Know Your History
The Value of Women's Work
There has been a marked change in the estimate of [women’s] position as wealth producers. We have never been “supported” by men; for if all men labored hard every hour of the twenty-four, they could not do all the work of the world. A few worthless women there are, but even they are not so much supported by the men of their family as by the overwork of the “sweated” women at the other end of the social ladder. From creation’s dawn. our sex has done its full share of the world’s work; sometimes we have been paid for it, but oftener not.
Any idea when this statement was made? OK, a clue: I recently ran across it in a speech given by Harriot Stanton Blatch at a suffragist convention–in 1898.
Isn’t it amazing that Blatch made this argument 113 years ago? Her point still resonates today. A study released by the Center for American Progress shows that in the down economy, women increasingly became the sole breadwinners, despite the persistent wage gap, since men were being laid off at higher rates to trim companies’ bottom line. More and more men became “stay-at-home fathers.” And yet we aren’t seeing a change in workplace culture as a result.
Edna St. Vincent Millay, First Woman Pulitzer Poetry Winner
My parents started sending me to Mrs. Fred Day’s charmingly named “Expression” classes when I was three years old. There, over a period of seven or eight years, I learned at least one new word each week, practiced exercises intended to improve my posture and diction, was schooled (or at least she tried to school us) in the social graces of serving refreshments to my classmates, and memorized a variety of poems. Some of the lines that have lodged most memorably in my mind are those of Edna St. Vincent Millay. There was the cheery:
I will be the gladdest thing
Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.From “Afternoon on a Hill”
…and the dramatic:
All your lovely words are spoken.
Once the ivory box is broken,
Beats the golden bird no more.From “Elegy”
So when Bonnie McEwan of Make Waves sent me Millay’s poem, “Recuerdo,” along with a note that the poet who liked to call herself “Vincent” and took many lovers during her life, had been the first woman to receive a Pulitzer prize for poetry in 1923, I immediately conjured the sights and floral smells of Mrs. Day’s rather formal home in Temple, Texas – walking distance from my elementary school. She always wore her perfectly coiffed grey hair up and fastened with combs, and practiced the graciousness she patiently tried to teach all of us rowdy kids. She would have been Millay’s contemporary–a shocking thought to me now, since I think of the poet as fuzzy history while the teacher remains sharply drawn in my mind.
Read MoreWe Need a Million for a Billion
Today’s guest post comes to us from The Population Institute. I highlight it because the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day is being celebrated at events around the world today. The best way I can think of to celebrate IWD is to petition the U.S. Congress and other world leaders to make good on their commitments to fund international family planning. In No Excuses, I show why reproductive self-determination is essential for women to have any other kind of power. But the Republicans are trying to eliminate or drastically cut family planning funds in the U.S. and globally. Even if you don’t have time to read the whole post, please click here to sign the petition now. You’ll be saving women’s lives.
It’s time to hold world leaders accountable for their promises. Seventeen years ago world leaders gathered in Cairo, Egypt, and declared access to reproductive health care to be a universal right, but for many that right has not been realized. An estimated 215 million married women in the developed world want to avoid a pregnancy, but are not using a modern method of birth control. Tens of millions of young men and women are at risk of acquiring HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.
It’s time to make access to contraceptives and reproductive health care a reality, not just a right. Need another reason? By giving women the power to prevent unwanted and unintended pregnancies we save lives. Every year 365,000 women, many of them too young to bear children, die as a result of pregnancy-related causes.
Breaking Barriers: Kentucky’s First Female African American Senator, Georgia Davis Powers
Kathy Groob, former elected city council member, publisher of ElectWomen Magazine, and partner at November Strategies political consulting firm contributed this inspiring article about Georgia Davis Powers, the first woman and first African American elected to the Kentucky state senate. It’s the first of a number of Women’s History Month guest posts I’m excited to share with 9 Ways readers.
At the time, Georgia Davis Powers had no idea she had made history in 1968 by becoming the first woman AND the first African-American elected to Kentucky’s State Senate. All she knew was that she wanted to make a difference in her community.
It was never her intention to become a politician, or even to work in government, but in the spring of 1962 Powers was introduced to politics upon the suggestion of fellow church member Verna Smith. Upon Ms. Smith’s advice she joined the U.S. Senatorial campaign staff of Wilson Wyatt. This led to six more years of managing mayoral, gubernatorial, and congressional campaigns. She also became heavily involved in the civil rights movement, leading the Allied Organization for Civil Rights in promoting statewide public accommodations and fair employment law in the early 1960’s. In 1964, she was one of the organizers of a march on the capital in Frankfort in support of equity in public accommodations, in which Dr. Martin Luther King and baseball legend Jackie Robinson participated.
In 1964 she was the first black woman elected to the Jefferson County Democratic Executive Committee. But after two years she resigned after becoming discouraged by the fact that the Committee had not discussed a single one of her proposals.
In 1966 she worked in the bill room during the legislative session for the Kentucky House of Representatives. This gave her the opportunity to see first hand how government functioned; as a result her political ambitions grew.
Read MoreWomen's History Month Open Thread: Family Ties
Many of us look to women in our family as our sheroes. Who are the women in your family who have helped shape you and how did they do it?
Women's History Friday Roundup: The Rally Edition
In 2004, women made history by descending on Washington in droves to March for Women’s Lives. Estimates vary about how many people attended the march, but it’s safe to say that there were over 1 million pro-choice activists in D.C. in 2004, myself included.
Last weekend a Walk for Choice was held in cities across the globe. Here is a roundup of photos from rallies across the country–the decentralized nature of the walk made it impossible to get exact numbers, but the geographic dispersion was impressive.
