Women who sustained the movement

The Makers was a wonderful documentary of the contemporary women's movement. I wish someone would go down a layer and write a book about not just the queen bees of that movement, but the hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of the women drones who have sustained the movement in many, many ways. 

I use drone in a most positive sense. If the Newsweek, LHJ strikes and other high profile events had been the only ones that happened in the country, they would have been a small triumph for the movement. Those examples can be expanded to untold numbers of examples of women and men who expanded the movement into all corners of the country by becoming community activists for women's equality and other concerns of women and girls.

There are the women who have spent their whole lives in vocations  or avocations working for the progress of women in all areas of society. There are the women's groups throughout the country who sued their employers for equal pay and equal opportunity.  There are the women who started NOW chapters in their communities and have kept them operating for five or six decades or who started consciousness-raising groups to give women a sense of I-am-not-alone-in-my-thinking, or it's-not-just-me.

There are women and men who were attorneys and judges and police officers who made the justice systems more supportive of women, especially abused women, and there were the people in communities who started women's shelters to give women and children a safe place to escape to. 

There are women who started women's studies and women's history courses so there were forums for discussion once consciousness-raising groups became passe and so we wouldn't forget our past. There were organizations of volunteers who preserved women's history artifacts and birthplaces and important sites in women's history.  

There are traditional organizations like the YWCA and LWV and AAUW and the Girl Scouts who have had women's and girl's concerns at the top of their agendas for decades.

There are all the local women and organizations who lobbied and petitioned and spoke and marched for the ERA and continue to do so today and the men and women who literally put their bodies between the clients of reproductive health clinics and the anti-abortion demonstrators who are there to harass them, to say nothing of the people who work at the clinics.

There are the women whose jobs are to ensure that women get equity in the workforce like the hundred's  of Federal Women's Program Manger's in the federal government. Their jobs  also include training the total work force in prevention of sexual harassment and assisting women who have been the victims of sexual harassment, who train supervisor's in opening their minds to placing women in non-traditional jobs and assist women with the difficulties that come with being the women in those jobs. There are the Directors of Divsions on Women, or whatever the local and state agencies are called, who lobbied and educated to make sure that government funds and grants were available for programs assisting women and girls. There are the women elected officials who are also supportive in that legislation.

There are the individuals and organizations that enlighten girls and young women in assertive communications and leadership skills and public speaking skills and self-empowerment skills. There are thousands of women and men who act as mentors to young women in corporations and in small businesses so breaking the glass ceiling becomes more likely for them.

This is only a short list, I'm  sure you can add a myriad of other examples to the list. You may question "Where would one start to do research on these 'drones'?" I have in my circle of friends and acquaintances someone that fits into each of the examples I have given, and I'm sure I am not unique, they are everywhere throughout the country. Please won't someone write that book?

Why aren't you a feminist?

http://spydersden.wordpress.com/category/feminism/

So true! Yeah, there are feminists who mat be too radical for some if us, but when you compare that statement to the history of MAN, and i literally mean MAN, feminists come out smelling like lilacs. ( i'm not fond of the smell of roses, but i do love lilacs.) 

Why have so many people refused to take on the label? It's like the word "liberal" and the word "union", or the words "community organizer". We have let the opposition define the word and they have put every negative connotation on those words and society has bought those connotations? How come? 

