03-02 TABLE of CONTENTS: Historically, Women were/are Pressured to Breastfeed Boy Babies Longer than Girls Lessons for Women - A Confucian Instruction Manual On Feminine Behavior And Virtue Who Was The Author of "Lessons For A Woman?" DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS QUOTES by Carmen Mary Lawrence, Marlo Thomas, Dear Abby, Rosalyn Yalow, Michele Landsberg, and the Arkansas Times. Historically, Women Were/ARE Pressured to Breastfeed Male Babies Longer Than Female Breastfeeding longer periods - up to 2.4 years - contributed to the increased lifespan of male children over females who were seldom breastfed more than nine months. The shorter breastfeeding period for girls also freed the woman to breed again, hopefully producing a boy.       liz@gate.net prepared this list of URLs to describe research showing conclusively that women are/were pressured into breast feeding their boy babies longer than girl babies. In fact, several governmental bodies - including Prussia - passed laws giving the power over duration and recipient of breastfeeding to the husband. http://www.agi-usa.org/pubs/journals/2407298.html China - daughters are breastfed for significantly shorter periods of time. Worldbank study. http://www.worldbank.org/html/extdr/hnp/hddflash/hcwp/ hrwp008.html Saudi Arabia - mothers stop breastfeeding girls sooner in order to get pregnant again with boys. http://www.kfshrc.edu.sa/annals/181/97-091.html India - girls are breastfed for significantly shorter periods of time. http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/Organizations/healthnet/ SAsia/suchana/0225/george.html Cultures with breastfeeding duration of 2.5 years versus less than one year are less violent - this writer posits breastfeeding as important for development of ability to love and have compassion. http://www.psc.uc.edu/hs/HS_Prescott3.htm In historical England, girl babies farmed out to wetnurses actually had lower mortality rates than boys who were kept but actually weaned earlier to permit the elite class mothers to become pregnant more often - even though in all other respects they should have had advantage because of the class advantages and better nutrition. http://128.220.50.88/journals/journal_of_interdisciplinary _history/v030/30.1scott.html#REF26 | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | Lessons for Women - A Confucian Instruction Manual On Feminine Behavior And Virtue Realizing that Confucian texts contained little in the way of specific and practical guidelines for a woman's everyday life, the remarkable woman scholar Ban Zhao sought to fill that void with a coherent set of rules for women, especially young women.       Confucian doctrine in ancient China did not accord women a status equal to that of men, because women were generally regarded as unworthy or incapable of a literary education. [See post notes on this introduction by Andreas].       In fact, the Confucian classics say little about women, which shows how little they rnattred in the scheme of Confucian values.       Most Confucians accepted the subservience of women to men as natural and proper. In their view, failure to maintain a proper relationship between two such obviously unequal people as a husband and wife or brother and sister would result in social disharmony and a breakdown of all the rules of propriety.       Yet this was only part of the traditional Chinese view of women. Both Confucian doctrine and Chinese society at large accorded women, as noth mothers and mothers-in-law, a good deal of honor, and with that honor came power within the family structure.       In every age, moreover, a handful of extraordinary women managed to acquire literary educations or otherwise achieve positions of far-ranging influence and authority despite social constraints.       Realizing that Confucian texts contained little in the way of specific and practical guidelines for a woman's everyday hfe, Ban Zhao sought to fill that void with a coherent set of rules for women, especially young women: But I do grieve that you still have not learned the proper customs for married women. I, the unworthy writer, am unsophisticated, unenlightened, and by nature unintelligent, but I am fortunate both to have received not a little favor from my scholarly Father, and to have had a cultured mother and instructresses upon whom to rely for a literary education as well as for training in good manners.       More than forty years have passed since at the age of fourteen I took up the dustpan and the broom in the Cao family (the family into which she married).       During this time with trembling heart I feared constantly that I might disgrace my parents, and that I might multiply difficulties for both the women and the men of my husband's family. Day and night I was distressed in heart, but I labored without confessing weariness. Now and hereafter, however, I know how to escape from such fears.       Being careless, and by nature stupid, I taught and trained my children without system. Consequently I fear that my son Gu may bring disgrace upon the Imperial Dynasty by whose Holy Grace he has unprecedentedly received the extraordinary privilege of wearing the Gold and the Purple, a privilege for the attainment of which by my son, I a humble subject never even hoped. Nevertheless, now that he is a man and able to plan his own life, I need not again have concern for him. But I do grieve that you, my daughters, just now at the age for marriage, have not at this time had gradual training and advice; that you still have not learned the proper customs for married women.       