Celebrating Women's History
Activities
Anne Frank's Long Road
Age/Grade Level or Audience: Middle school or high school literature or history research; school library bulletin board; synagogue Holocaust Day program; history club presentation; preface to cinema study of The Diary of Anne Frank.
Description: Trace the journey of Anne Frank on a map.
Procedure: Read aloud from the famous diary, which opens June 14, 1942, with introductory comments to "Kitty," imaginary confidante of Anne Frank, a teenager who became a Jewish death-camp victim. Using several research sources, have readers follow her short life from birth to death. Include these data:
- Birth in Frankfurt, Germany, June 12, 1929, to Otto and Edith Hollander Frank.
- Anne, along with her sister Margot and their mother, stayed in Aachen, Germany, at the home of her maternal grandmother from summer 1933 to early 1934.
- The family flight from Germany and resettlement in February 1934 in Amsterdam, Holland, where Anne attended a Montessori school.
- Vacations to Zandvoort aan Zee.
- From July 6, 1942 - August 4, 1944, spent in hiding from Gestapo occupation forces in close quarters in an annex of her father's spice import office, Opekta-Works, at 236 Prinsengracht Canal. Anne lived with Hermann Van Pels (renamed Putti Van Daan), Otto Frank's business partner; Auguste (renamed Petronella Van Daan), his wife; fifteen-year-old Peter; and Mouschi, the Van Pels's cat. The group depended upon supplies smuggled in by Miep Gies, Mr. Frank's secretary; her husband, Henk; a clerk named Elli; and Johannes Kleiman and Victor Kugler, Mr. Frank's business associates, whom Anne renamed Koophuis and Kraler.
- Discovery by Gestapo agents on August 4, 1944, three days after Anne's last entry and transport by covered truck to an interrogation center and holding cell.
- Boarded a train and traveled northeast of Amsterdam to Westerbork, a work camp.
- Separated from others in early September 1944, when the group joins 1000 internees; traveled by cattle-car to Auschwitz-Birkenau, Poland, a notorious death camp and crematorium currently known by its Polish name, Oswiecim.
- Reassignment to Bergen-Belsen, located outside Celle in north-central Germany, October 30, 1944, after the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele selected women for extermination at Auschwitz and lists others to be shipped to Germany. Anne and Margot were transported separately from Mrs. Van Daan to Bergen-Belsen and died of typhus in late February or early March 1945, two months before Holland's liberation
- Include side commentary on Queen Wilhelmina's flight to England May 10, 1940, when the Nazis occupied Holland. Add to the map battles in Czechoslovakia, England, and the D-Day beaches on the north shores of Normandy, France, all of which the group experienced vicariously while listening to a contraband radio.
- Add specific details about the fate of Anne's parents and six fellow internees:
- Miep's dentist, Dr. Fritz Pfeffer, who had joined the group in hiding in late 1942, shuttled from Auschwitz to a concentration camp at Neuengamme, Germany, where he died December 20, 1944.
- Edith and Otto Frank and the Van Pels, imprisoned at Auschwitz.
- Mrs. Auguste Van Pels's death at about the same time as Margot and Anne Frank died, although no date or cause was recorded.
- Hermann Van Pels, gassed in fall of 1944.
- Edith Frank's death of an unidentified illness, January 6, 1945.
- Peter, transported to Mauthausen in north-central Austria and gassed May 5, 1945, three days before camp liberation.
- Otto, an inmate in the infirmary, the only survivor when the Russians liberated prisoners in February 1945. Routed by ship through Odessa on the Black Sea to Marseilles, France, and back to Holland, Otto Frank returned home and reclaimed Anne's diary, which Miep had retrieved from a rubbish pile. He lived for a time with his mother, Alice Frank-Stern, in Basel, Switzerland. As a memorial to Anne, Margot, and their mother, Otto published the diary in 1947. An unexpurgated volume of her diary was published in 1995.
Sources:
The Apparatus of Death. Time-Life, 1991.
Gutman, Yisrael, ed. Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. Macmillan, 1990.
Friesel, Evyatar. Atlas of Modern Jewish History. Oxford University Press, 1990.
Gies, Miep, and Alison L. Gold. Anne Frank Remembered: The Story of the Woman Who Helped to Hide the Frank Family. Simon & Schuster, 1988.
Jacobs, Gloria. "The Unabridged Anne Frank." Ms., May/June 1995, 75.
Lange, Nichoas de. Atlas of the Jewish World. Facts on File, 1984.
Leitch, Michael. Slow Walks in Amsterdam: A Visitor's Companion. HarperCollins, 1991.
Schnabel, Ernst. Anne Frank: A Portrait in Courage. Harbrace, 1958.
van der Rol, Ruud, and Rian Verhoeven. Anne Frank: Beyond the Diary. Puffin Books, 1995.
Alternative Applications: Keep a map on a computer mapping program while a group reads the play version of The Diary of Anne Frank or screens the 1959 black-and-white film, starring Millie Perkins as Anne. Note that the movie won an Academy Award for William C. Mellor's photography and nominations for best picture, direction, music, and the acting of Shelley Winters.
Champions of Women's Health
Age/Grade Level or Audience: Middle school or high school science, health, or biology project; science and history club oral report; Women's History Month newsletter; hospital or women's clinic bulletin board; newspaper feature.
Description:Summarize the alteration in women's reproductive health and freedom of choice as a result of the work of women scientists and activists.
Procedure:Introduce the status of birth control and abortion before safe medical solutions replaced botched home abortions, indiscriminate dosages of Seneca snakeroot or juniper berries, deliberate trauma or falls, caustic douches, and strong purgatives as methods of ending pregnancy. Present information on the work of the following champions of women's rights to have control over their bodies and to the choice families have whether or not to produce children. Include these:
- Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, founder of lying-in clinics, lecturer, and writer on the subject of feminine hygiene, safe delivery, exercise, diet, and birth control as it applies to length and quality of life.
- Dr. Mary Steichen Calderone, supporter of the Sex Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS).
- Mary Ware Dennett, crusader for open access to family planning information and author of The Sex Side of Life.
- Crystal Eastman, orator and crusader for sex information and devices without the intervention of male doctors.
- Dr. Joycelyn Elders, former U.S. surgeon general and supporter of sex education as a deterrent to teen pregnancy and AIDS.
- Martha May Eliot, chief of the U.S. Children's Bureau and activist for maternal and infant health.
- Emma Goldman, radical pacifist and champion of women's civil rights, who went to jail for distributing birth control information
- Estelle Griswold, director of Planned Parenthood and activist against Connecticut's ban on birth control.
- Patricia Maginnis, founder of the Society for Humane Abortion.
- Margaret Sanger, creator of a chain of health clinics that dispensed birth control to the poor.
- Faye Wattleton, leader of Planned Parenthood during the height of the struggle for reproductive choice.
- Sarah R. Weddington, president of the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL)
Use as an example of leadership a prepared handout on the career and dedication of Dr. Marie Carmichael Stopes, best-selling author, inventor of the cervical cap, and proponent of the sponge and spermicide as a reliable contraceptive for women. Summarize these facts:
- Born October 15, 1880, in Edinburgh, Scotland, Stopes was one in a family of strong women. Her mother, a university graduate and Elizabethan scholar, taught Marie at home until she entered private school at age twelve. Stopes attended University College and vacillated between chemistry and botany as potential majors. Upon graduation in 1902 with honors in both botany and geology, she furthered her studies with a doctorate in paleobotany from Munich University's Botanical Institute.
- The first woman to teach science at Manchester University and the youngest scientist with a Ph.D. in Britain, she was acknowledged by a fellowship from the Royal Society. For ten years she furthered her knowledge of ancient plants and published three scholarly works on the formation of coal. An unsuccessful marriage to Reginald Ruggles Gates resulted in a book on human sexuality, a novelty in 1918. During her second marriage, to publisher Humphrey Verdon Roe, she produced an illustrated book on birth control that recommended the cervical cap, which she introduced to working-class women through a monograph called "A Letter to Working Mothers."
- Dr. Stopes's unflinchingly realistic marriage manuals, plus the opening of a birth control clinic in London in 1921, brought her into conflict with religious leaders. A bitter lawsuit against Halliday Sutherland, a Catholic physician, took more than ten years to complete and left her paranoid on the subject of church interference with women's rights. Although newspapers refused to mention her name or causes, the unfavorable publicity generated by lawsuits against her garnered increasing public appeal for Stopes.
- During this period, her personal life was beset with the difficulties of a stillbirth and the cesarean delivery of her son Harry. Her last years reverberated with lost causes, family disappointments, and self-imposed exile, but Stopes, a pioneer in the field of women's right to health education, never stopped supporting women's clinics staffed with nurse-midwives rather than male doctors. Suffering from breast cancer, she died October 2, 1958, leaving most of her fortune to the Royal Society rather than her family.
