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December 6

12-06 CONTENTS: In Memoria DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS QUOTES by Anna Sewell and Eve Curie. "A day to remember the 14 young women students who were murdered at L'Ecole Poytechnique in Montreal, 1989 because they were women. "A day to remember and honour all the women who have died by violence. "A day to remember and honour the girls and women who live with violence. "A day to take action to stop violence against girls and women. "December 6 is a day to join together to recognize violence against women and to make a commitment to safety for the girls and women in the community." IN MEMORIA On this day, December 6, 1989, at the University of Montreal's school of engineering, fourteen women were murdered in cold blood by a lone gunman. They were all shot down because they were women, because as the killer said, "You're all fucking feminists. I'm against feminism. That's why I'm here." Please take a moment to remember those young women: Genevieve Bergeron, age 21 Helene Colgan, age 23 Nathalie Croteau, age 23 Barbara Daigneault, age 22 Anne-Marie Edward, age 21 Maud Haviernick, age 29 Barbara Maria Klucznik, age 31 Maryse Laganiere, age 25 Maryse Leclair, age 23 Anne-Marie Lemay, age 27 Sonia Pelletier, age 28 Michele Richard, age 21 Annie St-Arneault, age 23 Annie Turcotte, age 21 As you go about your day, the week, the year, never forget these women, never forget that violence against all women is endemic to the world in which we are living. We must never rest until every woman is safe from the threat and fear of being assaulted, raped, battered, mutilated, or murdered because of her gender. - And yes, every man, but that's another problem since it's men who do the most killing. On this day please remember these women of Montreal, and remember all of the women who have suffered for no other reason than they were born women. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE | | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | In British Columbia - For information on December 6 activities contact your local woman-serving organizations, or call Enquiry BC at 1-800-663-7867 and ask to be connected to the local area office of the Regional Program Coordinator for the Ministry of Women's Equality. The BC Ministry of Women's Equality gave Women of Achievement and Herstory permission to use their marvelous pictorial and elegy to the slain women both at the institute and those who die daily from male violence. See http://www.weq.gov.bc.ca/dec6/poster.html | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE | | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | 12-06 DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS B. 12-06-1731, Sophie von La Roche, German writer was the first woman to write an original novel in German Geschichte des Fraauml; uleins von Sternheim (1771) (History of Lady Sophia Sternheim). B. 12-06-1803, Susanna Strickland Moodie, author, English-born Canadian, wrote realistic accounts of pioneer living Roughing It in the Bush; or Life in Canada (1852). B. 12-06-1804, Wilhelmine Schroder-Devrient, German dramatic soprano. B. 12-06-1875, Evelyn Underhill, English mystical poet and author. B. 12-06-1883, Margaret Morse Nice, ornithologist, published a number of articles about child psychology; published The Birds of Oklahoma (1924) and wrote or co-authored more than 250 articles from 1920-1965. Her major work was Studies in the Life History of the Song Sparrow (1937, 1943), which changed ornithology by showing the need for the study of individual birds to get reliable data. She never held an academic post, following her husband from place to place in his academic career advancements, but she was honored extensively professionally. B. 12-06-1887, Lynn Fontanne, actor, although a great success on the stage alone, much of her career was as part of the husband-wife duo of Fontanne and (Alfred) Lunt, excelling in sophisticated farces such as those written for them by Noel Coward. A critic wrote: "The collaboration of Lunt and Fontanne is what's the finest in American theater for a generation." They were jointly awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964. They were winners of an Emmies in 1965, and a number of Tony's. B. 12-06-1888, Libbie Henrietta Hyman, American zoologist and writer of textbooks and reference volumes on basic zoology, vertebrate zoology and vertebrate anatomy. Researcher at the University of Chicago and the American Museum of National History in New York City. (d.1969) B. 12-06-1904, Eve Curie, biographer of her mother, two-time Nobel prize winner Marie Curie, debuted as a concert pianist 1925, wrote musical criticism under a pseudonym because she didn't want to trade on her family's name, fled to U.S. in 1940 when the Germans conquered France. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE | | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | QUOTES DU JOUR SEWELL, ANNA:       "My doctrine is this, that if we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, and do nothing, we make ourselves sharers in the guilt."             -- Anna Sewell CURIE, EVE:       "My mother was 37 years old when I was born. When I was big enough to know her, she was already an aging woman who had reached the summit of renown. And yet it is the 'celebrated scientist' who is strangest to me - probably because the idea that she was a 'celebrated scientist' did not occupy the mind of Marie Curie. It seems to me rather, that I have always lived near the poor student, haunted by dreams, who was Marie Sklodowska long before I came into the world."             -- Eve Curie in her celebrated biography of her mother. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE | | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE |