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CYNTHIA EPSTEIN IS ASA PRESIDENT
American Sociological Association Elects Graduate Center Professor as President
The American Sociological Association (ASA) has announced that Cynthia Fuchs Epstein, Distinguished Professor of Sociology at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, was elected the 97th President of the ASA. She will assume office in August of 2005, following a year of service as President-elect.
Election to President is the highest honor ASA members can bestow on a colleague. As President, Epstein will serve as Chair of the ASA Council, which governs the Association and its policies. Lynn Smith-Lovin of Duke University, was elected Vice President.
In 2004, Epstein was honored with the ASA Jessie Bernard award for her pioneering work exploring women’s exclusion from the professions. Among her books are Woman’s Place (1970), Women in Law (1981), and her landmark theoretical work Deceptive Distinctions (1988). Perhaps her most central insight is that since women and men are far more similar than they are different-in terms of both abilities and aspirations-the exclusion of women from equal status in the workplace is without foundation and can only be attributed to inaccurate stereotypic notions of women’s lives, hopes, and abilities.
Appointed Distinguished Professor at The Graduate Center in 1990, Professor Epstein first joined the faculty of Graduate Center’s Ph.D. Program in Sociology in 1975, at which time she was also on the faculty of CUNY’s Queens College. Among other academic experience, she has been a visiting professor at both the Columbia and Stanford schools of law. She was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a fellowship from the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, and has served on several major U.S. government/presidential commissions. She received her B.A. from Antioch College, attended the University of Chicago Law School, has an M.A from the New School for Social Research (now New School University), and received her Ph.D. from Columbia.
Contact: efoa@usa.net
The feminist movement transformed my life as a wife, mother, sister, daughter and writer.
In 1970, as a married woman with two children,
I moved -unhappily and reluctantly- from New York City to Rochester, 
New York because of a job opportunity for my husband. I was back in New York for a visit,
pushing my baby in a stroller when I came upon the March down Fifth Avenue. I had already committed myself to the
Women's Movement and published an article in Ms. Magazine on the subject of being an "uprooted wife."
When I saw all my peers assembled for the March I decided I absolutely had to be a part of it, picked up a "Women
Unite" shopping bag (now framed and on my wall), and marched. The event galvanized me to further action.
Back in Rochester I joined the local NOW chapter, organized and participated in a series of sit-ins and, most importantly, covered the movement as a free-lance writer, writing essays, news stories and feature stories from a feminist point of view. In 1974, for example, I wrote a long pioneering piece on radical mastectomies, which pointed out how male doctors were not giving women less-radical treatment options, options that were already being offered in Canada.
In 1974, I walked away from a 17-year marriage with few assets and two children, ages 9 and 5, to support. In 1976,
I published a feminist memoir, Whither
Thou Goest: The Story of an Uprooted Wife
(E P Dutton). In it I confronted an issue that had never been written about from a wife's perspective -following
a husband because ofhis career. The book created a furor and became an instant best seller in Rochester. It was
widely and favorably reviewed by, among others, the New York Times and Business Week for its insights into marriage
and the corporate life. A lecture tour and regional book tour followed publication. The book went into several
printings and was picked up by several book clubs.
In 1978, after a 3-year custody battle, I moved back to New York City as a single mother and made a leap from the life of a free-lance writer to the life of a corporate writer. As I used to say, I had to support "the wife and kids." I served as chief speech writer to the CEO of American Express for five years. In 1983, I formed Eleanor Foa Associates, which provides top-tier writing for global and not-for-profit clients, including American Express, Ann Taylor, Chase, Citibank, Columbia Business School, the H.J. Heinz Company, the John A. Hartford Foundation, IBM, K-Mart, Merrill Lynch, Seagram and Sears.
As an award-winning speech writer, I have worked with and written for dozens of Fortune 500 senior executives, including the CEOs of American Express, Seagram, IBM, RJR Nabisco, Merrill Lynch, and K-Mart.
I am the author of a number corporate histories,
among them: Poets and Writers: Celebrating and Serving America's Poets and Writers for Thirty Years, and In Good
Company: 125 Years at the Heinz Table (Warner Books).
I have also continued to pursue my career as a New York-based independent journalist and author. My articles, essays,
profiles, columns, book reviews and op-ed pieces have appeared in a range of publications, including the New York
Times, Harper's, the New York Observer, the New Republic, McCall's, Travel and Leisure, Frequent Flyer and Working
Woman. For three-and-a-halfyears I contributed a monthly column on "Living Alone," to New Choices, a
national magazine for men and women over-50. I am now writing a book for over-50 singles, whose key message is
that you can be happy and live a fulfilling life as an over-50 single. I consider it an ongoing product of my feminist
perspective.
I am past-president of the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA), and have been awarded literary residencies at Yaddo and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA). I am a graduate of Smith College, where I majored in history, the mother of two boys and grandmother of four.
I think of the 1970s as a golden age for women of my generation- a fabulous time to be a woman. The movement was not only personally empowering. It brought vast social and economic change, especially in the workplace. That, in turn, enabled me - and millions of women after me -to leave our marriages, earn decent wages in formerly male-onlyjobs (I believe I was the first female speech writer on Wall Street), and support our children, many of whom -like my sons -have turned out to be wonderfully feminist husbands and fathers.
Contact: efoa@usa.net
Visit Penny Colman's website! www.pennycolman.com
To Contact Penny Colman:
E-mail: pennycolman@pennycolman.com
Telephone and Fax: 201-568-6052
Born in Denver Colorado, Penny
Colman also lived in Oregon, Washington, and Kentucky before her parents settled in North Warren, Pennsylvania,
a small town in the northwest corner of the state. Her father was a psychiatrist at the state mental hospital.
She lived on the grounds of the mental hospital along with her father; her mother, an artist; and three brothers.
When Penny was eleven years old, a writer and photographer came from New York City to her house to do an article titled, “The Strangest Place to Find a Happy Family” that was published in Redbook Magazine. After two years of college, Penny decided to hitchhike through Europe.
When she returned home, she finished college, went to graduate school, got married, and had three children (two were twins), all within four years. For the next seventeen years, Penny Colman threw herself into being an active mom, volunteer, on-and-off writer, teacher, consultant, project manager, and art gallery owner. Finally, she decided to be a full-time writer in 1987, embarking on a challenging and exciting career.
In addition to researching and writing her award-winning books, Colman takes photographs and does extensive picture research for her books, including Rosie the Riveter: Women Working on the Home Front in World War II, Girls: A History of Growing Up Female in America, and Where the Action Was: Women War Correspondents in World War II. She has appeared on television, radio, and the Internet, including Nickelodeon's "Nick News" with Linda Ellerbee, Looseleaf Book Company with Tom Bodett, ABC World News, and Booktv C-Span2. She teaches at Teachers College, Columbia University in New York City.
Visit Penny Colman's website! www.pennycolman.com
To Contact Penny Colman:
E-mail: pennycolman@pennycolman.com
Telephone and Fax: 201-568-6052
Schwalb’s new drawings use the classical
Renaissance technique of metalpoint in a way which challenges all the traditional concepts. Juxtaposing a wide
variety of metals (silver, gold, brass, copper, platinum, pewter, bronze and aluminum) she obtains soft shifts
in tone and color reminiscent of the luminous transparency of watercolor. Horizontal bands evoke an atmosphere
of serenity, and the shimmer of light on the surface, created by the metals, is quite unlike any of the usual effects
of metalpoint.
The “Vibration” and “Palimpsest” series
expand the technique by fusing drawing and painting. Color is essential to these wood panels. Schwalb applies several
layers of paint, draws over them with the metalpoint and then erases parts of the surface with sand- \paper to
expose the paint. The images seem to float on the wall.
Susan Schwalb exhibited her works worldwide and is collected by major museums like the Brooklyn Museum of Art,
Brooklyn, The British Museum, London, The Museum of Fine Art, Boston, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Yale University
Art Gallery, New Haven, CT.
Contact Susan: susanschwalb@mac.com
CHARLOTTE KLEIN
THE WOMEN'S HALL OF FAME
The National Women's Hall of Fame at Seneca Falls, New York, to which outstanding women of achievement are added every year, originated at the 1965 World's Fair in New York. It was created by feminist Charlotte Klein, to solve a problem for a public relations client and to make a major statement about equality for women.
Left: Margaret Bourke White and Helen
Hayes, exchanging autographs
The Purex Corporation had sponsored a Women's Hospitality
Center at the Fair that failed to draw traffic.The PR agency at which Charlotte was Executive Vice President was
asked to develop a plan that would create national attention and be a dynamic draw for women to that Center. A
Hall of Fame had opened in 1901 at an NYU site and had never had a woman nominated to it. Charlotte thought "why
not establish a Hall of Fame just for women?" Purex agreed. She arranged for a Nominating Committee, with
the cooperation of the Fair's Women's Advisory Council, which included Margaret Truman Daniel. A list of 100 names
of outstanding women of the 20th Century (to 1965) was developed. Women's Page Editors of news papers nationwide,women
broadcasters, and editors of women's magazines were the electorate and the 10 living and 10 deceased who had the
most votes would comprise the women's Hall of Fame. All living nominees were sent a consent form and asked for
a copy of their preferred photograph.
More than 50% of the electorate returned ballots, electing: (deceased) Eleanor Roosevelt, Jane Addams, Amelia Earhart,
Edna St.Vincent Millay, Babe Didrikson Zaharias, Grandma Moses, Rachel Carson, Ethel Barrymore, Dr.Florence Sabin
and Evangeline Booth (living) Helen Keller, Pearl Buck, Marian Anderson, Helen Hayes, Margaret Bourke White, Senator
Margaret Chase Smith, Margaret Mead, Margaret Sanger, Dr.Frances O.Kelsey and Edna Ferber (all now are deceased,
except for Kelsey who had achieved fame as the government public health official who banned the thalidamide drug
that had caused infant deformities.)
