NOW or Never ToC | Home
| |
Sunshine for
Women NOW or Never ToC | Home |
In two of three births to teen-age mothers, studies indicate the father is 20 or older, often much older than the mother.
At times regarded as irresponsible, as promiscuous or as abusers of the welfare system, this teen-age population is now being viewed by many as prey and even victims of child abuse.
"There's been a demonizing of teen mothers because of welfare," said Howard Davidson, director of the American Bar Association's Center on Children and the Law. "It's important we look at these teen mothers not as welfare queens but as victims of sexual exploitation."
The danger to the girls, meanwhile, transcends pregnancy or sexually transmitted disease. Once a girl under 18 becomes an unwed mother, research shows, her fate may well be sealed. Many girls, already from low- income backgrounds, will drop out of school, start depending on public assistance, and remain in poverty.
New York Times 5/19/1996
"I know this is painful for the ladies to hear, but if you get married, you have accepted the headship of a man, your husband. Christ is the head of the household and the husband is the head of the wife, and that's the way it is, period." (Federal News Service, Sept. 11, 1992, quoting a Robertson newsletter.)
A separate chapter in the Unicef report examines malnutrition in south Asia - India and its neighbors - and draws comparison with sub-Subharan Africa, where children are often as poor or poorer than South Asians but are far less likely to suffer malnutrition and stunting.
They concluded that while poverty, overcrowding, and low levels of hygiene may be factors in South Asia, a more important underlying cause of poor nutrition is poor treatment of women. when women have low status in the family and in society, mothers and children both suffer.
"The women of sub-Saharan Africa, and particularly poor women, have greater opportunities and freedoms than the women of South Asia," the report says. "Women are subordinated in both continents, as indeed they are in most regions of the world, but in kind and in degree the subordination of South Asia's women is of a different order."
New York Times 6/11/1996
Funding for the Dept. of Labor's Women's Bureau was cut by 7% in the FY 96 budget. Bureau supporters argue that the annual amount of $7,743,000 is insufficient for carrying out the agency's many programs.
Established in 1920, the bureau addresses such issues as pay equity, dependent care, workplace rights, older women's employment, and nontraditional employment. Noting that women constitute 46% of the labor force, program advocates believe that an annual budget of $10 million is more adequate to meet multiple program needs. NOW, with other groups, sent a letter to members of the House and Senate Labor/HHS/Appropriations committees asking for the increase. Contact members of your Congressional delegation to ask for their vote in support of increased funding for the Women's Bureau.
Hey, boys. The military wastes $10 million in one hour. What's the problem with this tiny amount bit of money?
Said by a Dole look-a-like in a political cartoon: " I'm opposed to abortion except in cases of rape, incest, and to save the life of the candidate."
All of us have heard about "managed care" as the way of the future but what does it mean? Managed care is a term invented by the insurance industry to sell the corporate takeover of our medical system. It means they choose your doctor and your hospital. It means insurance company bureaucrats with no medical training decide on your treatment and tell their doctors what they can do. It means the emphasis is on treating as many people as possible as little as possible while raking in the premiums.
As applied to the privatization of Medicaid, HMOs get a lump sum of money from the government, the less they spend on treatment the more they keep. the whole thing is a corrupt scam to squeeze as much money out of medicine as possible.
The bottom line is that medical care is a vital necessity and should not be in the hands of greedy corporations. We need a single payer system similar to most western industrialized countries. Write your representative to support HR 3960, the American Health Security Act and get the insurance companies off our backs.
Al Markowitz of Virginia Wageworkers Agenda
"Rev. [Norman E.] Olson [a leader in the Christian Identity - militia movement] is also thinking about starting a national militia in an effort to get all the militias to work together, He said that since the FBI is crossing state and county lines, the militias need to do the same in order to protect each other."
"Christian Identity adherents share the idea that white Christians are direct descendants of the ten lost tribes of Israel, which they believe ended up in northern Europe, A theologically similar group call itself British Israelites." They number about 40,000 and share classic Christian fundamentalism. A growing number are Pentecostals. (Pentecostals believe in "spiritual gifts," such as speaking in tongues and faith healing, and fundamentalists do not.) Most fundamentalists and Pentecostals are not members of the Christian Identity movement.
"According to leading experts, there are now as many as 400 various militia-type groups in the US. The vast majority of there are Christian-based, with those embracing the Identity message in the forefront."
Freedom Writer May 1996
The ECPs prescribed to women here [in Europe] are contraceptive pills, of which there are concentrated and lighter versions -- Ovral or Lo-Ovral, for example. Women take a double dose of Ovral or a quadruple dose of the lighter pill, Lo-Ovral within 72 hours of unprotected sex. This procedure is repeated 12 hours later, with the women taking either another double dose of Ovral, or quadruple dose of Lo-Ovral. This procedure has a 70 to 80 percent effectiveness rate. Women may suffer from nausea, vomiting, cramps and breast tenderness, but there appear to be no harmful long-term effects.
ECPs prevent a fertilized egg from being implanted in the lining of the uterus, rather than dislodging it once the process of growth has begun, as in the case of abortion. Some doctors call this process "interception," placing it somewhere between contraception and abortion, but it is still controversial.
Although ECPs are available in many countries, women in India and Sri Lanka have another solution. They have been using the papaya fruit as a form of post-coital contraceptive for centuries. Researchers found that the enzyme papain in the papaya interacts with progesterone so that eating one papaya a day for a week will bring on menstruation with no side-effects. Perhaps U.S. women should start planting papaya trees, until the day a woman -friendly administration facilitates the use of other ECPs.
Excerpts (rerun) from "Pills More Available Across the Pond" by Brenna Munro, Jan 1996 National NOW Times
femicide: murder of a woman as woman, such as murder of one's wife, girlfriend, lover, sister, mother, etc
gynocide: systematic state sponsored or condoned murder of women as women, such as witchcraft trials, suttee, systematic infanticide of female children, etc. (from the Greek gyno- for woman with shades of genocide)
Vol I - Vol III co-authored by Stanton, Anthony, and Gage
Vol 1 began with World Anti-Slavery Convention (1840) to 1860 was published in 1881
Vol II 1861 - 1876 was published in 1882
Vol III 1876 - 1886 was published in 1886
Vol IV 1886 - 1902 was co-authored by Anthony and Ida Husted Harper and was published in 1902
Vol V and Vol VI covered 1901 - 1920 were authored by Harper and were published in 1922
History, which was published then distributed free to libraries and schools, was actually a history of NWSA (and its affiliates) until after 1890 merger with AWSA when it became a history of NASWA, not history of woman's suffrage movement.
Several prominent individuals and groups, including black women and the Woman's Party founded by Victoria Woodhull, were entirely absent, or mentioned only briefly, from its pages - groups.
All six volumes were reprinted in 1969. A one volume excerpt containing 83 of the best documents in the original six volume History was printed in 1979. Each volume contains introductory and concluding essays with speeches of many feminists, convention resolutions, meeting minutes, pamphlets, tracts, and almost every other form of writing and speaking sandwiched in between.
Gage wrote the opening and closing chapters to the first volume of the History - I had forgotten how good her work is until I read these chapters to help me prepare to write this month's newsletter. The breadth and depth of her knowledge of women's history are staggering and her analysis of women's position is incisive and thought provoking. But let Gage speak for herself:
". . . "subjection to the powers that be" has been the lesson of both Church and State, throttling science, checking invention, crushing free thought, persecuting and torturing those who have dared to speak or act outside of established authority." (Vol 1, page 25)If you, or someone you know, teaches or studies writing, communications, or rhetoric, these volumes contain many excellent examples of powerful women communicators' works."Hence, the Church made free thought the worst of sins, and the spirit of inquiry the worst of blasphemies; while the State proclaimed her temporal power of divine origin, and all rebellion high treason alike to God and the king, to be speedily and severely punished." (V 1, p. 26)
"Although woman has performed much of the labor of the world, her industry and economy have been the very means of increasing her degradation. Not being free, the results of her labor have gone to build up and sustain the very class that has perpetuated this injustice." (V I, p. 27)
The early woman's right movement did not recognize the significance of woman's potential voting power so instead of emphasizing suffrage the movement emphasized laws liberalizing divorce, guardianship, and married women's property rights. Suffrage for women became a priority issue after the Civil War when black males were granted the right to vote yet white women were denied the right to vote
In Jan. 1869, the suffrage movement spilt into the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) and the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). NWSA, under the leadership of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, felt too much emphasis was placed on black, male suffrage and not enough on female suffrage.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was president of the NSWA for most of its existence although Susan B. Anthony, who had worked in temperance movement before becoming suffragist, was its most visible member. The mostly female organization was headquartered in Washington DC where they petitioned Congress for a national amendment to enfranchise women in all states at the same time.