Conclude with an open study of pros and cons of a variety of procedures common in the practice of women's health care. Summarize the arguments for and against routine cesarean sections, the availability of birth control, and methods of ending dangerous or unwanted pregnancies. Contrast the points of view of NARAL, NOW, Planned Parenthood, ACLU, the religious right, and the Catholic Church as depicted in the media and through brochures, mailings, and media campaigns. Include data about the government's involvement in lessening the availability of abortion, particularly to teenagers and poor women. Debate the wisdom of allowing individuals to decide for themselves the safety and necessity of undergoing specific medical procedures.
Compose question-and-answer sessions between pairs of participants. Concentrate on the theme of progress and liberation for black people.
Sources:
Apple, Rima D. ed. Women, Health, and Medicine in
America. Garland, 1990.
Benderly, Jill. "Margaret
Sanger." On the
Issues, Spring 1990.
Benson, Michael D. Coping with Birth Control. Rosen,
1992.
Cadoff, Jennifer.
"The Pill over 40." Mirabella, September 1991.
Caruana, Claudia. The Abortion Debate.
Millbrook Press, 1992.
Ehrenreich, Barbara, and Deirdre English.
For Her Own Good: 150
Years of the Experts' Advice to Women.
Doubleday, 1989.
Elias,
Marilyn. "The Pill Turns 35: A New Era for
Women Was Born, Too." USA Today, May 4, 1995, D1-2, 4.
Huston, Perdita. Motherhood by Choice.
Feminist Press, 1995.
Larkin, Jack. The
Reshaping of Everyday Life -- 1790-1840.
HarperCollins, 1988.
Mucciolo, Gary. Everything You Need to Know about Birth
Control. Rosen, 1990.
Parsons, Judith. "Marie Stopes."
In The Great
Scientists, Frank Magill, ed., Grolier,
1989.
Rubin, Eva R. ed.
The Abortion
Controversy: A Documentary History.
Greenwood Press, 1994.
Teen
Pregnancy. Rosen, 1994. (Video)
Teen Sexuality. Rosen, 1994.
(Video)
Wertz, Richard
W. and Dorothy C. Wertz. Lying-In: A History of Childbirth in
America. Yale University Press, 1989.
When Abortion Was Illegal: Untold
Stories. Direct Cinema, Ltd., 1992.
(Video)
Alternative Applications:Create a chalkboard time line of events that have revolutionized women's health care and increased women's life spans, particularly in impoverished and patriarchal countries. Note these topics:
- Acceptance of a "morning after" pill such as RU-486.
- Adoption, in vitro fertilization, and artificial insemination.
- Increased publicity of female mutilation through circumcision, genital mutilation, and infibulation.
- Increased availability of safe and inexpensive methods of contraception.
- Government programs aiding women in selecting a reliable method of birth control.
- Liberalization of the wife's role in decision making.
- Significance of religious teachings.
- Single mothers who have no choice but work.
- Social and familial attitudes toward family size.
- Women's need of work outside the home or farm.
Determine how these
forces affect the lives of women and their
families.
The History of Nursing
Age/Grade Level or Audience: Middle school and high school health, vocational, and biology lecture; health or civic clubs monograph; career or college forum; Women's History Month presentation; medical society program.
Description: Present an historical overview of the contributions of women to patient care.
Procedure: Give a chalk talk about nursing as an innovative profession led by people seeking to comfort and heal in a variety of situations — doctors' offices, medical centers, home care, rehabilitation centers, hospices, hospitals, day clinics, nurseries, industries, nursing homes, institutions for the handicapped, independent practice, mission work, and mobile health facilities. Impress on the audience that nursing is still labeled "woman's work": over 97 percent of nurses are female, even though many men who trained and served in the Korean, Vietnam, and Persian Gulf wars returned to civilian life with appropriate skills and interest in the profession. Provide a transparency of memorable facts. Include these:
- According to
Hippocrates' On
Decorums, in ancient times Mediterranean
women served as midwives and wetnurses; temple
priestesses doubled as medical attendants,
especially during epidemics, but only males were
allowed to learn the healing mysteries or
rituals.
- The Bible lauds Deborah
and other nurse-midwives (Exod. 1:15, Ezek.
16:4), who used birthing stools and cleaned and
swaddled Israelite newborns.
- Chinese sources depict
nutritionists, veterinarians, internists,
acupuncturists, and village doctors accompanied
by nurse assistants, perhaps to attend to minor
dressings, washing of instruments, or
compounding medications from the highly
sophisticated pharmacopeia of ancient China.
- Likewise, specific
information about the early Xhosa of Africa
includes mention of the role of midwives in
administering warm-water massage and infusions
to women undergoing protracted labor.
- Islamic hospices and
hospitals followed religious teachings and
utilized male and female attendants to care for
the sick, whom administrators separated via a
complex system of triage. Because Arab nurses
performed the work of Allah, medical training
and care were free of charge.
- During the Roman
Empire, local sick and wounded veterans chose
between care by temple priest practitioners and
slave healers in the valetudinaria, or Roman hospitals,
which were usually suites of rooms surrounding a
cloister or colonnade. Nurse slaves, who applied
hot cloths and therapeutic soaks in mineral
baths, were sometimes knowledgeable in the
treatments and skills of Galen and Hippocrates.
Medical manuals list forceps, tongs, probes,
clips, scalpels, and other innovations, which
disappeared from use with the fall of the
empire.
- By the Christian era,
sophisticated knowledge of Roman hospital staffs
brought about the draining of the Pontine Marsh
to halt malaria and the introduction of
prosthetic limbs for amputees. Ordained
deaconesses, heeding Christian injunctions to
help the less fortunate, performed social work,
including washing and burying the dead. The
first nurse that Paul mentions by name is Phoebe
of Cenchrea (Rom. 16:1-2). Two — Praxides and
Pudentiana — devoted their ministrations to
prisoners. One of Paul's converts, Thecla of
Iconium, deserted her fiance and set up a
healing clinic for women in a cave near Seleucia
in Asia Minor.
- After hearing St.
Jerome and converting to Christianity, Marcella
(4th century a.d.), a wealthy Roman scholar and
the first Christian nursing instructor, opened
her home to nursing students. More important in
the history of nursing is Fabiola, a
contemporary of Marcella, who founded the
Western world's first hospital, or nosokomia, in Rome in
a.d. 390. The complex of suites treated lepers
in the contagious ward, the insane in another
private ward, and accident victims in a separate
wing. Later hospitals offered nurse care for the
elderly at numerous gerokomia, a form of rest home.
It was during the Middle Ages that female nurses began receiving specific mention in medical histories, letters, and journals. Consider the works and contributions of these women:
- Brigit of Kildare (a.d.
450-525), who taught nursing and received all
comers to her dispensary at the convent she
established in Ireland.
- In Siena, St. Catherine
(1347-1380) dedicated her outreach to loathsome
diseases — leprosy, scrofula, and deformities
— that other hospitals rejected. For her
devotion to plague victims, she earned the title
of patron saint of nursing.
- In 1854, Dr. Elizabeth
Blackwell hired nurse-midwife Marie Zakrzewska
and trained other nurses at the women's
dispensary in New York City.
- On the battle scene at
Scutari, Italy, from 1854-1856, Florence
Nightingale made stringent demands on the
British military that included requiring
sanitary conditions to control rampant cholera,
a 24-hour kitchen, clean bedding, and heat. Her
tenets of hospital care proved successful — she
reduced military deaths from 42 percent to 2
percent. In 1859 she founded a hospital of lay
nurses in Lausanne, Switzerland; the next year,
she opened London's Nightingale Training School
for Nurses, the prototype of the modern
hospital.
- In 1863, Nurse Adah
Thomas pressed both the Red Cross and U.S. Army
hierarchy to accept black nurses. In January
1863, sixteen-year-old Susie King Taylor, a
slave, helped nurse casualties of the 33rd U.S.
Colored Troops. In 1886 she organized the
Women's Relief Corps to provide visiting nurses
to aid veterans.
- The first licensed
nurse-midwife was Carolyn Vanblarcom, born in
1879, the year that Mary Eliza Mahoney graduated
as the first black registered nurse.
- Still active after her
Civil War efforts, Clara Barton cajoled Congress
into supporting the Red Cross in 1882. Seven
years later, she led the group's flood relief in
Johnstown, Pennsylvania; the following year she
oversaw flood and hurricane relief in Galveston,
Texas.
- Dr. Anita Newcomb McGee
established the Army Nurse Corps on February 2,
1901, with Dita H. Kinney as chief of
operations.
- World War II brought an
urgent need for nurses. Captain Annie Fox
received the first Purple Heart, earned during
the bombing of Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941.
The military high-command put WAAC and WAVE
nurses on the front lines. Two hundred died in
battle. On March 13, 1942, nurse Julia Otteson
Flikke became the first military nurse to earn a
rank (colonel). In 1943 reaction against women
in the military put a 2 percent cap on
participation, limited participation to
transport vehicles, and halted advancement
beyond commander or lieutenant colonel.
