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November 12, 1995 - Episode 471 - Women of Achievement and Herstory

                    compiled by Irene Stuber

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      "It is all well for us to talk about raising the status of women; but so

many of them live in homes so ill-equipped, kitchens so meagerly planned and

furnished, that it is practically impossible for them to find time or energy to

take any sort of part in public or community life .... if we want the women of

the world to take an active part in the affairs of the world and of their

communities, we must do more than give them equal status with men and urge

them on to active public life -- we must make it possible for them to accept

their responsibilities as citizens, to freely, and without anxiety or strain, take

their place with men in order to accomplish, jointly, with the men of the

world, those great tasks that must be fulfilled if thinking and living on this

earth are to transcend to any degree at all the thinking and living it has

known so far!" 

      Words spoken in 1946 by Bodil Begtrup (born Nov. 12, 1903), Danish

delegate to United Nations and chair of the UN Status of Women subcommission

(1946). Under her direction the first international statement for the Human

Rights of Women was adopted in 1946. Instead of merely writing the usual

report in vague terms, the subcommission prepared a 2,000 word, detailed

statement regarding the rights of women world-wide.  The original report was

revised to a few summarizing paragraphs because male delegates on the Human

Rights Commission (nine men and Eleanor Roosevelt) thought rights for women

infringed on the sovereign rights of individual countries. Through the efforts

of ER and Begtrup, the complete report *was* published. "It is no longer a

question of whether women shall participate in the affairs of the world.  It is

rather a question today of how to get their full cooperation in every nation." 

      Among the rights the report demanded for "women as human beings"

was an office on women's affairs and an international women's conference. 

They sought equal rights with men in all nations and in all fields including

civil, education, economics, political and social.  It was so far ranging and

modern that it demanded a compulsory free and a full education: the abolition

of prostitution and the right to divorce. "As the field of discrimination is so

vast our report has to be comprehensive; it's not comprehensive enough." 

Begtrup said of the progress expected on the report, "It will move slowly. See

me in a thousand years."

11-12 Anniversaries ...........................................

      B. Nov. 12, 1651, Juane Ines de La Cruz, Mexican poet-nun who has been

all but hidden away from public knowledge until recently. Commemorated as

the first feminist of Spanish America.  This amazing intellect had to become a

nun to survive, but in the end the church made her sell her 4,000 volume

library and give up her desire for broad knowledge.

      B. Nov. 12, 1751, Margaret Molly Corbin, Revolutionary war hero who was

near her husband at a battle when he was killed (women were on the

battlefields of the war both as participants and as water, food, and munitions

suppliers) and she immediately took over the gun until she was wounded by

enemy fire. Disabled, she was granted a soldier's half-pay pension and was

considered a full member of the military until mustered out in 1783.   

      B. Nov. 12, 1815, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, for 54 years the women's

rights movement's principal leader, organizer, theorist, and writer.  Preserved

the early women's movement herstory in the first three volumes of the

monumental _History of Woman Suffrage (1881-1922)_ written along with Susan

B. Anthony and Joseyln Gage.  With Lucretia Mott in 1848, Cady-Stanton

organized the first women's rights convention in American herstory and was

the principal author of its Declaration of Sentiments, the first organized call

for women's rights in the modern world.

      B. Nov. 12, 1898, Flora Belle Ludington, innovative librarian of Mount

Holyoke College who advanced the cooperative Inter-library system that allows

students and researchers use of the entire library system of the United

States (without which this WOA would not be possible!)

      Event Nov. 12, 1912, Ruth Law earned her pilots license,  She specialized

in death-defying stunts at night that earned her as much as $9,000 a week.

She was, of course, rejected as an army pilot in World War I but was

requested by the Army to wear a NONCOMMISSIONED officer's uniform while

recruiting for the Army.

Quotes du jour ................................................

      "Whether women are better than men, I cannot say -- but I can say

they are certainly no worse."

            --Golda Meir

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