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December 8

12-08 TABLE of CONTENTS: Sexual Violence in the Home Mary, Queen of Scots DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS QUOTES by Lily Tomlin and Mary Wollstonecraft. Excerpt from Women, a World Report       "But it is not only wives who are raped. Daughters, too, also fall victim to the sexual violence of the man in the house.       "Research in countries as far apart as Australia, the U.S., Egypt, Israel and India indicate that as many as one in four families is incestuous. And, in the vast majority of cases - between 80 and 90 percent - it is girls being sexually used by their male relatives, usually their fathers.       "In Cairo, for instance, a 1973 study found between 33 and 45 percent of families contained daughters who had been raped, molested, or 'interfered with' by a relative or close family friends.       "Kinsey's study in the U.S. found incest in 24 per cent of families and figures are similar in Australia and the U.K. Two-thirds of Israeli victims were less than ten years old, one in 16 victims in an Indian survey were aged between six months and six years, and a quarter of U.S. victims were aged under five.       "Extending these figures to the rest of the world implies that as many as 100 million young girls may be being raped by adult men - usually their fathers - often day after day, week after week, year in, year out."             -- Women, a World Report. A New Internationalist Book. Part I by Debbie Taylor. P. 65/ London: Oxford Press,1985. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | Mary, Queen of Scots       Born Dec. 8, 1542, Mary Stewart, Queen of Scots. Had she not faced the powerful will of Elizabeth I, she may have succeeded in becoming the Queen of England as well as Scotland, but that fell to her son James along with her head.       MS inherited the throne of Scotland at the age of six days and reigned as queen into 1567. She married the King of France (1559-60) who died. She made some attempts to be named Queen of France after her husband's death but returned to Scotland. She married again and was part of a number of plots and conspiracies against Queen Elizabeth of England in which she sought to depose Elizabeth and claim the crown herself. Finally, after a great deal of procrastination on Elizabeth's part, MS was beheaded for treasonous actions against Elizabeth I - who then made Mary's son James heir to the throne of England.       WOA would humbly suggest reading at least THREE of the most recent books you can find on Mary and Elizabeth before trying to unravel their complex relationship overlaid with political scheming by everyone around the two women. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | 12-08 DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS B. 12-08-1542, Mary Queen of Scots. B. 12-08-1626, Christina or Kristina, Queen of Sweden 1644-1654, gave up crown to become Roman Catholic and moved to Rome where she was patron of the arts and the toast of the city. Known historically as "enigmatic." Some given her birthdate as 12/6. Her close companion, lady-in-waiting was Ebba Sparre. She was noted for her wit and great learning and she refused to marry. B. 12-08-1809, Mary Aloysia Hardey, assistant general of the Society of the Sacred Heart, established convents and schools in the U.S. and Canada. B. 12-08-1861, Mary Kimball Morgan, established The Principia, a St. Louis, Missouri, school which taught Christian Science children. Started as preschool in 1898, grades were added as needed until it included a two-year college course that pioneered the Junior college movement. It expanded to include a four-year college program in 1932 and moved to Elsah, Illinois soon afterwards. B. 12-08-1878, Marie Mattingly Meloney, editor and journalist. Trained by her mother who was also a editor-journalist-educator. She is the woman who was instrumental in raising $100,000 from the women of America for an ounce of radium so Marie Curie could continue her work. Curie was too poor to buy the radium and the French government wasn't interested in helping the Nobel prize winner. Editor of the world renowned Sunday magazine of the New York Herald Tribune, then the first editor of This Week the national Sunday magazine insert. B. 12-08-1903, Zelma Watson George, sociologist and singer. Her mother was a college teacher and her sisters became a chemist, a housing executive, a supervisor of schools, and an actuary. Taught in Chicago, founded the Avalon Community Center in Los Angeles. Her doctorate dissertation was a definitive annotated bibliography of black folk art and music. Member of the U.S. delegation to the United Nations General Assembly, served in an advisory capacity regarding women in the armed service. B. 12-08-1907, Irene, designer who approved all women's gowns for the Metro-Goldwin-Mayer film productions during its glory years in the 1940's. B. 12-08-1916, Dorothy Vredenburgh (Bush), often the only woman's voice heard during the conduct of business at the Democratic National Conventions as she called the roll of states as secretary of the national Democratic party through ten U.S. Presidents and 17 chairs of the party, 1944-1989. B. 12-08-1922, Jean Ritchie, vocalist, one of the great scholars and performers of traditional folk ballads. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE | | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | QUOTES DU JOUR TOMLIN, LILY:       "If truth is beauty, how come no one has their hair done in the library?"             -- Lily Tomlin WOLLSTONECRAFT, MARY:       "Taught from infancy that beauty is woman's scepter, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming around its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison."             -- Mary Wollstonecraft | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE | | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE |