| 10-17 TABLE of CONTENTS:
Some Herstory You Don't Often Read
Women in War Work were Often Mistreated
DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and
EVENTS
QUOTES by
Jonathan Franzen, Helen Fielding, Elizabeth Fox- Genovese, Lillian Hellman,
and Florence Nightingale.
Some Herstory You Don't Often Read
In 478 BC (recorded 478 BC): Pindar writes of
the huntress Cyrene who vanquishes a lion by hand in an unarmed struggle,
witnessed by the god Apollo who promptly rapes the woman using his godlike
powers.
In 0001 AD: Roman historian Suetonius states that
Roman women had races at the Capitoline Game which leads many of today's
herstorians to disagree with the past assumptions regarding women's physical
activities in Greece and Rome.
In 1619: As a gauge on how life was really like
in the American colonies, in 1619 an English sea captain advertised in
London for free passage for single women wanting to go to the Virginia
colonies to find husbands. He received 120 pounds of fine Virginia tobacco
from the men who purchased the women upon their arrival. In a census taken
six years later, only six of the 144 women were still alive.
In 1660: Mary Dyer, Quaker martyr, was hanged
in Boston. She had been a friend of Anne Hutchinson who was banished from
the colony for holding religious meetings and when Anne was killed by Indians,
the Massachusetts colony celebrated.
In 1712 William Penn suffered a massive stroke
and was no longer capable of handling his or the Pennsylvania Colony affairs.
It was his second wife, Hanna, who forged his name to documents, made appointments
and managed things so that the British were unable to take back the colony.
Among her actions were the guarantee of religious freedom.
In 1715, Lady Mary Montagu suffered a disfiguring
case of smallpox. The next year she went to Turkey with her husband, the
British Ambassador to Turkey, and witnessed Turkish doctors scratching
people with needles infected with smallpox which gave them a mild case
of the disease and immunized them. She insisted her son be given the inoculation.
On her return to England, she spread the word.
In 1776 - Empress Maria Theresa of Austria built
the LaScala in Milan, Italy, one of the finest opera houses in the world.
In 1793, the revolutionary French government outlawed
all women's political activity and when women began to ask for the right
to vote, they were specifically excluded from laws which widened the franchise
for men.
In 1793, Catherine Lidfield Greene discussed an
idea of hers with Elie Whitney who was mechanically inclined. Greene, a
Georgia plantation owner, supported Whitney at the plantation while he
worked on the project and made some changes in his model for the cotton
gin for which Whitney got a patent in 1793. Greene's name (as fitting to
a proper lady) was never mentioned in the patent application. Women biographers
who lived closest to Greene's period give her credit for helping with the
invention. Modern historians discount it as folk tales. Early in our history,
U.S. patents for devices invented by women were taken out in men's names
such as husbands or fathers.
In 1804, the Roman law which prevailed in the
south of France before the French Revolution, and gave married woman had
some legal capacity, the new Code Napoleon of 1804 was instituted in which
married women were classified with children, the insane, and criminals
as legal incompetents.
In 1814, Emma Hart Willard opened the Middlebury
Female Seminary in her home to teach women, the first real school for women
in the U.S. of A. Society and custom in those days prevented women from
learning anything but the most elemental reading and writing.
In 1829, a suggestion that women be taught geometry
in the United States was vilified by the press and academia.
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Women in War Work were Often Mistreated
*A woman who hadn't slept in a bed
in five months, only grabbing naps while caring for four children and doing
cleaning, laundry, cooking, etc., while working full-time at a Navy shipyard
during World War II;
*Women having to take their coats to a location ten
minutes away from the entrances when they checked in or out of the shipyard's
time clocks while the men's lockers were right there - and threats that
the women would get fired if they objected to the situation that cost them
20 minutes of wasted time each day;
*Not allowing women to join the union so they had
no right of grievance;
*Exploding the myth of high wages paid to women during
World War II, Anthony documented women being paid $23 a week with some
wages as little as 57 cents an hour at Navy shipyards while men often got
$22 a DAY;
*No women in supervisory positions of any kind;
*Not allowed to go to the ladies' room to wash grease
and work-filth off their hands before going to lunch and being docked or
suspended if they tried;
*Not getting the federally authorized rest breaks;
*Being made to work 16 hours straight as a disciplinary
measure. These are just some of the findings of Susan B. Anthony II in
an article "Women in War Plants, 1944" that was printed in The
New Republic, May 1, 1944 as it would appear in her book Out of
the Kitchen - Into the War (New York: Stephen Daye, Inc.)
Not quite what you heard happened back then, huh?
Why didn't the women object? Well, for starters, to
whom could they complain? There were no harassment laws and women were
generally treated without too much respect in the working world, especially
in "blue collar" jobs where the resentment against women taking
the man's job was highest.
Also, the men who controlled the businesses, the unions,
and the floor supervisory positions often treated women like slaves and
dirt under their heels. With such a united front against them, women did
not have a chance. If they objected outside the factory/shipyards, they
were accused of anti-war sentiments and treason! And summarily fired.
Additionally, where could they go to work for as much
money, low that it was in comparison to men's wages, it was high compared
to the usual waitress, beauty shop, etc., jobs open to those with limited
education.
And these women NEEDED the work because husbands and
fathers were off to war or away, leaving the women without funds for caring
for the children, and rent and food.
The allowance for dependents in World War II was often
so low it was a joke - and some men didn't declare because they believed
it came out of their pay!
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10-17 DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and
EVENTS
DIED 10-17-1705, Ninon de Lenclos - Parisian philosopher. NL
is listed as a courtesan which in those days was a HIGHLY respected profession.
Remember, it was the time when kings and cardinals had official mistresses
in addition to wives, etc.
However, she was in addition to conducting a fabulously
popular salon that drew the most prominent men of her age, she was a noted
philosopher. In fact, the mother of the king ordered her into a convent
because of her expressed irreligious attitudes. Her friends got her out.
As she aged, she gave up the courtesan side of her life, wrote, and continued
the salons that grew in popularity through the years. She died a very wealthy
woman. One of her protectors became the wife of Louis XIV. Her best known
work is La Coquette Venge (1659; "The Coquette Avenged")
that defends her lifestyle.
B. 10-17-1760, Anne Parrish - U.S. philanthropist and activist.
AP founded the House of Industry (Aimwell House) in 1795 to train poor
girls and women of Philadelphia in domestic skills for work in homes of
the area. It was the first organization to help poor women in America.
Up to that point, unable to secure education or training, many poverty
bound women had few alternatives to prostitution. The House of Industry
stayed open until 1923!
B. 10-17-1818, Elizabeth Van Lew - U.S. spy in the Civil War.
EVL masqueraded as Crazy Bet, a harmless eccentric who wandered the countryside..
In that guise, she was able to peform extensive intelligence gathering
for the Union army as she wandered at will through the Confederete lines,
particularly in Richmond. She was given the postmistress job at Richmond
as a reward for her spying but she was a social outcast. Her later years
were spent in poverty, living at the dilapidated family home. She protested
paying taxes because she was not allowed to vote.
B. 10-17-1847, Chiquinha Gonzaga - Brazilian composer. CG is
one of Brazil's most popular composers who wrote more than 2,000 works.
Her operetta Forrobad¢ had more than 1,500 performances. She
was active in the anti-slave movement and used proceeds of her works in
the cause.
B. 10-17-1853, Alexandrine Pieternella-Francoise Timme - Dutch explorer.
An adventurous sort, APF is best known for her investigation of the course
of the Nile River. (The spelling of her name varies.)
B. 10-17-1864, Elinor Sutherland Glyn - English novelist. Explaining
her work, she said she authored "slightly seamy
romances that shocked many readers on two continents." Her
best known works are Three Weeks (1907) and It (1927). Critics
complained that they had improbable plots in luxurious settings, but they
sold very well.
 Artist's
Rendering of the Women's Building at the World's Columbia exposition, Chicago.
Designed with lots of skylights, it was light and airy. Forty-seven nations
sent exhibits of women's accomplishments, arts, and work for the building.
 B.
