The Liz Library presents Irene Stuber's Women of Achievement


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October 16
WOMEN OF ACHIEVEMENT AND HERSTORY

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

10-16 TABLE of CONTENTS:

Women in the U.S. President's Cabinets Throughout History

First Birth Control Clinic in U.S.

Contraceptive Museum

First Woman Mayor of San Juan

Texas Right Wing Activists Censor YOUR School's Books

Gaea or Gaia, the Earth Goddess - and the Earth

The Gaia Hypothesis

TONY AWARD FEATURED ACTRESSES

Origins of Some Women's Bondage Through the Ages

DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS

QUOTES by Simon de Beauvoir and Senator Arlen Specter.


Women in the U.S. President's Cabinets Throughout History

Attorney General:
      Janet Reno
1993-present (Clinton)

Secretary of Commerce:
      Juanita Kreps
1977-79 (Carter)
      Barbara Franklin 1991-93 (Bush)

Secretary of Labor:
      Frances Perkins
1933-45 (Roosevelt) (first woman to serve in a U.S. President's cabinet)
      Ann McLaughlin 1987-89 (Reagan)
      Elizabeth Dole 1989-90 (Bush)
      Lynn Martin 1990-93 (Bush)

HarrisP.gifSecretary of Health and Human Services until 1980 when the department name was changed to Health, Education, and Welfare:
      Oveta Culp Hobby 1953-55 (Eisenhower)
      Patricia R. Harris 1979-81 (Carter) (at right)
      Margaret Heckler 1983-89 (Reagan)
      Donna E. Shalala 1993-present (Clinton)

Secretary of Housing and Urban Development:
      Carla A. Hills 1975-77 (Ford)
      Patricia R. Harris 1977-79 (Carter)

Secretary of State:
      Madeline Albright 1995-present (Clinton)

Secretary of Transportation:
      Elizabeth Dole, 1983-87 (Reagan)

Secretary of Energy:
      Hazel O'Leary 1993-97 (Clinton)

Secretary of Education:
      Shirley M. Hufstedler 1979-81 (Carter)


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First Birth Control Clinic in U.S.

       Event 10-16-1916 - The first birth control clinic in U.S. estoria opened by Margaret Sanger, Fania Mindell, and Ethel Byrne in New York City. clinic.gif
      The circular announcing its opening was printed in English, Yiddish, and Italian.
      A near riot occurred when hundreds of women lined up before dawn and the police almost closed the clinic before it opened because of the crowd.
      Sanger, Mindell, and Byrne all went to jail at various times for their birth control efforts, which were considered immoral and obscene under the patriarchal laws that were expressed in the U.S by the Comstock law.
      Between no birth control and no abortion, the average life span of married women was below 30 years since she had no right (under church, societal, and legal strictures) to refuse her husband's sexual pleasures even if such intercourse and resultant pregnancy would cause her death. A man had his needs that transcended his wife's life.
      "The so-called Comstock Law of 1873, which had been adroitly pushed through a busy Congress on the eve of adjournment, the Post Office had been given authority to decide what might be called lewd, lascivious, indecent, or obscene, and this extraordinary man had been granted the extraordinary power, along of all citizens of the United States, to open any letter or package or pamphlet or book passing through the mails, and if he wished, lay his complaint before the Post Office.
      "So powerful had his society become that anything to which he objected in its name was almost automatically barred; he had turned out to be sole censor for ninety million people.
      "During some 40 years, Comstock had been damming the rising tide of new thought, thereby causing much harm and only now was his hopeless contest against September Morn (the painting) making him absurd and an object of ridicule."

            -- Margaret Sanger in her Autobiography.

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Contraceptive Museum

     The world's only contraceptive museum is located at the Janssen-Ortho Pharmaceutical Company, manufacturer of contraceptive products, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. An article about it was featured in Salon magazine www.salon.com/07/features/contra.html. Another article about the museum is www.desires.com/1.6/Sex/Museum/museum1.html

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First Woman Mayor of San Juan

      Dofia Felisa Vida deGautier was city manager of San Juan, Puerto Rico for 22 years, 1946-1968.
      She had been number five in 1929 registering to vote when women's franchise went into effect. After all, she was of the upper class.
      That time she only had to contend with her father's objections. When she was asked to run the city of San Joan, her father was joined by her husband in loud objections. She listened for two years until shutting her ears, she accepted the post.
      Her administration was earth mother-like, holding open meetings and listening to citizens. Her special concern was the city's many poor. She often expressed hope that the middle-class women would take more interest in society's problems, for they were the ones to solve them.
      She and Luis Mufioz Mann founded Puerto Rico's Popular Party in 1940. Mann became Puerto Rico's first elected governor.