Pres Obama's statement was not an exaggeration

Re: Women's Issues « Reply #693 on: July 20, 2013, 12:20:13 PM » Quote I haven't commented on the Zimmerman case, altho i have strong emotions about it, because others are doing a superb job of it. But let me just comment on the president's speech yesterday. In case any person thinks he was exaggerating the events that have happened to him, let me just say that everyone inour interracial family, including me, has had similar experiences. They range from when my future DH and i were leaving his development in southern New Jersey, pulling out from a stop sign, so we couldn't have been driving too fast and Van (DH) said he saw the police car coming, so he was being extra careful. The cop stopped us, ask for Van's ID, where did he live? Even tho he had his license in his hand. Asked where were we going? Which, of course, was of no consequence, but Van said he was taking me to Philly. Cop asked where did i live - again, of no consequence. Van asked why we were stopped, cop said he was speeding, which was impossible. Then, even though it was just dusk and he could see me perfectly well, the cop came around to my side of the car and shone the flashlight in my face. He gave Van a "warning" which was really a warning about being with a white woman. My dgt when driving her college boyfriend to the Trenton train station in her father's Diamante, a lower end luxury car, was followed down a Trenton street and into the parking lot of the train station. The boyfriend was about 6'2" and with them was a young man we had as a foster child who was about 6' and 250 lbs of muscle, he was a weight lifter. The cop told them to stay in the car and asked for her license and the car registration. He asked where they were going??? She said she was taking Nick to get the train. Who were the guys in the car? Whose car was it? Why were they in Trenton??? Then he walked around to ask for Nick's ID and saw he had on a Marine Corps shirt. Asked if he was a Marine, Nick said yes, and he said o.k. and left. The only explanation was that he thought these 3 young Black people should not have been driving that car.  Pure harassment! My son, a good student and well-known athlete, closed his eyes one day in class, the teacher asked him, in front of the class, if he was on drugs! He was furious! He has never even smoked a cigarette. Friends of the same son stopped in front of our house one evening to unload a bike of a friend from the trunk of the car. Included in the group were 2 football players, 3 basketball players and the president of the junior class, all young Black men, none had ever been in trouble. I mention the athletes because we are a town of about 25,000, the police know the trouble-makers, but they also come to the games and know of the athletes and all of these boys where frequent visitors to the recreation center which is onthe same municiple property as the police dept and the police frequent it also. While they were unloading Anthony's bike, a police car pulled up behind the old white Plymouth with lights whirling. Within 3 minutes there was another police car and the K-9 truck and before the discussion ended a third police car was there. So neighbors were out to see what was going on. This was a neighborhood that was 85% Black, so it was not even that the cops were seeing these young men in the "wrong place." The police asked what was happening - "we're dropping Anthony off to play basketball." "Whose bike is it?" Anthony's. "Anthony, what is the serial number on your bike!?!"  Really??? I'm sure you've all had bikes growing up, do any of you know the serial numbers? "Where do you live?" (to each one) Our foster son had on a varsity jacket that had belonged to his cousin from another town, they asked him 3 times, why do you have on a "Boro" jacket? My husband went out and asked what was the problem, said he knew these boys, they were good boys, not problems. The police responded that there was a report of a white cadillac creating a problem on Main St - 5 blocks away, AND this white plymouth looked nothing like a cadillac! These were all boys who had been taught to respect authority, but all those cops did that night was to say to them, no matter who you are we will always suspect you because you have dark skin and will feel free to harass you when we please. Now the irony is that that son and dgt of ours now have a cousin who is a NJ State Trooper and my dgt has a very good college friend who is also a NJ State Trooper. That is progress and i hope they are raising the conscience of the other troopers. I just wanted to make it clear that when you hear any person of color speak about these experiences, they are not exaggerating or just repeating stories they've heard from others, and it is not just in the cities, or in the South, or to the poor. This is a suburban Philly town that was named the best place to live in the u.s. by Money Magizine about 7 yrs ago!!!  They have ALL been in similar situations. One other point, i think the prosecution missed an opportunity to have the 6 women jury identify with Treyvon Martin, what woman has not been on the street in a fearful situation for what negative event might happen to her? Such is life for people of color and women in this world. I am not saying that white men have not sometimes been in frightening situations, but i am sure it has not been as often or as scary for them as for us.

Response to Adam Turner's "Doing History in Public" on Nursing Clio blog

Jean Perry #

I loved this article, especially the links to “The Presence of the Past” and “Think Talk Make Do”. Reading just “The Book Introduction” link in The Presence of the Past was fascinating although i found the lack of comment about women’s connection to the past disappointing and telling. Were there no such responses from women about having connections to women in the past, whether to their families or at museums, reading history, etc? 

In one sense i can understand that, if it is true. I’m fortunate that various generations before me have extensive information about four Scotch-Irish brothers/ancestors who came to south central Pennsylvania in the early 1700′s and that my biological family has stayed in the area, so i know a lot about their environment and the history they lived through. Of course, i have no history about any of the women in their lives! It’s very frustrating. 

I also recognize that most people that the surveyors talked to probably know little women’s history unless they read some biographies, or the women were connected to men whom historians have written about – and lord knows that info has often not been factual! 

It still surprises me that as women’s history and women’s historical sites have been getting more attention since the 1970′s that there was only one place where the word “women” was mentioned in that explanation of how they interpreted the information from the surveys.