- Two navy nurses earned
certificates for studying submarine escape
measure in New London, Connecticut in 1943. On
December 28, 1944, Lt. Aleda E. Lutz of the Army
Nurse Corps received the Distinguished Flying
Cross. That same year, Lt. Cordelia Cook became
the first military nurse to be awarded a Bronze
Star. A year later, Captain Sue Dauser earned
the Distinguished Service Medal. In 1947, the
Army-Navy Nurse Act established a permanent
position for nurses in the military. Col.
Florence A. Blanchfield became the first female
U.S. soldier to hold a regular commission; Lt.
Comm. Bernice Rosenthal Walders was the first
female soldier assigned to a ship, the Consolation.
-
By the end of the war,
health care demands increase the hiring of
nurses in hospitals, where more than half were
employed. During the polio epidemics of the late
1940s, Sister Elizabeth Kenny revolutionized the
care of victims with a simple system of hot
packs and muscle manipulation. Her program saved
many from a life of crutches, iron lungs, and
wheelchairs.
-
In response to the
government's low quotas for black nurses, Mabel
Stampers, in February 1948, founded the National
Council of Negro Women and pressed for inclusion
into the American Nurses Association.
-
Four nurses earned
Purple Hearts in Vietnam in 1965. Nine died
during the conflict. In 1967 Congress lifted the
cap on women enlisting in the nurse corps and
opened the way to higher rank. The next year,
Lt. Jane A. Lombardi evacuated a Danang hospital
and earned the Bronze Star, the first combat
citation awarded to an American woman. On June
8, 1969, Sharon Lane died in action in Vietnam
and was commemorated by a statue in her hometown
of Canton, Ohio. By 1970 General Anna Mae Hayes
had become the highest-ranking nurse in the
army, followed by Jeanne Holm, Alene B. Duerk,
and Elizabeth Hoisington. On May 5, 1970, Sister
Nancy Ann Eagan became the first commissioned
nun in the military and worked with the
aeromedical airlift team. Nurse Duerk became the
first female Admiral in Naval history on April
27, 1972.
- In a move to end
nursing's women-only stereotype, in 1971 Justice
Sandra Day O'Connor wrote the majority statement
that nursing schools should admit men.
- In 1986 Congress set up
the National Center for Nursing Research.
-
Onnie Lee Logan, Mobile
midwife, published
Motherwit: An Alabama Midwife's Story
in 1989, a reflection on her half century of
service.
Sources:
Bullough, Vern L., Olga Maranjian Church,
and Alice P. Stein.
American Nursing: A Biographical
Dictionary. Garland, 1988.
Cosner, Shaaron.
War
Nurses.
Walker and Co., 1988.
Cytron, Barry, and Phyllis
Cytron.
Myriam Mendilow:
Mother of
Jerusalem.
Lerner Books, 1994.
Daniels, Doris Groshen.
Always a Sister: The
Feminism of Lillian D. Wald.
Feminist Press,
1995.
Ehrenreich,
Barbara, and Deirdre English.
Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History
of Women Healers. Feminist Press, 1995.
Emert, Phyllis Raybin, ed.
Women in the Civil War:
Warriors, Patriots, Nurses, and Spies.
Discovery Enterprises, 1995.
Flanagan, Lyndia.
One Strong Voice: The Story of the
American Nurses Association. ANA, 1976.
Garey, Diane, and Lawrence
R. Hott.
Sentimental
Women Need Not Apply: A History of the American
Nurse. 60 min. Florentine Films, 1988.
(Film)
Griffin, Lynne,
and Kelly McCann.
The
Book of Women: 300 Notable Women History Passed
By. Bob Adams, 1992.
Hine, Darlene Clark.
Black Women in White: Racial Conflict and
Cooperation in the Nursing Profession
1890-1950. Indiana University Press,
1989.
Hurmence, Belinda.
Before Freedom: 48 Oral
Histories of Former North and South Carolina
Slaves. Mentor Books, 1990.
Kalisch, Philip A., and Beatrice J.
Kalisch. The Advance of
American Nursing. Lippincott, 1986.
Kenny, Sister. And They Shall Walk.
Ayer, 1980.
Leavitt,
Judith Walzer. Brought
to Bed: Childbearing in America 1750-1950.
Oxford University Press, 1986.
Mellish, J. M. A
Basic History of Nursing. Durban, South
Africa: Butterworths, 1984.
Melosh, Barbara. The Physician's Hand: Work, Culture and
Conflict in American Nursing. Temple
University Press, 1982.
Pryor, Elizabeth Brown. Clara Barton: Professional Angel.
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987.
"Salute to the
Military." Daughters of the American Revolution
Magazine, November 1990, 852-53.
Stoddard, Martha.
"Program Delivers Birth Support." Lincoln Star, June 23,
1995, 1, 8.
Straubing,
Harold Elk. In Hospital
and Camp: The Civil War through the Eyes of Its
Doctors and Nurses. Stackpole Books,
1993.
Zalumas,
Jacqueline. Caring in
Crisis: An Oral History of Critical Care
Nursing. University of Pennsylvania Press,
1995.
Alternative Applications:Screen the
movie Sister Kenny
(RKO, 1946). Have volunteers study the role
played by Rosalind Russell, who dramatized the
thinking, decision-making side of nursing. Help
participants compose scenes from exciting times
in the history of women's health care. Suggest
that one group describe the crusades of Margaret
Sanger for birth control centers in poor
neighborhoods. Have another group portray
Florence Nightingale's midnight walks among
wounded soldiers, an act that earned her the
nickname of "The Lady of the Lamp." A
worthy subject for a diorama are the coordinated
efforts of volunteers and professionals like Clara Barton to staff makeshift
field hospitals and rehabilitation centers
during the Civil War. Use desktop publishing to
compose a brochure accompanying the skits and
explaining the qualities and skills that brought
nursing out of the convent and brothels and into
respectable hospitals, neighborhood clinics, and
nurse-care facilities. Perform the finished
program for a history club, civic club
convention, or school.
Women and War
Age/Grade Level or Audience:Junior high and high school English or history speech; library research exercise; literary society report; museum or library display; newsletter and media series.
Description:Report on the women who have fought bravely as insurgents or those noncombatants injured during wartime or in political hostilities that victimized women and children.
Procedure: Have participants summarize on audiocassette the achievements and patriotism of women during political hostilities. Include these examples:
- Anna Warner Bailey, Groton, Connecticut
- Martha Brae, Jamaica
- Molly Brant, Mohawk
- Edith Cavell, England
- Anson Chan, Hong Kong
- Zlata Filipovich, Bosnia
- Milly Hayo Francis, Creek-Seminole
- Anne Frank, Holland
- Irma Hadzimuratovic, Bosnia
- Jean Wakatsuki Houston, Japanese-American
- Joan of Arc, France
- Golda Meir, Israel
- Rigoberta Menchu, Guatemala
- Jehan Sadat, Egypt
- Corrie ten Boom, Holland
- Nancy Ward, Cherokee
- Yoko Kawashima Watkins, Japan
Give details of each person's sacrifice or daring. Use this model:
Five-year-old Irma Hadzimuratovic suffered spinal and abdominal paralysis from a shrapnel injury during the Serbian shelling of Bosnia on July 30, 1993. After being airlifted to London ten days later and pictured on worldwide news networks, she served as an example of botched United Nations efforts to provide care for wounded children. As a result, she was honored by "Operation Irma," a multinational effort to spare children injured by the protracted Bosnian War.
Use as a longer model for a presentation or formal program these facts about actress and activist Chiang Ch'ing:
- Born Li Chin to a carpenter's concubine in March 1914 in Chu-Ch'ing, Shantung Province, Chiang studied the Confucian virtues of self-discipline and respect. Her father, an alcoholic, beat and cursed her mother and his own children. Her mother took the children and fled to Tsinan and supported them with menial work. Chiang Ch'ing lived unsupervised and fed herself off scraps and garbage.
- The family moved to the home of Chiang's grandfather, where Chiang attended public school. She became obsessed by the violence and want in China. In 1929 she withdrew from her political concerns and began to study opera, drama, and piano at the Shantung Provincial Experimental Art Theater.
- Two years later, when economic depression forced her mother to consider selling her, Chiang ran away to Tsingtao University, where she worked as a librarian's assistant and taught Chinese to pay her tuition. She entered the Seaside Drama Society, a wandering troupe that lived on meager returns from performances.
- When the Japanese invaded Manchuria, Chiang joined an idealistic band of rebels. At the age of twenty, she was imprisoned in Nanking for eight months. By February 1935, malnutrition had depleted her body.
- Playing Nora in Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House under the stage name of Li Yun-ho, Chiang gave up revolution and remained immersed in her career until 1937. Employed by the Lien Hua Motion Picture Company in Shanghai, she took a new name — Lan P'ing or "Blue Apple" — to disguise her identity in leftist films such as Blood on Wolf Hill and Wang Lao Wu and was favorably compared to vamp Greta Garbo. For a brief time, she was married to critic T'ang Na.
