I really can’t believe she’s gone, just like that. Many of my colleagues have worked with her office. Among other contributions, she was a staunch supporter of women’s rights. She will be very sorely missed.
Life is precious. Live every minute, my mother always says. I have a feeling Stephanie did. And she should have had many, many more.
My intergenerational feminist panel went out together to see Caryl Churchill’s play, Top Girls, the other night. Courtney wrote it up over at feministing yesterday, and hence I point you over there. C writes that it got her thinking about women’s lives, childbirth, sacrifice, our feminist legacy–and it got me thinking too. This pic is from the first scene, which is a nutty dinner party with women from different points in history. And speaking of dinner parties, I’m going to see Judy Chicago’s version at the Brooklyn Museum in a few weeks. In lieu of a “bachelorette” party, my friend Rebecca arranged a private tour. I’d love to hear what other brides-to-be out there have done to revamp the ole “bachelorette.” Share?!
I’m a little slow getting back here today, but just wanted to post a heads up on an anthology I just learned about and will be talking about soon. It’s called Feminist Coalitions: Historical Perspectives on Second-Wave Feminism in the United States, edited by Stephanie Gilmore, Asst. Prof of Women’s Studies at Dickinson College. Sara Evans wrote the forward. The book comes out June 2. More soon!
So I didn’t know this til just now (whoops, bad Jew!), but May is Jewish American Heritage Month. And for this third annual celebration, the Jewish Women’s Archive is partnering with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) to launch This Day of Jewish American Heritage, a daily online feature that connects every day in May to significant moments in American Jewish history.
Not surprisingly, the month of May encompasses a broad range of achievements of American Jewish women including: 19th century stage performer Adah Isaacs Menken, Beverly Sills, Ayn Rand, Susan Sontag, labor activist Bessie Abramowitz Hillman, pioneering political advisor Belle Moskowitz, and comedian Gilda Radner. And, yes, the birth of The Settlement Cookbook–a book my mother gave me, if I recall, when she packed me off to college.
The Jewish Women’s Archive and JTA will be featuring This Day of Jewish American Heritage on their websites and are also offering its content as a badge (pictured left) that features each day’s historical event. This badge can be placed on your personal or organizational website/blog and will link back to the Jewish Women’s Archive’s website for a full description of each date’s event. Cool, huh? I had the chance to meet Judith Rosenbaum, Director of Education at the JWA, when I spoke in Cambridge earlier this month and she’s, as the kids say, the bomb. Love what they’re doing over there.
To find out more, contact Ari Davidow: adavidow@jwa.org, 617-383-6766.
There’s been a lot of discussion around feminism and racism in the feminist blogosphere of late, and for those wanting a primer on what’s been going on, you can check out Jessica Valenti’s apology over at feministing, Seal Press editors’ apology over at the Seal Press Women’s Interest blog, and important commentary from women of color bloggers including Racialicious, The Angry Black Woman, for starters.
While the issues are REAL, many who know Jessica (myself included) feel that she has been the target of some undue criticism (though also some that’s merited, as she herself acknowledges). While the context is different, I still can’t help but think about the trashing that went on in the 1970s when a “leader” in the movement emerged.
It’s complicated, I know, but oh how history repeats.
I’ve spent much of April saying yes to saying no. After a grueling (but wildly fun) March, April 1st commenced my month of slowing-it-down. I said no to coffee, no to many events, and no, ultimately, to all the things that distract me from getting my writing done. But when my colleagues at the Women’s Media Center sent over a comped invite to a panel at The Paley Center for Media last Thursday, I jumped. Just couldn’t pass up a chance to hear ladies like Gloria Steinem, Suzanne Braun Levine, Mary Thom, Patricia Mitchell, Carol Jenkins, and Marlene Sanders pontificate on women, media, and politics, “From Bella to Hillary,” as it were.
Listening to the panel was a great cap to the speaking I’ve been doing of late with my fellow WomenGirlsLadies. It confirmed and inspired.
Confirmed: Women in this country have a long, long way to go. (We’re 71st in the world in terms of representation of women in positions of political power; we occupy a whopping 3% of the clout positions in media over here, oh boy.) The program included a clip from an early women’s movement documentary, “The Hand That Rocks the Ballot Box,” and much of the cry then is the same as it is now. As Lily Tomlin proclaimed in another clip from a 1992 PSA that was shown, women in this country have a better chance of getting into another galaxy then Congress–where, in 2008, we’re still only at 16%.
Inspired: Gloria Steinem spoke of the variety and differences within the women’s movement, and how we’re still dealing with a lack of full and nuanced tellings when it comes to telling the story of that movement’s past. “First a movement is a hula hoop,” she said. It’s ridiculed by the press, and then it quickly becomes Not News. What was missed in that cursory coverage, she noted, was the role women of color played in shaping the movement of the ’60s and ’70s. Take Fannie Lou Hamer, a founder of the National Women’s Political Caucus and the first woman to come forward against forced steralization. While Hamer is remembered as a Civil Rights movement champion of voter registration, her role in the women’s movement is underplayed.