10-17-1868, Sophia Gregoria Hayden - U.S. architect. Winner of the
competition to design the Women's Building of the World's Columbian Exposition
in Chicago. She received $1.500 for the 1/8th scale working drawings while
men architects who designed other buildings for the Exposition received
three to ten times as much.
She won the competition to design the Women's Building
of the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago and received $1,500 for
the 1/8th scale working drawings while men architects who designed other
building at the exposition received three to ten times that amount.
Construction was a nightmare for everyone in any way
connected with the project had changes in mind and (mostly male) critics
openly scorned the work as feminine and not worthy to be built, etc., etc.
The entire construction and design was under the tutelage
of several society matrons of Chicago who disdained working women - and
treated SGH very badly, very badly indeed.
She did not appear after the dedication ceremony amid
rumors of a mental collapse which led the editors of an architectural magazine
to editorialize: "a more telling argument against the wisdom of women
entering this especial profession that anything else could." The critics
all claimed it was a "feminine" building. She designed one other
major building but it was never built.
Born in Chile of an American father, SH was raised
in Boston by her paternal grandparents, she was the first woman admitted
to study architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1886.
After graduation she taught mechanical drawing in a boy's school before
winning the exposition competition.
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B. 10-17-1886, Spring Byington, U.S. stage actress turned movie
character actor in dozens of films. Starred in the long-running television
series, December Bride 1954-59. Her birthdate is also given as 1893.
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 B.
10-17-1895, Doris Humphrey - U.S. choreographer, dancer, and innovator
in technique and the theory of dance movement.
In order to earn money needed by the family, DH taught
social dancing while her mother, a trained musician, played accompanying
piano. DH worked with the Denishawn dance company but broke away when she
began to develop what would become the basis of American modern dance.
She defined her experiment in new dance movements
as "moving from the inside out." Her book on choreography The
Art of Making Dances (1959) was published posthumously and sums up
her brilliant insight into the art of dance. Her great discovery was what
she called "the arc between two deaths," defined as the region
between statis balance and out-of-control fall... the technique of fall
and recovery.
An official website to honor DH and her great contributions
to the dance is located at http://www.dorishumphrey.org/
B. 10-17-1902, Rosamund Van Der Zee Marshall - British author
of the best seller None But the Brave.
 B.
10-17-1905, Jean Arthur - U.S. actor. JA with a voice that "had
a poignant catch in it," was a star in both the movies and Broadway.
She is best known for her movie roles in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
(1939), The More the Merrier (1943), and Shane (1953), and
my favorite You Can't Take it With You (1938). On Broadway, her
Peter Pan was noteworthy. She suffered a great deal from "camera
fright," and had retired before being convinced to come back for what
became a Hollywood classic, Shane. She later taught acting at Vassar
College.
B. 10-17-1917, Marsha Hunt - U.S. actor.
 B.
10-17-1918, Rita Hayworth - U.S. dancer and actor.
Her husbands were as interesting as her films: Orson
Wells, innovative director and actor, Prince Aly Khan, playboy of the Moslem
world, singer Dick Hymes and British film director James Hill (of Born
Free).
As a film actor, her Gilda (1944) and The
Lady from Shanghai (1949) were probably her best. RH was billed as
the Great American Love Goddess. Her picture was attached to the atomic
test bomb that was dropped on Bikini Atoll in 1946 - considered at the
time to be a great compliment.
She was a very fine dancer. Her mother was one of
a long line of English actors. She was a victim of Alzheimer's Disease
and her daughter Jasmine (daughter of Aly Khan) remained steadfastly devoted
to her through all the bad times.
B. 10-17-1922, Nanette Fabray - U.S. actor as a child and adult.
She was a child star in the Our Gang comedies (1927). She succeeded
the incomparable Imogene Coca on the Caesar's Hour (1955) on TV
and did a sensational job. She . won two Emmys.
B. 10-17-1928, Julie Adams - U.S. actor.
B. 10-17-1943, Vilma Martinez - U.S. activist who founded MALDEF.
B. 10-17-1948, Margot Kidder - U.S. actor and feminist activist.
Her best known role is probably as Lois, love interest of Superman. MK
is a victim of polar disorder and her misunderstood attacks sometimes made
her the star of tabloids.