- After the Japanese seized Shanghai in 1937, Chiang resettled in Chunking and taught drama at Lu Hsun Art Academy. Two years later, she proclaimed herself a member of the Chinese Communists. Mao Tse-Tung, hero of the Long March four years earlier, invited her to one of his speeches.
- That spring, Mao, divorced for the third time, married Chiang Ch'ing. As his mate and secretary, she again changed her name, this time to "River Azure," or Chiang Ch'ing (now spelled Jiang Qing). The party insisted that she end her film career and live in obscurity to spare Mao the embarrassment of media claims that he deserted a loyal mate and married a trophy wife twenty years his junior. In July 1944 Mao broke the ban on public appearances by waltzing with her during a state visit by Franklin Roosevelt.
- In Yenan, Chiang Ch'ing kept house at army headquarters, which was a cave. She cared for Mao's son and daughter and in 1940 gave birth to Li Na. Her life consisted of various forms of manual labor that served as a model to communist collectives.
- On March 12, 1947, the Japanese intensified bombing; Chiang she was driven south by jeep through snow banks and rode horseback for five months in search of safe quarters. Her frail health deteriorated; she was dispatched to Moscow and Yalta for surgery and treatment of respiratory and urinary problems. After the Chinese Revolution in 1949, Chiang Ch'ing took an active part in promoting propagandist cinema while undergoing radiotherapy for cervical cancer. In 1956 she received cobalt treatment, which brought her near death.
- In the 1960s, Chiang Ch'ing recovered and influenced art reform, introducing her Communistic revisions of The Taking of Tiger Mountain, The Red Lantern, Sentinels under Neon Lights, and A Great Wall Along the Southern Coast, and a ballet, The Red Detachment of Women.
- In 1962 she began to seek an active part in the political hierarchy. Two years later, she made a speech at the Peking Opera Festival. When anti-Maoism threatened her husband's hold on China's Community party, Chiang Ch'ing contributed to a severe purge of Western influences. To secure her position, she avoided rich dress and wore proletarian garb.
- By November 1966, Chiang Ch'ing was second in command of the Cultural Revolution, a virulent anti-West display and a stage for the Maoist cult, buoyed by the publication of The Quotations from Chairman Mao. Her organization of youth brigades gave the impression that the people loved and supported Mao.
- The most notorious of Chiang Ch'ing's excesses was a purge of anti-Maoist officials, some of whom were executed. World reaction led to a softening of Chiang Ch'ing's role. By March 1968, she returned to artistic influence and stressed innovation and involvement of rural culture. During a state visit to China, President and Mrs. Richard Nixon attended one of her stage productions on February 22, 1972.
- Two years later, Mao could no longer hide his advanced age and physical deterioration. Upon his death on September 9, 1976, Chiang went into formal mourning. In October 1976 she was arrested as one of the "gang of four" and hanged in effigy. In January 1981 the new cabal sentenced her to death. Recognizing her advanced aged and waning strength, they allowed house arrest in her daughter's home in Beijing. On May 14, 1991, suffering throat cancer, she hanged herself.
Have students extend the chart to include other countries where the population is largely black, especially Haiti and Jamaica. Explain why travelers to these places would want to know the exchange rate before they left the United States.
Sources:
Archer, Jules. Mao
Tse-Tung. Hawthorn Books, 1989.
Buel, Joy Day, and Richard
Buel, Jr. The Way of
Duty: A Woman and Her Family in Revolutionary
America. W. W. Norton, 1995.
A Change in
Attitude: Women, War and Society 1914-1918.
Research Publications, 1995. (Microfilm)
Bruhn, Sheila. Diary of a Girl in Changi,
1941-1945. Kangaroo Press, 1994.
"Deaths Elsewhere:
Irma Hadzimuratovic." Sacramento Bee, April 3, 1995, B5.
Ellett, Elizabeth. The Women of the American
Revolution. Corner House, 1995.
Emert, Phyllis Raybin, ed.
Women in the Civil War:
Warriors, Patriots, Nurses, and Spies.
Discovery Enterprises, 1995.
Figner, Vera. Memoirs of a Revolutionist. Northern
Illinois University Press, 1995.
Fox-Genovese, Elizabeth. "A New
World for Women and Blacks?" The World and I, June
1995, 44-53.
Gates,
Betsey. The Colton
Letters: Civil War Period 1861-1865. McLane,
1993.
Gioseffi, Daniela.
"Women on War and Survival." In Women on War,
Touchstone Books, 1990.
"Guilty Verdict: The Gang of
Four." Time,
February 2, 1981.
Holley, David. "Mao's Widow Jiang
Qing, Radical Leader, Dead at 77." Los Angeles Times, June
5, 1991.
Huong, Duong
Thu. Novel without a
Name. William Morrow, 1995.
Lief, Louise. "Second Class in the
Israeli Military." U. S. News and World Report, May 22,
1995, 47-48.
Mary Silliman's War.
Heritage Films, 1994. (Video)
"Milestones." Time, June 17, 1991, 73.
Moore, Molly. A Woman at War: Storming
Kuwait with the U.S. Marines. Scribner's,
1993.
Pelka, Fred.
"Mothers in the Fatherland." On the Issues, fall
1990, 26-28, 36-39.
Piturro, Marlene C. "First Chinese,
First Woman." On
the Issues, Summer 1995, 35-37.
Salmonson, Jessica Amanda.
The Encyclopedia of
Amazons: Women Warriors from Antiquity to the
Modern Era. Paragon, 1991.
Smedley, Agnes. Portraits of Chinese Women in
Revolution. Feminist Press, 1995.
Terrell, Ross. The White-Boned Demon: A
Biography of Madame Mao Zedong. Morrow,
1984.
Witke, Roxane. Comrade Chiang Ch'ing.
Little, Brown, 1977.
"Women in World War II."
University Publications of America, 1994.
(Microfilm)
Woodward, C.
Vann, ed. Mary Chesnut's
Civil War. Yale University Press, 1981.
Alternative Applications:Create a
"Women and War" map noting girls and
women who have involved themselves in
behind-the-scenes efforts. For example: Molly
Pitcher, Clara Barton, Edith Cavell, Chiang
Ch'ing, Audrey Hepburn, Christiane Amanpour,
Belle Boyd, Joan of Arc, the widows of the Khmer
Rouge and martyrs of Tianenmen Square, Winnie
Mandela, Corrie ten Boom, and Rigoberta Menchu.
Add information about women who have served near
battlefields in the Red Cross, French
Resistance, UNICEF, Caritas, Medicins sans Frontieres, Peace Corps,
news bureaus, and other agencies providing
relief, transportation, and medical care.
Mythic Women
Age/Grade Level or Audience: Elementary reading or language listing; summer reading project; computer database.
Description: Organize a study of the female mythic prototype, which undergirds much of literature, film, art, and social interaction.
Procedure: Have students isolate the essential data of a mythic prototype. Use these models from Greek, Roman, and Hebrew mythology as starting points:
- Aphrodite/Venus —goddess of passion and romance
- Artemis/Diana —goddess of nature and the hunt
- Athene/Minerva —goddess of wisdom and war
- Demeter/Ceres —goddess of the hearth and grain, goddess of the cycle of the seasons
- Hera/Juno —goddess of married love and childbirth
- Nemesis —embodiment of recompense or punishment
- Pandora/Eve —curious meddler who brought unhappiness to a perfect world
- Psyche —embodiment of the soul, longing, and desire
Ask students to apply the personal traits, foibles, and misdeeds of each goddess to characters in a current movie, television program, or book. For example, discuss how blaming the Pandora/Eve figure for human sin constitutes scapegoating, thus settling on the shoulders of females the problems inherent in all human behavior.
Balance the study of Pandora with an examination of Demeter/Ceres, the Earth mother who searches Earth and the underworld for Persephone/Proserpina, her kidnapped daughter. Narrate how Demeter/Ceres refuses to adorn Earth with green growing things while her daughter resides in the underworld.
Sources: Bell, Robert. Women of Classical Mythology. ABC-Clio, 1991. Bulfinch, Thomas. Bulfinch's Mythology. Harper, 1959. Campbell, Joseph. Myths to Live By. Bantam, 1984. Cavendish, Marshall, ed. Man, Myth, and Magic. Marshall Cavendish, 1970. Feder, Lillian. The Meridian Handbook of Classical Literature. New American Library, 1986. Hamilton, Edith. Mythology. New American Library, 1969. Larrington, Carolyn, ed. The Feminist Companion to Mythology. Pandora Press, 1992. Rosenberg, Donna. World Mythology. Passport Books, 1992.
