The Liz Library presents Irene Stuber's Women of Achievement


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October 4
WOMEN OF ACHIEVEMENT AND HERSTORY

Compiled and Written by Irene Stuber
who is solely responsible for its content.

10-04 TABLE of CONTENTS:

Unmarried Mothers Punished

The Quaint Tradition of the Ducking Stool

Things are Really Changing

October is Banned Book Month

Beloved was Not

Violins Not Approved for Women

DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS

QUOTES by Dalma Heyn, Carol Gilligan, and Diane Feinstein.

09-19-1999


Unmarried Mothers Punished

      "Throughout the American colonies women who bore children outside of marriage could be taken into court and sentenced to public whipping, branding, or fines.
      I"f a woman could not support her child, the court might demand that she reveal the father's name to force him to support his offspring.
      "If she refused, there would be further punishment. If the woman did not know who the father was, or if she refused to say, the child was often taken from her and apprenticed to a tradesperson until the age of 21... In strongly religious communities there was an attempt to treat male and female adulterers alike. Both were forced to go to church and confess.
      "In New England confession was the only punishment demanded from those of high rank, while those of less social distinction often were branded, whipped, or dunked in the river."
            -- Excerpt from A History of Women in America, by Carol Hymowitz and Michaele Weissman, Bantam Books, 1978. [Emphasis added by WOAH. Sexual harassment, rape, and incest did exist in those days and in those places just as it does today, only the women involved had NO rights; her word was useless against most men, in fact, some jurisdictions codified the number of women's testimony that was needed to offset the testimony of one man. And if the man were powerful, few women dared testify against him because they would not be believed. ]

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The Quaint Tradition of the Ducking Stool

      Mentioned above is "dunking" that refers to the Ducking Stool, a quaint mechanism made SPECIFICALLY for the punishment of rebellious women, women prostitutes (never their male clients), and "witches."
      It was used by local governments (c. 1600-1830) in England and America's New England as an instrument to tame women who stepped outside their appointed subservient rolls. It was considered more humane and used most often as a lesser form of punishment - and therefor used more commonly - than other forms of punishment such as whipping and jailing. Physical beatings often incapacitated a woman so she could not cook and care for her husband/family. Therefor the ducking stool was considered more feminine and family friendly.
      The Ducking Stool consisted of a chair mounted on the end of a long, levered beam or pole that enabled the operator to drop the woman who was strapped to the chair to be immersed. The punishments were carried out winter or summer.
      Ducking mechanisms were often permanently installed along rivers or ponds and some had a portable stool mounted on wheels so the women could first be paraded through the streets of the town where they were jeered, had rocks and rotten food thrown at them, or were humiliated in various other ways.
      Sometimes the stools were arranged so the offender was tipped backwards into the water where she spent more time nearly drowning than when she was merely being dipped straight down when her head was the last and first in and out of the water.
      The woman was strapped into the chair so she could not fall out or escape and she was immersed a specific number of times prescribed by the sentencing magistrate (always a man) and a jury (always men).
      Ducking was a favorite punishment for shrewish or scolding women. Often the punished were women who objected to being mistreated instead of "being content with their lot."
      Modern research has shown that many women condemned as witches were holders of properties that influential men coveted or were past child bearing age and seen as no use to the community.

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Things are Really Changing

      "...In 1970, Dr Edgar Berman, who was an appointee to the Democrat Party's Committee on National Priorities, raised a storm of protest when he attacked the statement of Patsy Mink, Hawaii's Congressional Representative, that she 'wouldn't see anything wrong with a woman president.'
      "Dr. Berman raised the specter of women's alleged instability. 'Suppose,' he speculated, 'that we had a menopausal woman president who had to make the decision of the Bay of Pigs...'
      "Betty Friedan, Shirley Chisholm, and even Dr. Berman's wife (who were in the audience) rose up in protest. "Patsy Mink requested Dr. Berman's ouster from the committee. His response was to attack this as a typical example of an ordinarily controlled woman 'under the raging hormonal imbalance of the periodical lunar cycle.' "
            -- The Menopause Book, edited by Louisa Rose, Hawthorn, 1977 [NOTE: Dr. Berman resigned from the committee, but herstory does not record whether the Mrs. Dr-Berman resigned from him.]