I found NC about six months ago and have loved it. Thank you for your initiation of this blog and for your time and expertise in sharing it with us. I have frequently shared some or all of it with friends who are feminists and some who have an interest in women’s history. I taught high school and then college history at various times in my life, but have been a reader about women in history since my sophomore year in high school – 50+ yrs ago. I have had women’s history as both a vocation and an avocation ever since. I was a founding member of the Alice Paul Institute, which continues educating school children and adults in Alice’s fight for a suffrage amendment and an Equal Rights Amendment. I actually met and talked with Alice Paul in her 92nd year.

Some of those women who were with me on the founding board of API are still dear friends and many of us meet every Jan 11 – Alice’s birthday – for dinner. They are all women who are interested in women’s history. I know there are millions of such women in the country, which is the reason for my surprise at the lack of mention in the link to The Presence of the Past.

Here is the link to the API, it is housed in the home she grew up in which was bought and renovated by an interested group of women and conducts tours, telling Alice’s and the suffrage and ERA story, and trains school girls in leadership skills and the fact that they CAN be leaders! Certainly “Doing History In Public.”

http://www.alicepaul.org/

May 10, 2013

Reply

Elizabeth, how are we doing?

Posted by Marguerite Kearns on May 30, 2013 in 60-Second History Lesson | 0 comments

Daniel Cady, Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s father.

by Elizabeth Cady Stanton

The tears and complaints of the women who came to my father for legal advice touched my heart, and early drew my attention to the injustice and cruelty of the laws. As the practice of the law was my father’s business, I could not exactly understand why he could not alleviate the sufferings of these women.

So, in order to enlighten me, he would take down his books and show me the inexorable statutes. The students, observing my interest, would amuse themselves by reading to me all the worst laws they could find, over which I would laugh and cry by turns. One Christmas morning I went into the office to show them my present of a new coral necklace and bracelet. They all admired the jewelry, and then began to tease me with hypothetical cases of future ownership. “Now,” said Henry Bayard, “if in due time you should be my wife, those ornaments would be mine. I could take them and lock them up, and you could never wear them except with my permission. I could even exchange them for a cigar, and you could watch them evaporate in smoke.”

A CHILDHOOD RESOLVE TO CUT THE NASTY LAWS FROM THE BOOKS

With this constant bantering from students, and the sad complaints of women clients, my mind was sorely perplexed. So when, from time to time, my attention was called to these odious laws, I would mark them with a pencil, and becoming more and more convinced of the necessity of taking some active measures against these unjust provisions, I resolved to seize the first opportunity, when alone in the office, to cut every one of them out of the books; supposing my father and his library were the beginning and the end of the law.

However, this mutilation of his volumes was never accomplished, for dear old FloraCampbell, to whom I confided my plan for the amelioration of her wrongs, warned my father of what I proposed to do. Without letting me know that he had discovered my secret, he explained to me one evening how laws were made, the large number of lawyers and libraries there were all over the state, and that if his library should burn up it would make no difference in woman’s condition.

“When you are grown up, and able to prepare a speech,” said he, “you must go down to Albany and talk to the legislators; tell them all you have seen in this office — the sufferings of these Scotchwomen, robbed of their inheritance and left dependent on their unworthy sons, and, if you can persuade them to pass new laws, the old ones will be a dead letter.” Thus was the future object of my life suggested and my duty plainly outlined by him who was most opposed to my public career when, in due time, it was entered upon.”

SOURCE: Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s memoir. Information about Daniel Cady, Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s father.

How are we doing Elizabeth? The story of the students taunting her about their being able to take control of her jewelry and being able to do with it what they wished reminds me of the MALE legislators who still think they are in control of women's bodies, and they can be. This is like playing whack-a-mole. Women and their supporters have been whacking away at those MALE moles who keep wanting to take us back to the 19th century and it appears that it will be necessary to be whacking away for many years, perhaps decades to come.......the price of keeping those changes that Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Alice Paul, et al worked

 so hard to make. 

Why we need to give up reading F. Scott Fitzgerald and start learning women's history.