The Hall of Fame portrait gallery was mounted in the Center. World's Fair President Robert Moses dedicated the
Hall. The reception that followed was under the direction of the Purex President who presented each living Hall
of Famer with a gold vermeil bud vase with a Royal Porcelain flower from Tiffany designed by Charlotte. More than
200 influential guests, the press and six of the ten living electees attended.Helen Keller, was ill and had actress
Katherine Cornell represent her.
Left to Right:
Margaret Truman Daniel,
Helen Hayes,
Frances O. Kelsey,
William Tincher (Sr. V.P Purex Corp),
Margaret Bourke-White,
Katherine Cornell and
Margaret Mead
All TV and radio networks and local New York stations covered the event, as well as AP and UPI.37 major newspapers carried the story on their front page,with photos (many in color). Several ran editorials. All newspapers in the top ten primary markets and 85% of the next 30 primary trade areas printed the story. Traffic to the Center increased by 400%. Charlotte supervised the entire promotion and press campaign. In 1969, she gave the women's Hall of Fame to the Seneca Falls Historic Preserve, where they added key suffragettes of the 19th Century. The Women's Hall of Fame of 1965 was a forerunner of and a catalyst for the new Feminist Revolution.
Contact Charlotte here: kleintravis@earthlink.net
December 14, 2007
Her Spirit Lives On
Judith Meuli was the national secretary of the Feminist Majority, an organization she founded with Eleanor Smeal,
Toni Carabillo, Peg Yorkin, and Katherine Spillar in 1987 to encourage women to become involved in public affairs
and the electoral process and a board member of the Feminist Majority Foundation.
In 1988, she co-authored a book with Toni Carabillo entitled The Feminization of Power.
The book grew out of a traveling exhibit that Meuli and Carabillo created for a twelve-city Feminization of Power
campaign tour to empower women to run for office in 1988.
She had been an activist and an organizer in the feminist movement since she joined the National Organization for Women in 1967.
In 1968, she was elected to serve for two years as secretary of the Los Angeles Chapter of NOW. From 1971 to 1977, she served almost continuously as a member of NOW's National Board of Directors. From 1971 through 1974, she served as Chair of the National Membership Committee, instituting reforms for the fast-growing organization such as central dues collection and an anniversary payment system. In 1974, she also chaired NOW's National Nominating Committee. In 1976, she was elected coordinator of the Hollywood chapter. She served as President of Los Angeles NOW from 1998 to 2000.
She was co-editor of NOW's national newsletter, NOW Acts, from 1970 to 1973, editor of Financing the Revolution, a catalog of fund-raising tips, in 1973, and co-editor of NOW's national newspaper, the National NOW Times, with a circulation of 250,000, from 1977 until 1985.
For the major part of her professional life, Ms. Meuli had pursued both a career as a writer, graphic designer and jewelry designer and a career as a real estate broker and developer. In the latter role, in 1990, she designed and constructed a building to house the media center and archives for the Feminist Majority.
Ms. Meuli held a bachelor of science degree from the University of Minnesota. For 10 years after graduating, she was a research scientist at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, and the University of California, Los Angeles, where she studied renal physiology.
Her career as a scientist ended when Ms. Meuli discovered that although she taught medical students research and surgical techniques, she was discouraged from entering medical school because she was female and, at thirty years old, she was considered too old.
In 1969, she co-founded the Women's Heritage Corporation,
a publishing company that produced the Women's Heritage Calendar and Almanac and a series of paperbacks on such
figures as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucy Stone. In 1970, she formed a graphic arts firm with Ms. Carabillo in
Los Angeles. Women's Graphic Communications produces and distributes books, newspapers, political buttons, and
pins.
Ms. Meuli designed many of the symbols and logos of the women's movement, such as the designs for Woman's Equality,
Human Liberation, Sisterhood, Matriarchy Lives, Woman's Peace, Older Women's League, Equal Rights Amendment, Woman
Thinker, Failure Is Impossible, NOW's Commemorative medallion, and many feminist issue pins in cloisonné
enamel.
Her biography appears in Who's Who In America and Who's Who of American Women.
Her Spirit Lives On
September 29, 2006
June Bundy Csida was a member of Los Angeles NOW since 1970 when she coordinated a search for surviving pre-World War I suffragists to participate in NOW's historic Women's Strike for Equality celebration on August 26. The event marked the 50th anniversary of the day women won the right to vote.
Inspired by those gallant pioneer feminists, one of whom, Ernestine Kettler, served a jail
sentence for picketing the Wilson White House, Ms. Csida became active in Los Angeles NOW and filled various chapter
offices (vice president, secretary, public relations officer) throughout the '70s. Also during those years she
assisted NOW's National Vice President Toni Carabillo with media relations and was a contributor and columnist
for the National NOW Times.. In 1971, she persuaded several Los Angeles TV and radio stations-including two network
outlets-to create and air public service spots for NOW, a first for the organization.
In 1972, she set up a special public forum on the then- startling theme Rape - the Number One Crime Against Women. The following year she and her husband, Joseph Csida, also a long-time NOW member, wrote Rape (How To Avoid It And What To Do About It If You Can't), the first book-length feminist treatment of the shocking facts about the under-reported, under-prosecuted crime against women and children.
Ms. Csida was also the author of: Elizabeth Cady
Stanton, The 19th Century Renaissance Woman; American Entertainment, a Unique History of Popular Show Business
(with Joseph Csida), a chronological history of events in music, theatre, films, television, radio, dance, vaudeville,
circus, fairs and carnivals since Colonial days; and A Complete Guide to Healthy Pets.
As a contributor to the World Book Encyclopedia Year Book for 14 years, Ms. Csida wrote annual reports on radio
and television and many special features, including a special report on The Second Feminist Revolt, tracing the
history of women's fight for equality from its origin in Seneca Falls, N.Y., in 1848 through 1972. She was also
a contributor to The People's Almanac #1 and #2, writing on rape, murder, and animals.
As a writer-reporter for Billboard magazine for 15 years, Ms. Csida wrote record, night club, theatre, radio, and television reviews, eventually serving as TV-radio programming editor.
Ms. Csida scripted and researched the syndicated TV series Movie Museum, a history of silent cinema featuring the film library of D.W. Griffith's and other silent movie classics; a syndicated radio series, Show Ms!, a feminist tribute to women musical stars from the '20s to the '80s; and Billboard magazine's annual Yearbook, a syndicated radio series covering current events and best-selling records for rock, middle of the road, and country.
In 1986, she wrote a tribute to male feminists which was delivered by actor Ed Asner at NOW's 20th anniversary show.
At the age of 20, in an era when most women stayed at home or worked as secretaries, Ms. Csida went out on the road as advance agent for the top novelty band of the day, Spike Jones and His City Slickers. Prior to joining Billboard, she ran her own publicity agency in partnership with Auriel Macfie.
Contact Aileen: Aileenfem@aol.com
Equal Employment Opportunity Commissioners (EEOC)
were appointed to oversee enforcement of the Civil Rights Act. Aileen Hernandez, a future president of NOW, was
the only woman appointed to the Commission. Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. was named chair. (1965)
The founding conference of NOW was held
in Washington, D.C. Betty Friedan was elected president and Kay Clarenbach, chair of the board. Aileen Hernandez
(subject to her consent-she was not present), executive vice president; Richard Graham, vice president; and Caroline
Davis, secretary-treasurer. (10/29-30/66)
NOW held simultaneous demonstrations at EEOC field offices across the country. The demonstration sites included
New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Chicago, and Atlanta, and emphasized the EEOC's failure to end sex-segregated
job advertising. Demonstrators in San Francisco ( photo in FC) included national NOW Treasurer Inka O'Hanrahan,
Vice President Aileen Hernandez, Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon. (12/14/67)
Aileen Hernandez was elected President and Wilma Scott Heide, chair of the Board, at NOW's Fourth National Conference
in Des Plaines, IL. During a two-hour "farewell address," retiring president Betty Friedan called for
a "Women's Strike for Equality" on August 26-a surprise proposal to other national officers sitting on
the dais, including the incoming president, Hernandez. NOW Membership 3033; NOW Annual Budget $38,000. (03/20/70)
Author: Hernandez, Aileen C., The Women's Movement:
1965-1975, paper for the Symposium on the Tenth Anniversary of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission,
sponsored by Rutgers University Law School, (November 28-29, 1975).
Forum 1998: Aileen Clarke Hernandez, President and Founder, Aileen C. Hemandez Associates; Second President of
National Organization for Women; Chair, California Women's Agenda
Lee Kefauver and daughter Kari Lavalli
The Fight Still Goes On!
by Lee Kefauver
When I began working in the Women's Movement during the
second stage of feminism, my daughter was eight years old. As with so many other feminists of that time, we were
motivated in large part by the hope that we could change society so that our daughters would not have to fight
for their rights as we had been forced to do. I had been blessed with a bright and charming daughter who shared
my feminist views. With the backing of her feminist sisters, she fought her way through the old traditions she
encountered in the public schools of Dearborn, Michigan and opened to girls classes which previously had been reserved
only for boys. She went on to earn a bachelor's degree from Wells College in New York and then earned her Ph.D.
in marine biology from Boston University.
She accepted a tenure-track position in the biology department of Southwest Texas University in San Marcos four years ago. In a way, it was a "coming home" experience for her, as her great-great-great-great grandfather, James Gibson Swisher, had been one of the first European-American settlers in Texas, having come there with Stephen F. Austin in 1834. He was one of the signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence from Mexico. His son, John Milton Swisher, was the youngest soldier at the Battle of San Jacinto, and is pictured in the painting of the surrender of Santa Anna which hangs in the state capitol at Austin. But evidently, the freedoms for which our forebears fought 165 years ago are being subverted by the administration of Southwest Texas University.