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October is Banned Book Month

        October is Banned Book Month - visit your local library to view exhibits of the many books that have been judged inappropriate for you to read by those who have read them and know what's best for you.
      But those who wish to control your mind usually fail to get the books they oppose censored so many authorities think they are going at it a different way - simply stealing the books. (It's not a sin if it's done for a good cause.)
      Many libraries are reporting an abnormal stealing rate for the following books:
      Heather has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman; Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite, The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, most of Judy Blume books, Beloved by Toni Morrison, The Bridge to Terabithia by Katharine Paterson, Revolting Rhymes and The Witches by Roald Dahl, Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck and The Catcher in the Rye by Pierre Salinger.
      Libraries have a hard time keeping books on vampires and witchcraft as well as books favorable to women's self-esteem on their shelves. They are stolen more than any other kind of books.
      Many books on minority religions in an area also disappear.
      Check your local library's shelves... are you being censored without your knowledge? Ask your librarian what you can do to help stop this unlawful attempt to control your mind.
      We've noticed many modern books are being defaced by the blacking out of words, phrases, even paragraphs that a previous reader didn't think anyone else should see.
      There is also a growing censorship movement that those connecting to Internet should be aware.
      Some Internet providers are censoring the material that their customers can receive. Often the customers are too unsophisticated in the ways of Internet to realize it. The subscriber may even ask for the censorship package thinking it only hides pornography. In reality, the censorship programs generally blackout many sites about feminism, and topics vital to women's welfare such as health, anti-rape defenses, harassment, etc.
      One major on-line company began to censor its subscribers by blacking out references to breast, etc. Their boards on breast cancer disappeared as did the cooking boards that featured chicken in its recipies. They quickly rescinded the censorship but since then highly sophisticated programs have been developed that are less obvious.

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Beloved was Not

      This is a lesson on how and why books are banned.
      In 1995 the Anaheim Union High School District banned Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Beloved from the district's curriculum after a community member complained the story was too graphic for high school students.
      Board trustee Katherine Smith said,
"I think that there are so many other wonderful creative works of literature out there we could use.
      "We need literature that is uplifting and positive, and I don't think this book is.''
      Beloved is about a woman who kills her own daughter to keep her from becoming a slave.

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Violins Not Approved for Women

        According to Christine Ammer in her excellent Unsung, A History of Women in American Music, the accepted musical instruments for women before the late 19th century were those that could be played demurely such as the piano and harp. Not the organ because the pedals required an "ungainly posture.
     
"Playing the violin or flute was considered unsuitable as late as 1874, but by 1901, George Lehmann said, 'Only a little more than a quarter of a century earlier...the mere thought of a refined young gentlewoman playing the violin, either in private or in public, was indeed intolerable.' "
      The harp, on the other hand, has always been considered a woman's instrument. Mrs. Blessner in November of 1846 received praise for her performance on a harp to a large public gathering while women on other instruments were banned. Ammer points out that orchestras that are reluctant to admit women players of other instruments usually have a woman harpist. In 1977, women outnumbered men in the American Harp Society about five to one.
            -- Ammer, Christine. Unsung, a History of Women in American Music. Greenwood Press, 1980

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10-04 DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS

B. 10-04-1810, Eliza McCardle Johnson - U.S. wife. EMJ taught her husband, Andrew Johnson how to read when he was already an adult. He went on to become the 17th president of the U.S. Historically, she is not given any credit for his rise to political prominence

B. 10-04-1837, Mary Elizabeth Braddon - British novelist. MEB's Lady Audley's Secret (1862) was wildly successful. She followed with almost 70 other novels and stories that hinted at scandal but always stayed within society's boundaries for proper behavior by a woman.

B. 10-04-1841?, Agnes Booth - U.S. actor.

Event 10-04-1859: In a statewide vote of the men of Kansas, the Wyandotte Constitution under which Kansas was admitted to the Union as a free state January 29, 1861 was adopted by a 2 to 1 margin. It denied suffrage to women but did agree to allow them property rights. It also rejected slavery.

B. 10-04-1864, Eliza Kellas - U.S. educator. As principal of the Emma Willard School, she restored it to its former high scholastic standards. She also served as the organizing president of the Sage College of Practical Arts.

B. 10-04-1887, Miriam Van-Waters - U.S. penologist and social worker.

B. 10-04-1893, Fannie Cook - Afro-American author. FC was the winner of the first George Washington Carver award for her novel Mrs. Palmer's. The Carver award goes to the outstanding literary contribution that shows "the importance of the Negro's place in American life."