Alternative Applications: Have groups act out pivotal scenes involving male-female relationships in mythology. Ask observers to note stereotypes in reactions, prejudices, and social roles. Begin with these models:
- Echo's pursuit of the handsome Narcissus
- Leda's seduction by Zeus, who comes to her in the form of a handsome swan
- Psyche's curiosity about Cupid, her mysterious lover
- Medea's mystical powers of Jason
- Arachne's explanation of a way out of the labyrinth
- Aphrodite's unfairness at the judgment of Paris
Women Volunteers
Age/Grade Level or Audience: City-wide celebration; civic club symposium; Friends of the Library activity; local Women's History Month media release or poster.
Description: Highlight local women's groups and organizations that have historically benefitted the community and honor newly formed groups that carry on the torch.
Procedure: Have groups join in a city-wide celebration of women who volunteer in established and newly formed organizations. Use these models:
- Moonlight serenade by a barbershop quartet at the home of a pro-choice activist or women's clinic volunteer.
- Mass mailing of thank-you notes to grade mothers and guidance department volunteers.
- Candy kisses distributed to women who serve meals and snacks or entertain at an AIDS clinic or veteran's hospital.
- Billboard signed by grateful recipients of volunteer aid from a women's auxiliary of the fire or police department or rescue squad.
- Book marks, tray mats, lapel buttons, and bumper stickers proclaiming the work of a women's shelter, genealogical societies, Gray Ladies, Friends of the Library, or hospice.
- Proclamation of Women of Mercy Week for foster mothers and volunteers to the handicapped, invalids, refugees, and orphanages.
- Concerted effort to include all girls in Take Our Daughters to Work Day by spreading information well in advance, offering transportation for disadvantaged girls, opening military academies to the project, opening online information about careers for women, and pairing disabled girls with suitable job possibilities.
Sources:
Angus, Susan G. Invest Yourself: the Catalogue of
Volunteer Opportunities. Community Voluntary
Service and Action, 1993.
Bayh, Marvella, with Mary Lynn Kotz, ed.
"My Fight Against Cancer." Life, October 1978,
54.
Bayh, Marvella, with
Mary Lynn Kotz. Marvella: A Personal Journey. Harcourt
Brace Jovanovich, 1979.
"Girls Around the World." Montreal Gazette, April
24, 1995, E3.
Kelly,
Joyce. "CHA Project House Call." Chicago Tribune, June
25, 1995, Sect. 6, 3.
Woodworth, David. The International Directory of Voluntary
Work. Peterson's Guides, 1993.
Zuger, Abigail. Strong Shadows: Scenes from
an Inner City AIDS Clinic. W. H. Freeman,
1995.
Alternative Applications: Publish in a newspaper column or as a media feature the contributions of Marvella Bayh, champion of early cancer detection and treatment. Stress these facts:
- Marvella Hern Bayh was born February 14, 1933, in rural Lahoma, Oklahoma. A prize student orator, she won the governorship of Oklahoma at Girls' State. After her marriage to Birch Bayh on August 24, 1952, she ran a 450-acre farm while earning degrees in social studies and secondary education.
- Suffering a hormone deficiency and chronic insomnia, Bayh took estrogen, thyroid extract, and tranquilizers, which helped her cope with her father's alcoholism and the demands of being the wife of a U.S. Senator. At age 38, Marvella underwent extensive surgery for breast cancer and began daily radium treatments and eighteen months of chemotherapy.
- In keeping with her education in social service, she agreed to interviews for Today's Health, Medical Tribune, and the National Enquirer and championed early detection for the American Cancer Society in a televised feature, The Marvella Bayh Story. In 1977, as consultant for the Society, she joined Joe Califano, HEW Secretary, in denouncing tobacco products as carcinogens. The American Society of Surgical Oncologists presented her with the James Ewing Memorial Award.
- A year later, cancer metastasized to her upper chest bones. Bayh continued fighting the tobacco lobby and published an autobiography. Weeks before her death on April 24, 1979, she received the Hubert H. Humphrey Inspirational Award for Courage.
The Five W's: Who, What, Where, When, Why (and How)
Age/Grade Level or Audience: High school journalism or logic activity; school or public library handout or brochure; writers club presentation; women's studies class; Toastmaster's Club; Women's History Month presentation; women's civic society; pro-choice rally.
Description: Collection and organize data concerning Roe v. Wade.
Procedure: Read a variety of materials on Roe v. Wade, the landmark court decision that decriminalized abortion and allowed women the right to make decisions concerning their own bodies. Preface reading by listing questions that fall under these six categories:
Who:
- Who pressed the charge?
- Who is Jane Roe?
- What attorney backed the plaintiff?
- What judge presided over the final decision?
- Who wrote the deciding opinion?
What:
- What were the facts in the case?
- What happened to Roe's pregnancy?
- What were the reactions of notable figures, including the President, the Pope, and the head of Planned Parenthood?
- What pressure groups took sides?
- What media presentations featured the case?
- What "litmus test" was applied to politicians?
Where:
- Where did Roe live?
- Where was the father of her child?
- Where was the final decision made?
- Where did she seek an abortion?
- In what states had abortion been illegal?
When:
- When did Roe become pregnant?
- When was she denied an abortion?
- When did the case first come to trial?
- When did the high court make its decision?
Why:
- Why did Roe conceal her identity?
- Why was she denied an abortion?
- Why did the case reach the Supreme Court?
- Why did religious and political leaders take sides in the matter?
How:
- How did the Supreme Court determine that abortion should be legal?
- How did pressure groups make their case for or against Roe?
- How did Roe react to the decision?
- How has public opinion altered since the Roe decision?
Add to the list of questions as additional reading suggests more angles of inquiry. Organize your data in outline form and compose a short editorial setting forth a viewpoint based on factual information.
Sources:
Faux,
Marian. Roe vs. Wade:
The Untold Story of the Landmark Supreme Court
Decision that Made Abortion Legal.
Macmillan, 1988.
McCorvey, Norma. I
Am Roe. HarperCollins, 1993.
Miller, Patricia G. The Worst of Times. HarperCollins,
1993.
Schambelan, Bo. Roe vs. Wade: The Most
Controversial Ruling of Our Time. Running
Press, 1992.
Alternative Applications: Make a list of open-ended survey questions to ask a variety of people on the issue of Roe v. Wade. Include a gynecologist, judge, journalist, politician, law enforcement officer, women's health clinic staff member, nurse, child care worker, priest, minister, abortion recipient, social worker, humanities teacher, feminist, father, mother, grandparent, adoption agent, public defender, teenagers of both sexes, pro-choice activist, and pro-life activist. Consider these models:
- Who should decide whether women receive privacy when making decisions concerning health and child-bearing?
- How can groups justify stalking, harassment, and violence against abortion providers?
- Does Roe deserve privacy?
- How does the law affect abortion, women's health, civil rights, and marital rights?
- What cultural practices or religious beliefs enter into the discussion of women's right to choice?
- When does a fertilized egg become a life?
- What should doctors learn about abortion during training?
- What situations would justify an abortion? Rape? Incest? Severe birth defects?
Women and the Law
Age/Grade Level or Audience: Middle school civics banner; high school law study; library posters; literary society presentation; American Constitution Week newsletter or bulletin board display.Description: Draw a banner or series of posters celebrating historic court cases that expanded women's rights.
Procedure: Decorate a classroom, library or courthouse wall, museum display, or women's history fair. Stress these cases from the last three decades that have advanced the cause of women:
- 1961 Poe v. Ullman, an unsuccessful, but highly publicized assault on Connecticut's ban of contraceptive sales, which Justice John Harlan declared an invasion of privacy
- 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut, an invalidation of the Connecticut law halting use of contraception, thereby violating marital privacy
- 1967 Loving v. Virginia, the defeat of Virginia's anti- miscegenation laws that violate rights to choose marital partners
- 1968 King v. Smith, which established that states cannot withhold welfare to children whose mothers maintain a common-law marriage
- 1971 Reed v. Reed, a reversal of preferential selection of men as executors of estates, a clear example of sex bias
- 1971 U.S. v. Vuitch, which expanded abortion rights by declaring that the health of a patient includes psychological as well as physical considerations
- 1972 Eisenstadt v. Baird, the defeat of a Massachusetts law refusing contraceptive devices to unmarried women
- 1973 Frontiero v. Richardson, which altered the status of male dependents of women in the armed forces so that spouses of all soldiers can claim dependent status
- 1973 Roe v. Wade, a landmark decision upholding women's right to control their own bodies and the defeat of state laws criminalizing abortion
- 1978 In re Primus, which allows an ACLU lawyer to encourage females on welfare to sue the state for requiring sterilization
- 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which overturned Pennsylvania's restrictive laws criminalizing abortion
- 1993 J. E. B. v. T. B., which guaranteed the rights of both sexes to serve on juries
Alternative Applications: Create a bulletin board composed of original political cartoons, caricatures, or comic strips of women lawyers on the job. Show volunteer attorneys interviewing poor and disenfranchised clients for the Legal Aid Society. Depict the plight of female migrant workers, deportees, immigrants, illegal aliens, victims of spousal abuse, and workers suffering sexual harassment or job discrimination. Carry your drawings through mediation, lawsuits, and adjudication, with these actual examples:
- In 1994 Col. Margarethe Cammermeyer, winner of a bronze star in Vietnam, won reinstatement in the Army Nurse Corps after being discharged for admitted homosexuality.