From MS Magazine blog, see whole blog at:

 http://msmagazine.com/blog/2013/05/06/gatsby-gets-flappers-wrong/

 "Indeed, Zelda, who was ultimately diagnosed with schizophrenia and died at an insane asylum, spent most of her marriage struggling to define herself as an artist and her own person. Her husband copied liberally from her journals and letters for his novels. When she finally wrote an autobiographical novel of her marriage in 1932, Save Me the Waltz, he edited out several of the stories that he intended to use for his own, 1934’s Tender Is the Night. But Zelda, as fearless and trail-blazing as she was, can’t even embody the flapper movement fully. For one, it was not all white women, as NYU’s Modern America reports: “For the time being, the bob and the entire Flapper wardrobe, united blacks and whites under a common hip-culture.” Secondly, the flapper’s rebellion against Victorian sexual mores didn’t start among the high-society debutantes but in “working-class neighborhoods and radical circles in the early 1900s before it spread to middle-class youth and college campuses.” The flapper movement wasn’t simply a fashion trend, as Emily Spivack at Smithsonian.com’s Threaded blog explains; it was a full-blown, grassroots feminist revolution. After an 80-year campaign by suffragists, women were finally granted the right to vote in the United States in 1920, when the 19th Amendment was passed. When the U.S. entered World War I in April 1917, many women entered the workforce, and when the soldiers returned in November 1918, their female counterparts were reluctant to give up their jobs. As a result, young, unmarried women experienced far greater financial independence than they’d ever had before. Bicycles, and then cars, allowed them to get around town without a male escort. The spread of electric lighting allowed nightclubs to flourish, just as the Prohibition Amendment of 1919 forced them to go underground. Drinking at illegal “speakeasies” became a thrilling part of flapper culture. Inspired by Cubist art and Art Nouveau haute couture, flappers rejected the dramatic, hyper-feminine S-shaped Edwardian silhouette created by tight, time-consuming corsets for sheath dresses that gave them boxy boyish shapes. This straight up-and-down figure was so extreme that curvier women went out of their way to squeeze into girdles and bandage their breasts flat. These radical women pushed the boundaries of androgyny even further by chopping off their long Edwardian locks for bobbed hairstyles. At the same time, flappers revealed a shocking amount of skin. The older generation was absolutely outraged by the site of bare knees and arms, which flappers would highlight with loads of bangles. They were also appalled by the red lips, rouged cheeks and kohl-lined eyes of flappers, as previously only prostitutes had worn makeup. So flappers were derided for being both too masculine and too titillating." Why do we keep reading male writers who have their own agendas, especially in their descriptions of women and women's behaviors? Not only was FSF misleading in his description of the flapper, but he stole Zelda's journals and included the info in his books as his own! And we call HIM the great American novelist!?! Are literature teachers still teaching FSF? Are they reading real history and discussing the misinformation in their classes? I must admit that i see alot of FSF's vacuous flappers in today's young women's dress. The lack of common sense in wearing SIX inch heels, spandex dresses that they can't sit in, mini skirts in which they are obviously incomfortable!?! WTH? They think they are sexy? Well, i've got news for them, if you have to shuffle and not stride across a room, it ain't sexy! What happens to smart women's minds when the fashion gurus,or the Kardashian sisters, dress women, or themselves, in obviously uncomfortable clothing? Being uncomfortable denies sexy, except maybe to 15 yr old boys who get excited at any hint of flesh above the knee.

Book - The American Heiress

I'm reading an interesting, light book, An American Heiress by Dorothy Eden. The  illegitimate dgt of a wealthy New Yorker is left with his widow by the house servant  mother. The child grew up to become the maid of the legtimate dgt, but also  educated with her. As adults the legtimate dgt is engaged to an English lord who  needs her money to keep his estate operating. She and her step-sister and mother  sail on the Luisitania to the wedding in England!!! Yes! Hettie,  the "maid", survives, the mother and fiancee die. The mother in an  attempt to save her jewelry had made Hettie wear some of it when they were  forced to abandon ship. When Hettie was found alive she was mistaken for the  bride-to-be. She follows thru and marries the lord, who had only met the  bride-to-be one brief time. It sounds like a stupid scenario, but Eden makes it seem  plausible. The lord marries and hurries off to the trenches in WWI, Hettie takes  control of her "inheritance", which you could say she rightly deserves being the  other spawn of the father, and efficently and soundly uses it to fix up the estate.  There is a woman who anticipated being the wife of the lord but had no money who  is obviously going to be a problem. Also sounds silly, but i'm enjoying it. I know that somewhere down the years she's going to get "caught." that's the  suspense.  Why do we love these upper/lower class relationship stories? Upstairs/Downstairs,  Downton Abbey. Is it just English stories we like. Is there a lower class in The Great  Gatsby? I've forgotten. I'll be curious to see other reviews of this book to see how They respond to Hettie's deception.