The chair of the biology department at Southwest
Texas University has subjected her to the most blatant sex discrimination and harassment, reminiscent of practices
engaged in by universities thirty years ago, and his actions have been upheld by his superiors, the dean and the
vice-president of the 
university. The SWT Biology Department has 25 male professors (one of whom is a minority),
compared to 6 females (one of whom is a minority). Highly qualified women applicants are not even given consideration
for open positions which go to far less qualified white male applicants. Teaching loads assigned to my daughter
have been much heavier than those of the male professors, which leaves her much less time to pursue research -
a qualification for achieving tenure. Although she has performed more service than her male counterparts, is mentoring
more graduate students, and has received the highest of student evaluations, which earned her a teaching award
from the university, she has just been issued a terminal contract.
It is of little comfort to me that my daughter's story is not unique. Today it seems that universities all across the United States are actively engaging in blatant sexual discrimination. The American Association of University Women is presently pursuing 12 sex discrimination cases in university settings and is interested in my daughter's case. In recent years, AAUW has supported 58 sex discrimination cases against universities. And while the laws we "old feminists" strove so hard to see enacted will help her in any legal battle she may engage, it breaks my heart to see that the years of effort fought by my sisters and me have borne so little fruit. Our daughters will have to continue the fight. Truly, societal evolution is not an ascending ladder of progress!
When my daughter objected to her treatment through the university grievance avenue, she was told that she was up against a system established by "the good old boys." I was reminded of the comment made by one Florida legislator when ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment was defeated in that state:
" I fondly hope that one day these 'good old boys' will grow up and become men!"
UPDATE 5/2004: Lee Kefauver's daughter files suit!
Kari Kefauver has left Southwest Texas State University and has filed suit in State Court charging discrimination and retaliation. The American Association of University Women's Legal Advocacy Fund is backing her suit.
For further information on this story, please contact Kari at: klavalli@yahoo.com
###
(Lee Kefauver served as state coordinator of the National Organization for Women in Michigan, as president of Women's Equity Action League (WEAL), Michigan Division, and as lobbyist for Michigan WEAL. She presently is a member of the Massachusetts and National Women's Political Caucus, Emily's List, and the Veteran Feminists of America.)
E-mail Lee at: lkefauver@hotmail.com
CRATER'S
RAIDERS
FLORA CRATER: 1999 Human Rights
Award Winner
TO CONTACT ERA ACTIVISTS -- jsmacleod@aol.com
Flora Crater, fighter for school integration, minority rights, and especially for the advancement of women and
passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, received the 1999 Human Rights Award from the Fairfax County
Human Rights Commission in Fairfax, Va., May 2, 1999. Flora has also been a lifelong Democrat and activist in community
and political affairs at all levels. She ran for the statewide office of Lt. Governor in 1973, and the U.S. Senate
in 1978. She was the first president of the Northern Virginia Chapter of the National Organization for Women. She
convened the Virginia Equal Rights Amendment Ratification Council and presently serves as its Vice Chair. She convened
and became the first coordinator of the Virginia Women's Political Caucus. (picture left:Flora Crater holds aloft a flower symbolic of ERA support U.S. Senate Candidate,
Virginia Democratic Convention, June 10, 1978)
In 1977, she launched two publications: The
Woman Activist, a monthly nationally
circulated women's rights bulletin, which she continues to edit, write, and publish; and a manual about the political
process in Virginia, The Almanac
of Virginia Politics, which she
co-authors and publishes every year. In 1972, she led a group of women known as CRATER'S RAIDERS
to relentlessly lobby Congress, resulting in the passage of the Equal Rights Resolution,
launching ERA!s ongoing quest for passage in 38 state legislatures (only three more to go to achieve constitutional
status).
In 1994, Flora was a strategist and is presently co-chair of the ERA Summit,a
national coalition of organizations for ERA ratification. She is presently a member and adviser for the FCDC Women's
Rights Committee, Action Coordinator of the Virginia Women's Network, and Vice Chair of the Virginia ERA Ratification
Council. She continues to ride the metro downtown to lobby Congress for passage of a new ERA Resolution, and is
still actively involved in NOW, the Feminist Majority, and other women's rights organizations.
Flora may be 86, but her amazing record of activism and accomplishment challenges us all to step up our involvement
and win the human rights battles Flora has been waging for so long.
Thanks, Flora, for your inspiring example!
More on Flora Crater, Contact here:
Hildachild@aol.com
Contact Jacqui Ceballos for further info.at: jcvfa@aol.com
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DELL
WILLIAMS
In 1974, inspired by Betty Dodson and my political commitment to further women's sexual liberation, I created EVE'S GARDEN, a women’s sexuality boutique and mail-order business to help women to "define, explore and celebrate" their sexuality...
I stepped into the Women's March for Equality
in 1970 like a lamb and I walked out like a lion. I suddenly "got it" when I realized that growing up
female in our male- dominated culture had truly limited me financially, psychologically and emotionally. It was
an instant transformation. I joined the New York Chapter of NOW and another chapter in my life began at 52. Inspired
in my new cause for freedom and the undaunted leadership of Jacqui Ceballos, who was the then President of NOW,
I was plunged into various activities, participating in "zap" actions (which attracted the media like
flies and brought our cause to the notice of the nation) to planning conference and creating many fund-raising
events for the chapter.
In 1972, Judy Wenning, the then president of the chapter, handed me an outline of a sexuality conference she wanted
me to coordinate for the chapter. Together with Laura Scharf and a terrific group of passionate women we launched
an event which had never been done before... a forum where women could get together and talk about SEX. It was
a rousing success. THE WOMEN'S SEXUALITY CONFERENCE took place in a New York City High School attended by over
1400 women. We opened with a "SPEAK OUT" with women speaking from every lifestyle, opening with Betty
Dodson's declaration that masturbation was her primary sexual activity. Her forthright talk transformed women from
body-shy to body-proud as w,:)men shared their different sexual lives from straight to gay and everything in between.
We convened into various workshops for smaller gatherings on every subject related to sexuality which occurred
over a two-day period. On Sunday Betty Dodson presented her slide show "Creating an Aesthetic for the Female
Genitals", which showed the tremendous variety of shapes, forms and colors of women's genitals.
When the show ended, I thought the walls would topple from the vibrations of the thunderous applause. it was as
if thousands of years of guilt, shame and sexual repression came tumbling down with the walls. Many women told
me later that this conference changed their lives, and for some, their lifestyles. In 1974, inspired by Betty Dodson
and my political commitment to further women's sexual liberation, I created EVE'S GARDEN, a women’s sexuality boutique
and mail-order business to help women to "define, explore and celebrate" their sexuality, which was the
theme of the conference. "EVE" represented all women and the "GARDEN" was symbolic of women
taking responsibility for their OWN sexuality.
Presently, I am studying to be an Interfaith Minister, and, Goddess willing, look forward to creating a ministry
that seeks to unite sexuality with spirituality; a ministry that honors the regenerative power of the life force
which is contained in women's sacred sexual nature.
For further information, Dell can
be reached at Eve's Garden
212-757-8651
119 West 57th Street, Ste 1201
New York, NY 10019.
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to Top of Page
Writer and Performer of Sun Flower
The Life and Loves of Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Perry (Actor/Playwright) began her career with a Helen Hayes Award Scholarship
to the American Theatre Wing presented by Helen Hayes and Charles MacArthur. At a young age she appeared with Paul
Muni and Ed Begley in Inherit
the Wind, was Polly Peachum
in The Three Penny Opera, created the role of Catherine Howard in Royal
Gambit, and played Allison in Look Back in Anger,
and Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin
Roof in summer stock before
going to Hollywood, where she starred in numerous TV classics such as Gunsmoke, Bonanza, and Outer Limits,
as well as in the West Coast premieres of The
Great God Brown, The Balcony, The Collection,
and Touch of the Poet.
On her return to New York, under the artistic direction of Ellis Rabb and Jack O'Brien, with the APA Phoenix Repertory at New York's Lyceum Theatre and at the APA base in Ann Arbor, she played Lady Macbeth, The Player Queen in Hamlet, Eliante in The Misanthrope,Verenanda in Chronicles of Hell, The Little Queen in The King Dies, and Woman in Beckett's Play.
On Broadway, Ms. Perry played opposite George C. Scott in the hit revival of Present Laughter, in 84 Charing Cross Road, The Women, and in The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940. Off-Broadway she played in Isn't it Romantic, A Perfect Ganesh, The Chairs, and Fefu and Her Friends, among many other outstanding productions. Her regional credits include Painting Churches, The Subject Was Roses, Midsummer Night's Dream, The Farm, Peer Gynt, Glass Menagerie, Steel Magnolias, and On Golden Pond.
On television she has played major roles on Kate and Allie, Another World, As the World Turns, and was Michael Learned's best friend on the series, Nurse. Ms. Perry is a well-known theatrical coach and conducts workshops on playwrighting and musical theatre.
She is a winner of the Villager Award for her performance in "A
Difficult Borning". She is co-founder with the late Robert Elston of the American
Renaissance Theater Company. 'Sun
Flower' debuted in Mrs. Stanton's
birthplace, Johnstown NY, has played in the Capitol Rotunda, the Senate Building, at Governor Pataki's Summit for
Young Women, at the Washington Arena's Old Vat Theatre, in New York at the Neighborhood Playhouse, the Homegrown
and Houseman Theatres, at the Celebration of Women's Rights in Seneca Falls, and at the invitation of the White
House for the Millennium Celebration in Washington, DC.(pictured: Elizabeth Perry as Elizabeth Cady Stanton.)