This Is a Sampling of What a Pro-Choice Rally Looks Like:
NYC – Feministing
Boston Walk for Choice
Walk for Choice Chicago – Feministing
Tucson Walks for Choice – Feminists for Choice
But we should not have to fight these battles over and over…
If you’ve got photos that you would like to add to our historical record (however “unofficial” it might be), please leave a link in the comments section. And by all means, take a moment to share your most proactive and innovative thoughts about what history you want to write for the future of reproductive rights, health, and justice.
Read MoreSportswomen – How Alice Marble Led the Way for Althea Gibson
Sports isn’t my strong suit. But it’s only appropriate that women who have led the way in the sports world should be highlighted within my Women’s History Month posts. So I asked my friend Beverly Wettenstein, who often writes and speaks on this topic, to guest post this article, originally published on Huffington Post.
Althea Gibson’s induction into the US Open Court of Champions, on the 50th anniversary of her historic title victory, was inspiring. The Opening Night Tribute, to celebrate living African-American women who have also broken barriers in sports, entertainment, politics and the arts, was impressive. Venus and Serena Williams paid fitting tribute to Gibson by winning their opening night matches. Serena Williams became the first African-American woman since Gibson to win the US Open in 1999. The next year, Venus Williams was the first African-American woman since Gibson to win Wimbledon.
However, Alice Marble’s significant role, as the leading public proponent and catalyst for Althea Gibson to break the color barrier in U.S. tennis, should not be overlooked. Women’s contributions are often not properly credited in history and sports books and media coverage. Researching my Women in History and Making History Today — 365-Days-A-Year Database and A WOMAN’S BOOK OF DAYS, I’ve confirmed that less than ten percent of the references in new history textbooks are about women. “Anonymous” may be a woman.
Read MoreKnow Your History–Create the Future of Your Choice
“If women want any rights more than they got, why don’t they just take them, and not be talking about it.” –-Sojourner Truth, 1797-1883, former slave, abolitionist
During the last 50 years, thanks to feminism and other civil rights movements, reliable birth control, and an economy that requires more brain than brawn, women have broken many barriers that historically prevented us from partaking as equals at life’s table. I feel privileged to be part of this amazing trajectory. All of my Women’s History Month posts come from a place of profound appreciation for the shoulders I stand on. Women like Sojourner Truth who had so much courage, clarity of vision, and leadership savvy.
I found feminism when I was a desperate housewife in Odessa, Texas in the 1960’s. After volunteering for civil rights organizations, I had the epiphany that women should have civil rights too. I “discovered” the new Ms Magazine. Then, I joined the National Organization for Women a few years after its 1966 founding, as an at-large member. Soon, I’d find the half-dozen other at-large members in West Texas’ expanse. It was a heady time of firsts for women; still, few of us could have predicted either the stunning advances or the discouraging setbacks ahead.
Fast forward to Hillary Clinton’s groundbreaking presidential campaign that didn’t take women into the presidency, but came close enough that no one will ever again ask whether women are smart enough or tough enough to do the job. Today even right-wing Republicans realize putting a woman on the ticket symbolizes electrifying change. Women earn 60% of college degrees, reproductive technologies have changed the power balance in personal relationships and we’re closer to parity in earnings than any time in history.
To be sure, women still don’t have full equality in any sphere of political or economic endeavor. Women hold just 17% of seats in Congress–the 2010 elections resulted in the first decline in over a decade–and under 25% of state legislative offices; 3% of top clout positions in mainstream media corporations and 15% of corporate board positions. We’re still waging a battle for reproductive rights, both at the state and federal levels. And despite gender equity laws, women earn 3/4ths of what men do while shouldering the lion’s share of responsibility for child rearing.
Still, the most confounding problem facing women today isn’t that doors aren’t open, but that women aren’t walking through the doors in numbers and with intention sufficient to transform society’s major institutions once and for all. Probing history, there seems to be a recurrent approach-avoidance pattern.
Read MoreWhat Do Academy Awards Have to Do With Women's History Month?
No, I’m not talking about Melissa Leo’s use of that other-than-feminism “f-bomb” last night. I want to compare two of this year’s Oscar winners and how they illustrate the way women’s history is told—or not.
I’m thrilled that “The King’s Speech” won best picture. I loved this beautifully rendered piece of history. And Colin Firth’s best actor Oscar was supremely deserved for his brilliant and touching portrayal of the shy man with a stutter, the man who not be king had he had his druthers.
But when the historical fluke of his brother’s abdication from the throne propelled him onto the British throne on the eve of world War II, King George VI rose not only to fulfill the ceremonial monarchy, but more importantly, to become a great moral leader in a time of crisis.
He realized that a leader’s first task is to define the terms and then deliver the message effectively. He feared his speech impediment would prevent him doing so. We follow him through the excruciating process of learning to control his stutter in order to fulfill the obligation his office required.
This man, for all his challenges was clearly the protagonist of his story. And his story was one of leadership, courage, and triumph over adversity.
Read MoreWhen Did You First Know You Had Power?
Do keep on posting those wonderful stories of women in history who deserve greater recognition than they get.
Today, I also have an extra question to ask. I’m delivering the keynote address at an event that recognizes two very important women in history: Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. I’ll be at the University of Rochester’s Stanton/Anthony Conversations, speaking on “How Women Use Power: Transforming Leadership.”
My question is: Was there a moment when you knew you had the power to….(you fill in the blank)? If so, what was it? If not, was there some other process that occurred to give you a sense of your own power to…(your words here)?
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
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