously by the trustees of Bryn Mawr College to replace
Mary Patterson McPherson who joined the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Dr.
McPherson led Bryn Mawr to a resurgence of popularity and record financial
endowments.
The naming of a woman to head the prestigious college
that was molded into acedemic acclaim by the legendary M. Carey Thomas
is in keeping with the unarticulated agreement that women should head women's
colleges. After women like Thomas and Mary Wollsey, etc., who forged great
women's colleges retired, for many years, men trustees turned women's colleges
over to men who objected to strong, intellectual women. They cut back the
strong academic programs with home economics and other happy housewife
things.
In the 1970s, the tide began to turn and within a
few years every woman's college was headed and strengthened by strong women
leaders.
Dr. Vickers was dean and professor of French, Italian
and comparative literature at the University of Southern California.
She is an advocate of women's colleges, having graduated
from Mount Holyoke College in 1967. Bryn Mawr has received more than 1,600
applications for its new class of 350 and has an endowment of $310 million.
Dr. Vickers is at home with Madonna and George Michael
as she is with Dante and Shakespeare, according to newspaper reports. Although
most recently at Southern California, she earned her doctorate in French
literature at Yale in 1976, taught at Dartmouth from 1973 to 1987 before
moving to USC.
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Lieutenant Nun - Memoir of a Basque Transvestite in the New World
"Lieutenant Nun is the
remarkable true story of a seventeenth century cross-dresser who became
a hero of the Spanish-speaking world.
"For centuries Spanish readers have been fascinated
with the story of the lieutenant nun. Catalina's story not only sheds light
on the Spanish conquest of America but also offers a glimpse into the life
of a fascinating woman who thwarted the gender conventions of her society,
yet remained committed to its service.
'Born in the Basque city of San Sebastian in 1520,
Catalina de Erauso fled a convent at the age of fifteen and spent the rest
of her life dresses as a man. In 1603, she became a soldier and fought
in the conquest of Chile and Peru. She inadvertently killed her brother
in a duel, and gambled and brawled her way through the mining towns of
the Andean highlands.
'Finally cornered after twenty years, she confessed
her condition to a young bishop and became an overnight celebrity. She
continued to wear men's clothing, eventually with the permission of the
pope. In 1630, she returned once again to the Americas, to live out her
days as a mule-driver and small merchant, but not before she set down the
story of her life in writing.
'Eminently readable, Lieutenant Nun is a fascinating
page-turner that is certain to strike a chord with scholars and pleasure-seeking
readers alike."
So reads the blurb of Lieutenant Nun - Memoir
of a Basque Transvestite in the New World by Catalina de Erauso Published
by Beacon Press, 1996 ISBN 0-8070-072-6. The book was recommended by Nancy
Rising.
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10-15 DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and
EVENTS
B. 10-15-1726, Francoise Duparc, French painter. There were 41
paintings in her studio when she died in 1778 but only four are known to
exist today. Called a very talented painter, her obscurity is tragic according
to art writers and critics Ann Sutherland Harris and Linda Nochlin, writing
in Women Artists: 1550-1950, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, New York,
Alfred A. Knopf, 1976. They expressed hopes that someday efforts would
be made to recover the paintings "which must
now be hanging unnoticed in the private collections in the south of France."
B. 10-15-1830, Helen Maria Hunt Jackson - U.S.author and advocate
for the rights and recognition of Native Americans.
Her best known work Ramona, 1884, has gone through
more than 300 printings.
She turned to writing to earn a living following the
death of her husband. Her first book, Verses, appeared in 1870.
In 1881 she settled in Colorado Springs, with her second husband. Colo.,
where she began writing with sympathy for Native Americans in books such
as A Century of Dishonor (1881). It was while serving on a federal
commission investigating the treatment of Indians that she gathered information
for Ramona. She was a lifelong friend of Emily Dickinson.
 B.
10-15-1880, Marie Charlotte Carmichael Stopes - British physician and author.
MCS started Britain's first birth control clinic in
1921 and founded several birth control associations. Some claim Stopes,
rather than Sanger, should be given the credit for the beginning of the
birth control movement because of Stopes' greater grasp of the emotions,
and sociological and personal relationships involved.
They were bitter rivals set at each other by the leaders
of their organizations and the press. Stopes was a graduate of geology
and held a doctorate of botany. She published Married Love and Wise
Parenthood (1918) which was translated extensively as was Contraception:
Its Theory, History, and Practice (1923). Women of Achievement and
Herstory has archived Married
Love in its documents library.
Married Love has been judged one of the 100
most influential books of the 20th century, the first book to speak honestly
of women's sexual needs.
B. 10-15-1892, Ina Clair - U.S. actor. IC was a high comedienne
of the theater in the 1920-40 era. She remained primarily a Broadway actor
because she didn't like the roles she was offered in Hollywood.
B. 10-15-1905, Edna Deane - British dancer, instructor, and choreographer.
ED founder the Deane School of Dance after a lengthy career as a world
champion ballroom dancer.
B. 10-15-1906, Alica Patterson - U.S. newspaper editor and publisher.
A member of a famed newspaper dynasty, AP created Long
Island's Newsday which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1954 for public service.