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Texas Right Wing Activists Censor YOUR School's Books

     When Mel and Norma Gabler appointed themselves as the keepers of school textbook morality, they also effectively became the censors of the textbooks in your local schools.
      That's because Texas purchases a significant percentage of textbooks and sales to their school system(s) is necessary for profit.
      The Gablers screened content of the proposed texts to be used in Texas schools for adherence to far right religious principles such as creationism, male domination, and other ultra-conservative, anti-woman beliefs.
      When the Texas Textbook Committee accepts some of their objections and refuses to purchase already printed texts, the companies suffer devastating losses.
      Therefor, to prevent being black-listed in Texas, some (most!) textbook companies censor IN ADVANCE along the ultra-right religious lines in attempts to stay on the approved list for Texas classroom use.
      In one year the Gablers filed more than 550 PAGES of protests on Texas textbooks.
      The pre-publication censoring has become self-perpetuating so the even with "watchdogs" like the Gablers, chances are strong that the texts your children are using are in keeping with the ultra-right conservatives of Texas that portray women as helpless, dependent, and obedient.

"04-08-2000 OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- All science textbooks adopted by the State Textbook Committee would contain 'acknowledgment that human life was created by one God of the universe' under legislation passed unanimously by the House of Representatives.
      "Three amendments, including the creation statement, were added Wednesday to a bill dealing with the membership of the textbook committee.
      "Most legal scholars opine that the bill will not pass constitutional muster."

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Gaea or Gaia, the Earth Goddess - and the Earth

      Gaea - jee'-uh - In Greek mythology, Gaea or Gaia) was the goddess of Eath and the daughter of CHAOS. She was regarded as the mother of all creation, preceding Zeus and the other Olympic gods.
      She gave birth to Uranus, the sky and with Uranus she produced the Titans.
     
"Gaia - or Gea, 'Mother Earth', primordial force risen from Chaos, the goddess of life, death, and fertility, is one of the most ancient Greek divinities, a mother who must save her children from being devoured by the father she herself created."
      Out of Chaos came Gaia, the Earth who brought forth Uranus, the star-filled sky, to cover and protect her.
      Gaia gave birth to the mountains and to Pontos, the ocean. Pontos fathered the marine divinities, while from Uranus and Gaia came the Titans.
      Uranus feared Gaia's children by him would challenge his rule and imprisoned Gaia's children on earth. Gaia's child Cronus listen to his mother who sought violence to the Uranus. She forged a metal sickle so when Uranus attempted to cover her and impregnate Giai, Cronus seized Uranus' testicles, cut them off then threw them into the sea. (That's why the left hand is bad luck.)
      Drops of Uranus' blood impregnated the earth (Giai) and the Furies, giants, and nymphs were conceived. Gaia has been "relegated to the underworld. There she continued to rule over the birth, death, and rebirth of nature.
            -- From Sabrini Marvin and Carol Prunhuber Women Around the World and Through the Ages

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The Gaia Hypothesis

  The Gaia hypothesis, named for the Greek Earth goddess Gaia (Gaea), holds that the Earth should be regarded as a living organism.
      According to this view, the GIOSPHERE, or totality of life on the planet, influences Earth processes so as to sustain and advance life. The hypothesis was first advanced by British biologist James Lovelock in 1969.
      It was further developed by U.S. biologist Lynn Margulis.
      Lovelock subsequently modified his views to be in closer agreement with Margulis whose advanced thinking threatened to take the theory away from him. Lovelock agreed to homeostatis concepts of the maintenance of equilibrium in biological systems.
      Margulis continues to work on the Gaia hypothesis.

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TONY AWARD FEATURED ACTRESSES

Helen Gallagher won the 1952 Tony award for distinguished supporting or featured actress in a musical for her work in Pal Joey;


wintersmarian.jpgMarian Winters (at left) won the 1952 distinguished supporting or featured dramatic actress Tony award for her work in I Am a Camera;


Zena Walker won the 1968 best supporting actress for her work in A Day in the Death of Joe Egg;


Elizabeth Wilson won the 1972 Tony Award as best supporting actress in a play for her work in Sticks and Bones;


Ann Wedgeworth won the 1978 Tony award for the best featured actress in a Broadway play for her work in Chapter Two;


worthirene.jpgIrene Worth (right) won the 1991 Tony award for outstanding featured actress in a Broadway play for her work in Lost in Yonkers.

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Origins of Some Women's Bondage Through the Ages

    England got her first written code of laws from Aethelbert of Kent in 597. It became a cornerstone of English Common law that became the basic law of the United States.
      On the subject of women's property rights Aethelbert's law says,
"If she [the wife] bear a live child, let her have half the property, if the husband die first. If she wish to go away with her children, let her have half the property. If the husband wish to have them, [let her portion be] as one child."
      The Franks which dominate present-day northern France, Belgium, and western Germany also contribute a large portion of the common law. The Franks generally exclude women from the courts, barred them from inheriting certain ancestral lands, even kept them out of family counsels.
      The Franks decreed that a woman had to have the consent of her father to marry and eventually the daughter would become part of the familial lands with both her person and title used to purchase military loyalty).
      Under Franks law, adultery in a wife was punishable by death, bit NO penalty or scorn was given to the adulterous husband.