- August 7, 1994, feminist writer Taslima Nasrin eluded a charge of religious offense in Bangladesh, where officials charged her with blasphemy for writing Shame, a novel lambasting Muslim fanatics for persecuting Hindus, and for demanding a revision of the Koran.
- June 2, 1995, exotic dancers lost their appeal against charges of prostitution.
- June 27, 1995, Susan Thibaudeau lost her case against the taxation of child-support payments in Canada's Supreme Court.
Kate Chopin and The Awakening
Age/Grade Level or Audience: High school or college English literature lecture; women's studies report; library handout; book club presentation; Women's History Month presentation.
Description: Substantiate the contribution of Kate Chopin to an honest portryal of female characters in fiction.
Procedure: As a preface to a study of The Awakening and other of the author's works, present an overview of the life of Kate Chopin. Include these facts:
- From girlhood in St. Louis, Missouri, Katherine "Kate" O'Flaherty Chopin (February 8, 1851-August 22, 1904), studied fiction, especially the short works of Guy de Maupassant, Walt Whitman's verse, and Sarah Orne Jewett's fiction. A socially prominent family, she and her family suffered the death of Kate's brother during the Civil War and also the accidental death of her father. Kate was educated at the Academy of the Sacred Heart, and studied piano, French, and traditional deportment with her grandmother, Madame Victoria Charleville. Influenced by St. Louis's mix of Creole and Cajun customs, Kate served briefly as companion to an opera singer living in New Orleans.
- Kate married financier and buyer Oscar Chopin, enjoyed the standard European honeymoon, and became a supporter of the arts in New Orleans, where the Chopins settled. She displayed uncharacteristic female behavior by walking unchaperoned, traveling alone, and smoking in public.
- In 1879, severe financial losses forced the couple to move to the Cane River. Swamp fever killed Oscar Chopin in 1883, leaving Kate to support herself and six children. She moved to her grandmother O'Flaherty's home in St. Louis; five years later, the death of Kate's grandmother brought Kate to the brink of a nervous breakdown from worry and overwork. On a doctor's advice, she began writing and initiated a regular Thursday salon. She sold her first novel, Bayou Folk, and published short stories in America, Atlantic Monthly, Vogue, Youth's Companion, Criterion, Harper's Young People, and the St. Louis Dispatch.
- Critics were scandalized by the sensuality, unladylike behavior, and feminism of protagonist Edna Pontellier following publication of The Awakening in 1899. Readers also objected to the fictional heroine, a headstrong New Orleans artist who drowns herself in the Gulf of Mexico at the end of a failed affair. The media characterized Chopin as a pornographer and exhibitionist. Her major publications — The Complete Works of Kate Chopin (1959), Kate Chopin: The Awakening and Other Stories (1970), The Storm and Other Stories (1974), and A Kate Chopin Miscellany (1979) — found respect among feminist critics, however, who laud her as a visionary ahead of her time. Subsequent interest in her fiction made Chopin's residence in Cloutierville a shrine to feminism.
Sources:
Bloom, Harold. Kate Chopin. Chelsea House, 1987.
Bonner, Thomas, Jr. The Kate Chopin
Companion. Greenwood, 1988.
Boren, Lynda S. and Sara D. Davis, eds.
Kate Chopin
Reconsidered: Beyond the Bayou. Louisiana
State University Press, 1992.
Christ, Carol P. Diving Deep and Surfacing: Women Writers
on Spiritual Quest. Beacon Press, 1980.
Jewitt, Sarah Orne. The Only Rose and Miss
Tempy's Watchers. Commuters Library, 1995.
(Audiocassette)
Jones,
Ann Goodwyn. Tomorrow Is
Another Day: The Woman Writer in the South,
1859-1936. Louisiana State University Press,
1981.
Koloski, Bernard,
ed. Approaches to
Teaching Chopin's the Awakening. Modern
Language Association, 1988.
Martin, Wendy, ed. New Essays on The Awakening. Cambridge
University Press, 1988.
Papke, Mary E. Verging on the Abyss: The Social Fiction
of Kate Chopin and Edith Wharton. Greenwood
Press, 1990.
Skaggs,
Peggy. Kate Chopin.
Macmillan, 1985.
Toth,
Emily. Kate Chopin: A
Life of the Author of The Awakening. William
Morrow, 1993.
Wharton,
Edith. The Eyes, The
Other Two, and The Mission. Commuters
Library, 1995. (Audiocassette)
Alternative Applications: Have participants discuss aspects of The Awakening which shocked polite nineteenth-century society on its publication. Include the failed love affair with a younger man, the return to Grand Isle, and flirtations with Victor and Alcee. Contrast Edna's individuality with the blossoming of these characters:
- Nora in Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House
- Winnie in Amy Tan's The Kitchen God's Wife
- The title character in Terry McMillan's Mama
- Clara in Isabel Allende's House of the Spirits
- Women in Sarah Orne Jewett's The Only Rose and Miss Tempy's Watchers
- Wives in Edith Wharton's The Eyes, The Other Two, and The Mission of Jane
Discuss the roll of artistic expression, sexual intimacy, female networking, and privacy in the rejuvenation of housebound women of movies such as The Piano, Crimes of the Heart, Out of Africa, Like Water for Chocolate, Babette's Feast, Places in the Heart, and The Group.
Ask a volunteer to read
aloud passages from these works or from Chopin's
short stories that capture a positive emotion,
especially love, delight, pleasure, comfort,
self-expression, or welcome. Compose a list of
these and other details that undergird Edna's
attraction: honesty, natural grace, and
curiosity. Discuss the reasons for L'once
Pontellier's inability to appreciate or
alleviate Edna's inner unrest and disaffection
for her role as wife and mother. Explain how her
nourishment of self benefited both body and
spirit.
The Best of Aretha Franklin
Age/Grade Level or Audience: Middle school or high school music appreciation class; piano or music club study; civic club presentation; women's studies research topic; arts and commentary column; Women's History Month open-forum discussion; educational radio or television series.
Description:Salute the long-lived fame and career of vocalist Aretha Franklin.
Procedure:Present a program of music interspersed with facts about the rise and success of singer Aretha Franklin. Note these facts:
- Born in 1942, Aretha Franklin grew up in a family of five headed by her father, the Rev. C. L. Franklin, after her mother deserted them in 1948 and later died.
- She grew up under the influence of Mahalia Jackson, Clara Ward, and Dinah Washington — all frequent houseguests of her father.
- Franklin sang her first solo in her father's church, New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit, Michigan; Franklin's first solo recording came at age fourteen, with Chess Records.
- In 1960 Franklin began a five-year contract with Columbia Records in New York City; she eventually moved to the Atlantic label.
- In 1967 Franklin won her first Grammy award — best rhythm and blues recording for "Respect," which would eventually become an anthem embraced by all women.
- Franklin has maintained a steady flow of quality live and recorded performances for over three decades. Her works contain a variety of vocal and instrumental accompaniments: bass, conga, flute, guitar, keyboard, oboe, percussion, thumb piano, tympani, and vibraphone.
- Presented the Kennedy Center Honor in 1994, Franklin, the first female in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, continues to maintain the image of the "Queen of Soul."
Conclude with selections from Aretha Franklin's album I Never Loved a Man. Summarize her choice of songs reflecting the many faces of love and longing — "Feel Like Makin' Love," "Killing Me Softly with His Song," and "I'm the Girl." Note Franklin's ability to add punch and drive, as with the fervid, "No Tears in the End."
Sources:
Bego,
Mark. Aretha Franklin:
Queen of Soul. St. Martin, 1989.
Flack, Roberta. Feel Like Makin' Love.
Atlantic Recording, 1975. (CD)
Killing Me
Softly. Atlantic Recording, 1973. (CD)
Randolph, Laura B.
"Aretha Talks About Men, Marriage, Music
and Motherhood." Ebony, April 1995, 28-34.
Alternative Applications: Compose a
fan letter to Aretha Franklin. Compare her works
to those of other twentieth-century soul and
rhythm and blues greats, such as Bessie Smith,
Billie Holiday, and Roberta Flack. Conclude with
an analysis of Aretha Franklin's strengths as a
performer and her role as an inspirational model
for young listeners. Comment on the reasons
behind her staying power with the American
public.
Mother Teresa
Age/Grade Level or Audience: Any-age participant; world religion biography; bulletin board, church school or Bible camp topic; in-house newsletter or media presentation; church newsletter focus; newspaper column; Women's History Month handout.