“Whitemiddleclass became like one key on the typewriter, used to devalue the women’s movement in the media at large,” said Steinem. And that’s the version we next-generation feminists imbibed wholesale too, I might add. I’m looking forward to the forthcoming scholarship that’s bound to unleash a wider range of tellings, scholarship I know from various sources is well underway.
During the Q&A, I asked panelists for their thoughts on how we might capitalize on the outrage women feel about how Hillary has been treated by the media. It’s an outrage transcends candidate support and transcends age. No clear answers emerged, but all agreed that we need to channel it into harnessing votes against the hardly-woman-friendly John McCain. I look forward to figuring that out together as the general election nears.
Interesting review this weekend by Janet Maslin in the NYTimes of a book called Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon — and the Journey of a Generation ,
by Sheila Weller. Maslin calls it “a strong amalgam of nostalgia, feminist history, astute insight, beautiful music and irresistible gossip about the common factors in the three women’s lives.” Most interesting to me of course:
[I]t also has a point to make about sexual inequality in the era when these three women came of age. The ambition and posturing that turned middle-class Robert Zimmerman of Minnesota into Bob Dylan, Ms. Weller argues, were much more costly for women, no matter how freewheeling those women seemed. This book illustrates how Ms. Mitchell’s long-held secret about the baby she gave up for adoption was infinitely more punishing than the rambling, gambling male singer-songwriter’s stock way of paying his dues.
And most amusing:
There is something irritating about the very premise of “Girls Like Us,†Sheila Weller’s three-headed biography of legendary singer-songwriters. Maybe it’s the instant-girlfriend tone of the title. Maybe it’s that at least one of Ms. Weller’s subjects, Joni Mitchell, objected to being lumped into the same book with the other two, Carole King and Carly Simon. Or maybe it’s the euphemism. Her book is about women whose musical careers took off in the 1960s, and all are now in their 60s. They aren’t girls. They’re grandmas.
Go grandmas 🙂
WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH GUEST POST: With 1st-wave feminism on my mind this morning, I’m thrilled to bring you a guest post that connects current goings-on to the past, by May Sinclair PhD, author of Infamous Eve: A History. May asks, “Are Clinton and Obama giving us an opportunity to re-live a version of the events that surrounded the 14th and 15th Amendments?” A California Real Estate Broker, May earned her doctorate in the Philosophy of Metaphysics soon after her 50th birthday. She’s an award-winning author, has written extensively about ancient disciplines connected with symbolism, and teaches private workshops on Dream Interpretation and Analysis from a Jungian perspective. She is someone I seriously hope to meet in real space one day! May blogs at My Thoughts on History. Here she is! – GWP
Back to the Future?
Is the grand Universe offering us an opportunity to deal with a lesson in our history not previously understood? Are we re-living a version of the events that surrounded the ratification of United States Constitution’s 14th and 15th Amendments? Those events greatly concerned and involved two of our most important historical figures. Elizabeth Cady Stanton is the woman responsible for initiating women rights in this country and Frederick Douglass, who was born into slavery, is a major figure in the effort to release the United States of America from the horrors of slavery. They worked closely together, but in July, 1868 they had to face the fact that their primary objective of freedom for all did not survive when the legislators of the day banned together to block the powerful union of women and black people to only offer males the vote.
The 14th amendment said: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” The idea was to make sure freed slaves were not prevented from voting, but it only gave franchise to males rather than all citizens.
But then the Supreme Court case of Minor vs. Happersett allowed the individual states to determine which males got to vote anyway.
The cause of the amendments failure:
-1. The rights of women were not included.
-1. The Federal government did not prevent the individual states from initiating voter qualification laws like literacy tests and pole taxes.
Are we being beguiled into allowing the seemingly towering objective of gaining the highest office in the land by either a black man or a woman to deflect away from the primary objective and divide us so that no one really gains anything and those of us in this country who love it and care about equality are again torn apart in an attempt to undermine the power women and blacks exhibit together?
May Sinclair can be reached at infamouseve@msn.com.
A beautiful remembrance of a beautiful person, by Jennifer Baumgardner. Barbara’s loss will be deeply, deeply felt.
Attention historians: Glamour Magazine is seeking suggestions for “the greatest Mother-Daughter duos of all time” for their Mother’s Day issue. Any takers?
Nobel awardees Marie and Irene Curie and literary giants Mary Wallstonecraft and Mary Shelly already top their list. But what of great queens and stateswomen? Heroines and pioneers? Inventors and moguls? Literati. Artistas. Revolutionaries. … . and so on. They’re looking for mothers-daughters famed in their own right — who may have worked together or inspired (or even infuriated) each other.
If you’ve got a suggestion, please send your name and email (to be queried with similar women’s history questions in the future!) to Jessica Seigel at JS@jessicaseigel.com.
(Photo is Anna Magnani & Marisa Pavan playing mother and daughter in the 1955 film, Rose Tattoo. Clearly my head is still in movieland, coming off the Oscars last night. Kate Hudson and Goldie Hawn, anyone?)