I fear that by failure in good manners in other families you will humiliate both your ancestors and your clan. I am now seriously ill, life is uncertain. As I have thought of you all in so untrained a state, I have been uneasy many a time for you. At hours of leisure I have composed... these instructions under the title, "Lessons for Women." In order that you may have something wherewith to benefit your persons, I wish every one of you, my daughters each to write out a copy for yourself.       From this time on every one of you strive to practice these lessons. HUMILITY On the third day after the birth of a girl the ancients observed three customs: first to place the baby below the bed; second to give her a potsherd [a piece of broken pottery] with which to play; and third to announce her birth to her ancestors by an offering.       Now to lay the baby below the bed plainly indicated that she is lowly and weak, and should regard it as her primary duty to humble herself before others.       To give her potsherds with which to play indubitably signified that she should practice labor and consider it her primary duty to be industrious.       To announce her birth before her ancestors clearly meant that she ought to esteem as her primary duty the continuation of the observance of worship in the home.       These three ancient customs epitomize woman's ordinary way of life and the teachings of the traditional ceremonial rites and regulatons. Let a woman modestly yield to others; 1et her respect others; let her put others first, herself last.       Should she do something good, let her not mention it; should she do something bad let her not deny it. Let her bear disgrace; let her even endure when others speak or do evil to her. Always let her seem to tremble and to fear. When a woman follows such maxims as these then she may be said to humble herself before others.       Let a woman retire late to bed, but rise early to duties; let her nor dread tasks by day or by night. Let her not refuse to perform domestic duties whether easy or difficult. That which must be done, let her finish completely, tidily, and systematically, When a woman follows such rules as these, then she may be said to be industrious.       Let a woman be correct in manner and upright in character in order to serve her husband. Let her live in purity and quietness of spirit, and attend to her own affairs. Let her love not gossip and silly laughter.       Let her cleanse and purify and arrange in order the wine and the food for the offerings to the ancestors. When a woman observes such principles as these, then she may be said to continue ancestral worship.       No woman who observes these three fundamentals of life has ever had a bad reputation or has fallen into disgrace. If a woman fail to observe them, how can her name be honored; how can she but bring disgrace upon herself? HUSBAND AND WIFE The Way of husband and wife is intimately connected with Yin and Yang (these are the two basis elements of the Universe: Yin, the soft yielding feminine element, and Yang the hard aggressive male element).       Every substance contains both elements in varying proportions]. and relates the individual to gods and ancestors. Truly it is the great principle of Heaven and Earth, and the great basis of human relationships.       Therefore the "Rites" (The Classic of Rites) honor union of man and woman; and in the "Book of Poetry" (The Classic of Odes) the "First Ode" manifesrs the principle of marriage.       For these reasons rhe relationships cannot but be an important one.       If a husband be unworthy, then he possesses nothing by which tvo control his wife. If a wife be unworthy, then she possesses nothing with which to serve her husband.       If a husband does not control his wife, then the rules of conduct manifesting his authority are abandoned and broken. If a wife does not serve her husband, when the proper relationship between men and women and the natural order of things are neglected and destroyed.       As a matter of fact the purpose of these two (the controlling of women by men, and the serving of men by women) is the same.       Now examine the gentlemen of the present age. They only know thar wives must be controlled, and that the husband's rules of conduct manifesting his authority must be established.       They therefore teach their boys to read books and study histories. But they do not in the least understand that husbands and masters must also be served, and that the proper relationship and the rites should be maintained.       Yet only to teach men and not to teach women - is that not ignoring the essential relation between them?       According to the "Rites," it is the rule to begin to teach children to read at the age of eight years, and by the age of fifteen years they ought then to be ready for cultural training. Only why should it not be that girls' education as well as boys' be according to this principle? RESPECT AND CAUTION As Yin and Yang are not of the same nature, so man and woman have different characteristics. The distintive quality of the Yang is rigidity; the function of the Yin is yielding.       