She has performed as Elizabeth Cady Stanton on CNN, CSPAN, CNBC, NYI, and NPR She has appeared in 'Sun Flower' from Palm Springs to Alabama. She has even played Vegas! - and Carnegie Hall! (in West Virginia).
Visit the "Sun Flower" website at: http://elizabethperryarts.com
E-mail Elizabeth Perry: elizabethperrysf@aol.com
ALICE KESSLER-HARRIS
Author of
IN PURSUIT 0F EQUITY
Women, Men and the Questfor Economic
Citizenship in Twentieth-Century America
Alice Kessler-Harris is Professor in the Department of History and the Institute
for Research on Women and Gender at Columbia University. She was one of the three women's historians invited to
speak at a White House symposium on Women as Citizens in 1999. Kessler-Harris was also an expert guest of the PBS
documentary "The Measured Century". She is considered one of the most important women's historians in
the United States and has been a leading advocate for women's studies in the universities for three decades.
She has previously taught at Rutgers University, where she directed the Women's Studies program from 1990 to 1995,
at Sarah Lawrence College, Temple University, and Hofstra University. She has held visiting professorships at SUNY,
Binghamton, and at the University of Warwick in England. Kessler-Harris was a founding director of the Institute
of Applied Social Science which developed and implemented a pioneering worker education program in cooperation
with District 65, UAW. She co- directed that program from 1976 to 1984.
Kessler-Harris was born in England and educated in Cardiff, Wales, Trenton, New Jersey, and at Goucher College
in Baltimore, where she earned her BA degree in 1961. She received her MA (1963) and PhD (1968) degrees from Rutgers
University.
Kessler-Harris is the author of Out
to Work: A History of Wage Earning Women in the United States (Oxford
University Press, 1982); A Woman's
Wage: Historical Meanings and Social Consequences
(Kentucky, 1990); and Women Have
Always Worked: A Historical Overview
(Feminist Press, 1981). In collaboration with others, she has recently edited Protecting Women: Labor Legislation in Europe, Australia, and the United States. 1880-1920 (Illinois, 1995); U.S. History as Women's History (North Carolina, 1995); and Perspectives
on American Labor History: The Problem of Synthesis (Northern
Illinois, 1990). Her scholarly articles have focused on the history of American labor, particularly that of wage-earning
women.
Among the honors she has won, Kessler-Harris
counts fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the National Endowment
for the Humanities. She has held research fellowships at the Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College, the Institute
for Social Research in Oslo, and the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences. She holds honorary
degrees from Goucher College and the University of Uppsala in Sweden. She has held office in several professional
associations, most notably serving as President of the American Studies Association from 1991-2.
For Alice Kessler-Harris
Contact: Tara Kennedy, Publicist
212.726.6106 phone
212.726.6447 fax
E-mail: tsk@oup-usa.org
BETTY COOK ROTTMANN
2nd WAVE "BABY BLOOMER"
Betty Cook Rottmans' feminist activity is well
known by many people around the country. But not many know her as a writer, poet and actor, even though her articles,
photo features and poetry have won her
state and national awards. Her collection of poetry, "Tyrant's Tears", received the Missouri Writer's
Guild Major Work Award in 1990.
For the past three years she has been portraying Amelia Bloomer, the feminist activist of the 1800's who is best remembered for the famous "bloomers."
A journalism graduate from the U of Missouri, she is a public relations consultant. She's been active in the movement since 1972, when she co-founded the Missouri Women's Political Caucus and Coalition for the Equal Rights Amendment. She served on the board of the National Women's Conference for several years. Betty has conducted workshops on women's issues, public relations, shared poetry readings and illustrated presentation of her international travels.
To get in touch with her bcookrottmann@mchsi.com
Dr.
Shere Hite
FEMINIST THEORY
Most
people probably know me as the author/researcher of a series of famous books known as 'The Hite Reports', the first
being on the subject of female sexuality. It is the first book to state unequivocally that based on my rather extensive
research most women orgasm regularly and rather easily from clitoral stimulation, though not usually by a partner
via coitus -- and that this is not a 'dysfunction' or a 'problem', nor is it a sign that women should change. It
is not women who have a 'problem' and should change, but the definition of sex that should change. In other words,
traditional sex discriminates against women. [This book was published as a 'bestseller' in 19 languages and is
still in print in many parts of the world.]
To fill you in on my more recent labors, during 2000-2001 I published a book called Sex and Business: Ethics at Work (Financial Times - Pearson Education) that has now come out in 35 countries (l8 languages). It includes topics like sexual harassment, relationships between women at work, the glass ceiling, new types of relationships between women and men at work, interviews with ten of the world's top c.e.o.'s who discuss with me why there are no women on their boards of directors, etc. This book also contains some of my more recent theories that seem to break ground on these issues.
This book just came out in Japanese. I was in Japan (where I also teach, I have a chair in gender and culture in the department of international relations, Nihon University). While there, I met with two of the five women members of the Diet (parliament), who sponsored the new 'equality law' passed in 1999. In short, I travel to many countries in the course of my work and try to remain well-informed, as well as playing an activist part in interntational feminism. In other countries I remain involved by writing regularly in high-profile publications; for example, I write a weekly full-page column in the major newspaper in Spain, and also one in Italy. I write a page every month in Germany, and sporadically elsewhere. I live a large part of the time in Paris (since 1989) and know many of the participants in the debate over 'parite', which as you know was passed last year (as Anselma dell'Olio mentions); I have been on French television many times (yes I speak French), and so on.
I am considered a global activist, very active in many places, and would like to hear from others who are similarly involved. I am a valuable resource for international news about women's rights, as well as for cutting-edge theory on sexual and other matters.
I had to leave the U.S. after some of the media frightened publishers off publishing me in the U.S. in the late eighties. At that time (1987), a group of famous feminist writers (who I consider my best friends) including Barbara Seaman, Gloria Steinem, Phyllis Chesler, Andrea Dworkin, Ti-Grace Atkinson and Ruby Rohrlich among others defended me with a press conference, but -- though Liz Smith reported on the conference, no other media did, preferring instead to call me a 'charlatan' (especially the Washington Post). Susan Faludi defended me against this charge in her brilliant book Backlash. Since that time, I have been living in Europe. Why did all this happen? I often wonder if the attack on me and my work came at the end of the eighties (when I published the third Hite Report; Knopf 1987, Women and Love) because it was a time of rising 'fundamentalist' right-wing activism against feminism or because the subject of the book (have women been brainwashed to serve men via the ideology of 'love', or is 'love' real -- and if so, what kinds of love do women say make them happy?) was too controversial for some. Of course, the media didn't discuss the idea of a re-evaluation of love by women, it said instead that my 'research methodology' was 'bad'. (In fact, I am quite proud of my research methods, my conclusions have stood the test of time, and many including Dale Spender and Barbara Ehrenreich have praised my research methods.)
Since moving to Europe I have published a fourth Hite Report (that was featured on the cover of MS. Magazine in 1995): The Hite Report on the Family, as well as four additional books (see below). I have never ceased being active in feminist causes around the world, indeed I am more active than I ever was. I do miss the closer contact I had with feminist friends when I lived in New York, but living internationally has its rewards too.
Here is a list of my books published to date:
- Sex and Business: Ethics at Work (Financial Times - Pearson 2000)
- The Hite Report on Hite: Voice of a Daughter in Exile (Arcadia Books 2000)
- Women with Women: Is There a Hidden Taboo on Public Alliances? (not published in English; published in ten languages, for example Mujeres y Mujeres, El Pais, Spain)
- The Hite Report on the Family (Bloomsbury 1995)
- Women as Revolutionary Agents of Change (U. of Wisconsin Press, 1996)
- Women and Love: A Cultural Revolution in Progress (Knopf, 1987)
- The Hite Report on Male Sexuality (Knopf, 1981)
- The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality (MacMillan 1976)
- Almost all of these books are published in many
international editions (French, German, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish and many other languages; see my website
for listing).
Contact Dr. Hite: hite18@hotmail.com
Visit the Hite Research website: http://www.hite-research.com
KATHRYN AVERY -- A NATIONAL WOMAN'S PARTY ACTIVIST
Her Spirit Lives On
For over 20 years, she was one of those indispensable behind-the-scenes workers without
whom no organization can thrive. She served on the board of the Women's Party Corporation
in many capacities for years, and according to former president, Elizabeth Chittick, provided great support. She
worked on the Equal Rights Amendment campaign and helped organize the famous march in Washington
for the ERA in 1977, when she walked in the first line with Elizabeth,
Bella Abzug and Hazel Hunkins Hallinen, the suffragist who burned the papers on the steps of the White House in
the early 1900s.
Born Kathryn Cavan in 1920 in Seattle, Washington, she graduated in Theatre and English Literature from the University of Washington, then earned a teaching credential. WWII interrupted a brief stint in Hollywood, and she married naval officer, Walter Avery, when he returned from Pearl Harbor for repairs to the Battleship USS Maryland. After the war they moved to Newport, RI, where he attended Harvard and MIT and their daughter was born. Later, stationed in the Netherlands, their son was born and she was active in the English theatre group. After a tour of duty in Greece (and more theatre), they lived in the District of Columbia while her husband was Executive Officer at the Naval Station.Upon his retirement, they moved to Northern Virginia where she sold real estate and was active as a volunteer in many social and cultural organizations. In the early 1970s she met Alice Paul and became active in the National Woman's Party. Her husband was an active supporter of the NWP and its second male member.
Also in the '70's she began volunteering at the
Folger Shakespeare Library and presided over the docents at a time when they helped broaden the Folger's archival
and scholarly focus. Since then the Children's and High School Shakespeare Festivals have fostered learning and
performing of the Bard's work in schools throughout the Washington area. For about 20 years Kathryn appeared in costume as Queen Elizabeth I, providing a royal
presence for the children to play to.