A phonetic alphabet, the Hiragnan alphabet, was developed among Japanese women (fl.860 AD). The Hiragnan women's alphabet was then further simplified and reduced to 51 basic characters (not that the women were given much credit). The women's alphabet, simplified, would officially supplement the Konji (Chinese) alphabet of thousands of characters.


Georgeann Wells, in 1984 became the first woman to dunk a basketball in an NCAA game. Wells, 6'7" played for the University of West Virginia. Dunking is when a player's hand is above the goal rim. With the height of men basketball players, often over seven feet tall, dunking is rather simple. For shorter women not trained to body building in their youth, it is more difficult - but women are learning. In the final eight, one woman almost dunked - or did dunk, depending on the observor.

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10-16 DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS

B. 10-16-1753, Elizabeth Inchbald - British novelist, playwright, and actor. EI's novels published in the last part of the 18th century and beginning of the 19th, are early examples of the so-called novels of passion or romances.
      EI wrote 20 plays, most of which were successful. EI also contributed to a number of periodicals of her day.

B. 10-16-1848, Cassie Ward Mee - U.S. labor organizer for the Knights of Labor.

B. 10-16-1857, Lilian Leland - U.S. lecturer.
      LL often explored freethinking. Her mother Mary A Leland was one of the first women to study medicine in the U.S.
      At age 25, LL traveled around the world - by herself.

DIED 10-16-1891, Sarah Winnemucca - Potute Native American leader.
      During SW's lifetime, her tribe which had been thriving on tribal lands in Nevada was forced to move its lands twice, both times to less desirable properties.
      In 1860 the tribe was moved to Oregon and then later to Washington State under starvation conditions. When she campained and finally got a U.S. Presidential order for her tribe to move back to Oregon where they could raise food, the U.S. army refused to honor it.
      The treatment and deliberate genocide of the Native peoples in both North and South America boggles the mind. Some estimate the genocide EXCEEDED 167 million in North and South America by the European and African invaders.

B. 10-16-1898, William O. Douglas - U.S. Supreme Court Judge. Douglas is held most responsible for the Roe v Wade Supreme Court decision which legalized abortion in the U.S. The court's declared that a fetus is not a human being in the legal sense. Since then anti-women forces have been trying to have fetuses recognized as "pre-born human beings" so that their rights are equal or superior to those of the woman bearing them. The anti-abortion, anti-woman forces also use the phrase "unborn child."

MarkhamB.gifB. 10-16-1902, Beryl Markham - British-African pioneer professional pilot and author (left). She wrote several autobiographical books including West With the Night that is still in publication.

B. 10-16-1919, Kathleen Winsor - U.S. author. KW had a million-copy best-seller in Forever Amber (1946).

B. 10-16-1923 (probably 1919), Louise Day Hicks - U.S. activist and politician. LDH objected to forced school busing in Boston although she claimed she was not a bigot.
      "No one in their right mind is against civil rights, against intergration, only let it come naturally. What will Negroes learn by sitting in class with white children?"
      She then ran as "the white hope" in the 1967 Boston mayoral race and lost by only 10,000 votes. LDH was elected to Boston city council 1969, and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives (1970). She lost her congressional seat in 1972 after redistricting. Her official government biography is at http://clerkweb.house.gov/womenbio/

B. 10-16-1921, Linda Darnell - U.S. actor. LD was a sultry actor known for her portrayals in such period movies as Blood and Sand (1941) and Forever Amber (1947).

bacall.gifB. 10-16-1924, Lauren Bacall - U.S actor.
      As a young actor fresh from a successful modeling career, LB became famous for her roles opposite Humphrey Bogart. Following his death from cancer, she moved to Broadway where she became one of the royalty of Broadway. She won the Tony for Applause and raves in many others. She went on to play mature women in movies and TV. She has aged into a role model. Her biographies are marvels.

B. 10-16-1925, Angela Lansbury - Anglo-American actor of stage, screen and television.
      AL won Tony awards in 1966, 69, 74, and 79 for her many wonderful musicals and plays on Broadway and garnered multiple Emmys for her work on TV in the long running Murder she Wrote. AL was nominated for three Academy Awards and set the standard for evil mothers in Manchurian Candidate (1962). Truly one of the great actors of her generation(s).

B. 10-16-1936, Goldie Vernice Thomas - U.S. activist. GVT is a major force in HIV/AIDS prevention and education programs in New Jersey. She has assisted in the founding of many community organizations, including Somerset County Housing Coalition, Minority Economic Development Corp., Middlesex County Alliance for Justice, and African-American Youth Cultural Arts Collective..