Description: Create a brochure honoring Mother Teresa, one of the modern world's most treasured women.
Procedure: Introduce Mother Teresa's journey from anonymity in Yugoslavia to her status as a world icon of religious devotion and compassion. Begin with these facts:
- One day to be kown as "The Saint of the Gutters," Mother Teresa, a grocer's daughter, was born in Yugoslavia in 1911 and named Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu. In 1923 she heard stories of India's poverty and decided to become a nun to serve the world's poorest people.
- A diminutive woman, Mother Teresa took on all-but-impossible tasks: She joined an Irish mission in Calcutta and aided lepers and the poor who lay ill and spurned by passersby in the streets. At age 39 she became a citizen of India. In 1965, her work spread to troubled spots all over the globe, where her workers, dressed in white saris and living simply, staff 500 convents in 87 countries.
- Mother Teresa's selfless example earned her the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. At her acceptance speech she denounced abortion as the world's greatest destroyer. Opponents question her dogmatic stance against birth control and the right to choice, which could relieve India of its burden of unwanted children. Others challenge her to become more political and to speak against family violence, racism, and sexism.
- Mother Teresa suffered heart problems in 1994, then returned to the United states in 1995 to make appearances in Atlanta, Georgia, where she visited Atlanta's House of Grace, a refuge for homeless women suffering from AIDS. She spoke in Charlotte, North Carolina, where nuns have followed her example and opened a simple convent in a poor neighborhood and live a spartan life in service to others. Her death on September 5, 1997 came less than a week after the death of another famous woman, Princess Diana.
Sources:
Chawla, Navin. Mother Teresa. Transaction, 1994.
Garfield, Ken. "Mother
Teresa's Lesson to Us All." Charlotte Observer, June 11, 1995,
1A, 14A.
Laszlo,
Caroline. Mother
Teresa. Macmillan, 1993.
Mother Teresa.
Palisades Home Video, n.d. (Video)
Pond, Mildred. Mother Teresa. Chelsea
House, 1992.
Alternative Applications: Contrast Mother Teresa's prayer, "Radiating Christ, with the Lord's Prayer or the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi. Decorate a banquet hall, parochial school library, clinic, soup kitchen, or religious retreat with her thoughts:
Dear Jesus, Help us to spread your fragrance everywhere we go. Flood our souls with your spirit and life. Penetrate and possess our whole being so utterly that our lives may only be a radiance of yours....
Let us preach you
without preaching, not by words but by our
example. By the catching force, the sympathetic
influence of what we do, the evident fullness of
the love our heart bears to you. Amen.
Ecofeminism Week
Age/Grade Level or Audience: All-ages garden clubs; civic clean-up campaigns; ecology drives; health or biology focus; media series.
Description: During Women's History Month, establish an Ecofeminism Week to stress the interdependence of all living things and to honor female pioneers in the field of ecology.
Procedure: Organize a female-engineered ecology awareness week to consist of media features honoring ecofeminists such as Petra Kelly, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, Lady Bird Johnson, Mollie Beattie, and Octavia Hill. Include coverage of women in your own town who battle pollutants. Use as an example a pioneer in the field of ecology such as Rachel Carson:
- Born May 27, 1907, in Springdale, Pennsylvania; Carson's love of nature began early on; by 1917 she was submitting nature articles to St. Nicholas magazine
- Carson received a B.A. in science from the Pennsylvania College for Women; an M.A. from Johns Hopkins in 1932
- In 1936 Carson was hired as an aquatic biologist by the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries
- Her books include Under the Sea (1941), The Sea Around Us (1951), Edge of the Sea (1955), and Silent Spring (1962)
- The release of Silent Spring brought to the fore the debate over the use of chemical pesticides such as DDT; Carson was brought into the spotlight and became an international spokesperson on environmental issues
- In 1963 Carson testified before a Senate Committee on the Chemical Pesticides Coordination Act; this legislation led to the placement of warning labels on chemical products
Throughout the week put into action a clean-up and recycling campaign of roadsides, picnic and recreation areas, children's playgrounds, schools, day-care facilities, downtown areas, and other problem spots. Have a telephone bank enlist groups of 8-12 people to organize litter collection and recycling of usable salvaged materials. Follow these procedures:
- Appoint an adult to supervise groups with children.
- Provide posters indicating meeting spots.
- Target all areas of town or a rural community.
- Spread the clean-up over areas frequented by all ages and interests.
- For roadside clean-up, provide orange vests to protect workers near streets and highways.
- Recycle reusables, particularly glass, cardboard, newspaper, and plastics. Place grass, leaves, and branches in a compost heap.
Sources:
Bigwood, Carol. Earth Muse: Feminism, Nature and Art.
Temple University Press, 1993.
Diamond, Irene, and Gloria Orenstein. Reweaving the World: The
Emergence of Ecofeminism. Sierra, 1990.
Gaard, Greta, ed. Ecofeminism: Women,
Animals, Nature. Temple University Press,
1993.
Gaia and God: An Ecofeminist Theology of
Earth Healing. Harper, 1992.
Gartner, Robert. Working Together Against the Destruction
of the Environment. Rosen, 1994.
Harlan, Judith. Sounding the Alarm: A
Biography of Rachel Carson. Dillon Press,
1989.
Jezer, Marty. Rachel Carson. Chelsea
House, 1988.
Johnson,
Elizabeth. Women, Earth
and Creator Spirit. Paulist Press, 1992.
Mies, Maria, and Vanana
Shiva. Ecofeminism:
Reconnecting a Divided World. Humanities,
1993.
Norwood, Vera. Made from This Earth:
American Women and Nature. University of
North Carolina Press, 1993.
Alternative Applications: Organize a
unified girls' and women's clubs week to
encourage public assistance in restoring the
local environment. Contact officers of church
groups, 4-H and scout troops, nature clubs,
camping and outdoors enthusiasts, teachers'
unions, and local women's magazines and
newsletters, newspapers, radio, and television
to spread information about pollution, toxic
wastes, erosion, and litter.
Inner Resources
Age/Grade Level or Audience: Middle school creative writing outline; book club or literary society presentation; Friends of the Library project; local panel discussion celebrating Women's History Month.
Description: Outline a report on the source and substance of creativity, stamina, and drive unique to a notable and successful woman.
Procedure: Have students research biographies, memoirs, letters, journals, databases, catalogs, newspapers and periodicals, and reference works such as Who's Who of Women, Current Biography, Who's Who in the Southwest, and Who's Who in Education for data on female artists, performers, athletes, and activists from a variety of historical times, nations, races, and religions. Ask these and other general questions:
- What event, sense impression, mood of the times, or conviction appears to have inspired extraordinary work and dedication from this woman?
- How does a female perspective permeate this person's work?
- What aspect of dedication or creativity appears to be a universal quality among artists and activists?
- What single quality or performance sets this person apart from others in the same field?
- How has this person accepted or challenged adversity or loss?
- What type of honor or recognition seems appropriate to this woman's life and work?
- What other people have profited from studying or knowing these women and their achievements?
Apply your study to these successful women:
- Foreign correspondent and reporter Christiane Amanpour
- Elizabeth Anne Baylor, known as "Mother Seton" since founding Sisters of Charity
- Shirley Temple Black, U.S. ambassador to Ghana
- Erma Bombeck, humorist
- Rosa Bonheur, painter
- Sports photographer Muriel Brousseau
- Susan Butcher, sleddog racer
- Camille Claudel, sculptor
- Dorothy Day, religious leader and settlement worker
- China's science officer Nan Deng
- Red Cross president Elizabeth Dole
- Elizabeth Flynn, founder of the American Civil Liberties Union
- Reverend Jan Fortune-Wood, Anglican minister
- Marcia Gillespie, Ms. magazine editor and columnist
- Youra Guller, pianist
- Pamela Harriman, U.S. ambassador
- Lillian Hellman, playwright
- Gospel singer Mahalia Jackson
- Barbara Jordan, speaker, teacher, and political activist
- Kiri Te Kinawa, opera singer
Sources:
Bushnell, Dana E., ed. Nagging Questions: Feminist Ethics in
Everyday Life. University Press, 1995.
Emert, Phyllis Raybin, ed.
Women in the Civil War:
Warriors, Patriots, Nurses, and Spies.
Discovery Enterprises, 1995.
Hornblower, Margot. "Grief and
Rebirth." Time,
July 10, 1995, 65.
"How Stars Overcame Obstacles."
Ebony, July 1995,
68-72.
MacPherson, Kay.
When in Doubt, Do Both:
The Times of My Life. University of Toronto
Press, 1995.
McDonald,
Lynn. The Women Founders
of the Social Sciences. Carleton University
Press, 1995.
McPherson,
Stephanie Sammartino. Peace and Bread: The Story of Jane
Addams. Lerner Books, 1993.
The Miracle
Worker. Critics Choice, n.d. (Video)
Painter, Charlotte. Gifts of Age. Chronicle
Books, 1985.