Also, for several years she taught classes on Shakespeare at American University's Learning in Retirement program.
Having retired due to poor health, Kathryn lived in Northern Virginia at 6456 Spring Terrace, Falls Church, VA
22042, with her daughter, Tara.
E-Mail Kathryn Avery's daughter Tara here: Taravery@aol.com
LORRAINE
ROTHMAN
Menopause Myths & Facts: What
every woman should know about Hormone Replacement Therapy
Her Spirit Lives On
Menopause Myths & Facts: What Every Woman
Should Know about Hormone Replacement Therapy is
an easy-to-read book by Lorraine Rothman with Marcia Wexler. Lorraine is co-founder of the Los Angeles Feminist
Women's Health Center.
More than 20 years ago, Lorraine began researching human hormones to understand what happens when women take The
Pill for birth control or Hormone Replacement Therapy in menopause. This new book identifies 26 myths about menopause
and sets the record straight, giving accurate and complete information.
Ask your local independent bookstore
to order it (Retail: $11), or get it yourself from
Feminist Health Press at Tel. 323-650-1508.
Get copies for yourself, for a friend, and for your doctor.
Menopause Myths & Facts
Dares to tell the truth about Menopause
and Hormone Replacement Therapy!
Published by Feminist Health Press. Call them for bulk orders at 323-650-1508 or fax to 323-848-9402.
Lorraine Rothman held a Master of Science degree in Human Resources Development with an emphasis in Health Education and Training from Chapman University, C)range County, California (I 988). She co-founded the women's self-help movement with Carol Downer. Together, they traveled across the country in 1971 teaching women self-examination: how to see their cervix using a plastic speculum, flashlight and mirror. She co-founded the Los Angeles and Orange County Feminist Women's Health Centers in 1971 and 1972. As Clinical Administrator she developed training programs for professional and support staff. She continued to monitor research in women's health, lecturing at colleges, universities, and professional health organizations. Her writings have appeared in textbooks and professional journals. Lorraine was a major researcher and co-author of A New View of a Woman's Body (Feminist Health Press, 1995) and How To Stay Out of the Gynecologists Office (Women to Women Publications, 1986). Marcia Wexler holds a Masters in Public Health from Columbia University in New York (I 968) and a PhD in Women's Health and Communications from Summit University of Louisiana (1993). She co-founded Womaneare, a Feminist Women's Health Center in San Diego in 1973 and also worked at the Los Angeles and Atlanta Feminist Women's Health Centers. She is a co-author of A New View of a Woman's Body and Healing Love Through the Tao: Cultivating Female Sexual Energy (Healing Tao Press, 1986).
Get the big story at the Feminist Women's Health Center website: http://www.fwhc.org/menomyth.htm
Her Spirits Lives On
FOR WOMEN ONLY!
YOUR GUIDE TO HEALTH EMPOWERMENT
Barbara Seaman
Co-author Gary Null
now available!
Read all about it. 1,600 pages! Seventy-three chapters! One hundred eighty writings by outside contributors. Nineteen
interviews. Barbara Seaman's account of the spiritual awakening that is the story of women's health in our times.
Just go to the VFA READING
CORNER for a closer look!
Barbara Seaman was cited by the Library of Congress as the author who raised sexism in health care as a worldwide
issue. Her 1969 book The Doctors'
Case Against the Pill (25th anniversary
edition, 1995) was the basis of Senate hearings and influenced the FDA to require informational inserts in packages
of oral contraceptives and other medicines. The New
York Times wrote that she "triggered
a revolution, fostering a willingness among women to take issues of health into their own hands." She is also
the author of Free and Female (1972), Women and the Crisis in Sex Hormones (1977), and
Lovely Me: The Life of Jacqueline Susann
(1987). Barbara Ehrenreich has said of Ms. Seaman, "In 1969, Barbara Seaman proved that women can talk back
to doctors---calmly, rationally, and scientifically. For many of us, women's liberation began at that moment."
Ms. Seaman is a graduate of Oberlin College where she received a BA as well as Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters.
She also holds an Advanced Science Writers Degree from the Columbia School of Journalism where she was a Sloan-Rockefeller
Fellow. Ms. Seaman, who has three children and three grandchildren, lives in New York City.
WINNIE WACKWITZ pioneer of the skies
WINNIE WACKWITZ (pictured right)
had a rather unconventional upbringing in the bayou country of rural south 
Louisiana where she enjoyed an unfettered adventure filled childhood. She is co-author
of The Barefoot Adventure stories -- inspired by actual experiences during the 1930's
in an environment rich in social, racial and ethnic cultures ranging from the educated landed gentry to blacks
and French speaking Cajuns. Colorful characters abounded. She graduated from Louisiana State University in 1953.
Her work experience has ranged from flight instructor and commercial artist to editor and publisher of a newspaper
for women. During the 1970's she compiled and taught a course in women's history. Winnie constructed her own open
cockpit airplane from scratch and test flew it shortly after her 65th birthday. Since her first flying lesson in
1944, flying is still a source of free spirited adventure for Winnie.
"There are no heroines following the
shining pathsof romantic adventures, as do the heroes
of boys books ....
Of course girls have been reading so-called 'boys' books' ever since there were such. But consider what It means to do so. Instead of closing the covers with shining eyes and the happy thought, 'That might happen to me someday!' the girls, turning the final page, can only sigh regretfully, 'Oh, dear, that can never happen to me - because I'm not a boy!"'
Amelia Earhart wrote these words in the mid-1930's after her own adventure flying over the shining path of the Atlantic. Looking at the books available, she was "struck with the fact that girls are evidently not expected to join in the fun." Well, guess what? Sixty-five years later Amelia would still be struck with the same fact. According to research compiled by Librarian Kathleen O'Dean and published in her book, Great Books For Girls, they still get left out of much of the fun. Only a small percentage of over 4,000 children's books published each year offer the kind of brave females about which Amelia Earhart longed to read. This is especially true of those written for and about girls ages eight through twelve.
Read about Winnie's latest book "Mystery of the Swamp Lights" in the VFA Reading Corner!
Contact Winnie Wackwitz: Dnawk@aol.com
Author of
THE WORLD SPLIT OPEN
How The Modern Women's Movement Changed America
Published by Viking Books
(check our "VFA Reading Corner"
for more about this book and ordering)
Ruth Rosen became active in the women's movement in l967 in Berkeley, Ca. after years of working in the civil rights and anti-war movements. As a graduate student, she taught the first course on women's history at U.C. Berkeley in l970 and worked as a journalist and photojournalist documenting the activities of the movement. Since l974, she has continued teaching undergraduates and training graduate students in women's history as a professor at the University of California, Davis. The New York Times designated her first book, The Maimie Papers, published by the Feminist Press in l978, as one of the notable books of that year. It was reprinted with a new afterward by her in l996. Her second book, The Lost Sisterhood: Prostitution in America (Johns Hopkins, l983) ignited a new feminist and historical inquiry into the lives and work of prostitutes. Since then, she has emerged as one of the rare female public intellectuals, writing over a hundred essays as a columnist for the Los Angeles Times op-ed page and other newspapers, and regularly contributing to Dissent magazine, The Women's Review of Books, and other journals of opinion. She has also appeared on television and radio as a commentator on women's issues, as well as on politics, culture and war.Her latest book, The World Split Open: How The Modern Women's Movement Changed America has already received advance praise from activists, public intellectuals and feminist scholars. It is the result of more than a decade's work in archives, interviewing.activists, and thinking and writing. It is a labor of love dedicated to all of us.
Women's History, Baseball and Nancy Drew
Women's History Collector and Promoter, Business Woman, Promoter of Women on U.S. stamps
-- "A League Of Her Own"
(Judith pictured left in baseball cap.)
Judith's interests and activities sound very diverse
but she sees a single core concept: strengthening
the self esteem and self image of girls
of the future through the promotion of knowing your history; knowing about women of achievement and knowing it
can be done.To that core concept she created, published and sold a women's history collectible series titled the
"Women's History Series of First
Day Covers by NOW-NY." The
collection consisted of over 170 different items,concerning 170 women of achievement.The series was published from
1976 to 1980.It reached many women and men, who prior to the series had no knowledge or interest in women's history.
By making them collectors they became enlightened supporters of women's history and women's rights. It also prodded
the U.S. Postal Service to issue more stamps honoring women.
She collected women's history beginning in the early 1960's, amassing a very valuable collection of such items
as letters by Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and other suffragettes and such women of achievement as
Madame Curie, Abigail Adams, Amelia Earhart, Queen Isabella, Harriet Beecher Stowe. She had the complete bound
copy of Anthony and Stanton's newspaper, The Revolution and original material on Margaret Sanger, Willa Cather
and others, first editions, ephemeras. You name it. She wrote "Woman Suffrage on U.S. First Day Covers"
about the suffrage portion of her philatelic collection.
In 1991 Judy donated the entire collection to form the Kaplan
Women's History Collection to the
Central Florida Community College in Ocala, Florida where she lived from 1980.
The collection, which is on display on the college campus included her collected archives of late '60's early '70's
feminist happening and all the material related producing, creating and marketing the Women's History Series of
First Day Covers by NOW-NY. In conjunction with the marketing of the series Judy wrote many articles on women in
history, and women on stamps. These articles were published in the philatelic and non-philatelic press nationally
and succeeded in making the USPS more aware of the history of women and the need for more stamps honoring women.
Many stamps later produced by the USPS were a result of her efforts.
She was always involved in business or finance and believes that girls need to get a grasp of business, finance,
economics and career planning much earlier and much more intensely. In that realm she is a role model for future
generations of women entrepreneurs, having started Action Packets Inc. a distribution company in 1977 which sold
educational products to museum gift stores for resale.