B. 10-16-1946, Suzanne Somers - U.S. actor.

B. 10-16-1956, Melissa Belote - U.S. Olympic swimmer.

Event 10-16-1975, the First Bank of New York, headed by Madelaine McWhinney, declared it would not discriminate against women (or men) when it opened. Almost 1,000 women who had been treated unfairly by the prevailing economic rules became its first customers, the very first day. In those days banks almost always refused loans or credit to women, even requiring some women to obtain permission to borrow from ex-husbands or their fathers regardless of their ages or financial conditions. Women's earnings were also NOT counted as part of the family's income. Regardless of a woman's age, finance officers believed she would quit work to have children.

B. 10-16-1985, Allison Stuber - one of the primary reasons for Women of Achievment and Herstory. A straight A student and first baseplayer and pitcher of several softball teams, including her school. Women of Achievement and Herstory guarantees that she won't have to grow up asking (as her grandmother did) weren't there any women back then who did anything?
 

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QUOTES DU JOUR

Beauvoir.gifDE BEAUVOIR, SIMONE:
     
"Distortion begins when the religion of Maternity proclaims that all mothers are saintly."
            -- Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex.

Dismantling a Woman's Right to Choose...
From A TO Z
A statement by Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania)

(Unfortunately, Sen. Specter has turned a "bit" to the right since this 1995 speech, but his words make a good summation of the everlasting battle by men to control women's bodies and lives. Quoting Sen. Specter is not an endorsement of his other policies.)

"A nationwide campaign is currently underway to dismantle a woman's right to choose. And at no time will this threat be greater than over the next few moths. Anti-choice forces, frustrated with their failed attempts to outlaw abortion, will be asking members of Congress to amend various pieces of legislation to impose burdensome obstacles to abortion by adding restrictive language and funding bans.
      "Those changes are far-reaching and will have a devastating impact on a woman's right to choose.
      "Amendments are being proposed to cut off funding to clinics that provide prenatal and preventative family planning services necessary to protect the health of the mother and child, and restrict medical research. A battle cry has also been sounded to repeal the Freedom of Access to Clinics Act signaling that it is permissible to harass, intimidate and terrorize women and health care providers at health care clinics around this nation.
      "Now is not the time to sit back and let choice opponents get the upper hand. The rights women have fought hard to gain are being chipped away.
      "How extensive is the threat?
      "To demonstrate, I have compiled the following list of actions -- from A to Z -- sought by anti-choice forces to dismantle women's rights:
      "Amend the Constitution to abolish a woman's right to choose.
      "Ban federal funding for abortions for women in federal prisons.
      "Cut off Title X family planning funds to organizations providing abortions with non-Federal dollars.
      "Deny federal funding for United State representatives to attend the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women.
      "Eliminate United States funding for international family planning assistance provided by the United Nations Population Fund.
      "Forbid the Legal Service Corporation from handling abortion-related litigation.
      "Gag medical providers at Title X family planning clinics to prevent them from discussing abortion as a legal medical option for women facing an unintended pregnancy.
      "Hand over to the states the decision as to whether low income rape or incest victims are eligible for Medicaid-funded abortions.
      "Impose restrictions on human embryo research.
      "Jeopardize the protections afforded by the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act.
      "Kill nominations of pro-choice government officials.
      "Limit the sale and production of mifepristone (RU-486)
      "Mandate that federal employees' insurance exclude abortion coverage.
      "Notify parents if minors seek 'sensitive' health services such as contraception at Title X family planning clinics.
      "Overrule the decision of a graduate medical education accrediting organization to require most ob/gyn residents to be trained in abortion procedures.
      "Promote the appointment of federal judges opposed to choice.
      "Quash the ability of the District of Columbia to use its own revenue to fund abortions for poor women -- a right of every other jurisdiction in the United States.
      "Restrict fetal tissue research.
      "Slash funding for domestic and international family planning programs.
      "Terminate funding for international family planning programs that either provide abortions with non-U.S. funds or advocate a position on abortion.
      "Undermine the ability of military women stationed overseas to access abortion service by prohibiting military hospitals from performing the procedure, even if paid for with private funds.
      "Violate the right of a doctor and patient to determine whether a certain late-term abortion procedure is appropriate and necessary.
      "Whitewash the true political agenda -- eliminate access to abortion for all American women.
      "X-out Title X,the cornerstone of Federal family planning programs.
      "Yield to the anti-choice agenda that rolls back the hard-won reproductive rights of American women.
      "Zero out the tax deduction for expenses incurred for pregnancy termination --

     "The voices of the anti-choice movement are loud and have gained in volume since the last election. But your voices, the voices who have fought the battle and won the fight, can sustain the great strides made in the reproductive rights arena. Speak out, get involved, let your voices be heard."


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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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