B. 10-04-1904, Sybil Goulden Bach - British suffragist, niece of Emmeline Pankhurst, leader of the UK radical suffrage movement.
      SGB graduated with a degree in economics and became a world respected authority on Chinese agriculture and her predictions on its crop totals were astoundingly accurate. Her mother modelled the Pankhurst statue in Victoria Tower Gardens. After her retirement she became chair of the Suffragette Fellowship following in her sister Enid's footsteps.

stanblat.JPGStanton and two Blatches - Elizabeth Cady Stanton, center, granddaughter Nora Blatch, left, and daughter Harriot Stanton Blatch on the right.

Event 10-04-1907: Harriot Stanton Blatch, the first woman elected to the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1906 was barred from dining at the Hoffman House Hotel in New York City because she had no male escort. HSB as the daughter of woman's right crusader Elizabeth Cady Stanton and caused a "bit of a fuss."

B. 10-04-1912, Elisa Bialk - U.S. writer, primarily of children's books.

B. 10-04-1941, Anne Rice - U.S. author. AR has gained a cult following by popularizing the erotic vampire genre. A string of best sellers began with her Vampire Chronicles.

B. 10-04-1944, Patti LaBelle - U.S. singer of contemporary music.

B. 10-04-1946, Susan Sarandon - U.S. actor. SS is one of the few actors who became more famous as she aged. In Hollywood where youthful women are valued and older (30+) women are ignored, SS has cut out an amazing career but most women will remember her for her work in movie Thelma and Louise.

B. 10-04-1955, Kim M. Robak - U.S. politician. KMR was elected Lieutenant governer, State of Nebraska, 1993.

B. 10-04-1976, Alicia Silverstone - U.S. entertainer.

Event 10-04-1988: U.S. House of Representatives amends its rules to give employees protection against discrimination, including sex discrimination

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QUOTES DU JOUR

HEYN, DALMA:
      "[Women lose their sexual selves in marriage] very insidiously. Women lose the egalitarian relationship. Even sexually experienced women still adopt this mode of goodness called the Donna Reed syndrome. A woman still aspires to be the good wife and mother, so much so that she loses track of her own feelings, her pleasure, her sexuality, the whole package."
            -- Dalma Heyn in Erotic Silence of the American Wife (1992).

GILLIGAN, CAROL:
      "As we have listened for centuries to the voices of men and the theories of development that their experience informs, so we have come recently to notice not only the silence of women but the difficulty in hearing what they say when they speak.
      "Yet in the different voice of women lies the truth of an ethic of care, of the tie between relationship and responsibility, and the origins of aggression in the failure of connection.
      "The failure to see the different reality of women's lives and to hear the differences in their voices stems in part from the assumption that there is a single mode of social experience and interpretations."
            -- Carol Gilligan, In A Different Voice, Cambridge: Harvard University Pres, 1982. WOA believes CG is one of the top three feminist philosopher of our generation. Many later feminists are merely paraphrasing her.

FEINSTEIN, DIANE:
      "[Women elected to public office] earn the right to work for change through the vote of the people, but by our actions and relationships we develop the clout and reputation to bring about change. We are evaluated all along the way and the criteria for women are often more stringent than those for men. As I have said, respect and credibility are hard for women to achieve, and this difficulty has its consequences throughout the political world. For example, legislation is often evaluated on the basis of its author. A good bill by someone who is not respected by her or his peers may die a lonely death in committee, while a poor bill by a respected author will gain a floor vote."
           
-- Diane Feinstein commenting about her 1969 election to the 11-member legislative Board of Supervisors which governs the city and county of San Francisco. From the forward to Women in Power - The Secrets of Leadership, by Cantor, Dorothy W. and Toni Bernay with Jean Stoess. 1992: Houghton Mifflin Company, New York.

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© 1990-2006 Irene Stuber, Hot Springs National Park, AR 71902. Originally web-published at http://www.undelete.org/. We are indebted to Irene Stuber for compiling this collection and for granting us permission to make it available again. The text of the documents may be freely copied for nonprofit educational use. Except as otherwise noted, all contents in this collection are © 1998-2009 the liz library.  All rights reserved. This site is hosted and maintained by the liz library.

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