In 1984 she was one of the first women to bring her company public (through an IPO), now named Action Products International Inc. and now an educational toy manufacturer.
She is currently a director of the company. In the early '70's she lectured on Women and Money at the Lexington
Ave "YWCA" in New York City. At Action Judy was known for trying to teach her employees, especially ,about
finance and career development. Action had one of the earliest 401K programs for all employees. In 1985 she was
awarded the Small Business Person Award representing the state of Florida at the annual awards celebration in the
White House.
Judy is currently a Director of the National
Women's History Museum, Washington,
D.C. Founded in 1996, NWHM is a nonpartisan, non profit educational institution whose goal is to open a full-service
museum and educational institution on the National Mall in Washington, DC, with outreach programs and exhibits
traveling across the country focused on bringing women into mainstream American history. She is also a Director
of the Feminist Scholarship Fund, Boca Raton, FL. The FSS gives scholarships to South Florida
women of all ages and aspirations who want to improve their lives and who are feminists. In addition to helping
women, the FSS wants to "grow" the next wave of feminists.
In 1995 Judy bought a professional
women's baseball team, a new team
in the fledgling Women's Baseball Association. Her team, the Orlando Orange,
was the Number One team in the 2 years the WBA survived.
Clearly Judy is herself in "a league of her own".
On a personal note
She was born in the Bronx NY in 1938 went to the Bronx High School of Science, has a BA
in Psychology from Hunter College in New York. She currently resides in Boca Raton FL with her husband Warren Kaplan,
a staunch supporter and a feminist. When they are not traveling to such exotic places as Nepal and Tahiti, which
they did in 2000, they manage Kaplan Asset Management, a venture capital company. They have two children, Ron Kaplan
who lives in Maitland, Fl and Elissa Kaplan Paykin who lives in Scarsdale, N.Y. and two grandchildren, Ian Seth
Kaplan and Sedona Peace Paykin.
(picture: Judy, Age 8 (circa 1945)
Who remembers Nancy Drew?
Lecture notes from Judith Kaplan, historian and member, SPBC NOW
In March, 2000 Judith Kaplan held a workshop on Nancy Drew stories, and shares with us her lecture notes:
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What does the name Nancy Drew mean to you? What
do you remember about her? What do you remember about the influence she had on your childhood? Who feels she had
an influence on you beyond the fond memories of reading the series? Do you read female detective stories now?
I'd like to give you some of the insights I gained from reading about studies of the Nancy Drew "phenomenon".
There was a lot of research done on popular culture but most of it was male oriented. This type of research included
scholarly work on Superman, Batman, GI Joe etc but little done on female oriented popular culture. Although most
of us have fond Nancy Drew memories, very few studies about her were done until the mid 1970's when, in 1975, Bobbi
Ann Mason published "The Girl Sleuth: On the trail of Nancy Drew, Judy Bolton and Cherry Ames." It was
republished in 1995.
In the interim a lot of research was done. Research revealed that there was no Carolyn Keene (whom we all KNOW
was the author!) If nothing else stays with you today, you should know this: there was NO Carolyn Keene. The author
of the most (but not all) was one Mildred Benson Wirt. Uncovering her was a mystery very worthy of Nancy Drew herself!
Nancy Drew books and Hardy Boys, Tom Swift and dozens of other series books were written to order based on a formula
by Edward Stratemeyer and published by his Stratemeyer Syndicate.
Mildred wrote other series books under 12 different names. Series books she wrote in addition to Nancy Drew were:
Flash Evans, Penny Nichols, Doris Force, Ruth Fielding, Kay Tracey, Dana Girls, Boy Scout Explorer, Honey Bunch,
Dot & Dash, Madge Sterling, Brownie Scout, Mildred A Wirt, Dan Carter Cub Scout, Girl Scout, Penny Parker,
Ruth Darrow Flying and Trailer Stories for Girls series.
Due to the renewed interest in her the University of Iowa sponsored a Nancy Drew Conference from April 16 to April
19 1993. The University of Iowa is where the archives of Mildred Wirt are housed and treasured. This first ever
Nancy Drew Conference.was attended by about 500 people, of which 15% were male. It generated much press and attention,
because after all more than 80 million copies had sold from 1930 to 1993.
A book called "Rediscovering Nancy Drew" edited by Carolyn Steward Dyer and Nancy Tillman Romalov, reprint
the papers that were presented at that conference. I found them incredibly interesting and thought provoking as
I am sure many of you would too. These childhood books had a vast influence on me and on the people who attended
the Conference. The papers presented covered a wide gamut. There was a paper: "Nancy Drew: A moment in Feminist
History", by the well-know scholar Carolyn Heilbruner (who under the pseudonym Amanda Cross writes mysteries
with a female heroine), many papers on the research into the "history of creating and publishing Nancy Drew"
which included the history of Edward Statemeyer and Mildred Wirt Benson. Benson, as Mildred Augustine, received
the first masters degree in journalism at the University of Iowa in 1927, now a very respected journalism school.
Another category analyzed the stereotypes that the Nancy Drew books had, including what we now call classism, sexism,
racism, anti-Semitism, anti gypsies, and immigrants. They certainly did not depict or promote what we now call
multiculturalism. They were of course a product of their times. It is important to note they over the years from
1930 to today the stories were rewritten and continually made to conform to their eras. The latest pictures of
Nancy look more like Barbie than Nancy!
Most librarians of the time considered all series books bad, like comic books, and the librarians who didn't ban
them at the least vociferously discouraged them. They were not "literature" and they kept children from
reading "literature".
There was a section of papers on collecting and researching Nancy Drew. One phenomenon that impressed me from reading
that section was that the men who started collecting and researching Nancy Drew, in addition to the pleasure derived
from the treasure hunting of information, cultural and literary history etc. ascertained how to turn their hobby
into a way for financial gain, They either began dealing in Nancy Drew books or writing Nancy Drew newsletters
which they sold to subscribers. Meanwhile the women did it for the love of knowledge and spreading the word about
their beloved heroine/role mode. They didn't do it for financial gain, although several have created academic careers
based, at least in part, on their Nancy Drew research.
The last section was Transforming Nancy Drew. It included a discussion of Nancy Drew on film. Did you know there
were 4 Nancy Drew films? They are: ND Detective (1938), ND Reporter (1938), ND Troubleshooter (1939) and the second
Nancy Drew book "The Hidden Staircase", written in 1930, was a Warner Brothers film in 1939. They all
starred Bonita Granville, whom I remember had her own mystery series too. The 1939 film was so bad it was cited
by then Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg as an example of why "block booking" by motion picture
studios should be banned.
The last category of the papers presented at the conference concerned how Nancy Drew influenced the current crop
of female Mystery writers. There are papers by Nancy Pickard and Linda Barnes who are currently successful writers
of mysteries with female detectives as their heroines.
What do you remember of the character of Nancy
Drew, how she handled problem solving and how she was a role model for you? I'd like to know whether/how you think
she changed your life.
Lastly, if you want to continue the Nancy Drew heritage you may want to give some Nancy Drew books to your daughters,
granddaughters and other young girls. They are still being published. Young girls still need the role model of
the adventurous, self assured, intelligent, daring, girl/young woman that was so important to us as we grew up.
Contact Judith Kaplan here: judykap@bellsouth.net
Sonia Pressman Fuentes is a charter member of VFA who sits on its Advisory Board. She is a writer and public speaker. Sonia was a founder of NOW (National Organization for Women), WEAL (the Women's Equity Action League) and FEW (Federally Employed Women) and the first woman attorney in the General Counsel's Office at the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission). Currently, she is a Board Member of the National Woman's Party.
The following reported by Barbara Ruben for the WASHINGTON SENIOR BEACON
October 2000
Back in the mid-1960s, newspapers still categorized their classified ads into "Help Wanted -- Male' and 'Help
Wanted -- Female." Airlines could ground flight attendants when they married or reached the ripe old age of
35. And pregnant teachers could be fired without repercussion.
That was the climate in which Sonia Pressman Fuentes, began her career as the first woman attorney in the general
counsel's office of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
At the time, many of the men in the highest echelons of the EEOC did not view sex discrimination as part of their
mission, according to Fuentes. Indeed, for her seemingly heretical efforts to put women's rights on the agenda,
the general counsel for the EEOC once called her a "sex maniac."
In her recent memoir, Eat First
- You Don't Know What They'll Give You,
Fuentes, who lives in Potomac, Md., recounts her efforts as a pioneer for equal opportunity for women. She also
writes about her family's emigration from Berlin, Germany, in 1934 to flee the Holocaust.
That childhood experience helped spark her Iifelong passion for fighting discrimination, whether religious or sexual,
Fuentes said.
Double agent
In 1966, Fuentes became a founding member of the National Organization for Women (NOW). Fuentes became involved
after feminist writer Betty Friedan asked to interview her for a follow-up book to Friedan's ground-breaking work,
The Feminine Mystique.
Ironically, though she worked as a civil rights attorney for the EEOC, Fuentes feared her work for women's rights
would get her into hot water with her employer.
"I thought, I can't tell [Friedan] anything. I'd lose my job," Fuentes recorded in an interview. "But
I thought about everything that was being ignored by the Commission, and when I talked with her, I had tears in
my eyes."
"I told her we needed an organization to fight for women like the NAACP did for blacks," Fuentes said.
Some day later, at a lunch, Betty wrote out on a napkin a plan for what would become NOW.
In the evenings after work, Fuentes would meet with other NOW members in an apartment in Southwest Washington,
D.C., discussing the inaction of the Commission. NOW members would then draft letters to the EEOC demanding action
in an area Fuentes brought to their attention. NOW later picketed the White House and the EEOC as Fuentes sat in
her office. And slowly the EEOC began to change. The Commission began holding public hearings on issues like sex-segregated
classified ads. The Commission ruled that a woman could not be refused employment or fired because she was pregnant
or had children.
Fuentes herself drafted the lead decision that found airline policies toward stewardesses - from dictating their
weight, to the age at which they must retire - were unlawful.
"Even then, I did not realize what we were doing in the realm of employment would spill over into every other
aspect of American life," she said. "The changes between 1965 and 2000 have been mind blowing.
"From the number of women now at West Point and law school, to the rates of divorce and child support, no
one could have envisioned the changes." But Fuentes also said that, although women have come a long way, they
have far to go.
"More women are battered and homeless. Women are still being paid unequal wages for comparable work. We don't
have enough women in the executive suite, or the House and Senate for that matter," she said.
By 1973, Fuentes decided she had taken her EEOC job as far as she could, and moved on to a variety of other corporate
attorney jobs, always striving to break through the glass ceilings at her places of employment.
Along the way, she married a man from Puerto Rico, gave birth to her daughter Zia, and then divorced. Eat First recounts these events, along with memoirs of her early days, including going to law school
in the 1950s, when only about 3 percent of law students were women.
Fuentes has earned many honors for her accomplishments. In 1996, she received the Veteran Feminists of America
Medal of Honor - an award given to feminists who contributed to equal rights during the 1960s and 70s. In 1999,
the organization Wider Opportunities for Women (WOW) presented her with the Woman at Work Award.
Earlier this year, she was one of five women inducted into the Maryland Women's Hall of Fame by the Maryland Conmiission
for Women. "We want to honor Maryland women who very often are left out of the history books," said Carol
Sillberg, executive director of the commission.
"To me, to have arrived as an immigrant with her family starting over in this country, she has achieved quite
a bit," said Silberg.
Reinventing retirement
But when her high-powered career came to an end with retirement at age 65, Fuentes was at a loss for what to do
next. She planned to volunteer as a mediator for the D.C. Superior Court in the area of domestic relations, but
the cases presented at the training session so depressed her, she decided not to continue.
"All my life I went to school, became a lawyer, built up a career. Now everything seemed to be all over. It
was a pretty depressing thought," she said.
Eventually, she decided to write a book, which she credits with pulling her out of the retirement doldrums. "When
I first retired, if you'd have told me I'd write a book, I would say, 'get your head examined'," she recalled.
"But I'm now in the richest period of my life ever."
Fuentes' book is available from publisher Xlibris Corp. in paperback or hardcover. To order, call tollfree, (888)795-4274. It is also available from such online booksellers as amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com and borders.com, but may have to be backordered.
It's here! "EAT FIRST..."available at Amazon Books; Barnes & Noble and Xlibris Publishers
Amazon Books: http://www.amazon.com
Barnes & Noble: http://www.bn.com
Xlibris Publishers: www.xlibris.com
EAT FIRST - YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY'LL GIVE YOU.
Visit her website for a closer look at Sonia's work: http://www.erraticimpact.com/fuentes
All those interested in the study of philosophy are welcome to explore the Philosophy Research Base!
More on "Eat First"
in the VFA Reading Corner section.
(The "Reading Corner" is listed in the Table of Contents.)
AND DON'T MISS!
Sonia's fascinating article "Three Legendary Feminists"! at Eratic Impact http://www.erraticimpact.com website!
As a founder of the National Organization for Women (NOW) and the first woman attorney in the General Counsel's Office at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Sonia knew and worked with many feminists, all of whom were extraordinary people. But three stand out in her pantheon of heroes -- Alice Paul, the Reverend Dr. Pauli Murray, and Catherine East.
Alice Paul * Catherine East * Pauli Murray
E-mail Sonia: spfuentes@comcast.net
Sheila Tobias
FUTURE EDUCATION CONFERENCE
Sheila Tobias is putting together a committee
of feminist educators for a VFA conference in 2000 or 2001. She needs help, not only with the logistics, but with
invitations, program, everything!
An academic and activist for over 25 years, Sheila has a deep commitment to VFA and to the feminist educators who
contributed so much to developing curriculum and extending women and girls' sense of their own capacity and worth.
One of the first university conferences on feminism (at Cornell in 1969) was her doing. She has taken part in many
feminist gatherings -- from the Congress to Unite Women in '70 to the Berkshire Conference on Women Historians
in '93.
Sheila is the author of the bestselling Overcoming
Math Anxiety and Women; Militarism and War (with Jean
Bethke Eishtain) and the recent Faces
of Feminism-An Activist's Reflection on the Women's Movement published in 1997 by Westview Press. (Contact them at 5500 Central Avenue, Boulder, CO
80301.)
E-mail Sheila:102531.1746@compuserve.com
Visit Sheila's website: http://www.sheila.tobias.net
If you want to help in any way, e-mail or get in touch with her at:
724 N Campbell Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85719
Telephone 520-628-1105
Fax - 520-882-6973
Joyce Follet, Ph.D.
Public Historian
Sophia Smith Women's History Collection,
Smith College.
Producer of the video:
Step by Step: Building a Feminist Movement
STEP BY STEP - An Oral History -. Produced by Joyce Follet, Ph.D. at
the University of Wisconsin. Directed by the historian, Gerda Lerner (honored by VFA in April, '98) . Linda Gordon
(also a VFA member) was an advisor.
The recently completed documentary on the history of the modern women's movement. GeneBoyer, Mary Eastwood, and
Arvonne Fraser are three of the eight women featured in STEP
BY STEP: BUILDING A FEMINIST MOVEMENT, 1941-1977.
STEP BY STEP traces the gradual development of feminism through the
life stories of eight women -- auto workers and legislators, Catholic nuns and small storeowners -- who began struggling
for equality in the 1940s and 50s, formed feminist organizations in the 1960s (six of the eight are founders of
NOW), and became activists in the mass movement of the 1970s.
These "veterans" all participated in an oral history project directed by Gerda Lerner, whom I know you
featured in a recent newsletter. She and Linda Gordon served as advisors to the video. Terry Rockfeller of Blackside
was Consulting Producer. STEP BY
STEP is being distributed by:
Women Make Movies
462 Broadway, Suite 500-K
New York, NY 10013
phone: (212)-925-0606
It is available for:
$195 to colleges and universities,
$89 to high schools and libraries,
and $69 to community groups
(discounts for multiple purchases).
For Further Info/Ordering
email: orders@wmm.com
E-Mail Joyce Follet here: jfollet@ais.smith.edu.
A ROOM AT A TIME: HOW WOMEN ENTERED PARTY POLITICS
by Jo Freeman
Jo Freeman is a well-known feminist scholar, speaker & author. Read her articles or
purchase her books online. Enjoy Jo's personal collection of political buttons. Visit her website at: http://www.jofreeman.com
Contact Jo at joreen@jofreeman.com for speaking engagements, permission to reprint her articles, writing assignments and professional consulting.
What were women doing
between the feminist waves?Working in the major political parties, says political scientist Jo Freeman. In her
new book she traces the path of political women from the mid 19th Century to the mid 1960s.
Throughout the 19th Century women became more and more active in politics. In the 1880s and 1890s political women
began to specialize, concentrating their efforts as suffragists, reformers or party women. After the 19th Amendment
was ratified in 1920, only party women thrived as feminists and reformers struggled to keep their concerns alive.
Well before ratification, the Republican and Democratic parties were actively recruiting women. After 1920 prominent
party men campaigned against any form of female political organization outside of political parties as unAmerican.
The League of Women Voters was targeted for demolition. Women's peace and progressive organizations were denounced
as unpatriotic. "Feminism" was stigmatized as concept, practice and lable.
The parties wooed women with specialized bureaus aimed at mobilizing and educating the woman voter to support each
party's candidates and a message aimed at what each thought were women's special interests. The Republicans were
particularly vigorous in this pursuit, and were also blessed with greater financial and organizational resources
than the Democrats.
Both major parties used two strategies to organize women and harness their energy on behalf of each party's candidates, but with different emphases. The Democratic were more vigorous in putting women on party committees, by requiring 50-50 representation through state law and party rules. The Republicans urged women to form their Republican women's clubs, eventually creating a national federation, as a way of providing a place for any woman wanting to work for the party. While neither strategy was especially successful in giving women credit or influence, by the mid 1960s Republican women had received a bit more recognition, were given a few more jobs and appointments, elected more officials (especially state legislators), and had a few more votes at party conventions.
Despite the barriers to influence, party women were not merely tools of party men. They fought to make a place for themselves in the parties and insisted that woman's voice be heard. They did this by educating women for politics, legitimating their presence in political work, undermining the assumption that politics was a male preserve, and infiltrating the political organizations.
By the 1960s, women were the workhorses of the major political parties. They did 90 percent of the phone calls, mailings and door-to-door canvassing that brought their candidates' supporters to the polls. When the new feminist movement emerged later in that decade, they were ready to take advantage of the opportunities it offered. After decades of laying the foundation, party women began to move.
Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000.
Order
yours today!
Just go to the VFA Reading Corner where you can find out how to
order her books and an E-mail link to
Jo Freeman
Naomi Weisstein
Naomi Weisstein was one of the first and most important feminists in the new feminist movement.
Out of the upheavals of the 1960's came a group of Windy City women determined to challenge the suffocating male supremacy of the time. They joined the growing women's liberation movement and organized the Chicago Women's Liberation Union (CWLU) which touched the lives of thousands of women through its many organizing projects from 1969-1977.
Find out more about Naomi
in the CWLU "Memoirs" Section.
Just click below.
A lifelong feminist , her militancy was sharpened
by experiences in male-dominated science at Harvard and afterwards, she counts as her first women's liberation
demonstration the "distraction" she held in front of Harvard's Lamont Library, still males-only, in 1962.