 B.
10-17-1956, Mae C. Jemison - U.S. astronaut, physician, and chemical engineer.
MCJ was the first Afro- American woman in the U.S. space program. MDJ described
herself as a "womanist" and pro-choice in her first press conference.
Believing she took one small step for equality when
she rocketed into orbit aboard the space shuttle Endeavour she accepted
the honor with some guilt feelings.
"I'm very aware of the
fact that I'm not the first woman of color, the first African-American
woman, who had the skills, the talent, the desire to be an astronaut. I
know that I happen to be the first one that NASA selected, right now the
only one," Jemison, said.
A multi-faceted woman, MJ as an MD was an administrator
for the Peace Corps in West Africa In her NASA bio, "She
entered NASA's astronaut program in June 1987, and as a science-missio
specialist on Endeavour she conducted experiments on uses of biofeedback
in countering motion sickness, effects of space on human calcium levels
and effects of weightlessness on the development of other organisms. Since
1993 she has headed her own technology development firm.
"Prior to joining the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration (NASA) in 1987, she worked as a General Practitioner,
in Los Angeles with the INA/Ross Loos Medical Group. She then spent two
and a half years (1983-85) as an Area Peace Corps Medical Officer for Sierra
Leone and Liberia in West Africa. Returning to Los Angeles, she resumed
her medical practice, working with CIGNA Health Plans of California."
Her mother, Dorothy Green, is a teacher and
her sister Ada is a psychiatrist.
Event 10-17-1970, the men narrowly voted no - and being the church
deputies, their vote meant the Protestant Episcopal Church turned down
the ordination of women.
 Event
10-17-1989, Antonia Novello - U.S. Surgeon General and pediatrician.
born in Puerto Rico, is appointed U.S. Surgeon General. She is the first
woman, as well as the first person of Hispanic origin, to hold the position.
After her tenure as Surgeon General (1993-1996), she
served as the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Special Representative
for Health and Nutrition. In particular, she provided leadership toward
the global efforts to eliminate iodine and Vitamin A deficiency disorders,
immunizing the world's children and preventing smoking and substance abuse
in youth. Currently, Dr. Novello is Visiting Professor of Health Policy
and Management at the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public
Health, and Special Director for Community Health Policy.
On June 18, 1999 Dr. Antonio Novello was confirmed
as New York's new Health Commissioner. Dr. Novello is a board-carnified
pediatrician. Website information: http://www.phpab.org/bios/novello.html
 Event
10-17-1993, Rigoberta Menchuacute; Tem, a Quiche Indian from western
Guatemala, is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
She had lived in exile since 1981, after her parents
and a brother died at the hands of Guatemalan security forces. Menchu dedicated
her life to ending 30 years of Guatemalan government repression that killed
more than 100,000 people, most of them unarmed peasants. She started a
human rights foundation with the $1 million prize money.
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QUOTES DU JOUR
FRANZEN, JONATHAN:
"Writers like
Jane Smiley and Amy Tan today seem conscious and confident of an attentive
audience. Whereas all the male novelists I know, including myself, are
clueless as to who could possibly be buying our books."
FIELDING, HELEN:
"Single girls
in their 30s and homosexuals have natural affinities, both being used to
being treated as disappointments to their parents and as freaks by society."
From Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary.
FOX-GENOVESE, ELIZABETH:
"Despite differences,
most feminists seek equal eonomic rights; support reproductive rights,
including right to abortion; criticize traditional definitions of gender
roles; and favor raising children of both genders for similar public achievements
and domestic responsibilities. Many wish to reform language so that it
does not equal man with humanity. Many also campaign vigorously against
violence aginst women (wife battering, rape) and against the denigration
of women in the media."
HELLMAN, LILLIAN:
"Since when
do you have to agree with people to defend them from injustice?"
NIGHTINGALE, FLORENCE:
"The physician
or surgeon gives his orders perhaps once or twice a day -- the nurse has
to carry them out with intelligence every minute of the 24 hours."
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