Chapter 1 con'd

There is one more love of mine that i will probably be talking about -MUSIC. Music soothes me, makes me laugh, makes me dance, energizes me, sometimes makes me cry, reminds me of events past, reminds me of people in my past, connects me with younger members of my family, makes me want to sing, creates entertainment for me, my family and my friends. Good gracious! Is there anyting else in your life that can do all that for you? And most of the time, it's for free! Can't beat that bargain.

Let me return to the issue of woman. Most of us had women teachers all thorough elementary school.  I did. There was one male sixth grade teacher in our elementary school. For most of us our Mothers and the female members of our families were the most important peoplein our lives until we were into our teens. For me women Sunday School teachers and librarians were also important. From the time i was 8 or 9 i could walk the six long blocks in my small town to the library. It was housed in one of those quaint, small, red brick buildings that had started life as a railroad station. There is at least one in almost every small town on the east coast. By the time i was 10 or 12 i was shelving books and checking out books for patrons. From that age on there has always been a library in my life. 

My question is, since we all had that foundation of women being the authority, the decision-maker, the comforter, the doctor, the manager of the household, how did we then get brain-washed by society to believe men were better at those tasks than women!?! For most of us by mid-teens had "learned" that lesson, and many still live with that idea today. 

Chapter 1 - What WOMAN STORY is All About

WOMAN STORY

Chapter 1 - What WOMAN STORY is All About

WOMAN STORY

Chapter 1 - What Is WOMAN STORY All About?

This blog will be primarily about my four avocations: women, learning, books  and  yarn crafts. That sounds really boring, doesn't it? NOT SO! Stick around for a couple "stories" and see.

My #1 avocation has been women:  studying about women, listening to women, reading about women and their history, teaching others about women and women's history,  preserving women's history,  helping women in the workplace, helping men in the workplace understand women in the workplace,  and working and lunching and chatting with women. Most of this blog will be about those things.

My #2 avocation  has been learning/teaching. Many times I am the one who is learning and many times I am the one doing the teaching.  I love doing either one of those. Sometimes my actual title has been "Teacher/professor/trainer." But even when it wasn't, I always got in a little teaching,  whatever my actual occupation was. A lot of this blog will be leading you to books,websites, magazine /newspaper articles where you may learn something new. I am thinking I should include "research" as another avocation. I LOVE doing that almost as much as I love learning ( OH, you're thinking  "aren't they the same thing?" I'm not sure.  Tell me what you think about that) and  as much as I love teaching/training.  More about all of this  later.

My #3 avocation is books. As long as I can remember - granted that time shortens the older I get :) - I have been read to, or have been reading, and always loving it. Much more about that later.

My #4 avocation has been knitting and crocheting, altho in the last year it has been occupying a lot more of my time and has been competing with #'s 1,2, and 3. There will be less about that avocation then the first three.

Are you wondering about the blog title? WOMAN STORY,  not Women's Story or A Woman's Story? I thought that might catch you eye. …………. I choose that word title because it is not going to be A woman's story, I'm going to talk about a lot of different women, but generally one at a time. It is not MY story, altho some of it will be personal. There is also some philosophical use of the word WOMAN that came about in the first feminist/suffrage movement in the 19th century, or maybe even before that,  of which  I have forgotten the details, (it's that memory thing again. HEY, my computer/brain is full, it takes a little time to retrieve info) but I WILL CHECK THAT OUT and get back to you on it.  Remember, I mentioned that I LOVE doing research? I know just who I need to call to chat with about that "woman" thing.  The folks at the other end of the line  will be women, of course!

The STORY in WOMAN STORY is my belief that every one's life is just a whole series of stories and everyone has a story to tell. When I taught history I told my students how ironic it is to me that studying  history is just a whole series of stories about people and events. I also find it ironic that it is His-story, because that is what it was entirely until the latter part of the 20th century and then THE WOMEN ROSE and said we need some HER-STORY as well. And oh boy! It's all over the place! So if you didn't have any women in your American History textbooks and classrooms, come on around! I'm going to tell you about some very interesting ones.

Always in my teaching or discussions I like feedback, comments, musings, questions. Please fill free to participate.