Man is honored for strength; a woman is beautiful on account of her gentleness. Hence there arose the common saying: "A man though born like a wolf may, it is feared, become a weak monstrosity; a woman though born like a mouse may, it is feared, become a tiger."       Now for self-culture nothing equals respect for others. To counteract firmness nothing equals compliance.       Consequently it can be said that the way of respect and acquiescence is woman's most important principle of conduct. So respect may be defined as nothing other than holding on to that which is permanent; and acquiescence nothing other than being liberal and generous.       Those who are steadfast in devotion know that they should stay in their proper places; those who are liberal and generous esteem others, and honor and serve them.       If husband and wife have the habit of staying together, never leaving one another, and following each other around within the limited space of their own rooms, then they will lust after and take liberties with one another. From such action improper language will arise between the two.       This kind of discussion may lead to licentiousness. But of licentiousness will be born a heart of disrespect to the husband. Such a result comes from not knowing that one should stay in one's proper place.       Furthermore, affairs may be either crooked or straight; words may be either right or wrong. Straightforwardness cannot but lead to quarreling; crookedness cannot but lead to accusarion. If there are really accusations and quarrels, then undoubtedly there will be angry affairs. Such a result comes from not esteeming others, and not honoring and serving them.       If wives suppress not contempt for husbands, then it follows that such wives rebuke and scold their husbands. If husbands stop not short of anger, then they are certain to beat their wives. The correct relationship between husband and wife is based upon harmony and intimacy, and conjugal love is grounded in proper union.       Should actual blows be dealt, how could matrimonial relationship be preserved? Should sharp words be spoken, how could conjugal love exist? If love and proper relationship both be destroyed, then husband and wife are divided. WOMANLY QUALIFICATIONS A woman ought to have four qualifications: (1) womanly virtue; (2) womanly words; (3) womanly bearing; and (4) womanly work.       Now what is called womanly virtue need not be brilliant ability, exceptionally different from others. Womanly words need be neither clever in debate nor keen in conversation. Womanly appearance requires neither a pretty nor a perfect face and form. Womanly work need not be work done more skillfully than that of others.       To guard carefully her chastity; to control circumspectly her behavior; in every motion to exhibit modesty; and to model each act on the best usage, this is womanly virtue.       To choose her words with care; to avoid vulgar language; to speak at appropriate times; and nor to weary others with much conversation, may be called the characteristics of womanly words.       To wash and scrub filth away; to keep clothes and ornaments fresh and clean; to wash the head and bathe the body regularly, and to keep the person free from disgraceful filth, may be called the characteristics of womanly bearing.       With whole-hearted devotion to sew and to weave; to love not gossip and silly laughcer; in cleanliness and order to prepare the wine and food for serving guests, may be called the characteristics of womanly work.       These four qualifications characterize the greatest virtue of a woman. No woman can afford to be without them. In fact they are very easy to possess if a woman only treasure them in her heart.       The ancients had a saying: "Is love afar off? If I desire love, then love is at hand!" So can it be said of these qualifications. IMPLIClT OBEDIENCE Whenever the mother-in-law says, "Do not do that," and if what she says is right, unquestionably the daughter-in-law obeys.       Whenever the mother-in-law says, "Do that," even if what she says is wrong, still the daughter-in-law submits unfailingly to the command. Let a woman not act contrary to the wishes and the opinions of parents-in-law about right and wrong; let her not dispute with the them what is straight and what is crooked.       Such docility may called obedience which sacrifices personal opinion. Therefore the ancient book, "A Pattern for Women," says: "If a daughter-in-law who follows the wishes of her parents-in-law is like an echo and shadow, how could she not be praised?"             -- Excerpted from The Views of a Female Confucian from Nancy Lee Swann, trans, Pan Chao: Foremost Woman Scholar of China, (New York: Century Co., 1932), pp. 82-90 repr. in Alfred J. Andrea and James H. Overfield, The Human Record: Sources of Global History, Vol 1, 2d. ed., (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994), pp. 148-53. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | Who Was The Author of Lessons For A Woman? The foremost female Confucian of the age of Han was Ban Zhao (ca 45-116 CE), younger sister of the court historian Ban Gu (32 - 92 CE). Upon Gu's death, Zhao served as imperial historian under Emperor Han Hedi (r. 88-105 CE) and completed her brother's Ch'ien Han shu, a history of the first 200 years of Han dynasty China which is generally regarded as second only to the historical work of Sima Qian.       Ban Zhao also served as an adviser on state matters to the Empress Deng, who assumed power as regent for her infant son in 106 CE.       