The AWSA with a more gender-mixed membership was headquartered in Boston and worked to get woman suffrage on a state-by-state basis. They stayed closer to their abolitionist roots.
Women were granted suffrage in several western states. Also, in some states, women were granted partial suffrage, i.e., women could vote in some elections (e.g. school board) but be disenfranchised in other elections (e.g. city council). By 1870 many thought woman suffrage was nearly at hand. Indeed, Victoria Woodhull organized the Equal Rights Party for her 1872 presidential campaign. But it was not to be.
Most suffragists were not members of the developing college educated, female elite. Rather, middle-class homemakers formed the backbone of the organizations. Women in academia held themselves more aloof from middle-class, homemakers.
By the standards of the times, suffragists were leaders in race relations although blacks, Catholics, and Jews made up only a small portion of the official organization's membership.
Wonder why the radical-right hates the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities? Because those are the organizations funding black studies and women's studies programs, research, and books across the nation.
Gage, the most obscure member of the triumvirate of Stanton, Anthony, and Gage, was educated well beyond other women of her day by her cultured mother and physician father. Married at 18 to a merchant and mother of five children, this shy young women gave her first feminist speech at 26. Two years later, in 1854, while Gage and other wealthy white women were vacationing at Saratoga, NY, Anthony found herself in a jam. Gage introduced herself and, overcoming her shyness, offered to be a guest lecturer. The conference was a rousing success, Gage was active in the woman's right movement ever after, and the triumvirate was formed.
Although Gage was an effective, but reluctant, orator, she excelled as and relished her role as a writer. Feminist historian of women and of the Christian church, theologian, economist, and sociologist, Gage's ability to integrate her detailed understanding of ostensibly separate disciplines into a coherent analysis of the causes of women's oppression was far superior to her peers. Even today she is considered controversial, innovative, insightful, and radical-perhaps that is why she is so little known. She tread where others feared to go.
A prolific non-fiction writer with several books and many pamphlets and newspaper articles to her credit, Gage is probably best known for her work co-authoring the first three volumes of the History of Woman's Suffrage along with Anthony and Stanton (1881, 1882, and 1886, respectively).
Her least known work is Dangers of the Hour (1890): I have seen only one 3-sentence mention of this book. (If anyone knows where I can find this book - either to borrow or to buy - I sure would like to read it.) In Hour, Gage "issued her own declaration of independence, even from her friends in the woman's movement," summarized "views she had developed in four decades of work for women," and "made it clear that she had advanced far beyond most in radical feminist thought."
Ideas alluded to in the History of Woman's Suffrage were developed in her most influential work Woman, Church, and State (1893), an analysis of the means by which the church & state collaborate to oppress women. Gage's militant, relentless attack on the church appeared 2 years before the better-known (and pale imitation) Woman's Bible by Stanton, is truly in a class by itself. Her contemporary feminist friends and colleagues were so outraged by this work that she was almost entirely dropped by the leadership of the movement and relegated to a footnote in their history books.
To my knowledge, no contemporary biography of her exists and her shorter works have not been collected and republished. Woman, Church, and State has been republished by Arno Press.
- quotes from Doris Weatherford's American Women's History
sunshine@pinn.net
Sunshine for Women encourages you to support our feminist sisters by purchasing their books, reading them, disseminating the ideas they contain, but most especially, by making their book available to our sisters, our daughters, and the community at large by requesting your school library, your public library, and area bookstores to carry their books. Remember it is not enough to write literature, history, and theology, we must pass these works on to future generations. Help us to preserve these works for a new generation by putting them on library bookshelves.
last updated