June 11, 1995 - Episode 317 - Women of Achievement and Herstory

      The drive for women's rights scheduled to be given a world
wide forum at the Fourth World Conference on Women September 4-15,
1995, (with the Non-governmental Forum scheduled for August 30-
September 8) is being blunted.
      Instead of pre-conference publicity about the growing
mobilization of women against the terrible problems facing the women
of the world, the media - when it does bother to mention the
conference - is instead fanning the controversy surrounding China's
foot dragging regarding accommodations for the expected 45,000
women and press for the conference.
      For example, the Chinese government has moved the NGO site
an hour from Beijing where the main conference is to be held.  It is
also proposing to house NGO events in 31 TENTS.  China is also
indicating it will refuse visas to certain groups. 
      Why would the Chinese government (and many other
governments and some religious groups with their all-male
delegations) try to destroy the conference?  For in addition to site
problems, there has been endless bickering even to trying to stop
the use of the word "gender" in a replay of the attempts to prevent
action that occured in the recent Cairo Conference on world
population problems. 
      As space allows, WOA will present highlights of the proposed
"Platform for Action: 12 Critical Areas of Concern" that will be 
presented at the China conference.
      The platform identifies the area of concern, identifies the
obstacles to the advancement of women, and provides strategies to be
used by governments and non-government organizations for removing
those obstacles.  While to many American women, some of these
statements seem very bland, to many men the platform strikes at the
very heart of their control of women and their resources...and
reveals their fear of equality.
      Number One in the platform for action is against the
"PERSISTENT AND INCREASING BURDEN OF POVERTY ON WOMEN."
      >> To be Continued June 15 <<

06-11 Anniversaries ...............................................

      B. 06-11-1769, Anne Newport Royall, author and journalist. Her
husband's family succeeded in breaking his will and she was left
penniless at 54. In desperation she turned to writing and many of
her works provide invaluable source material for the period. At one
time she was convicted for being "a common scold" for her attacks
on political corruption in Philadelphia. She moved to Washington, DC,
where she was recognized as the city's conscience as she published
several weekly papers that attacked corruption no matter how highly
placed. She died in terrible poverty.

      B. 06-11-1860, Mary Jane Rathbun, for many years the
Smithsonian's complete department of marine invertebrates where she
studied, cataloged, and preserved specimens. Through her basic
studies and published works, she fixed the nomenclature of Crustacea
and was the recognized (and the much sought after) authority in
zoology and carcinology. When the department needed an assistant,
she resigned as superintendent and used her salary to hire someone. 
She continued to work without pay.

      B. 06-11-1880, Jeannette Rankin, pacificist, suffragist, fighter
for women's and children's rights, elected from Montana as the first
woman elected to the Congress of the United States (1917); as a
pacificist voted against the U.S. entry into World War I and was not
reelected.  She was active in national and international peace
organizations and ironically was reelected to the U.S. Congress in
1940 just in time to vote against the U.S. entry into war again, World
War II.  Again she was not reelected because of her pacifism.  She
was active in the movement against the U.S. involvement in Korea and
led a march opposing the Vietnam War in 1968. She was primarily
educated by her mother (of seven) who was a schoolteacher.   

      Event 06-11-1910, efforts to ban the portrayal of women's
SKIRTS on billboards was begun by the Printers' Association of
America which called such advertising "immoral."

Quotes du jour ...............................................

      "The wimp is the man who has a social conscience, who can
understand the oppression of women, who is warm and caring, who
fixes the family's meals after a rough day at the office. Women don't
view such men as wimps; only other men see them that way."
      -- Lucia Gilbert                         

>>>(C) 1995 Irene Stuber, PO Box 6185, Hot Springs National Park, AR
71902, 501-624-5262 for direct fax or voice mail ID #300,
irenestuber@delphi.com. Distribute verbatim copies freely with
copyright notice for non-profit use. Don't let anyone tell you there
weren't notable and effective women throughout history.  They were
always there, but historians failed to note them in our histories so
that each generation of women has had to reinvent themselves.
Contributions to defray online expenses accepted. <<<