Newsday was a sparkling, modern idea that believed in becoming an
active part in local events. It became the twelfth largest evening newspaper
in the U.S. It was sold to the Times Mirror Company seven years after her
death. She left a million-dollar endowment for the encouragement of young
journalists.
B. 10-15-1937, Linda Lavin - U.S. actor best known for her TV
roles but has also appeared on Broadway.
B. 10-15-1941, Anne Tyle, one of the most important American writers
of the last 20th century who dissects the "eccentricities of modern
domestic lives experienced by slightly baffled people."
Event 10-15-1941: the first of a thousand Soviet Union women
to be trained as military combat pilots reported for duty.
They would form three regiments to fly fighter and
bomber planes in combat as well as being dispersed throughout the air force
as navigators and mechanics.
The Soviet (Russian) women would be the only women
in the world who would actually fly combat missions. A number of them because
aces - and a number of them died in combat.
The Soviets did not segregate their women military
personnel in work as did the Americans and English.
A woman mechanic would work side-by-side with men
and the women would fly alongside men in actual combat in the same regiment
although they would have separate living quarters.
The regular two-year course for pilots was compressed
into six months because of the need for aviators with the invasion of Germany.
One of the most popular books about the Soviet women
flyers is Bruce Myles' Night Witches - the untold story of Soviet Women
in Combat. California: Presido Press, 1981. ISBN 0-89141-125-9. It
contains some good information but unfortunately the author tends to tell
romantic stories of the young girl's infatuations rather than the horrors
of combat and bomber pilots in the air war.
But most importantly, a noted Soviet Woman HERSTORIAN
whose dissertation was on the Soviet flyers points out that he confuses
many of the incidents and women as well as "embellishing." Reina
Pennington made several trips to the Soviet Union, spoke the language,
and did superb historical work that included examining source materials
as well as speaking to many of the women involved. One of her reports will
be found in the 08-01 Women of Achievement and Herstory segment when it
is posted.
B. 10-15-1942, Penny Marshall - U.S. actor, comedian, and film
director.
PM, one of Hollywood's premier directors, started
her career as an actress, starred in the TV hit Laverne and Shirley.
Through the newly-possible woman networking in Hollywood
- successful women helping other women - she made her movie directorial
debut in Jumping Jack that starred her friend Whoopie Goldberg,
and followed it with Big, the first movie directed by a woman that
grossed more than $100 million (and made Tom Hanks a star).
In the way of Hollywood men directors who do the nominating,
Marshall's next film The Awakening was nominated for best film but
she was ignored as best director (as had been Barbra Streisand a few years
back when her film was nominated for best picture and she was ignored as
director.)
PM followed with the smash hit A League of Their
Own.
B. 10-15-1959, Sarah Ferguson, formerly the Duchess of York.
Event 10-15-1967, Florence Beaumont, 55, died after she poured
gasoline over herself and set herself on fire with a match in front of
the federal building in Los Angeles to protest the U.S. involvement in
Viet Nam. WOA is searching for more information about the three women who
immolated themselves during the Nam protests. We have been able to find
information on several men, but not the women.
Event 10-15-1978: the U.S. Congress passed the Pregnancy Discrimination
Bill which superseded the U.S. Supreme Court decisions that approved
discrimination against pregnant "people" for either disability
benefit for women recovering from childbirth or using earned sick leave
for childbirth.
(See the review of Ruth Colker's Pregnant Men:
Practice, Theory, and the Law above.)
Event 10-15-1999: Dr. Catherine D. De Angelis, vice-dean at the
Johns Hopkins medical school, was appointed as the first woman to her the
Journal of the American Medical Association in its 116-year history. The
editorship of JAMA makes her one of the most influential voices in all
of medicine according to the head of the American Medical Association.
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QUOTES DU JOUR
SCHWARTZ, FELICE:
"...the cost
of employing women in management is greater than the cost of employing
men ... (However) the greater cost of employing women is not a function
of inescapable gender differences. Women are different from men, but what
increases their cost to the corporation is principally the clash of their
perceptions, attitude, and behavior with those men, which is to say with
the policies and practices of male-led corporations."
-- Felice N. Schwartz, economist,
1989
STOPES, MARIE:
"It seems strange
that those who search for natural law in every province of our universe
should have neglected the most vital subject, the one which concerns us
all infinitely more than the naming of planets or the collecting of insects.
"Woman is not essentially capricious; some of
the laws of her being might have been discovered long ago had the existence
of law been suspected.
"But it has suited the general structure of society
much better for men to shrug their shoulders and smile at women as irrational
and capricious creatures, to be courted when it suited them, not to be
studied."
-- Marie Carmichael Stopes in
Married Love
DUBERMAN, MARTIN:
"It is essential
to challenge the traditions of suppressing information which might prove
useful to gay people in better understand the historical dimensions of
our experience... The heterosexual world... has imposed its definitions
on the rest of us, using them as weapons for keeping us in line by denying
us access to knowledge of our antecedents... Power has created that "right"
in the past. In the future, other claims to right must be pressed - like
the right of a people to a knowledge of its own history (to memory), and
indispensable prerequisite for establishing collective identity and for
enjoying the solace of knowing that we too have "come through"
are bearers of a diverse, rich, unique heritage."
-- Martin Duberman, Hidden
from History, Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past, 1989. (As quoted
in the Gay and Lesbian Task Force List published by the American Library
Association, 1992.)
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