04-09-1995 Women of Achievement and Herstory
      ... one woman's slavery diminishes every woman.

      In Kenyan, Africa, as male-dominated as any nation, an open
election gained six women seats in the Parliament and scores of seats
on town and county councils in December, 1992. It was the first open
election since 1960.
      Women candidates demanded an end to frequent shortages of
sugar, flour, and other essential commodities.  They criticized the high
cost of their children's textbooks, heavy work loads for primary school
students and frequent, unannounced increases in school fees.
      Maria Nzomo, a professor at the University of Nairobi's Institute
of Diplomacy and International Studies said women should help make the
laws because men have treated their concerns "in isolation from the
broader national development programs."
      Women are expected to be servient in Kenya, and beating a wife
is widely considered no worse than spanking a child. 
      Nzomo issued a report about hardships inflicted on women
candidates.  They included lack of support from male-dominated political
parties, derogatory language by male competitors and, in one district,
the rape of supporters of a woman running for Parliament. She won. 
      In 1968 there were only 1,770 students at the University of
Nairobi and no Kenyan women were listed. "At the time an African
woman with a university degree was a novelty," said one politician.  In
1991, one-fourth of the 20,837 first-year admissions were women.
      The women in Parliament realize they will have little impact
immediately because of their small numbers, but are not deterred.
      "We have made it this far and we are not just going to sit
around," said Martha Njoka, a lawyer and human rights activist who
won in a landslide. That's what's happening."
      -- Excerpted from Associated Press articles. 

04-09 Anniversaries ...............................................

      B. 04-09-1824, Anna Holstein who wrote a book anonymously about
her battlefield nursing of troops for three years during the Civil War
including Antietam.

      B. 04-09-1860, Emily Hobhouse, who braved war and the military
to minister to Boer women and children in English concentration camps. 
Called the Angel of Love.

      B. 04-09-1893, Mary Pickford, known as "American's Sweetheart",
first film star to have her name posted in marquee lights, the biggest
star of the silent film era, later became one of the first woman to
produce films and proved to be an astute businesswoman.   Her mother,
Charlotte Smith, widowed and left penniless when Mary was 4, took in
sewing and played small parts in stock companies to raise three
children.  

      Event 04-09-1939, Marian Anderson sings before 75,000 people
from the Lincoln Memorial after having been refused the right to sing
in the Constitution Hall of the Daughter's of the American Revolution
(DAR).  First lady Eleanor Roosevelt resigned the DAR and suggested
the Lincoln Memorial site to protest racial bigotry. Relatively recently
the DAR has tried to change HERstory by claiming they did not *refuse*
Anderson, the hall was all ready rented (for another day?)

Quote du jour ...............................................

      "Life should grant a general amnesty for anything you did before
age thirty."
             -- Janet Lapierre in Children's Games. 


(C) 1995 Irene Stuber, PO Box 6185, Hot Springs National Park, AR
71902, irenestuber@delphi.com. Distribute verbatim copies freely with
copyright notice for non-profit use. Don't let anyone tell you there
weren't notable and effective women throughout history.  They were
always there, but historians failed to note them in our histories so that
each generation of women has had to reinvent themselves.