Palmer, Ann
Therese Darin. "The Quiet Inside." Notre Dame Magazine,
Winter 1994-1995, 24-28.
Plum, Nancy. "A Tribute to Margaret
Hawkins." Chorus, February 1994, 4.
Randolph, Laura B.
"Oprah!," Ebony, July 1995, 22-28.
Roberts, David. "Men
Didn't Have to Prove They Could Fly, But Women
Did." Smithsonian, August 1994, 72-81.
A
Salute to Historic Black Women. Empak
Enterprises, 1984.
Steif, William. "World Class
Haitian." Caribbean
Week, March 4, 1995, 43.
Zurkowsky, Herb. "Frozen on
Film." Montreal
Gazette, June 5, 1995, 8D.
Alternative Applications: Have students compose a list of questions as part of a hypothetical interview with a contrasting pair of achievers, for example:
- Activists Shirley Chisholm and Bella Abzug
- Sister Elizabeth Kenny and physician Dr. May Chinn
- Columnists Ellen Goodman and Erma Bombeck
- Southwest expressionist Georgia O'Keeffe and impressionist painter Mary Cassatt
- tennis star Billie Jean King and dogsledder Susan Butcher
Encourage questions that
stress common ground, such as a liberal
education, dedication, professionalism,
practice, self-esteem, networking, mentorships,
determination, and courage. Include questions
about how each interviewee has met and overcome
failure, lack of funds, discouragement,
disillusionment, sex prejudice, discrimination,
harassment, or physical or emotional handicap.
Emphasize the approach of each woman to making
and achieving goals.
Communicating Strength
Age/Grade Level or Audience: College business canvass; Women's Professional Women training program; Friends of the Library project; local panel discussion celebrating Women's History Month.
Description: Study the careers of successful businesswomen such as Lillian Gilbreath, Olive Beech, or Madame C. J. Walker to determine the communications skills that have led to their achievement and satisfaction.
Procedure: Have participants study the communication techniques and business strategies that have placed successful women in positions of power. Consider these necessary adjuncts to self-fulfillment:
- Avoid non-committal, self-deprecatory, or timid replies to direct questions.
- Study and capitalize on personal strengths while conquering such weaknesses as feelings of inferiority because of body size or voice quality.
- List fears, particularly the fear of speaking to a large group or of negotiating with power figures. Make a worst-case analysis of each and determine what risks are involved, e.g., provoking laughter.
- Make eye contact with workers and managers. Shake hands firmly. Steady a quaking voice or tremor before speaking by grasping chair arms or lectern.
- Acknowledge tense situations, gossip, or ridicule and deal with it quickly, efficiently, and even-handedly. Then forget it.
- Anticipate criticism. Select the most helpful and put it to use. Keep your sense of humor.
- Maintain a vigorous, all-business stance. Channel your energies into improvements rather than into whining or what-ifs.
- Negotiate with the intent to provide all parties the best possible outcome. Listen to the approach of adversaries and competitors. Utilize their best arguments to your advantage.
- Credit yourself for all accomplishments. Keep an updated resume that lists your strategies, achievements, and staff responsibilities. Don't neglect opportunities to thank others for input, hard work, and loyalty.
- Speak with a blend of humility and self-esteem. Refuse to be overlooked, manipulated, or discounted. Recognize your own worth to the company.
Sources:
CareerTrack
3085 Center Green Dr.
Boulder, CO 803031-5408
800-788-5478
FAX: 800-832-9489
International Training
in Communication
(formerly International Toastmistress
Club)
2519 Woodland
Dr.
Anaheim, CA 92801
714-995-3660
National Businesswomen's
Leadership Association
6901 W. 63rd St.
P.O. Box 2949
Shawnee Mission, KS 66201-1349
800-258-7246
FAX: 913-432-0824
Alternative Applications: Organize a
one-on-one improvisation of business nightmares:
interview, potential promotion, potential
reassignment, tactical error, business failure,
change in management, new management, reduction
in force, firing. Play both sides of any
situations that threaten your efficiency. Have
observers make positive suggestions about
posture, voice tone, control, self-image, and
logic. Keep a journal of your daily successes
and attempts to correct oversights and errors.
Gloria Steinem: Voice for Feminism
Age/Grade Level or Audience: High school round table discussion; women's studies project; feature for a newsletter or alumnae bulletin; civic club project.
Description: Organize a discussion of the life and contribution of Gloria Steinem to the modern women's movement.
Procedure: Introduce the work and example of Gloria Steinem, one of the founders of Ms. magazine and American feminism's star. Summarize her biography in a handout, bulletin board, or brief reading. Include these facts:
- Steinem was born March 25, 1934, in Toledo, Ohio, to antiques dealer and resort manager Leo Steinem and journalist Ruth Nunevillar Steinem, and the granddaughter of a suffragist who had participated in the 1908 International Council of Women. After her parents' divorce in 1946, Ruth Steinem receded into mental illness. Steinem cared for her in their quarters in a tenement basement. Later memories of neglect and adult-sized responsibilities caused Steinem to feel insecure.
- As a boost to self-esteem, Steinem tap danced and entered talent competitions. At age eighteen, she joined her older sister in Washington, D.C. She later earned a Phi Beta Kappa key at Smith College, where she majored in political science. On a Chester Bowles Asian fellowship in Delhi and Calcutta, India, Steinem composed a travelogue, A Thousand Indias, while observing the misery of Asia's poor. In 1958 she recruited students for the Independent Research Service in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Two years later, she wrote for Help!, a satiric magazine, and published in her first significant feminist essay, "The Moral Disarmament of Betty Coed" in Esquire.
- After working as a cocktail waitress in 1963, she parodied the experience in "I Was a Playboy Bunny," for Show magazine. Her subsequent freelance pieces appeared in Life, McCall's, Seventeen, Esquire, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, and Vogue; the next year, she wrote scripts for That Was the Week That Was (NBC) and columns for New York magazine, the forerunner of Steinem's magnum opus, Ms.
- In the late 1960s, Steinem backed Cesar Chavez and his striking farm laborers. The experience pushed her into total commitment to the human rights movement, demonstrated by her first polemical article, "After Black Power, Women's Liberation." A skillful mediator, she received a presidential appointment from Jimmy Carter and took part in Women Against Pornography, the National Women's Political Caucus, Voters for Choice, Women's Action Alliance, Coalition of Labor Union Women, the Equal Rights Amendment, and Women U.S.A.
- In 1987 she resigned her job as editor of Ms. and took on a secondary role as consultant. The magazine, which weathered a temporary slump, reappeared in an advertisement-free form, which Steinem lauded with her essay "Sex, Lies, and Advertising." Readership climbed nearly to half a million. Her fourth major book, Revolution from Within, revealed more of the author as a private person than Steinem had ever before made public.
- One of America's most influential people, Steinem, a Woodrow Wilson fellow, has earned the Clarion award, the U.N.'s Ceres Medal, the Penney-Missouri Journalism award, Ohio Governor's award, ACLU Bill of Rights award, and selection as McCall's Woman of the Year in 1972.
Conclude the study with emphasis on Steinem's talents — her ability to examine all sides of an issue, to remain cool during heated exchanges, and to adapt to various media venues, from interviews and on-camera dialectic to hosting a television show and speaking before demonstrators and hostile politicians.
Sources:
Anderson, Walter.
"Gloria Steinem Talks About Risk." Cosmopolitan, January
1989, 60-61.
Barthel,
Joan. "The Glorious Triumph of Gloria
Steinem." Cosmopolitan, March 1984, 216-24.
Collins, Marion.
"Gloria Steinem Speaks." New York Daily News,
November 30, 1986.
Current Biography. H.
W. Wilson, 1988.
"Gloria Steinem: I Do What a Lot of
People Do, React Instead of Acting." Chicago Tribune,
January 11, 1987.
Orenstein, Peggy. "Ms. Fights for Its
Life." Mother
Jones, November/December 1990, 32-36, 81-83,
91.
Steinem, Gloria. Revolution from Within: A
Book of Self-Esteem. Little, Brown, 1992.
"I'm Not the Woman in
My Mind." Parade, January 12, 1992, 10-11.
"Sex, Lies, and
Advertising." Ms., July/August, 1990, 18-28.
"An Unsinkable
Feminist Sails into her 50th Year Jubilant About
Her First Best-Seller." People Weekly, November 21, 1983,
185-88.
Weldon, Michele.
"Gloria Steinem a Reluctant Symbol of
Feminism." Dallas
Times Herald, August 7, 1987.
Alternative Applications: Give readings from Steinem's books, articles, interviews, and essays. Characterize her style and her dependence on buzz words, e.g., mommy track, pink collar jobs, glass ceiling, underclass, and patriarchal suppression. Discuss her belief that America's women will never attain equal rights in toto until they form a voting bloc to pressure Congress for equal rights.