Told that women were barred from the library because they distracted serious scholarship, she and her friends slithered
in front of the library windows in skin-tight leotards, playing a clarinet, two tambourines, and an old trumpet.
"Distraction." they shouted. "We'll show you distraction!"
A socialist and civil-rights activist, she was a member of the New Haven Congress of Racial Equality, (1963) the
Chicago Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (1964), the University of Chicago Students for a Democratic
Society (1965-1970), and the New University Conference (1969).
Known for her powerful oratory, she was one of the founders of the Chicago Westside Group (1967; the first independent
women's liberation group in the emerging movement) and the Chicago Women's Liberation Union (1969). She was organizer
of, and comedian and keyboardist in the Chicago Women's Liberation Rock Band (1970-1973).
Chicago Women's Liberation Rock
Band (1970-1973)
(L to R, upper level); Pat Solo (formerly Miller, when she was in the band) Naomi Weisstein, Sherry Jenkins, Suzanne
Prescott, Fanya Montalvo.
Lower level: Susan Abod.
She also helped found American Women in Psychology
(1970; now division 35 of the American Psychological Association); the Women's Caucus of the Psychonomic Society
(1972) and Women in Eye Research (1980; a caucus of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology).
Naomi is an author and neuroscientist (B.A., Wellesley 1961, Ph.D. Harvard, 1964), is Professor of Psychology at
SUNY, Buffalo. A Guggenheim Fellow and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and
the American Psychological Society, she has written over sixty articles for such publications as Science, Vision
Research, Psychological Review and Journal of Experimental Psychology, and served on the boards of Cognitive Psychology
and Spatial Vision.
Probably best known for her pioneering essay,"Kinder,
Kirche, Kuche as Scientific Law: Psychology Constructs the Female", she has written extensively on science, feminism, culture and politics. KKK is characterized
as having started the discipline of the psychology of women, and has been reprinted over 42 times in six different
languages. A festschrift commemorating the 25th anniversary of the article appeared as a special issue of the British
journal, Feminism and Psychology, in 1992. her articles have been published in Harper's, the Nation,
and Newsday, among others, and she has served on the board of Signs.
Her papers are currently being collected by Harvard-Radcliffe's Schlesinger Library.
Naomi's sense of humor has been displayed both inside and outside of the scientific profession . Her cartoons have
appeared in a number of publications debuting in The Voice of the Women's Liberation Movement (1968-1969), and
then appearing in The New University Conference Newsletter (1969), The Rogers' Spark (1970), The Open Conspiracy
(Stackpole Books, 1970), and the National Forum (1999). Her comic monologues have appeared in Cultural Correspondence
(1978), Win Magazine (1977) and Pulling Our Own Strings: Women's Humor (Indiana University Press (1980). Her writings
about humor have appeared in Sister(1975, 1976), and in the introduction to the book of cartoons by Ellen Levine,
All She Needs, (N.Y. Quadrangle: 1973) which was reprinted, first by Know, Inc. (Pittsburgh, PA) under the title
"Laugh? I nearly died!" and then as the cover story for Ms. Magazine, 1973, under the title "Why
we aren't laughing any more!". [Dreary title, but she didn't choose it]. She also has an entry about humor
in the Reader's Companion to U.S. Women's History, (Houghton-Mifflin, 1998).
She has been performing comedy ever since her triumphal debut as best freshman and then best sophomore class comedian
at Wellesley (1957, 1958). Sponsored by comedian David Steinberg, she came this close to joining Chicago's Second
City troupe (1965). She routinely brought down the house with her comic monologues while touring with the Chicago
Women's Liberation Rock band (1970-1973). Her "Saturday Night Special--a Salute to Rape" (1974) was in
great demand during the late seventies. In 1980, in collaboration with producer-playwright Eve Merriam, Naomi was
planning a one-woman comedy show in New York when she fell ill with an incapacitating illness and has not been
able to perform since.
More on Naomi at the CWLU website: http://www.cwluherstory.com/
E-mail Naomi at: utopia1@attglobal.net
Grace was a founder of the South Shore NOW Chapter serving two terms as president 1973-74; currently Treasurer of Veteran Feminists of America, honoring activists of the Second Wave.
In 1990 -- Grace was a member of the Long Island Live Poets Society -- her poem "Blank Pages Beckon" is reproduced here. She hopes all your blank pages are filled with good things.
|
|
Blank Pages Beckon Numbered
pages of a New Year¹s organizer G. Welch |
NEW YORK DAILY
NEWS SUNDAY “FOREVER YOUNG" SECTION
SEPTEMBER 24, 2000
BY LIZ GEORGE
Even though it's been around for
at least 5,000 years, yoga is making big news. An estimated 12 million Americans are doing yoga, a number that's
doubled in the last six years. Health and fitness clubs around the country have responded to the demand, and now
close to 40% offer yoga classes. In many of those classes, you're likely to find older adults.
Grace Welch used to be one of them. Today, she's a certified yoga instructor with over 20 years experience. She
teaches beginner, intermediate and advanced classes in Manhattan and Islandia, L.I., and is featured in the video
"Golden Yoga," an exercise program designed especially for seniors.
As a physical and mental discipline, "Yoga is a lifelong process. The marvelous thing about it is it's never
too late to start," says Welch, who started at 50 after developing lower back pain. Not only did yoga relieve
her pain but it hooked her. She left her job as an advertising manager to study and eventually start her own practice,
"Many people turn to Yoga to get in shape and improve their Physical health, but the reason they stick with
it is because it's spiritually uplifting as well, says Welch. Yoga is especially suited to older adults, because
it's noncompetitive, doesn't put undue stress on joints and can be customized to suit persons with Physical limitations.
It's also good for what ails you. Research shows that yoga can help manage or control arthri- tis, back pain, blood
pressure, carpal tunnel syndrome, chronic fatigue, depression, dia- betes, headaches, heart disease, stress and
many other conditions. It can improve muscle tone, flexibility, strength and stami- na, concentration and creativity,
as well as stimulate the immune system and create a sense of well-being and calm. Simply put, yoga feels good.
It may also keep older adults safe. Recent studies published in the Archives of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation
have shown that yoga can prevent falls and increase range of motion even among people in their 80s and 90s.
Yoga may also help restore safer driving habits. "When older adults lose range of motion in their neck, they
feel pain when they have to look over their shoulder. As a result, they may not fully check their blind spot while
driving, which can result in accidents. Yoga helps seniors regain pain-free movement," says Welch.
Before starting an exercise program, it's important to consult your physician. While Yoga is usually safe for everyone
(there are Yoga Programs designed for wheelchair users), some seniors may need to modify their routine due to certain
health conditions. For instance, some inverted postures should not be performed by people with high blood pressure
or glaucoma, says Welch.
For information about yoga classes, call your local Y. To attend one of Welch's classes, call:
(212) 685-2848, (631) 348-71 99, or visit www.gracewelch.com.
"Golden Yoga" is available through White Lion Press, 1-800- 243-YOGA.
Email: grace@gracewelch.com
For Free Nutritional
Newsletter, Women's Workshops, or information on the V.F.A.
call 631-348-7199
National Clearinghouse on Marital and Date Rape
ABOUT LAURA XThe X symbolizes the anonymity of women's history and the legal ownership of women. That legal doctrine permits Marital and thus Date Rape.
Laura X is the Director of the National Clearinghouse on Marital and Date Rape in Berkeley, California. The Clearinghouse began in 1978 as a project of the Women's History Research Center, which Laura founded in 1968 and directed throughout its 21 years. She graduated from the University of California and has spoken extensively in North America and internationally during the past 18 years.
She led the successful 1978 California Campaign
as the director, to make Marital Rape a crime. Not only has she acted as consultant to 45 other state campaigns
on Date and Marital Rape, she has also actively collected and maintained documents about the status of exemptions
from prosecution in the rape laws, which she has been trying to get repealed over the last 20 years.
Laura X has been cited many times for her work, including a Woman of Achievement award (from Mademoiselle magazine),
a World Congress of Victimology Award for Innovative Programs and Services, as well as commendations by the American
Library Association and Surgeon General Koop.
She has been a guest on the "Phil Donahue", "Sally Jessy Raphael", "Geraldo", "Gary
Collins", "60 Minutes" and "Today" shows, among others.
Laura X, Director of the Clearinghouse, is available as speaker on the social, legal, political, historical, religious,
familial, philosophical, economic and psychological meaning of marital and date rape.
National Clearinghouse on Marital and Date Rape
2325 Oak Street, Berkeley, CA 94708
http://ncmdr.org
How to get a copy of Laura X's published
memoir
"Accomplishing the Impossible: an Advocate's
Notes from the Successful Campaign to Make Marital and Date Rape a Crime in All 50 U.S. States and Other Countries"
Abstract: The history of marital rape legislation from the 1960s to the present is a long battle on many political,
cultural, legal and social levels. The author, a peace, civil, and human rights activist,has been central to the
struggle, working one-on-one with a tremendous diversity of people in 45 states and several countries as the director
of the National Clearinghouse on Marital and Date Rape in Berkeley, California. Early on, major court cases brought
the issue of marital rape to the national attention of legislators, media and the public nationally due to the
shock of a woman saying "no" to her husband at all. Each high court or legislative victory came only
after much resistance and even sabotage.
This article was published in:
Violence Against Women: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal Special Issue: Wife Rape
Guest Editor: Raquel Kennedy Bergen
Volume 5, Number 9
September 1999
Ordering Information:
Sage Publications, Inc.
2455 Teller Road
Thousand Oaks, CA 91320
Phone: (805) 499-0721
Fax: (805) 499-0871
Email: order@sagepub.com
Web: http://www.sagepub.com (Click on "Shop Sage", then "Journals Listing")