Madame Ban was the daughter of the widely respected writer and adminstrator Ban Biao (3-54 CE) and received her elementary education from her literate mother while still a child in her father's house. Otherwise, her early life appears to have been quite conventional. She married at the age of 14, thereby becoming the lowest-ranking member of her husband's family, and bore children. Although her husband died young, Ban Zhao never remarried, devoting herself instead to literary pursuits and acquiring a reputation for scholarship and compositional grace that eventually brought her to the imperial.       Among her many literary works, Ban Zhao composed a commentary on the popular Lives of Admirable Women by Liu Kiang (77-6 BC) and later in life produced her most famous work, the Nü Jie, or Lessons for Women, which purports to be an instructional manual on feminine behavior and and virtue for her daughters. In fact, she intended it for a much wider audience.       When she was about 60, "The emperor Ho commanded BanZhao to come to the Tuan Kuan Library in order to continue and complete the Ch'ien Han . Because the Ch'ien Han shu is an important work to historians of China, the question of how much Zhao contributed to it (substantial writing? mere proofreading?) has been debated - sometimes hotly - for 1900 years."       Besides working on the Ch'ien Han shu, Zhao also became a teacher to thewomen of the court, particularly a young girl, Deng, who had come tocourt in 96. We don't know the year of Zhao's death but we know that it was before 120, for the Empress, who died in that year, had gone into mourning for her (rare treatment for a commoner). | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | 03-02 DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS B. 03-02-1863, Mabel Ward Cameron - U.S. author and editor. MWC's best known work was the ground-breaking Biographical Cyclopaedia of American Women, 1924. Her mother Delia was a recognized authority in geneology. B. 03-02-1803, Mary Frances Clarke - Irish-born U.S. religious leader and educator. MFC was a founder of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary that extended educational opportunities on the American frontier. DIED 03-02-1824, Susanna Rowson (Haswell) - British-born U.S. author and actor. Her novel Charlotte Temple (1791) was the first best seller in America. It is still in print having gone through more than 200 editions in 200 years. The latest printing was in 1987. Almost a dozen new printings are listed in Books in Print with a reproduction copy of the original available, ISBN 0-403-01983-4. RW was born in 1762, day unknown. Critics still dismiss Charlotte Temple as a "conventional woman's tale." B. 03-02-1831, Metta Victoria Fuller Victor - U.S. writer of popular fiction. MVF is remembered as the author of many impassioned works on social ills and of a number of "dime novels," including one of the country's first detective novels.       She edited several magazines and contributed novels to her husband's new enterprise, the "dime novel."       Although many of her works were published anonumously, a number of novels were printed under her name and were highly received. She was a very highly paid writer. B. 03-02-1861, Lucy Whitehead McGill Waterbury Peabody - U.S. religious leader and missionary. She was an influential force in a number of Baptist foreign mission societiesfrom the 1880s well into the 20th century.       Following a stint as a missionary in India until her husband died, LWP raised $2 million to build seven women's colleges in the Orient. She wrote and edited a number of religious magazines. Her day of prayer for missionaries became the World Day of Prayer. B. 03-02-1873, Inez Leonore Haynes Gillmore Irwin - U.S. suffragist and feminist writer. She was co-founder with Maud Wood Park of the College Equal Suffrage League.       ILHGI was fiction editor of The Masses, and became a member of the Heterodoxy, and later Query, both women's organizations whose members including most of the prominent artists, suffragists, and professional women of the era. She was a reporter during World War I in France, Her mother was a "mill girl" from the Lowell, Massachusetts factories. B. 03-02-1911, Olivia Manning - British journalist and novelist. OM is particularly noted noted for her clearly defined characters set against modern historical events. Some describe her novels as "ambitious attempt to portray the panorama of modern history in a fictional framework."       Her most admired novels were part of the Balkan Trilogy (The Great Fortune, 1960; The Spoilt City, 1962; Friends and Heroes, 1965) which chronicles a British couple's relationship "against a background of the shifting balance of power in Europe" while they lived in Bucharest. B. 03-02-1919, Jennifer Jones - U.S. actor. JJ won the Academy Award for her portrayal in The Song of Bernadette (1943), her first professional acting role.       She was nominated for the AA four more times. Her parents were all things in a tent show that toured the Middle West and they financed her education in the well-to-do American Academy of Dramatic Arts (1938). B. 03-02-1929, Nargaret Ruth Bolton - Australian surgeon. NRB headed the South Australian surgical team to Vietnam in 1967 and 1970. She served with the Repatriation General Hospital South Australia (1956-). Event 03-02-1933: The motion picture King Kong starring Fay Wray, had its world premiere in New York . It would go on to be the staple of late night TV and one of the most recognized film of all time. Event 03-02-1942: The U.S. Department of War strongly recommended Ford Motor Company hire up to 15,000 women workers at its Willow Run factory outside Detroit that had, at the time, only 28 female employees. It was seen as a means to aid the war economy rather than as a women's rights measure. B. 03-02-1943, Rosa L. DeLauro - U.S. Congressional Representative from Connecticut.       Her official biography reads: attended the London School of Economics; M.A., Columbia University, 1966; executive assistant to mayor of New Haven, 1976-1977; executive assistant to New Haven Development Administrator, 1977-1979; Administrative Assistant and Chief of Staff for United States Senator Christopher J. Dodd, 1981-1987; Executive Director, Countdown '87, 1987-1988; Executive Director, EMILY'S List, 1989-1990; elected as a Democrat to the One Hundred Second and to the three succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1991-present). B. 03-02-1923, Jean Metcalfe - British TV personality. JM was one of the medium's most popular personalities, especially after she hosted Woman's Hour.       In her obituary , the Telegraph wrote, "To her many fans, she was 'the girl with the laugh in her voice'; to a few others, she was 'that bloody woman who never stops giggling.' On Two-Way Family Favourites, Jean Metcalfe came to command a weekly audience of12 million." She had been an announcer for overseas work during World War II that led to her announcing job and the Family Favourites show.       In 1950, however, her career took a different turn as she began Woman's Hour, a series of interviews of personalities that led her to covering the Queen from the queen's chambers as well as other notable interviews.       Her obiturary continued, "In 1971 Jean Metcalfe introduced a Radio 4 series entitled If You Think You've Got Problems, in which a panel of experts - psychiatrists, even - dissected listeners' problems. The programme ran for seven years. 'Before long I was using words like 'orgasm' withscarcely a blush,' Jean Metcalfe discovered, somewhat to her surprise."       JM was also a talented watercolor artist. B. 03-02-1944, Elaine R. Jones - Afro-American civil rights advocate, director-counsel, attorney NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. B. 03-02-1948, Carmen Mary Lawrence - Australian political figure. CML became a member of the Australian Cabinet only two weeks after she was elected to the federal parliament (1994). Considered the golden girl who would become the first woman prime minister of Australia she rapidly attacked in an sex-based, vicious witch-hunt that tarnished her reputation. She was charged with three counts of perjury in 1997 that some saw as nit-picking by the "male-only" school of politics.       It was charged that Lawrence as the Labor party premier (governor) of Western Australia had used undo influence. She was reelected in 1996 to Parliament but in April of 1997, CML had been charged with three counts of perjury in a case involving her official actions in a rancorous divorce in which the wife committed suicide (Event 03-25-1994). The divorce and subsequent charges against Lawrence involved conservative party officials who had haunted Lawrence throughout her career.       In a newspaper article, Lawrence blasted the media and the political establishments for the way they respond to women who come into politics with a great promise, as she did. She said the media tended to portray women in politics as either Madonnas or whores - "flawless successes or dismal duds."       "The consequence of the black or white image of women politicians is that if you're initially anointed with the saintly stereotype that I was, only one course of action can follow - the halo will eventually become tarnished," Lawrence said. Her comments triggered a debate in the media on whether Lawrence's problem is the fact that she's a woman or if it is the nature of the style of Australian politics. Australian Democrats leader Cheryl Kernot agrees that women are labelled as saints or superwomen because there were still very few women who were able to get into federal parliament and to do that you have to be very competent. But, she said that women could be perceived rightly or wrongly to have made public mistakes or misused the system.       "That comes with the job," she observed.       According to Marian Simms, reader of political science at the Australian National University in Canberra, women's issues have traditionally been marginalized by the Australian political system and usually treated as "private issues." B. 03-02-1950, Karen Carpenter - U.S. pop singer. KC teamed with her pianist brother as the Carpenters who became a highly successful pop duo during the 1970s. KC died in 1983 from anorexia nervosa. The Carpenters had 19 hits including "Close to You," and "We've Only Just Begun." Her battle with the disease that led to her death has been the subject of several TV movies and documentaries. Event 03-02-1959: Colonel Margaret M. Henderson is named the fourth Director of Women Marines succeeding Colonel Hamblet. A member of the Marine Corps Women's Reserve during WWII, MMH was discharged when the war was over. She taught at a Texas College and then was requested to rejoin as one of the first 20 *regular* woman Marine officers in 1948. Event 03-02-1973: Women began pilot /training for the U.S. Navy. First women received their wings February 18, 1975. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | QUOTES DU JOUR LAWRENCE, MARY CARMEN:       "If you're initially anointed with the saintly stereotype that I was, only one course of action can follow - the halo will eventually become tarnished."             --Carmen Mary Lawrence, once the golden girl (and only woman) in the Australian cabinet THOMAS, MARLO:       "One of the things about equality is not just that you be treated equally to a man, but that you treat yourself equally to the way that you treat a man."             -- Marlo Thomas VAN BUREN, ABIGAIL:       "The turning point [in my life] came when a friend told me how much she regretted putting off divorce until her children were grown; her daughter assumed that a verbally abusive relationship was normal and she married into one.       "Set a good example for your children, that of a woman who loves herself enough to refuse to tolerate an abusive mate."             -- from a Dear Abby column of 1996. YALOW, ROSALYN:       "We still live in a world in which a significant fraction of people, including women, believe that a woman belongs - and wants to belong - exclusively in the home . . . . The world cannot afford the loss of the talents of half its people if we are to solve the many problems which beset us."             -- Rosalyn Yalow, second woman to win the Nobel Prize for medicine. LANDSBERG, MICHELE:       "What makes a woman?       "If a man cuts off his penis, pumps himself full of hormones, gets silicone breasts and electrolysis, and stuffs his feet into high heels, is he/she a woman?       "To me, that surgically and chemically altered person is a walking testament to the craziness of our cultural rigidity. If all children weren't crammed into pink or blue categories, with prescribed sets of feelings, beliefs and behaviours, maybe the gender-ambiguous wouldn't be driven to such painfully harsh medical extremes.       "Would that everyone could live freely, in freely chosen sexual modes, without mutilations and lifelong chemicals.       "Being female is a complicated mixture of physiology, cultural conditioning and lived experience - or even, as one academic thesis would have it, 'a political category created through oppression.'       "Out of politeness, I'd be willing to call that surgically altered person a woman and use the feminine pronoun.       "But a part of me will always feel outraged that 'woman' could be defined as an outward set of physical characteristics - lack of penis, fake breasts - along with an ultra-sexist 'female impersonator' style of clothing and gesture.       "For me (but not for all women), some of the defining moments of femaleness were the restrictions imposed on me as a child; the shame of enduring male molestation; the omnipresent threat of male sexual attack that dogged us from the age of 8 or 9; the happy daydreams of 'what shall I name my children;' the nervous pleasure of being seen as pretty; the rage that prettiness was all that counted; the sting of injustice and exclusion from endless male entitlements and privileges; the mingled embarrassment and triumph of first menstruation; the thrill of sexual power in adolescence and young womanhood; the struggle to come to terms with sexual assault; and the transformative gifts of pregnancy, childbirth and nurturance."             -- Michele Landsberg, Toronto Star News columnist, 12-23-2000 Arkansas Times editorial:       "Not every anti-abortionist is anti-child, of course. Some are not even anti-woman.       "But anyone who follows the U.S. Congress or the Arkansas legislature has noted that the politicians who are most opposed to abortion are generally the same ones who are least concerned with the welfare of children and women. And vice versa the 'pro-choice' people are usually the strongest advocates for children and women.       "Jean Ruth Schroedel, an associate professor of political science at Claremont Graduate University In California, has documented the correlation. By measuring education levels, the number of women in poverty, the ratio of female earnings to male earnings, and other indicators, Schroedel found that women fare the worst in the states with the toughest anti-abortion laws.       "Likewise, Schroedel concluded that the anti-abortion states are 'far less likely than pro-choice states to provide support for the poorest and most needy children.' That is, the anti-abortion states spend less per child on education, health care, foster care, adoption of special-needs children, and other services than do the "pro-choice" states.       "It is not just an American phenomenon. The countries that don t restrict abortion include those with the most extensive social programs for children. One of these is Cuba. The only country in Latin America that gives women free choice is also the country that has universal free healthcare and education, and the lowest Infant mortality rates In the region. In 'pro-life' Latin America, church and state own women s bodies, and poor children live like dogs, if they live at all.       " 'Spare the fetus and smite the child': It would not be an inappropriate slogan for an anti-abortion marcher."             -- "Pro and anti," a 2000 Arkansas Times editorial. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE |